blockade Archives - The Automatic Earth

“Stop following the pied piper” Prof Sucharit Bhakdi begs people to give up masks and social distancing and read @who accepted consensus that you are not in any danger from #Covid19 Full recording>https://t.co/i0S0Z6AoNJ pic.twitter.com/dcJ0uzdLHE

— The Yeadon Campaign – LOOK | SPEAK | LIVE (@Yeadoncampaign) November 13, 2020

Smartmatic, Dominion, Hammer, Scorecard.

• “We’re Getting Ready To Overturn Election Results In Multiple States” (ET)

Former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, a Trump campaign lawyer, suggested in a Sunday interview that there is still more evidence coming out in President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud and irregularities. “We’re getting ready to overturn election results in multiple states,” Powell said, saying that she has enough evidence of election fraud to launch a widespread criminal investigation. “I don’t make comments without having the evidence to back it up,” she added, saying that elections software switched “millions of votes” from Trump to Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Powell notably provided legal counsel to Gen. Michael Flynn in 2019. She was named to Trump’s legal team in the past several days.

Powell said a whistleblower came forward and said the elections software was designed to “rig elections,” saying that “he saw it happen in other countries,” referring to voting systems Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, or perhaps other software and machines. “We have so much evidence, I feel like it’s coming in through a fire hose,” Powell said, while noting that she won’t reveal the evidence that she has. “They can stick a thumb drive in the [voting] machine, they can upload software to it even from the Internet … from Germany or Venezuela even,” she said, adding that operations “can watch votes in real-time” and “can shift votes in real-time,” or alleged bad actors can “remote access anything.” “We’ve identified mathematically the exact algorithm they’ve used—and planned to use from the beginning” that allegedly switched votes to Biden, Powell remarked.

[..] “(W)e have concerns about the spread and effect of private equity investment in many sectors of the economy, including the election technology industry—an integral part of our nation’s democratic process,” wrote the lawmakers in their letters to the firms about a year ago. “These problems threaten the integrity of our elections and demonstrate the importance of election systems that are strong, durable, and not vulnerable to attack.” Later in the Sunday morning interview, Powell said that her team has “detected voting irregularities that are inexplicable” in states where officials believe they have valid systems. During the election, Republicans in the House were able to flip at least 11 seats while the GOP is poised to maintain control of the Senate. Some conservatives have questioned how such a voting pattern is possible for Biden to win the presidential election, let alone receive more votes than any other presidential candidate in American history, including President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008.

Sidney Powell
https://twitter.com/i/status/1328035735287558144

https://twitter.com/i/status/1328049953927782407

“Georgia is now Ground Zero in the battle for control of the Senate.”

• Pro-Biden Bug Also Suspected in Georgia’s Vote-Counting Software (Sperry)

A curious thing happened as Fulton County, Ga., election officials counted mail-in ballots at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena in the days after the election. In the early hours of Nov. 5, a surge of some 20,000 mail-in votes suddenly appeared for Joe Biden, while approximately 1,000 votes for President Trump mysteriously disappeared from his own totals in the critical swing state, where Biden holds a razor-thin lead. A poll watcher noticed the suspicious shift in votes while monitoring the interim election results on the Georgia secretary of state website. “I concluded from looking at these results that this was an irregularity, since there was no obvious reason for President Trump’s totals to have decreased while former Vice President Biden’s totals increased dramatically,” Voter GA co-founder Garland Favorito swore in an affidavit he filed this week with the secretary of state’s office.

Favorito suspects a variety of factors, including that votes were “artificially inflated” for Biden while using the same Dominion Voting system used by Antrim County, Mich., which erroneously transferred 6,000 votes from Trump to Biden. Last year, Georgia contracted with Dominion to automate vote tabulations in all 159 of its counties. “The software appears to have thrown votes from Trump to Biden here too,” he said in a RealClearInvestigations interview. “Or Biden ballots were manufactured.” The large disparity of gains between the two candidates “was something I had never witnessed before in my years of election monitoring,” said Favorito, a career IT professional who has been a leading advocate for election integrity in the state over the past two decades. He says he is not a Republican or Trump supporter.

On Nov. 10, Favorito sent his affidavit to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, recommending a full, by-hand ballot recount. The next day, his office announced it will conduct such an audit for the presidential race. Biden currently leads Trump by more than 14,000 votes in the state. “It’s a good first step,” Favorito said. “A recount will be able to determine if there was electronic vote fraud.” In addition to helping certify the presidential race, he said it’s imperative investigators identify the source of the irregularities before the state holds its two U.S. Senate run-off elections on Jan. 5 so they don’t repeat themselves. Georgia is now Ground Zero in the battle for control of the Senate. Republicans currently hold a 50-48 edge, but if they lose both Georgia seats, presumptive Vice President-elect Kamala Harris could cast tie-breaking votes to carry out the Democratic agenda.

Giuliani Says Election will Be Overturned We Have Proof

No idea what to make of this really. But I do know the song for it:

Well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night.
Blew up his house too.

• How A Philly Mob Boss Stole The Election (Buffalo Chronicle)

The innermost circles of the American mafia are abuzz. The Boss of the Philly mob — ‘Skinny Joey’ Merlino — is taking a victory strut, hobnobbing around the highest echelons of old-time mafia folk, mostly in Florida, describing what may have been the heist of the century: the 2020 presidential election. The feat is drawing praise from far-flung corners of the Italian American business community, which sees the thanks of a grateful administration as key to the revival of the community’s political influence. But an associate says that Merlino might just be willing to flip on Joe Biden and the Pennsylvania political operatives who ordered up some 300,000 election ballots marked for Biden. The source alleges that Merlino and a lean team of associates manufactured those ballots at a rate of $10 per ballot — a whopping $3 million for three days of work.

They were then packaged into non-descript cardboard boxes and dropped off outside the Philadelphia Convention Center. Sources who spoke to The Chronicle on the condition of anonymity say that Merlino picked up those ballots from two private households where a trusted handful of associates were busily marking ballots with Sharpie markers. They were paid more than $1,000 per hour, often producing thousands of ballots every hour for more than 60 nearly-consecutive hours. The ballots were purchased in cash. It’s thought that Democratic Party operatives working inside Philadelphia’s election office provided Merlino with crates of raw ballots just hours before polls closed on election night, which he transported to two private households in South Philadelphia.

By 10 p.m. that night Merlino’s operation was already generating more than 3,000 ballots per hour, which quickly scaled to more than 6,000 ballots per hour before midnight. But now, Merlino might just be willing to flip on Biden — in primetime Congressional testimony — if President Donald J. Trump is willing to issue the longtime mobster a full expungement of his decades-long criminal record. And, of course, Merlino wants to be pardoned for the election fraud itself and any crimes to which he may incriminate himself during his testimony. “He wants a clean record. He wants to fish and hunt on federal lands. He’d really like a job with the National Parks Service. You need a clean record to get those things,” explains one confidant. “But most of all he wants the thanks of a grateful nation for coming forward.”

Jim Quinn takes no prisoners.

• Illegitimate President (Jim Quinn)

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – H.L. Mencken. It’s now almost two weeks since the most crooked, rigged, fraudulent election in U.S. history. The engineered elevation of a handsy, sniffy, senile, empty portal, trojan horse by billionaire oligarchs, their Silicon Valley techno-geek social media censorship police, and the corporate media propaganda mouthpieces looks like it might succeed. Republican cucks like Romney and even the pliable Fox News talking heads have acquiesced to this third attempt during this ongoing coup like obedient lapdogs positioning themselves to profit from doing the bidding of their global oligarch masters.

Make no mistake. There was a master plan implemented by dark forces to steal this election, overriding the will of the American people. The anger of 70 million Americans is perfectly captured in the above quote from Mencken. If Trump and his allies are unable to prove fraud and overturn this sham of an election, myself and millions more will treat the Kamala Harris administration as illegitimate and do everything in our power to resist and insure its failure.

The level of fake news media propaganda about the “most secure fairest election in history”, and the vociferous blatant systematic censorship by Twitter, Facebook, and Google of anyone who dares to question the approved narrative of “a mostly fraud free election” on their social media platforms is all the proof a critical thinking person needs to realize this election was stolen by left wing oligarchs. Trump was too erratic, uncontrollable and resistant to their new world order agenda of climate extremism, population control through fear, communist economics, cash elimination, and ruling through a technocratic Big Brother surveillance state.

Trump, through naivety, foolishness or carelessness, allowed enemies of his administration to wield power and influence for the last four years. He chose swamp creature after swamp creature for key cabinet positions and seemed surprised when they stabbed him in the back. He failed to purge Obama loyalists holding middle level positions in the FBI, CIA, Dept of Defense, and numerous other agencies. They actively worked to subvert everything he tried to accomplish.

The military industrial complex apparatchiks are cackling like hyenas about how they misled him about troop levels in Syria and continue to ignore his orders to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. Obama and his gang of traitorous thieves conspired to bring Trump down before he assumed office and continued for the entire four years, assisted by a feckless mainstream media of faux journalists peddling fake news and disinformation fed to them by the Deep State coup collaborators.

As I said last week: he’s afraid of being exposed.

• What is John Brennan So Worried About? (Ray McGovern)

Former CIA Director John Brennan is apparently so worried that Donald Trump might release certain classified intelligence that he suggested this week that Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet remove Trump via the 25th amendment. Brennan appeared this week on both CNN and MSNBC to spread alarm about what Trump might do as he continues to contest the election results and appoints new people at Defense, NSA (and possibly CIA) who may do his bidding. Brennan warned on CNN that it was “very, very worrisome” that Trump “is just very unpredictable now … like a cornered cat — tiger. And he’s going to lash out.” Brennan told MSNBC he was worried that Trump has called for the “wholesale declassification of intelligence in order to further his own political interests.”

Whom would he lash out at and what classified documents might Brennan be referring to? The CIA’s point man at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, has provided the answer: “President Trump’s senior military and intelligence officials have been warning him strongly against declassifying information about Russia that his advisers say would compromise sensitive collection methods and anger key allies. An intense battle over this issue has raged within the administration in the days before and after the Nov. 3 presidential election. Trump and his allies want the information public because they believe it would rebut claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin supported Trump in 2016. That may sound like ancient history, but for Trump it remains ground zero — the moment when his political problems began.”

Protecting “sources and methods” is a red herring. They can be redacted from a classified document. It’s the content of these files that has Brennan extremely nervous as they might reveal Brennan’s role in the Russiagate scandal. Of course, Brennan invoked the old trope of “national security” when it appears it’s his own security he’s worried about. As we noted at a similar juncture in March 2018 (in “Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared”), Brennan’s foremost worry — then, as now — was that Trump was about to expose him to the disgrace that befell ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for malfeasance in connection with Russiagate. The president had just fired McCabe for repeatedly lying, and Brennan had good reason to worry.

That was before the true extent of the roles McCabe, his boss, former FBI Director James Comey, and Brennan played in the WMD-style fabrication of “Russiagate” had became more fully understood. Brennan landed on his MSNBC perch as a paid commentator on Feb. 2, 2018 and was riding high with adulation from the likes of former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, who publicly warned Trump that it is “not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.” Even back then, however, storm clouds were gathering. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who knew much more than he revealed, was warning of legal consequences for Russiagate conspirators. Referring to the weavers and tailors of Russiagate, Nunes told reporter Sharyl Attkisson on Feb. 18, 2018: “If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial. The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created.”

View from Berlin.

• Geopolitical Risks of the 2020 Election (Achim Dübel)

A drama is unfolding for Korea. President Donald Trump was a once in a generation chance for reunification on the East Asian peninsula, as President Ronald Reagan was for Germany almost half a century ago. With the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the pro-war tendency in America that goes back to President Harry Truman returns to power. The consequences for Korea and many other nations around the world will be terrible. It was Reagan himself, not the CIA man President George H.W. Bush, who followed him, who pushed for the first covert and then overt operation to bring the Berlin wall down. It was Reagan’s Jacksonian sense of independence and his personal charm that convinced a reluctant Soviet leadership and domestic administration apparatus alike to follow. Reagan did most of the job in his second term, after he had gained control – and had survived an assassination attempt.

Now the old British-American war networks that have dominated U.S. administration since the murder of President John F. Kennedy will take over again. When the debris of the wall was still lying around in Berlin, George H.W. Bush in 1991 blocked Helmut Kohl in his effort to build a joint European house together with Russia. Under President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the tension with Russia led into the current New Cold War. The new de-facto President of the United States, Kamala Harris, will now stop every effort to bring regional peace and cooperation. Harris was the first candidate to drop out of the Democrat’s race due to her profound unpopularity, but she was always the war network’s preferred candidate. I predicted in May that the US military industrial complex would push Harris through regardless.

The popular contenders such as Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and President Trump were axed away with the most unfair means to clear the path for Harris to reclaim control of the US for the war network. Harris’ career is also well planned ahead. The demented and corrupt Joe Biden, who is easy to manipulate and blackmail, is for some the perfect profile of a politician. Biden will be kept as a kind of political hologram for the next four, maybe eight years, while policy will be run by Harris and the corporate networks she represents. And then she will become President herself. It is reasonable to expect Harris to run the country until 2032 or 2036. The war network appreciates continuity.

“This includes the development of “memory” immune cells, which should protect against future coronavirus infections.”

• 6,000 UK Volunteers To Be Injected With Covid Vaccine In Phase 3 Trial (G.)

Six thousand British volunteers are to be injected with an experimental Covid vaccine modelled on an Ebola jab. It is the third Covid vaccine to enter large-scale clinical trials in the UK. Pursuing multiple candidates is essential to guarantee UK supply and ensure that most effective vaccine is identified, researchers stressed. Already undergoing large clinical trials in British patients are the Oxford Covid vaccine, and one being developed by the US biotech company Novavax. A phase 3 trial of the latest vaccine, developed by global pharmaceutical company Janssen (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson), begins on Monday.

Phase 3 trials are designed to test the safety and effectiveness of drugs or vaccines in thousands of people. It will initially involve 6,000 volunteers from 17 sites across the UK, including Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Dundee, Leicester, London, Manchester, Sheffield and Southampton. A further 24,000 volunteers are to be recruited from other countries. Like the Oxford vaccine, the Janssen candidate uses a weakened common cold virus called an adenovirus to deliver instructions for making the coronavirus’s surface spike protein to our cells. Cells infected begin making the viral protein and expressing it on their surface, triggering an immune response. This includes the development of “memory” immune cells, which should protect against future coronavirus infections.

However, whereas the Oxford vaccine is based on an adenovirus from chimpanzees, Janssen’s vaccine uses a human adenovirus, which has been modified so it can no longer multiply or cause disease. The same virus forms the backbone of a recently approved Ebola vaccine, deployed during the 2019 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Janssen’s vaccine has already undergone smaller phase 1 and 2 trials, and interim analysis of a single-dose study suggests that it induces a robust immune response and is generally well-tolerated.

Too close for comfort.

• 300,000 New Yorkers Have Fled The Big Apple Amid Coronavirus, Crime (NYP)

More than 300,000 New Yorkers have bailed from the Big Apple in the last eight months, new stats show. City residents filed 295,103 change of address requests from March 1 through Oct. 31, according to data The Post obtained from the US Postal Service under a Freedom of Information Act request. Since the data details only when 11 or more forwarding requests were made to a particular county outside NYC, the number of moves is actually higher. And a single address change could represent an entire household, which means far more than 300,000 New Yorkers fled the five boroughs. Whatever the exact number, the exodus — which began when COVID-19 hit the city in early spring — is much greater than in prior years.

From just March through July, there were 244,895 change of address requests to destinations outside of the city, more than double the 101,342 during the same period in 2019. The escape from New York is fueled not only by coronavirus concerns, but economic worries, school chaos and rising crime, experts say. Michael Hendrix, director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute, which has commissioned surveys about the state of the city, was not surprised by the data. “I think people are afraid,” Hendrix said. “They’re afraid of catching a deadly virus and they’re afraid of crime and other quality of life concerns. One thing we also hear is about trash and cleanliness of the city.”

The institute’s survey of six-figure earners in July and August found that 44% of respondents had considered moving outside the city in the prior four months. They cited cost of living as the biggest reason. More than a third, 38%, said they thought the city was heading in the wrong direction and only 38% rated the quality of life as good or excellent. More than half, 53%, said they were very concerned about sending their kids back to school. Major crimes have been on the rise this year with the number of murders in the Big Apple hitting 344 by October, surpassing the count for all of 2019. The number of shootings through Nov. 8 is up 94% over 2019.

Not sure what Axios thinks of this….

• Trump Plans Last-Minute China Crackdown (Axios)

President Trump will enact a series of hardline policies during his final 10 weeks to cement his legacy on China, senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the plans tells Axios. He’ll try to make it politically untenable for the Biden administration to change course as China acts aggressively from India to Hong Kong to Taiwan, and the pandemic triggers a second global wave of shutdowns. Watch for National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe to publicly describe in granular detail intelligence about China’s nefarious actions inside the U.S Trump officials plan to sanction or restrict trade with more Chinese companies, government entities and officials for alleged complicity in human rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, or threatening U.S. national security.

The administration also will crack down on China for its labor practices beyond Xinjiang forced labor camps. But don’t expect big new moves on Taiwan or more closures of Chinese consulates in the U.S., officials say. National Security Council spokesperson John Ullyot told Axios, “Unless Beijing reverses course and becomes a responsible player on the global stage, future U.S. presidents will find it politically suicidal to reverse President Trump’s historic actions.” Senior administration officials are discussing expanding a Defense Department list of Chinese companies deemed to have ties to the Chinese military. An executive order issued last week barred U.S. investment in 31 such companies, and any additions would likely face a similar restriction.

Officials plan to target China’s growing use of forced labor in the highly competitive fishing industry. Coerced and unpaid labor isn’t just a human rights concern — it can also give Chinese fisheries an advantage over rivals in an industry with geopolitical significance. Trump officials have been looking to move more hawkish China experts into senior roles across the government, another senior official added. “Director Ratcliffe will continue playing a leading role, in coordination with other national security principals, in delivering a necessary mindset shift from the Cold War and post-9/11 counterterrorism eras to a focus on great power competition with an adversarial China,” DNI senior adviser Cliff Sims tells Axios.

…but maybe this is what Trump has in mind. “China last week left 21 tonnes of live Australian lobster to die in Shanghai warehouses awaiting customs clearance.”

• As China’s Blockade Unravels Australian Economy, Everything Is At Risk (SCMP)

The tide turning against Chinese goods in Australia did not come as a huge surprise given the shifting geopolitical winds, but I was taken aback that China fuelled this particular fire by enacting what could be interpreted as a trade embargo by blocking the imports of multiple Australian goods. If the countries stay this course, it would be a sharply negative development after they just five years ago signed the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), which had taken nearly a decade to put into place. The knock-on effect would be far more serious than just shutting down the trade agreement in a huff. The risk in relying too heavily on Chinese goods and supply chains so heavily reliant on China became apparent during the Covid-19 crisis, and is leading to a global rethink about what we buy, from where and at what price.

Untying such a trade relationship with China is tricky, though, because it is a two-way flow. Australia has become dependent on imported Chinese goods whilst China is its largest customer for raw materials and certain food products. China has the upper hand as there are many sources of the raw materials and foodstuffs it needs, while Australia can’t switch suppliers so easily and needs to find new buyers for its goods fast. In Australia the issue of reliance on China became even more raw with the realisation during the Covid-19 crisis that Australian manufactured medical equipment was being siphoned off and shipped out. Essentially, much of the country’s businesses and assets had been sold to the Chinese, presenting a potential national security issue as the Australians were no longer deciding where locally manufactured goods would be sold.

The Australian government has woken up to this and is now scrutinising foreign business acquisitions. But the recent blocking of the sale of Lion Dairy & Drinks by Japanese beverage group Kirin Holdings to China Mengniu Dairy is merely closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Australia is taking issue with China on several fronts, and no punches are being pulled by the country’s commentators or politicians. One pressure point is Australia’s demand that China clarify what happened in the early stages of the coronavirus crisis when domestic flights from Wuhan were cancelled and international flights were allowed to continue. When China pushes back at Australia for having the nerve to even ask the question, Canberra interprets that as “punishment”.

Suggesting that Canberra “reflect on its own deeds”, China last week left 21 tonnes of live Australian lobster to die in Shanghai warehouses awaiting customs clearance. Chinese importers have been “advised” to stop importing barley, sugar, red wine, timber, coal, and copper ore and concentrates –and a ban on wheat is also expected. China can get its raw materials elsewhere. But as a friend of mine in Brisbane pointed out when trying get a water filter replacement and some kitchen storage boxes, she had only Chinese options.

“At publishing time, Wendy had set January 20th as the perfect date for the two to unite…”

• Girlfriend Keeps Referring To Herself As ‘Wife-Elect’ (Babylon Bee)

Sources close to Winston Davis say he is “totally screwed” as his girlfriend Wendy Fitzpatrick keeps referring to herself as “Wife-Elect” at any and every public gathering with close family and friends. This awkward situation is happening to Winston despite no clear moment in time in which it ever entered his mind that Wendy was “the one” or that he was even getting close to asking her the question to make such an interim title even remotely appropriate. “Uh, honey—” Winston could be heard starting to interject before Wendy went ahead and dialed up local caterers and contractors to make arrangements for the wedding, which was surely going to unify their two families who haven’t always gotten along, and bring about a glorious time of family healing.

Wendy had even started delegating bridesmaids to begin getting fitted for dresses and unironically telling members of her family that she was setting up an “Office of the Wife-Elect.” “Yeah I feel bad for the guy,” said Winston’s best friend, Paul. “It’s been an unhealthy codependent relationship from the beginning, but this recent turn of events is just pure cognitive dissonance.” “I keep telling him he needs to tell her straight up that an ‘Office of Wife-Elect’ isn’t a real thing and that he never officially asked her to be his fiancé, but I think he is afraid that will just make her mad,” Paul continued. “Like, there isn’t even an engagement ring.” At publishing time, Wendy had set January 20th as the perfect date for the two to unite into one in a wonderful winter wedding for W+W.

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Trump’s presidential shield of protection expires the moment he steps down Jan 20

Trump's presidential shield of protection expires the moment he steps down on Jan. 20. Here's what happens next. pic.twitter.com/vRQQyWF5dW

— VICE News (@VICENews) November 15, 2020

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Debt Rattle November 25 2017

Nov 252017

November 25, 2017 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:51 am Finance Tagged with: blockade, Brexit, butterfly, homeless, household debt, Merkel, refugees, shrub, slave trade, starvation, Tesla 4 Responses »

Walter Kelleher 13th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade NYC 1937

• Canada’s Household Debt Levels Higher Than Any Other Country (CNBC)

• As America Gives Thanks, Homelessness Sets New Records (Snyder)

• UK Council Proposes £1,000 Fines For Homeless People Sleeping In Tents (G.)

• UK Faces Longest Fall in Living Standards on Record (BBG)

• Britain Has 10-Day Absolute Deadline On Key Brexit Issues: Tusk (R.)

• Germany’s Voice Suddenly Missing in Brussels (Spiegel)

• Tesla’s Newest Promises Break the Laws of Batteries (BBG)

• The Old Songs (Jim Kunstler)

• Let’s Adopt The U.S. Naval Policy of 1890 (Rossini)

• The US-Saudi Starvation Blockade (Buchanan)

• Horrified By Libya Slave Trade, Rwanda Offers Refuge To Migrants (IBT)

• Mediterranean ‘By Far World’s Deadliest Border’ For Migrants – IOM (R.)

• The Refugee Scandal on the Island of Lesbos (Spiegel)

• Endangered Butterfly, Mexican Shrub May Be Hurdles to Trump Wall (BBG)

Canada, Australia, New Zealand; and Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

• Canada’s Household Debt Levels Higher Than Any Other Country (CNBC)

Household debt levels in Canada are higher than in any other country, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In a preliminary version of the report, set to be released fully next month, the OECD found Canada’s household debt ranked as the highest among the 35 developed and developing countries the group monitors. The rapid accumulation of household debt for Canadians could also leave its economy particularly vulnerable to shocks, the organization said. “Although in part this reflects strong population growth, these developments may entail significant risk to financial stability given the direct exposure of the financial system to the housing market,” the OECD said. The group found Canada’s household debt-to-GDP ratio had ballooned to 101% — significantly higher than any other nation studied.

In comparison, the ratio for South Korea was the next highest at slightly under 93%, with the U.K. third at over 88%. In the U.S., the household debt-to-GDP ratio was around 80%, while Germany and France had a ratio below 60%. “Research points to a number of links between high indebtedness and the risks of severe recessions,” the group said. While virtually all countries witnessed soaring debt loads ahead of the credit crisis a decade ago, most have seen their indebtedness reduce over time. However, for Canada — and some countries in Scandinavia — this has not been the case, with OECD pinning the blame on inflated house prices. “OECD countries that have experienced the strongest increases in household debt since the crisis have also the steepest rise in house prices,” the group said.

Highest since the Great Depression.

• As America Gives Thanks, Homelessness Sets New Records (Snyder)

If the U.S. economy was actually in good shape, we would expect that the number of people that are homeless would be going down or at least stabilizing. Instead, we have a growing national crisis on our hands. In fact, within the past two years “at least 10 cities or municipal regions in California, Oregon and Washington” have declared a state of emergency because the number of homeless is growing so rapidly. Things are particularly bad in southern California, and this year the Midnight Mission will literally be feeding a small army of people that have nowhere to sleep at night… “Thanksgiving meals will be served to thousands of homeless and near-homeless individuals today on Skid Row and in Pasadena and Canoga Park amid calls for donations and volunteers for the rest of the year. The Midnight Mission will serve Thanksgiving brunch to nearly 2,500 homeless and near-homeless men, women and children, according to Georgia Berkovich, its director of public affairs.”

Overall, the Midnight Mission serves more than a million meals a year, and Berkovich says that homelessness hasn’t been this bad in southern California “since the Great Depression”… “Berkovich said the group has been serving nearly 1 million meals a year each year since 2013. “We haven’t seen numbers like this since the Great Depression,” she said.” And of course the official numbers confirm what Berkovich is claiming. According to an article published earlier this year, the number of homeless people living in Los Angeles County has never been higher…”The number of homeless people in Los Angeles has jumped to a new record, as city officials grapple with a humanitarian crisis of proportions remarkable for a modern American metropolis. Municipal leaders said that a recent count over several nights found 55,188 homeless people living in a survey region comprising most of Los Angeles County, up more than 25% from last year.”

If the California economy is truly doing well, then why is this happening? We see the same thing happening when we look at the east coast. Just check out these numbers from New York City… “In recent years the number of homeless people has grown. Whereas rents increased by 18% between 2005 and 2015, incomes rose by 5%. When Rudy Giuliani entered City Hall in 1994, 24,000 people lived in shelters. About 31,000 lived in them when Mike Bloomberg became mayor in 2002. When Bill de Blasio entered City Hall in 2014, 51,500 did. The number of homeless people now in shelters is around 63,000. For New York, this is the highest that the homeless population has been since the Great Depression, and city leaders are trying to come up with a solution.”

It’s getting to be time for Hoovervilles.

• UK Council Proposes £1,000 Fines For Homeless People Sleeping In Tents (G.)

A council has been called “cruel and callous” for proposing £1,000 fines to homeless people sleeping in tents in the city centre. Stoke-on-Trent council in Staffordshire is consulting on a public space protection order (PSPO) that will make it an offence for a person to “assemble, erect, occupy or use” a tent unless part of a council-sanctioned activity such as a music festival. Under such a scheme anyone who fails to pay their £100 on-the-spot penalty notice can be prosecuted and could be fined up to £1,000 in court. Though only currently at the consultation stage, the PSPO would cover the city centre, Hanley park, Festival park and Octagon retail park.

Ruth Smeeth, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, said: “This is a cruel and callous policy to inflict on our most vulnerable in the lead-up to Christmas. We do have a growing problem with homelessness here in Stoke-on-Trent, but punishing people for their misfortune is no way to fix it. “It’s right and proper that the police take action to stop antisocial behaviour on our streets, but punishing the homeless simply for being homeless is appalling. “In recent years we’ve seen local funding for drug and alcohol treatment slashed and support to tackle homelessness cut to the bone. Locking these people up or saddling them with debt they can’t pay will only make the problem worse.”

Incompetence.

• UK Faces Longest Fall in Living Standards on Record (BBG)

Britons were warned they are on course for the longest fall in living standards since records began 60 years ago after the U.K.’s fiscal watchdog took the ax to its outlook for economic growth. In an analysis of the government’s latest budget and accompanying report by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Resolution Foundation said on Thursday that the economy is set to be 42 billion pounds ($56 billion) smaller in 2022 than the OBR predicted in March. It also calculated wages will not return to their pre-financial crisis levels of 2007 until at least 2025 once inflation is taken into account. Average annual pay is now projected to be 1,030 pounds lower in 2022 than the March forecasts and household disposable incomes will fall for an unprecedented 19 straight quarters between 2015 and 2020, according to Resolution.

The analysis was reinforced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which said the OBR’s forecasts implied average earnings would be almost 1,400 pounds lower in 2021 than predicted before the 2016 Brexit referendum and still below their 2008 level. “We are in danger of losing not just one but getting on for two decades of earnings growth,” IFS Director Paul Johnson told a briefing in London on Thursday. The warnings underscore the challenge Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond faced on Wednesday when he released a budget that left him little room for fiscal maneuver as Brexit looms. The OBR slashed its growth forecasts as a result of weak productivity, and Hammond piled further pressure on the budget by pledging extra cash for the health service and abolishing the tax on some housing purchases for first-time buyers.

Tusk pretends to speak with a powerful mandate, but…

• Britain Has 10-Day Absolute Deadline On Key Brexit Issues: Tusk (R.)

Britain has only 10 days left to deliver on all three areas of its divorce terms with the European Union if London wants to start talks on a transition period after Brexit and a future relationship, the chairman of EU leaders Donald Tusk said. “We need to see progress from UK within 10 days on all issues, including on Ireland,” Tusk tweeted on Friday after a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Brussels. “Sufficient progress in Brexit talks at December council is possible but still a huge challenge,” he said on Twitter. An EU official said that May agreed in the one-hour discussions that Dec. 4 was the “absolute deadline” to allow the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier to recommend moving onto the next stage on trade and future ties.

“Tusk presented the timeline ahead of the December European Council, with Dec. 4 as the absolute deadline for the UK to make additional efforts, allowing Barnier to be in a position to recommend sufficient progress,” the official said. “May agreed to this timeframe,” the official said. The official said Tusk had warned that if there was no progress within next 10 days, that would make moving forward impossible. The official said that the way Ireland’s border with Northern Ireland functioned after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019 was still an issue.

… that mandate has severely weakened now Germany’s in trouble…

• Germany’s Voice Suddenly Missing in Brussels (Spiegel)

European Union Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger wanted to know what is going on in Germany. To find out, he set up a number of meetings in Berlin this week, including one in the Chancellery. He also arranged to chat with Christian Lindner, the head of the Free Democrats (FDP) and the man who unexpectedly turned his back on German coalition talks in Berlin last Sunday night. The reason for Oettinger’s interest in the political developments in Germany is simple. He has been assigned with writing a draft EU budget for the next 10 years and his due date is next May. He is currently traveling from capital to capital on the Continent to determine how member states envision EU spending for the period from 2018 to 2027.

But the German voice, which generally carries significant weight when it comes to budgetary questions,is silent these days. “The long process of assembling a government is weakening Germany’s influence in Brussels,” says Oettinger. “German influence on important issues is currently undiscernible.” The failure of German coalition negotiations in Berlin has caught the European Union completely off guard. Ahead of elections in France and the Netherlands earlier this year, there had been widespread concern about the rise of the right wing and potential difficulties when it came to assembling a governing coalition in those countries. Few such concerns were voiced ahead of Germany’s general election on Sept. 24. Everyone assumed that Germany was solid.

Now, though, French President Emmanuel Macron has taken center stage in the EU with his ambitious reform proposals while European Council President Donald Tusk has already come up with a detailed timeline for transforming Macron’s vision into concrete policy decisions. And suddenly, Germany has vanished. “You’re ruining our entire presidency,” complained Kaja Tael, Estonia’s permanent representative in Brussels. Estonia currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

Still surprised by these things?

• Tesla’s Newest Promises Break the Laws of Batteries (BBG)

Elon Musk knows how to make promises. Even by his own standards, the promises made last week while introducing two new Tesla vehicles—the heavy-duty Semi Truck and the speedy Roadster—are monuments of envelope pushing. To deliver, according to close observers of battery technology, Tesla would have to far exceed what is currently thought possible. Take the Tesla Semi: Musk vowed it would haul an unprecedented 80,000 pounds for 500 miles on a single charge, then recharge 400 miles of range in 30 minutes. That would require, based on Bloomberg estimates, a charging system that’s 10 times more powerful than one of the fastest battery-charging networks on the road today—Tesla’s own Superchargers.

The diminutive Tesla Roadster is promised to be the quickest production car ever built. But that achievement would mean squeezing into its tiny frame a battery twice as powerful as the largest battery currently available in an electric car. These claims are so far beyond current industry standards for electric vehicles that they would require either advances in battery technology or a new understanding of how batteries are put to use, said Sam Jaffe, battery analyst for Cairn Energy Research in Boulder, Colorado. In some cases, experts suspect Tesla might be banking on technological improvements between now and the time when new vehicles are actually ready for delivery.

“There is some kind of revolution coming to American life.”

• The Old Songs (Jim Kunstler)

It probably all comes down to money. Money represents the mojo to keep on keeping on, and there is probably nothing more unreal in American life these days than the way we measure our money — literally, what it’s worth, and what everything related to it is worth. So there is nothing more unreal in our national life than the idea that it’s possible to keep on keeping on as we do. The weeks ahead may be most illuminating on this score. The debt ceiling suspension runs out on December 8, around the same time that the tax reform question will resolve one way or another. The debt ceiling means that the treasury can’t issue any more bonds, bills, or notes. That is, it can’t borrow any more money to pretend the government can keep running.

[..] There’s a fair chance that congress may not be able to resolve the debt ceiling deadline. The votes may just not be there. If the deadline comes and goes, the treasury can only use incoming tax revenues to cover its costs, and it won’t be enough. It will have to choose whether it issues paychecks to the roughly 2.7 million US government employees, or pays the vendors that sell things like warplanes to the military, or pay out so-called entitlements like Medicare and SNAP cards, or pay the interest on the previously-issued bonds, debts, and bills that the US has racked up over the years. Believe it or not, making those interest payments is probably the top priority, because failing to do that would shove the nation officially into default for the first time and destroy the country’s credit standing. The full faith and credit in the US dollar would shatter.

And then the fun and games would really cease. The country would discover it doesn’t have its mojo working, as another old song goes. The reality of being truly broke will set in. After all, there are two basic ways of going broke as a nation: you can run out of money; or you can have plenty of money that is worthless. Take your pick. There is some kind of revolution coming to American life. One way or another, it amounts to a much lower standard of living. The journey there may take the public by surprise, a la Ernest Hemingway’s crack about how a character in one of his stories went broke: slowly, and then all at once. The main question about this journey must be whether it is accompanied by political violence. One would have to think the potential for that is pretty high, given levels of animosity and delusional thinking among the two opposing factions — can we even call them Left and Right anymore? — which may even exceed the ill-feeling of 1861.

Amen.

• Let’s Adopt The U.S. Naval Policy of 1890 (Rossini)

Back in 1890, the U.S. Naval Policy Board said in a report: “We fear no encroachments on our territory, nor are we tempted at present to encroach on that of others. We have no colonies, nor any desire to acquire them.” First, let’s discuss the aspect of the statement that has not changed one iota since 1890: “We fear no encroachments on our territory”. In 2017, we can say the exact same statement with total confidence. No state on the planet has any interest in conquering America. No one is interested in ruling over our WalMart/McDonald’s society. No one is interested in taking over Washington D.C. and inheriting 20,000,000,000,000 in debt. No one is interested in ruling a nation of people who are in debt up to their eyeballs with student loans, auto loans, mortgage loans, credit card loans….loans…loans…loans…loans…loans… No one is interested!

Which leads to the part of the statement that has changed since 1890: “..nor are we tempted at present to encroach on that of others.” In 1898, that aspect changed, and the U.S. federal government has never looked back. In 1898, the U.S. got its first taste of the conquering game. It swiftly took control of the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Hawaii. All of a sudden 11 million people were under a new American Empire. A few decades later, after the first high wore off, one of the worst decisions in the history of the world was made: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson tricked the American public into entering an exhausted and stalemated European war between princes. The “war to end all wars” was the war that would lead to the death of hundreds of millions over the next century.

The rest, of course, is history, and here we are: Broke….A country with middle-class that is disappearing, and 50% of the American public receiving some kind of welfare from a bankrupt government. U.S. Naval Policy in 1890 is where it’s at. The sooner we adopt it, the better.

History repeats AND rhymes.

• The US-Saudi Starvation Blockade (Buchanan)

Our aim is to “starve the whole population – men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound – into submission,” said First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. He was speaking of Germany at the outset of the Great War of 1914-1918. Americans denounced as inhumane this starvation blockade that would eventually take the lives of a million German civilians. Yet when we went to war in 1917, a U.S. admiral told British Prime Minister Lloyd George, “You will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are.” After the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, however, the starvation blockade was not lifted until Germany capitulated to all Allied demands in the Treaty of Versailles.

As late as March 1919, four months after the Germans laid down their arms, Churchill arose in Parliament to exult, “We are enforcing the blockade with rigor, and Germany is very near starvation.” So grave were conditions in Germany that Gen. Sir Herbert Plumer protested to Lloyd George in Paris that morale among his troops on the Rhine was sinking from seeing “hordes of skinny and bloated children pawing over the offal from British cantonments.” The starvation blockade was a war crime and a crime against humanity. But the horrors of the Second World War made people forget this milestone on the Western road to barbarism. A comparable crime is being committed today against the poorest people in the Arab world – and with the complicity of the United States.

[..] Almost 90% of Yemen’s food, fuel and medicine is imported, and these imports are being cut off. The largest cities under Houthi control, the port of Hodaida and Sanaa, the capital, have lost access to drinking water because the fuel needed to purify the water is not there. Thousands have died of cholera. Hundreds of thousands are at risk. Children are in danger from a diphtheria epidemic. Critical drugs and medicines have stopped coming in, a death sentence for diabetics and cancer patients. If airfields and ports under Houthi control are not allowed to open and the necessities of life and humanitarian aid are not allowed to flow in, the Yemenis face famine and starvation. What did these people do to deserve this? What did they do to us that we would assist the Saudis in doing this to them?

The Houthis are not al-Qaida or ISIS. Those are Sunni terrorist groups, and the Houthis detest them. Is this now the American way of war? Are we Americans, this Thanksgiving and Christmas, prepared to collude in a human rights catastrophe that will engender a hatred of us among generations of Yemeni and stain the name of our country?

We can’t afford Yemen, and we can’t afford Libya. We need to stop these medieval situations.

• Horrified By Libya Slave Trade, Rwanda Offers Refuge To Migrants (IBT)

Rwanda has opened its doors to migrants stuck in Libya and announced plans to take in as many as 30,000 people. The offer of help comes in response to an exposé into Libya’s underbelly where slave trade is flourishing. It involves migrants from other parts of Africa who are stuck in the country as they wait for an opportunity to cross into Europe. The government is still ironing out the details regarding how it plans to move interested parties from the northern part of the continent to the east. “Rwanda is currently under discussions… to see how we can help in welcoming migrants held captive in Libya,” Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told AFP. “It has just been decided, so numbers and means are still under discussion, but Rwanda estimates the number to be welcomed around 30,000,” she said.

“For Africans being sold in Libya: Rwanda is small, but we will find some space!” she tweeted. In its investigation into the slave market in Libya, CNN was able to capture footage of auctions held in the capital city of Tripoli, where bids were accepted for men to be used for manual labour. While the videos only featured males, they have raised concerns over a similar fate for women and children who escaped their countries to come to Libya. “Rwanda, like the rest of the world, was horrified by the images of the tragedy currently unfolding in Libya, where African men, women and children who were on the road to exile, have been held and turned into slaves,” Mushikiwabo continued. “Given Rwanda’s political philosophy and our own history, we cannot remain silent when human beings are being mistreated and auctioned off like cattle,” she said. The minister was referring to her nation’s own dark history wherein over 800,000 people (mostly Tutsi) were killed in 1994 in one of the worst genocides in world history.

You see, Angela, the power you crave comes with responsibilities.

• Mediterranean ‘By Far World’s Deadliest Border’ For Migrants – IOM (R.)

More than 33,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach European shores this century, making the Mediterranean “by far the world’s deadliest border”, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday. After record arrivals from 2014 to 2016, the European Union’s deal with Turkey to stop arrivals from Greece, and robust patrols off Libya’s coast have greatly reduced the flow, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. Professor Philippe Fargues of the European University Institute in Florence, author of the report, said the figures probably underestimated the actual scale of the human tragedy. “The report states that at least 33,761 migrants were reported to have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean between the year 2000 to 2017. This number is as of June 30,” IOM’s Jorge Galindo told a Geneva news briefing.

“It concludes that Europe’s Mediterranean border is by far the world’s deadliest,” he said. So far this year some 161,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe by sea, about 75% of them landing in Italy with the rest in Greece, Cyprus and Spain, according to IOM figures. Nearly 3,000 others are dead or missing, it said. “Shutting the shorter and less dangerous routes can open longer and more dangerous routes, thus increasing the likelihood of dying at sea,” Fargues said. The report said: “Cooperation with Turkey to stem irregular flows is now being replicated with Libya, the main country of departure of migrants smuggled along the central route; however, such an approach is not only morally reprehensible but likely to be unsuccessful, given the context of extremely poor governance, instability and political fragmentation in Libya.”

Brussels and Athens have run out of excuses.

• The Refugee Scandal on the Island of Lesbos (Spiegel)

Those wishing to visit ground zero of European ignominy must simply drive up an olive tree-covered hill on the island of Lesbos until the high cement walls of Camp Moria come into view. “Welcome to prison,” someone has spray-painted on the walls. The dreadful stench of urine and garbage greets visitors and the ground is covered with hundreds of plastic bags. It is raining, and filthy water has collected ankle-deep on the road. The migrants who come out of the camp are covered with thin plastic capes and many of them are wearing only flipflops on their feet as they walk through the soup. Children are crying as men jostle their way through the crowd. Welcome to one of the most shameful sites in all of Europe. Camp Moria was originally built to handle 2,330 refugees. But currently it is home to 6,489.

[..] Conditions on the island of Lesbos haverarely been as precarious as they are today. Just as winter is arriving in Greece, some 15,000 refugees find themselves trapped in the five “hotspots” located on Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Fully 8,357 of them are on Lesbos, living in horrific conditions in overcrowded, completely inadequate shelters. A huge number of refugees are forced to sleep in tents designed for summer conditions and many of them fear for their safety because of the close quarters and the repeated clashes in the main camp. Dozens of refugees have begun a hunger strike on Lesbos. The European Union’s refugee deal with Turkey may have managed to cut the number of people reaching Greece by 97%, but dozens of migrants continue to arrive every day.

Thus far this year, around 11,000 people have crossed over to the island from Turkey – a tiny number compared to the 12,500 who arrived on a single day in August 2015. But back then, newcomers were taken to the mainland and allowed to continue their journeys through the Balkans toward Hungary, Austria and, ultimately, Germany. Now, though, the former registration facilities have essentially been transformed into prisons. [..] he government in Athens has had plenty of time to learn its lesson from last winter, when five refugees died in Camp Moria, some of them because they were trying to heat their tents. Now, the country’s immigration minister is seeking to solve the problem at the last minute ahead of this winter by renting hotels on Lesbos and bringing in two ships from Piraeus that can accommodate a total of 3,000 refugees.

On the island of Lesbos though, where residents have shown remarkable patience thus far, there is widespread opposition to the plan. On Monday, the mayor of Lesbos, known for being a moderate, called for a general strike and declared war on the Greek government. He accuses Athens of seeking to use the need to establish winter facilities as an excuse to transform Lesbos into a prison island.

Let’s finish on a lighter note.

• Endangered Butterfly, Mexican Shrub May Be Hurdles to Trump Wall (BBG)

Environmentalists suing to block President Donald Trump from constructing a wall along the Mexican border say the project would imperil endangered species including the Quino checkerspot butterfly and the Mexican flannel bush. The Homeland Security Department has asserted authority under federal immigration law to waive compliance with environmental protection statutes because 14 miles of existing fencing near San Diego is “no longer optimal for border patrol operations.”

Defenders of Wildlife, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity argued in court filings this week that the Trump administration’s attempts to sidestep the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act are unconstitutional. A hearing over the dispute is set for February before U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, whom Trump scorned during the presidential campaign over the San Diego jurist’s handling of the Trump University fraud litigation. Trump attacked Curiel as being biased against him because of his Mexican heritage, saying the Indiana-born judge had issued rulings against him as retribution for his pledge to build a wall between the U.S. and its neighbor to the south.