Aug 242019
 


Frank Walton Crows on a beach 1884

 

World Needs To End Risky Reliance On US Dollar: BoE’s Carney (R.)
China Strikes Back At US With New Tariffs On $75 Billion In Goods (R.)
Trump Heaps Another 5% Tariff On Chinese Goods In Latest Escalation (R.)
Majority Of Americans Don’t Want Trump Impeached, Removed From Office (USAT)
CNN Hires Former FBI #2 Andy McCabe, Who Was Fired For Leaking And Lying (ZH)
Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Clinton Relationship (Webb)
Bill Barr And Bill Clinton (Webb)
Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies (Vos)
Psychologist Approved Jeffrey Epstein’s Removal From Suicide Watch (R.)
France Launches Rape Inquiry in Jeffrey Epstein Case (BBC)
Lost at Sea (Kunstler)
Tulsi Gabbard Victimized by DNC’s Dubious Debate Criteria (Tracey)

 

 

“Synthetic Hegemonic Currency” sounds creepy to me.

World Needs To End Risky Reliance On US Dollar: BoE’s Carney (R.)

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney took aim at the U.S. dollar’s “destabilizing” role in the world economy on Friday and said central banks might need to join together to create their own replacement reserve currency. The dollar’s dominance of the global financial system increased the risks of a liquidity trap of ultra-low interest rates and weak growth, Carney told central bankers from around the world gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the United States. “While the world economy is being reordered, the U.S. dollar remains as important as when Bretton Woods collapsed,” Carney said, referring to the end of the dollar’s peg to gold in the early 1970s. Emerging economies had increased their share of global activity to 60% from around 45% before the financial crisis a decade ago, Carney said.

But the dollar was still used for at least half of international trade invoices – five times more than the United States’ share of world goods imports – fuelling demand for U.S. assets and exposing many countries to damaging spillovers from swings in the U.S. economy. Carney – who was considered a candidate to be the next head of the International Monetary Fund but failed to secure backing from Europe’s governments – said the problems in financial system were encouraging protectionist and populist policies. [..] Carney warned that very low equilibrium interest rates had in the past coincided with wars, financial crises and abrupt changes in the banking system. As a first step to reorder the world’s financial system, countries could triple the resources of the IMF to $3 trillion as a better alternative to countries protecting themselves by racking up enormous piles of dollar-denominated debt.

“While such concerted efforts can improve the functioning of the current system, ultimately a multi-polar global economy requires a new IMFS (international monetary and financial system) to realize its full potential,” Carney said. China’s yuan represented the most likely candidate to become a reserve currency to match the dollar, but it still had a long way to go before it was ready. The best solution would be a diversified multi-polar financial system, something that could be provided by technology, Carney said. Facebook’s Libra was the most high-profile proposed digital currency to date but it faced a host of fundamental issues that it had yet to address. “As a consequence, it is an open question whether such a new Synthetic Hegemonic Currency (SHC) would be best provided by the public sector, perhaps through a network of central bank digital currencies,” Carney said.

Read more …

Globalization is dead.

China Strikes Back At US With New Tariffs On $75 Billion In Goods (R.)

China said on Friday it will impose retaliatory tariffs against about $75 billion worth of U.S. goods, putting as much as an extra 10% on top of existing rates in the dispute between the world’s top two economies. The latest salvo from China comes after the United States unveiled tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, including consumer electronics, scheduled to go into effect in two stages on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. China will impose additional tariffs of 5% or 10% on a total of 5,078 products originating from the United States including agricultural products such as soybeans, crude oil and small aircraft. China is also reinstituting tariffs on cars and auto parts originating from the United States.

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Dead as a doornail.

Trump Heaps Another 5% Tariff On Chinese Goods In Latest Escalation (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday lashed back at a new round of Chinese tariffs by heaping an additional 5% duty on some $550 billion in targeted Chinese goods in the latest tit-for-tat trade war escalation by the world’s two largest economies. Trump’s move, announced on Twitter, came hours after China unveiled retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods, prompting the president earlier in the day to demand U.S. companies move their operations out of China. The intensifying U.S.-China trade war stoked market fears that the global economy will tip into recession, sending U.S. stocks into a tailspin, with the Nasdaq Compositedown 3%, and the S&P 500 down 2.6%. U.S. Treasury yields also declined as investors sought safe-haven assets, and crude oil, targeted for the first time by Chinese tariffs, fell sharply.


Trump’s tariff response was announced after markets closed on Friday, leaving potentially more damage for next week. “Sadly, past Administrations have allowed China to get so far ahead of Fair and Balanced Trade that it has become a great burden to the American Taxpayer,” Trump said on Twitter. “As President, I can no longer allow this to happen!” He said the United States would raise its existing tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to 30% from the current 25% beginning on Oct. 1, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the communist People’s Republic of China. At the same time, Trump announced an increase in planned tariffs on the remaining $300 billion worth of Chinese goods to 15% from 10%.

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Don’t take Nadler’s hobby away.

Majority Of Americans Don’t Want Trump Impeached, Removed From Office (USAT)

A majority of Americans oppose impeaching President Donald Trump, according to a new poll by Monmouth University released Thursday. The data point – with 59% of those surveyed responding that Trump should not be impeached and compelled to leave office – comes as Trump’s approval rating remains at 40% in the same poll. In the poll, there is a clear partisan divide on whether the House Judiciary Committee should pursue an impeachment inquiry. While 72% of Democrats believe such an inquiry is a good idea, only 39% of independents and 8% of Republicans share that belief. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. confirmed the launch of an impeachment inquiry by his House panel earlier this month in an interview on CNN.

Additionally, Nadler sent a letter Thursday asking four other Democratic House committee chairs currently leading investigations into Trump to share documents to aid his committee’s investigation into possible obstruction and other abuses, which could lead to potentially filing articles of impeachment against the president. Nadler wrote to Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. He asked for “documents and testimony, depositions, and/or interview transcripts that you believe may be relevant to the Judiciary Committee’s ongoing impeachment investigation relating to President Trump.”

The Monmouth University poll surveyed 800 adults in the U.S. via telephone from August 16-20, 2019. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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Neither Orwell nor Bizzarro World have anything on this: CNN just hired the FBI’s former no. 2, who was fired for lying to his own employer/agency. For which he should obviously be in jail, but he’s not. Want to guess where you would be if you lied to the FBI? Ask George Papadopoulos. His lie was superficial slash meaningless at best, but he served time. McCabe’s lies are a whole different universe.

CNN Hires Former FBI #2 Andy McCabe, Who Was Fired For Leaking And Lying (ZH)

Another Ex-Obama official has joined the ranks of anti-Trump cable news punditry, this time disgraced FBI #2 Andrew McCabe, who was fired for leaking information to the media – then lying about it at least four times, including under oath. Now, McCabe – who is suing the DOJ and FBI over what he claims was a “politically motivated” firing just days before he was set to retire with full benefits,” will join former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at CNN. Succinctly put by The Federalist’s Mollie Hemmingway: “Andrew McCabe, one of the central figures of the “Russia collusion” hoax, who was fired from the FBI for lying about his leaks to the media, has been hired by CNN, one of the media outlets that did the most to perpetuate the damaging hoax.” – Mollie (@MZHemingway) August 23, 2019

McCabe authorized an FBI spokesman to tell the Wall Street Journal’s Devlin Barrett – just days before the 2016 US election, that the FBI hadn’t put the brakes on an investigation into the Clinton Foundation – at a time in which McCabe was coming under fire for his wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from Clinton associate, Terry McAuliffe. As noted above, McCabe then lied about the leak at least four times and was subsequently fired over it. McCabe claimed that his boss, also-fired former FBI Director James Comey, was well aware of the leaks. Comey shot back on ABC’s The View, calling McCabe a liar.

Comey was asked by host Megan McCain how he thought the public was supposed to have “confidence” in the FBI amid revelations that McCabe lied about the leak. “It’s not okay. The McCabe case illustrates what an organization committed to the truth looks like,” Comey said, adding “Good people lie … I still believe Andrew McCabe is a good person but the inspector general found he lied,” noting that there are “severe consequences” within the DOJ for doing so.

Read more …

Part 4 of Whitney Webb’s incredible series on sexual blackmail.

“Of particular importance are Epstein’s relationship to the Clinton Foundation and the alleged role of Epstein’s Virgin Islands-based hedge fund and the Clinton Foundation in money laundering activity.. [..] It is this tale of intrigue that fully reveals the extent to which this decades-old alliance between organized crime, the CIA, and Israeli intelligence has corrupted and influenced politicians of both political parties, both through the use of sexual blackmail and through other means of coercion. ”

Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Clinton Relationship (Webb)

[..] these sexual blackmail operations proliferated during the Iran-Contra affair, which involved this same dark alliance between U.S./Israeli intelligence and organized crime. Though this series has thus far largely focused on the ties of Republican officials to those operations and associated crimes, the final installment of this series will focus on Democratic politicians, namely the Clinton family, and their ties to this same network as well as Jeffrey Epstein. The Clintons’ own involvement in Iran-Contra revolved around the covert activities at Arkansas’ Mena Airport, which involved the CIA front company Southern Air Transport and occurred while Clinton was governor.

Just a few years into the Clinton presidential administration, Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein would play a major role in Southern Air Transport’s relocation to Columbus, Ohio, leading to concerns among top Ohio officials that both men were not only working with the CIA, but that Wexner’s company, The Limited, sought to use the CIA-linked airline for smuggling. During that same period of time, Epstein had already forged close ties to important Clinton White House officials and prominent Clinton donors like Lynn Forester de Rothschild and made several personal visits to the official presidential residence.

Some of these ties appear related to Epstein’s shady financial activities, particularly involving currency markets and offshore tax havens — activities he began to perfect while working for prominent Iran-Contra figures in the early 1980s, several of whom were tied to the CIA-linked bank Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and had known relationships with Israeli intelligence, namely the Mossad. The nature of Epstein’s work for these individuals and other evidence strongly suggests that Epstein himself had a relationship with BCCI after leaving Bear Stearns and prior to the bank’s collapse in 1991.

Of particular importance are Epstein’s relationship to the Clinton Foundation and the alleged role of Epstein’s Virgin Islands-based hedge fund and the Clinton Foundation in money laundering activity, a relationship still under investigation by MintPress. It is this tale of intrigue that fully reveals the extent to which this decades-old alliance between organized crime, the CIA, and Israeli intelligence has corrupted and influenced politicians of both political parties, both through the use of sexual blackmail and through other means of coercion.

Read more …

From the same Whitney Webb article. This part warrants attention.

Bill Barr And Bill Clinton (Webb)

After Clinton’s half-brother Roger was busted for cocaine smuggling (Clinton would later pardon him while president) the CIA sought to move Contra operations out of Arkansas, hoping to put a damper on the increasingly public and sloppy Arkansas-based operation. According to Terry Reed in his book Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, co-written with John Cummings, a hushed meeting was held in a bunker at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock, Arkansas. During the meeting, William Barr, who represented himself as the emissary of then-CIA Director Bill Casey told Clinton: “The deal we made was to launder our money through your bond business but what we didn’t plan on was you and your n****r here start taking yourselves seriously and purposely shrinking our laundry.”

Barr chastised Clinton for his sloppy handling of the delicate operation and his half-brother’s very public fall from grace. He would later tell Clinton, according to Reed, “Bill, you are Mr. Casey’s fair-haired boy … You and your state have been our greatest asset. Mr. Casey wanted me to pass on to you that unless you fuck up and do something stupid, you’re No. 1 on the short list for a shot at the job that you’ve always wanted. You and guys like you are the fathers of the new government. We are the new covenant.” Attempts to investigate Clinton’s role in the Mena operations and more broadly in the Iran-Contra affair were allegedly axed by Clinton’s own confidantes, who consistently denied he played a role in the scandal.

According to the Wall Street Journal, former IRS investigator William Duncan teamed with Arkansas State Police Investigator Russell Welch in what became a decade-long battle to bring the matter to light. In fact, of the nine separate state and federal probes into the affair, all failed. Duncan would later say of the investigations, “[They] were interfered with and covered up, and the justice system was subverted,” and a 1992 memo from Duncan to high-ranking members of the attorney general’s staff notes that Duncan was instructed “to remove all files concerning the Mena investigation from the attorney general’s office.” The attorney general, serving under George H. W. Bush, at that time was William Barr, who is currently attorney general under Trump.

Read more …

This stuff is so institutionalized, so deeply engrained in our societies, that is will be very hard to get rid of.

Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies (Vos)

In the U.S., the New York State Select Committee On Crime in 1982 investigated nationwide networks of trafficking underage sex workers and producing child pornography. Dale Smith, a committee investigator, noted that call services using minors also profited from “sidelines,” besides the income from peddling prostitution. Smith said they sold information “on the sexual proclivities of the clients to agents of foreign intelligence.” Presumably, this information could be used to blackmail those in positions of power. Smith added that one call service sold information to “British and Israeli intelligence.”

Another U.K. scandal included allegations that Sir Peter Hayman, a British diplomat and deputy director of MI6, was a member of the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE). Police discovered that two of the roughly dozen pedophiles in his circle had been writing to each other about their interest in “the extreme sexual torture and murder of children,” according to the The Daily Mail. In 2015, The Guardian reported that former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been “adamant that officials should not publicly name” Hayman, “even after she had been fully briefed on his activities….formerly secret papers released to the National Archives shows.”

Still, Hayman was unmasked as a subscriber to PIE in 1981 by M.P. Geoffrey Dickens, who also reportedly raised the national security risk of Hayman’s proclivities, implying they were a potential source of blackmail sought by intelligence agencies. The British tabloid The Mirror reported that intelligence agencies, including the KGB and CIA, kept their own dossiers on U.K. establishment figures involved with PIE and the abuse of minors, to blackmail the targets in exchange for information.

Read more …

Makes very little sense. Suicide watch is a serious thing, and all it takes is one psychologist?

Psychologist Approved Jeffrey Epstein’s Removal From Suicide Watch (R.)

A psychologist at the federal detention center in New York City where financier Jeffrey Epstein was jailed on sex-trafficking charges had approved his removal from suicide watch before he killed himself, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday. The disclosure came in a letter dated on Thursday from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd and addressed to the leaders of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, seeking details about the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death earlier this month. Epstein, who was 66, was found dead Aug. 10 in his cell inside a segregated housing unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. An autopsy concluded that he hanged himself.


His death triggered investigations by the FBI, the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which runs the detention facility. The Boyd letter, provided to Reuters on Friday, confirmed that Epstein had been placed on suicide watch in July, a status under which the designated prisoner is held in a special cell under constant observation by staff or “inmate companions.” Epstein was “later removed from suicide watch after being evaluated by a doctoral-level psychologist who determined that a suicide watch was no longer warranted,” Boyd wrote in the three-page letter. The letter did not state precisely why a suicide watch had been ordered for Epstein. But Epstein in July had been found unconscious on the floor of his cell with marks on his neck, and officials had been investigating that incident as a possible suicide attempt or assault.

Read more …

Maybe it takes the French to dig deep enough. Certainly wouldn’t bet on Bill Barr doing the job.

France Launches Rape Inquiry in Jeffrey Epstein Case (BBC)

French prosecutors have opened an inquiry into rape allegations against the late US financier Jeffrey Epstein. [..] He had an apartment in Paris, and French gender equality minister Marlène Schiappa had called for an inquiry into any abuses committed on French soil. On Friday Paris prosecutors launched a probe for “rape” and “sexual assault”. [..] Epstein spent plenty of time in Paris and owned a luxury apartment near the Arc de Triomphe. Investigations “will focus on potential crimes committed against French victims… and on suspects who are French citizens”, Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz said in a statement.


A French advocacy group for child sex abuse victims, Innocence En Danger (Innocence at Risk), said this week it had received 10 witness statements involving Epstein regarding alleged sex crimes committed against minors on French soil. Epstein was also friends with French modelling tycoon Jean-Luc Brunel, who was accused in US court documents of procuring young girls for Epstein, along with allegations of rape. Mr Brunel has denied the accusations.

Read more …

“The Democratic contest may be peaking way too early. And Joe Biden hasn’t even had a chance to claim he is the out-of-wedlock grandson of W.C. Handy.”

Lost at Sea (Kunstler)

Elizabeth Warren set the stage for anointing herself America’s Race Hustler-in-Chief by addressing the niggling matter of her former claim to be a Cherokee Indian, since disproven by a DNA test. There was loose talk, you see, that she used the Cherokee ruse to bamboozle her overseers on the Harvard Plantation, where she got to work in the Big House known as the Harvard Law School based on her “diversity” bona fides — a “minority hire!” The claim was so transparently idiotic and dishonest that she was desperate to walk it back as delicately as possible, in order to keep up with the race hustling of her fellow pols chasing the nomination. A rain dance was arranged in the aptly-named heartland town of Sioux City.

“Like anyone who’s being honest with themselves, I know that I have made mistakes,” said Ms. Warren, who was met with a standing ovation when she took the stage [The Times reported]. “I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened and I have learned a lot, and I am grateful for the many conversations that we’ve had together.” Was a more disingenuous political statement ever contrived? A bundle of devious platitudinous promises of the sort that white people always offered the indigenous folk at a thousand crooked treaty councils? It would have been a little more satisfying, perhaps, if Ms. Warren had specified the mistakes made, e.g. I was falsely claiming a racial identity for career advancement. Now that’s an apology!

“Listening and learning?” I dunno… sounds a little like groveling and pandering. Anyone can choke down a few bites of humble pie but please don’t make me eat that shit sandwich! The Democratic contest may be peaking way too early. And Joe Biden hasn’t even had a chance to claim he is the out-of-wedlock grandson of W.C. Handy. There are indications that the political center is already a little tired of the Everything-Is-Racist trope that the party ran up the flagpole this summer. For The New York Times, it became the publicly acknowledged official editorial slant when newsroom chief Dean Baquet announced that the paper needed a replacement for the shredded gonfalon of RussiaGate.

Read more …

Is the DNC secretly working for Trump?

Gabbard torpedoed Kamala Harris’s shot at the job. That won’t be forgiven.

Tulsi Gabbard Victimized by DNC’s Dubious Debate Criteria (Tracey)

Tulsi Gabbard is on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd. Take, for instance, her poll standing in New Hampshire, which currently places Gabbard at 3.3% support, according to the RealClearPolitics average as of Aug. 20. One might suspect that such a figure would merit inclusion in the upcoming debates — especially considering she’s ahead of several candidates who have already been granted entry, including Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, and Andrew Yang. But the Democratic National Committee has decreed that the polls constituting this average are not sufficiently “qualifying.”

What makes a poll “qualifying” in the eyes of the DNC? The answer is conspicuously inscrutable. Months ago, party chieftains issued a list of “approved sponsoring organizations/institutions” for polls that satisfy their criteria for debate admittance. Not appearing on that list is the Boston Globe, which sponsored a Suffolk University poll published Aug. 6 that placed Gabbard at 3%. The DNC had proclaimed that for admittance to the September and October debates, candidates must secure polling results of 2% or more in four separate “approved” polls – but a poll sponsored by the newspaper with the largest circulation in New Hampshire (the Globe recently surpassed the New Hampshire Union Leader there) does not count, per this cockamamie criteria.

There has not been an officially qualifying poll in New Hampshire, Gabbard’s best state, in over a month. The absurdity mounts. A South Carolina poll published Aug. 14 by the Post and Courier placed Gabbard at 2%. One might have again vainly assumed that the newspaper with the largest circulation in a critical early primary state would be an “approved” sponsor per the dictates of the DNC, but it is not. Curious.

Read more …

 

Cerberus, the early days.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle August 24 2019

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  • #49359

    Frank Walton Crows on a beach 1884   • World Needs To End Risky Reliance On US Dollar: BoE’s Carney (R.) • China Strikes Back At US With New Tari
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 24 2019]

    #49360
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Frank Walton Crows on a beach 1884

    Very nice; in fact quite excellent actually; IMO.
    Reminds me of the many beaches along the cenral and southern Oregon coasts.
    The schooners and freighters were also a good touch.
    The north coast; especially Astoria, has spectacular and violent weather almost every year, generally beginning in September and ending after the first of the year…

    #49362
    Turfkiller
    Participant

    “CNN Hires Former FBI #2 Andy McCabe, Who Was Fired For Leaking And Lying (ZH)”

    Trump and his circus lie every day. Sarah Sanders and several others have been hired by Fox who lied every day. Liers being hired by Trump is just a job interview for Fox.

    #49363
    Turfkiller
    Participant

    Gabbard?? She has no chance. She’s friends of Russia.

    US pressure on Venezuela was Trump’s way of rewarding Russia, pushing PDVSA into hands of Rosneft and Putin.

    Rosneft has become Venezuela’s top oil trader, helping offset US pressure. Rosneft is the main trader shipping oil to buyers in China & India, helping Caracas offset the loss of traditional dealers who are avoiding it for fear of breaching US sanctions.

    Trump and family have to refill their Russian money chests.

    #49364
    zerosum
    Participant

    I found the public link about the meeting of the 7 alpha dogs

    https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/french-g7-presidency/
    When in public viewing, I expect to see a lot of action meaning nothing.

    #49366
    lasttwo
    Participant

    Gabbard is the dark horse who knows maybe she splits the Russian vote so we get a fair election. The DNC hate her so she gets my vote. keep her in for nothing else but getting the 5 trillion dollar forever wars in the public eye. If Biden is the chosen one many including me (for the first time) will stay home and Gabbard will look pretty good after 4 more years of Trump.

    #49367
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    William Barr

    The most depressing article today was about William Barr.

    After the Mueller fiasco faded I expected him to start draining the swamp and going after the ‘bad guys’. It seems that he WAS one of the bad guys! No wonder CNN is okay with hiring McCabe. It may explain his non-action in the Epstein case.

    It seems like game, set and match to the Deep State. While a lot of detail is emerging about its actions it is so encompassing and pervasive there seems no scope to change anything.

    The whole of the USA now seems to be complete fantasy, with most people happy to take the ‘blue pill’!

    Tulsi Gabbard does seem to be an exception, but I think she can only make headway by starting a new party, but if she is only polling 3% in real life then perhaps not. I am surprised it is that low, but hey, ‘blue pill’.

    #49368
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/08/already-in-progress.html
    They say that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy.
    The struggle to define the next structure for global trade and finance is underway. China is both in ascendancy, and infected with parasites, while the western financial and military empire has long been ruled by parasites, and is pervasively diseased, as are all of the surviving tributary states. The tributary states that tried to break away, like Iraq, Libya, Venezuela and Syria got gut-shot, but are still in some kind of existence, never to willfully comply again.
    Their crime was against the Petro-Dollar, the extractive agent of the Petrobuck empire. The mutiny against the Petro-$US is spreading, quietly, with Russia, China and Iran trading outside the $US constructs, forming new trade mechanisms in other currencies.
    We know that China and Russia have massive holdings of physical gold, that Venezuela mines it, and that Iran and Turkey have done gold for oil deals in the past decade to get around US sanctions.
    The US is now using both the global military forces and the $US trade and finance structure as billy clubs, instead of just the military. It takes time to develop alternative trade structures, pricing, and market formats, but that is underway, with China, Russia and Iran being fully invested.
    This is an open secret, and it seems to be why Trump can use the $US as a billy club, now, knowing that it is still possible, and will soon be impossible, whether used now or not.
    Trump can be pretty unconstrained in his short-term actions with the global reserve currency. His battlefield tactics are quite different from the calm that global banking tries to portray, and their ends are not quite the same.
    Trump seems to be fronting for nationalist-invested power elites, not globalist-financial-elites.
    Are there other sides? Can we get another quarterback in the game for the nationalist team, in the second half, maybe?

    Peace might break out in the Mideast under Chinese/Russian tutelage.
    I’m suspicious about what looks like so much good free-information from OilPrice.com. What false information might be in here? Their story about Iran letting the Russians have a naval base seems to have been untrue. A detuned version is in this story. I appreciate so much detail and context. I’ll be glad to post corrections from those with good sources.
    ​ ​The handling by the Trump White House of the Iranian shootdown of the US RQ-4A/BAMS-D Global Hawk drone on June 20, 2019, only exacerbated further the anguish of both MBS and MBZ. Both of them, along with other Arab leaders, urged the Trump White House to strike hard at Iran in retaliation. Both MBS and MBZ communicated in person with the most senior individuals at the White House. They were stunned to learn that Trump communicated directly with Tehran on the possibility of a largely symbolic retaliatory strike, and the prospects of bilateral negotiations.
    ​ ​Both MBS and MBZ consider the last-minute cancellation of the US retaliatory strike a personal affront and humiliation because Trump did not accept and follow their positions and demands for action. Both MBS and MBZ are now convinced that not only the US demonstrated weakness and lack of resolve, but that Pres. Trump was personally not committed to fighting Iran on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms.
    ​ ​Furthermore, there is growing trepidation in Saudi Arabia about the viability of the Pakistani guarantees to the Kingdom, particularly concerning nuclear deterrence.
    ​ ​In the past, Islamabad mediated the Saudi purchase of ballistic missiles from the PRC (procurements which are supported by Pakistani military technicians and security personnel) and had allocated two nuclear warheads for launch from Saudi Arabia in case of an Iranian attack, all in return for lavish Saudi funding of Pakistan’s nuclear and strategic weapons programs.
    ​ ​However, there has been a profound turnaround in Pakistani policies starting in the Summer of 2019.
    First, Pakistan reached a comprehensive military agreement with Turkey with the latter providing weapons and other military systems, as well as training, in order to replace US and Western systems which were no longer available. In the first area of active cooperation, Turkey mediated modalities for trilateral cooperation (Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan) in fighting Baluchi jihadists and insurgents. Second, Pakistan is expediting the shipping of huge quantities of Iranian gas to western China by mainly using existing pipelines, from the Fars fields to Chabahar, then via the Iran-Pakistan pipeline to Gwadar, and then via the CPEC (the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) pipeline to Xinjiang. As well, Iran and Pakistan cooperate closely in negotiations with various Afghan factions to ameliorate any US achievements in the Doha negotiations with the Taliban.
    ​ ​Hence, both MBS and MBZ wonder, can Saudi Arabia trust Pakistan to deter and confront Iran and its allies on behalf of Saudi Arabia?​ …
    “The UAE and China are moving towards a promising future,” MBZ said in his concluding meeting with Xi Jinping. His visit aimed at “developing co-operation and a comprehensive strategic partnership, as well as opening new horizons for joint action in various sectors,” MBZ explained. Xi Jinping responded by stressing “the profound significance of China-Arab relations”. The PRC and the UAE would now work closely together to transform the Persian Gulf into “a security oasis” rather than a new “source of turmoil”.​..
    ​ According to PRC senior officials in Beijing: “China continues oil imports from Iran to show independence from US sanctions.” The PRC also agreed to purchase oil with yuans, euros, and other currencies in order to reduce their vulnerability to US financial sanctions. The PRC would continue to import its Iranian crude via at least a dozen Iranian tankers also in order to demonstrate to all that “China [is] a country powerful enough to bust US sanctions”. ​…
    ​ For the first time, an official PRC defense document acknowledged the rivalry with the US military and clearly articulated China’s long-term goal to confront and challenge “US dominance”. These goals would be attained through, among other things, the expansion of the PRC “power projection capabilities”, particularly the Navy’s. The White Paper heralded a significant shift in maritime strategy from “near seas defense” to “the combination of near seas defense and far seas protection”. Adopting the “far seas” strategy, the White Paper stated, would enable the PRC to “build itself into a maritime power”.
    https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/Chinas-Ultimate-Play-For-Global-Oil-Market-Control.html

    ​ ​At a moment that Iran and the US/UK are effectively already at war on the open seas in an ongoing “tanker war,” Tehran is set to unveil a new Iran-manufactured long range air-defense missile system which could rival Russia’s S-300 system.
    ​ ​Citing state media, the Associated Press described “the Bavar-373 is a long-range surface-to-air missile system able to recognize up to 100 targets at a same time and confront them with six different weapons.” …
    ​ ​Russian aviation publication Avia.Pro claimed early this week that the Iranian system is “superior” to the S-300. It’s reportedly been undergoing testing since 2017, but it’s unclear how quickly it will actually be deployed into operation.
    ​ ​“The Iranian Bavar-373 radars can detect air targets at distances of up to 300 kilometers, and, in addition to aircraft, the radar is able to detect cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as small drones,” the publication stated, according to a translation.
    ​ ​“According to unconfirmed data, the radar is also capable of detecting stealth aircraft, which makes it an effective means of combating F-22 and F-35 fighters​.”​
    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-21/superior-s-300-iran-unveils-domestic-made-long-range-air-defense-system

    ​ ​The US military is no longer the primary force in Asia, and missiles from China’s rapidly improving military could overwhelm its bases in hours, according to a new report.
    ​ ​The study by the United States Study Center, at the University of Sydney, in Australia, warned that America’s defense strategy in the Indo-Pacific region “is in the throes of an unprecedented crisis” and could struggle to defend its allies against China…
    “China has deployed a formidable array of precision missiles and other counter-intervention systems to undercut America’s military primacy,” the report states. Those missiles number in the thousands, the report says.
    ​ ​Almost all US military installations in the Western Pacific, as well as those of its key partners and allies, “could be rendered useless by precision strikes in the opening hours of a conflict,” according to the report.
    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/20/asia/australia-china-us-military-report-intl-hnk/index.html

    #49369
    lasttwo
    Participant

    They report that she is polling at 3% but who knows they are not counting the polls where she does better than 1.4. and almost 1/2 the respondents have never heard of her. I think if she can stay in the debates and in the media with her actual message and not the brutal treatment she is getting from the media. She may appeal to the masses. Maybe not. the interview from Colbert and the View were extremely bias for the never ending wars. I imagine ole Megan nearly had a seizure when Gabbard said regime change is bad. I wonder how many refugees would be in Europe and heading up from south America if the CIA just stayed home.

    #49370
    lasttwo
    Participant

    I would like to prove this asshole wrong

    Who Is Supporting Tulsi Gabbard’s Candidacy?

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