Mebbe You Can't Grab the World By the Pussy - And Get Away With It?

moonofalabama |  Trump said he would ask Iraq to pay for the bases the U.S. has built should the U.S. troops be kicked out of Iraq. The U.S. already has binding legal agreements with Iraq which stipulate that the bases, and all fixed installations the U.S. has built there, are the property of Iraq.

Trump had already asked Iraqi Prime Ministers -twice- if the U.S. could get Iraq's oil as reward for invading and destroying their country. The requests were rejected. Now we learn that Trump also uses gangster methods (ar) to get the oil of Iraq. The talk by the Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi happened during the recent parliament session in Iraq (machine translation):

Al-Halbousi, Speaker of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, blocked the speech of Mr. Abdul Mahdi in the scheduled session to discuss the decision to remove American forces from Iraq. 

At the beginning of the session, Al-Halbousi left the presidential seat and sat next to Mr. Abdul-Mahdi, after his request to cut off the live broadcast of the session, a public conversation took place between the two parties. The voice of Adel Abdul Mahdi was raised.

Mr. Abdul Mahdi spoke with an angry tone, saying:

"The Americans are the ones who destroyed the country and wreaked havoc on it. They are those who refuse to complete building the electrical system and infrastructure projects. They have bargained for the reconstruction of Iraq in exchange for giving up 50% of Iraqi oil imports, so I refused and decided to go to China and concluded an important and strategic agreement with it, and today Trump is trying to cancel this important agreement."

The American President's threatened the Iraqi Prime Minister to liquidate him directly with the Minister of Defense. The Marines are the third party that sniped the demonstrators and the security men:

Abdul Mahdi continued:
"After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I also refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me.

Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, so that the third party (Marines snipers) would target the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from the highest structures and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement, so I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist to this day on canceling the China agreement and when the defense minister said that who kills the demonstrators is a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically threatened me and defense minister in the event of talk about the third party."

Can 2nd Amendment Sanctuary Be a Mass-Driver for Sustainable Localism?

libertyblitzkrieg |  Many of you probably have heard of the second amendment sanctuary movement, which consists of municipalities and counties across the U.S. passing resolutions pledging not to enforce additional gun control measures infringing upon the right to bear arms. The current movement traces its origins back to Effingham County in southern Illinois, which passed a resolution in April 2018 calling the county a second amendment “sanctuary”, essentially a vow to ignore gun control legislation proposed by Illinois state lawmakers. This particular tactic gained traction not just within Illinois, where 67 of 102 counties have now passed similar resolutions, but throughout the country.

The movement started gaining more attention over the past couple of months following the blistering momentum it found in Virginia after Democrats won the state legislature in November. As of this writing, 87 out of Virginia’s 95 counties have passed such resolutions and it’s important to note that virtually all of them were passed in the two months since the election. In other words, this is happening at a very rapid pace.

Before discussing the significance of all this, let’s address some thoughtful criticism of the movement from Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center. His primary point of contention is that the resolutions these municipalities and counties are passing — unlike immigration sanctuary ordinances passed in places such as San Francisco — carry no weight of the law.

Specifically, they’re not passing ordinances, but rather resolutions, which Michael describes as “non-binding political statements.” In other words, it’s all just talk at this stage and he’s frustrated that much of the media coverage makes it seem what’s being passed is more concrete than it actually is. Although I disagree with his overall assessment of the importance of what’s happening, he makes many good points and puts some much needed meat on the bone of this issue for those getting up to speed. He published an instructive video on the topic, which I recommend checking out.

VCDL REALLY Ready to Get It On? (Or Jes More Ghey 3% Cosplay?)

americanpartisan |  Rolling into 2020, all eyes are on Virginia following Governor Ralph Northam’s declared intention to pass onerous new gun control laws that could mandate the forced confiscation of common semi-automatic firearms which have been legal for Virginians to own for more than a century, ever since their invention. The first date in the coming showdown to be aware of is Monday, January 20th, when the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a pro-Second Amendment group, is organizing a “Lobby Day” rally to be held at the state capitol to oppose these new gun control laws. It’s estimated that thousands of Virginians will attend the VCDL rally, many arriving in buses from all over the commonwealth.

In response to Northam’s plans, 90% of Virginia’s counties and many of its independent cities have declared themselves to be “second amendment sanctuaries.” After receiving vociferous pushback, Northam has recently stepped away from promising the outright confiscation of currently owned semi-auto weapons, and he is instead now demanding that gun owners register “grandfathered” weapons with the state government. Based on recent experiences in New York, Connecticut and other states that mandated registration, it’s assumed that very few Virginians will comply, instantly turning hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens into paper felons.

What will Northam’s response be to mass defiance of his gun control edicts? Common investigative tools could easily be used to locate non-compliant Virginians and arrest them on felony gun charges. At least some gun confiscation raids would inevitably lead to armed resistance, beginning a cycle of action and reaction that could, over time, grow into a low-intensity guerrilla conflict or a “dirty civil war.”

How plausible is this unwanted outcome? And what forms might a civil war over gun rights take? In certain respects we are in uncharted waters, because there are some new and unique variables in the known and studied civil war and counter-insurgency equations that are far out of line with available historical precedents. Chief among them: in all of history there has never been a civil war where, at the outset of hostilities, the resisting indigenous population was armed to the teeth with rifles capable of making 500 to 1,000 yard aimed precision shots. Never.

Did "Coonman" Northam Grab A Tiger By Its Tail?

WaPo |  Van Cleave has appealed to his supporters not to come bristling with intimidating long guns — including assault-style rifles such as the AR-15 — and politely suggested that militia members are welcome but do not need to provide security. Police will take care of that, he said, “not to mention enough citizens armed with handguns to take over a modern midsized country.”

That firepower is a concern for gun-control advocates, who also plan to turn out on Jan. 20 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — for what is a traditional day of citizen lobbying at the state Capitol.

“There’s a dangerous intersection here of speech and guns, and what I think is critically important is that we don’t see the sort of armed intimidation and even violence that resulted . . . in Charlottesville,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and policy director at Giffords Law Center.

Democratic lawmakers who now control both houses of the General Assembly are considering making rules changes to limit where guns can be carried when the legislature convenes on Wednesday.

Visitors are currently allowed to bring guns onto Capitol Square and — with a concealed-weapons permit — into the Capitol itself and the adjacent Pocahontas Building. Firearms are even permitted in the House gallery, though the Senate gallery is off- limits.

What Would a Gender-fluid Oppression Studies Major at Yale Do?

Full Text of Ricky Gervais Globes Roast

Trump's Campaign Goal Accomplished by Sulemanei Hit

townhall |  See, for too long we were asking the wrong question when tinpot dictators dared hurt Americans. We asked, “What would a gender-fluid Oppression Studies major at Yale do?” As I have observed before, the correct question is “WWJC do?” – “What would Julius Caesar do?”

Trump ordered hard hits at five Shiite militia weapon sites, and not with any warnings either. They got one of ours, we got about two dozen of theirs. Like the old joke about 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea, that’s a good start.

The Iranians, whose Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the ultimate source of most of the Shiite terror in the world, decided to respond in what they thought was a clever way: send a few thousand of their camo-clad dummies to attack the embassy and hope and pray a bunch of them got mowed down on camera. In the meantime, wave a lot of banners, burn some stuff, and pound on the reinforced glass for the press’s benefit.

But apparently, no one told the “mourners,” as the austere scholars at the endlessly useless New York Times dubbed the members of Islamic Antifa, that they were supposed to get smoked. They went home with the embassy unseized. Getting martyred en masse is not that much fun when you’re just one sucker out of dozens – heck, they may run of virgins. 

You don’t get to hurt Americans. Ever If you do, bad things will happen.

Welcome to the Trump Doctrine.

We don’t want an escalation and we should show restraint where we can – but killing Americans must be a red line, a real one, not an Obama one. If this does escalate into a major confrontation, we need to keep some principles in mind. We need to do more than “send messages." Pain should be our message. Any strike should have a tactical (if not strategic effect). Hitting the arms caches means they have fewer arms, and they got the message. And we focus on destroying what the decisionmakers in Tehran care about: sink some capital ships, vaporize a bunch of aircraft, flatten a refinery. It’s even better when it can support the Persian patriots in Iran who want to hang their oppressors from the lamp posts. 

“Proportionality” is a sucker’s game. Our goal should be pain. Screw with America and we hurt you, mullahs. Personally. Not just the idiots who do your dirty work. You and your toys.

We'll Pretend You Cats Knew We Had Hypersonics Like We Had Ion-Drives 50 Years Ago....,

nationalinterest |  No country has ever possessed a reliable defense against a long-range strategic weapon. Instead, nuclear states count on the threat of atomic counterattack -- "mutual assured destruction" is the Cold War term -- in order to deter a nuclear attack.

Avangard could become just another strategic weapon that that United States counters with strategic weapons of its own. "Our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat," Hyten said.

Hypersonic weapons might be more useful, and more effective, if they do not carry nuclear warheads. In July 2018, Michael Griffin, the U.S. Defense Department's undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, warned about the "tactical capability that these sorts of weapons bring to theater conflicts or regional conflicts."

Griffin characterized hypersonic vehicles as "very quick response, high speed, highly maneuverable, difficult to find and track and kill."

With Avangard reportedly combat-ready, Russia competes with China to be the first country to deploy a hypersonic weapon. China in October 2019 publicly debuted its DF-17 hypersonic surface-to-surface missile during a military parade in Beijing.

It’s unclear whether the DF-17 actually is operational. It’s also unclear how many DF-17s China possesses and how it plans to use the missiles during wartime. Most importantly, it’s not obvious that China has built a sensor network capable of selecting targets for the DF-17.

.45 Had Drone Assassination on Good Authority...,

craigmurray |  Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me. 

What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine – that here “Imminent” – the word used so carefully by Pompeo – does not need to have its normal meanings of either “soon” or “about to happen”. An attack may be deemed “imminent”, according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike – and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of “intelligence” you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.

I am not inventing the Bethlehem Doctrine. It has been the formal legal justification for drone strikes and targeted assassinations by the Israeli, US and UK governments for a decade. Here it is in academic paper form, published by Bethlehem after he left government service (the form in which it is adopted by the US, UK and Israeli Governments is classified information). 

While the Bethlehem Doctrine allows you to kill somebody because they might be going to attack someone, sometime, but you don’t know who or when, there is a reasonable expectation that if you are claiming people have already been killed you should be able to say who and when.

The truth of the matter is that if you take every American killed including and since 9/11, in the resultant Middle East related wars, conflicts and terrorist acts, well over 90% of them have been killed by Sunni Muslims financed and supported out of Saudi Arabia and its gulf satellites, and less than 10% of those Americans have been killed by Shia Muslims tied to Iran.

This is a horribly inconvenient fact for US administrations which, regardless of party, are beholden to Saudi Arabia and its money. It is, the USA affirms, the Sunnis who are the allies and the Shias who are the enemy. Yet every journalist or aid worker hostage who has been horribly beheaded or otherwise executed has been murdered by a Sunni, every jihadist terrorist attack in the USA itself, including 9/11, has been exclusively Sunni, the Benghazi attack was by Sunnis, Isil are Sunni, Al Nusra are Sunni, the Taliban are Sunni and the vast majority of US troops killed in the region are killed by Sunnis. 

Precisely which are these hundreds of deaths for which the Shia forces of Soleimani were responsible? Is there a list? It is of course a simple lie. Its tenuous connection with truth relates to the Pentagon’s estimate – suspiciously upped repeatedly since Iran became the designated enemy – that back during the invasion of Iraq itself, 83% of US troop deaths were at the hands of Sunni resistance and 17% of of US troop deaths were at the hands of Shia resistance, that is 603 troops. All the latter are now lain at the door of Soleimani, remarkably.

By Killing Suleimani - Trump Squared Up On Some Spoils and Dodged War with Russia

srategic-culture |  A remarkably non-propagandistic news-report, in the New York Times, by Eric Lipton, Maggie Haberman and Mark Mazzetti, included powerful evidence that the impeachment-effort against US President Donald Trump is motivated, in part if not totally, by a desire by US Senators and Representatives — as well as by career employees of the US Departments of Defense, State Department, and other agencies regarding national defense — to increase the sales-volumes of US-made weapons to foreign countries. Whereas almost all of the contents of that article merely repeat what has already been reported, this article in the Times states repeatedly that boosting corporations such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop-Grumman, has been a major — if not the very top — motivation driving US international relations, and that at least regarding Ukraine, Trump has not been supporting, but has instead been trying to block, those weapons-sales — and creating massive enemies in the US Government as a direct consequence.

The article, issued online on Sunday, December 29th, is titled “Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion”, and it quotes many such individuals as saying that President Trump strongly opposed the sale of US weapons to Ukraine, and that,

In an Oval Office meeting on May 23, with Mr. Sondland, Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Blair in attendance, Mr. Trump batted away assurances that [Ukraine’s current President] Mr. Zelensky was committed to confronting corruption. “They are all corrupt, they are all terrible people,” Mr. Trump said, according to testimony in the impeachment inquiry.

In other words, Trump, allegedly, said that he didn’t want “terrible people” to be buying, and to receive, US-made weapons (especially not as US aid — free of charge, a gift from America’s taxpayers).

The article simply assumes that Trump was wrong that “they are all terrible people.”

Indeed, Trump himself has sold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of US-made weapons to the Royal Saud family who own Saudi Arabia, and he refuses to back down about those sales on account of that family’s having been behind the widely-reported torture-murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and on account of their effort since 2015 to starve into submission — by bombing the food-supplies to — the Houthis in adjoining Yemen, and on account of their using US weapons in order to achieve that mass-murdering goal. Consequently, even if Trump is correct about Ukraine’s Government, he would still have a lot of explaining to do, in order to cancel congressionally authorized US weapons-sales to Ukraine but not to Saudi Arabia.

Nonsensical Explanations for Killing Suleimani

WaPo |  At his resort in Florida, the president was told that Soleimani was going to be coming to Baghdad; senior officials felt he was taunting the United States by showing up in the Iraqi capital, implying that he could move around with impunity.

Calls among the national security principals were convened by the vice president throughout the week after initial discussions on Sunday to kill Soleimani, a senior administration official said.

Officials reminded Trump that after the Iranians mined ships, downed the U.S. drone and allegedly attacked a Saudi oil facility, he had not responded. Acting now, they said, would send a message: “The argument is, if you don’t ever respond to them, they think they can get by with anything,” one White House official said.

Trump was also motivated to act by what he felt was negative coverage after his 2019 decision to call off the airstrike after Iran downed the U.S. surveillance drone, officials said. Trump was also frustrated that the details of his internal deliberations had leaked out and felt he looked weak, the officials said.

The United States tracked Soleimani’s movements for several days, keeping Trump apprised, and decided that their best opportunity to kill him would be near the Baghdad airport, the senior administration official said.

He ultimately gave final approval just before the strike, a senior administration official said, making the call from his golf resort.

Trump also had history on his mind. The president has long fixated on 2012 attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya, and the Obama administration’s response to them, said lawmakers and aides who have spoken to him, and he felt the response to this week’s attack on the embassy and the killing of an American contractor would make him look stronger compared with his predecessor.

“Benghazi has loomed large in his mind,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in an interview, explaining the response this week.

Graham was at Mar-a-Lago on Monday and said the president told him he was concerned they “were going to hit us again” and that he was considering hitting the Iranians.

No specific plan was ready to kill Soleimani, but it was on Trump’s mind, Graham said.

“He was more thinking out loud, but he was determined to do something to protect Americans. Killing the contractor really changed the equation,” Graham said.

“He was saying, ‘This guy is a bad guy, he’s up to no good, we have to do something,’ ” Graham said.

Washington Knew EXACTLY What It Was Doing

theguardian |  Iran has already vowed to respond to a killing it described as an act of war. The country’s ambassador to the UN said on Saturday that it would not go unanswered. “There will be harsh revenge,” Majid Takht Ravanchi told CNN. “The time, the place, will be decided by Iran.”

The US Department of Homeland Security said the response could include cyber-attacks. More conventional targets might include US installations, diplomatic and military personnel, or oil facilities. US citizens have been warned to leave Iraq.

Billboards with Suleimani’s instantly recognisable face appeared on major streets in Iran overnight, many bearing a warning from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that “harsh revenge” awaits the US.

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, also said Washington did not realise what a great mistake it had made, during a visit to pay condolences to the general’s family. US citizens would be feeling the impact for years to come, he said.

The Baghdad funeral procession began at the Imam Kadhim shrine, one of the most revered sites in Shia Islam. 

Mohammed Fadl, a mourner dressed in black, said he had come out in a show of loyalty and defiance. “It is a painful strike, but it will not shake us,” he said.

Two helicopters hovered over the crowd of mourners, who included Iraq’s prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and leaders of Iran-backed militias.

Iran’s envoy to Baghdad, Iraj Masjedi, told Iranian state media that Abdul-Mahdi had insisted on holding a public funeral for Suleimani and al-Muhandis in Baghdad.

Power Moves - See the Pattern? Take the Lesson...,

scroll |  Former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon on Friday said that the Citizenship Amendment Act and the withdrawal of special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution had led to India being isolated from the international community, even by its traditional allies, the Hindustan Times reported. 

“There has been no meaningful international support for this series of actions, apart from a few committed members of the diaspora and a ragtag bunch of Euro MPs from the extreme right,” Menon said at an event in New Delhi. He said many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and even King Harald V of Norway have criticised India’s actions.

Merkel had on November 1, during a visit to India, said that the present situation in Kashmir is “not sustainable”. 

“We seem to know that we are isolated,” Menon said, referring to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s decision to skip a meeting with the foreign affairs committee in the United States due to the presence of Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who has been critical of India’s actions in Kashmir.

Dumbass Did that Shit and Can't Take It Back...,

moonofalabama |  Today the U.S. declared war on Iran and Iraq.

War is what it will get.

Earlier today a U.S. drone or helicopter killed Major General Qassim Soleimani, the famous commander of the Iranian Quds ('Jerusalem') force, while he left the airport of Baghdad where he had just arrived. He had planned to attend the funeral of the 31 Iraqi soldiers the U.S. had killed on December 29 at the Syrian-Iraqi border near Al-Qaim.


The Quds force is the external arm of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Soleiman was responsible for all relations between Iran and political and militant movements outside of Iran. Hajji Qassim advised the Lebanese Hisbullah during the 2006 war against Israel. His support for Iraqi groups enabled them to kick the U.S. invaders out of Iraq. He was the man responsible for, and successful in, defeating the Islamic State in iraq and Syria. In 2015 Soleimani traveled to Moscow and convinced Russia to intervene in Syria. His support for the Houthi in Yemen enabled them to withstand the Saudi attackers.

Soleimani had arrived in Baghdad on a normal flight from Lebanon. He did not travel in secret. He was picked up at the airport by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, the deputy commander of the al-Hashd al-Shaabi, an official Iraqi security force under the command of the Iraqi Prime Minister. The two cars they traveled in were destroyed in the U.S. attack. Both men and their drivers and guards died.

 The U.S. created two martyrs who will now become the models and idols for tens of millions of youth in the Middle East.

What Will the U.S. Do When Iraq Says "Get the Phugg Out!!!"

moonofalabama  |  The reports about the current events in Iraq miss the root cause of the crisis.

During last summer there were several large explosions on bases held by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU/Hashed) in Iraq. These were either caused by extreme summer heat or by Israeli air attacks launched from U.S. bases in Iraq or Syria. Most PMF leaders believe that the second is the case.

There were also drone attacks on positions held by PMF at the Syrian Iraqi border at Abu Kamal/Al-Qa'im. These were likewise attributed to Israel which allegedly flew the drones from U.S. bases in northeast Syria.

The alleged aim of these operations was to disrupt the land route for material coming from Iran and going to Syria. Several dozens PMF members  were wounded during the incidents.

It was after these attacks that a small campaign of revenge attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq began. These were mostly wild mortar or small missile shots which created little damage. In total some 17 such attacks happened. The U.S. alleged, without giving any evidence, that the missiles used were smuggled in from Iran and used by Iran supported forces against the U.S. No evidence was ever produced to support those allegation.

The PMF/PMU are Iraqi troops and part of the Iraqi military establishment. They are under command of the Iraqi prime minister. The Iraqi state pays their salaries. They have their own munition supplies and do not depend on Iran. It is quite possible that some of the PMU members took shots at U.S. bases in revenge for the explosions in their bases without any order or support from Iran.

On December 12 the Carnegie Middle East Center asked several 'experts' how the U.S. should react to the attacks which it alleges come from Iran.

Michael Knights, a 'senior fellow' at the Washington Institute which is part of the Israel lobby, responded:

As mobile launch platforms may relocate or be collocated with civilians, the United States needs to maintain updated sets of pre-vetted “response option” targets that can be struck at a time and place of its choosing. The United States should wait, if need be, for militia headquarters to re-fill, not just strike empty buildings as quickly as possible. Any target in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, or elsewhere should be considered fair game.

When on December 29 several missiles hit a U.S. base in Iraq and killed one U.S. contractor the Trump administration did exactly that. It bombed five sites at the Iraqi Syrian border hundreds of kilometers away from the original attack. Some 32 people died of which only nine were members of the of the Kata'ib Hezbollah group of the PMF. The others killed were Iraqi border policy men and regular Iraqi soldiers.

We immediately predicted that the incident was likely to end the presence of U.S. military in Iraq.

Weaponization of Pornography?

unz |  For 31 years, the Catholics protected the American people against the weaponization of human sexuality, but in 1965, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholics lost their nerve and the Jews broke the code with their Holocaust porn film The Pawnbroker. Within seven years, hard core pornography—Deep Throat, The Devil and Miss Jones, and Behind the Green Door—was being shown in first-run movie houses. In 2004, Professor Nathan Abrams wrote:

Jewish involvement in porn…is the result of an atavistic hatred of Christian authority: they are trying to weaken the dominant culture in America by moral subversion…Pornography thus becomes a way of defiling Christian culture and, as it penetrates to the very heart of the American mainstream (and is no doubt consumed by those very same WASPs), its subversive character becomes more charged.[4]

Which is one more way of saying that pornography is a weapon which Jews wielded to destroy the Christian culture of the countries which allowed them the rights they granted to their citizens.

In 1978 Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker as head of the Federal Reserve System as a way of placating the creditor class, which felt that inflation had gotten out of control. Volcker’s “cure” for inflation was raising interest rates to unheard of levels. By 1980 T-bills were paying 20 percent interest. In order to lend money at these rates, banks had to persuade legislators to abolish state usury laws. The result was the collapse of America’s manufacturing base, low wages, and the rise of vulture capitalism. The sexual liberation of the ‘70s along with the de-criminalization of usury distracted workers from the fact that their wages had stagnated. As the compound interest which drives usurious loans kicked in and more and more money got concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people, the children of the baby boomers who cheered the sexual liberation of the ‘70s woke up to find themselves enslaved to unrepayable student loan debt and addicted to pornography.

As Andrew Joyce pointed out in the Unz review, “Vulture capitalism is Jewish capitalism.”[5] Vulture capitalists like Paul Singer now control the Republican Party. The rise in vulture capitalism was closely paralleled by the rise of pornography. Both phenomena were Jewish. The enormous amount of money which ended up in the hands of Jewish usurers was used to fund think tanks, non-profit corporations, and NGOs which then promoted sodomy and pornography as a way of distracting men who should have been forming families from their economic misery.

Main Motive Behind Epstein's Sexual Blackmail Operation?

mintpressnews |  Ben-Menashe revealed his understanding of why Epstein was eventually shepherded into acting as a professional sexual blackmailer on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. Per Ben-Menashe, there were concerns among Israeli intelligence figures that, following the Reagan Era, a new president would push for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians, something those officials sought to avoid by any means necessary. 

 

ABM | Here’s the thing… Mr. Carter… as in President Carter… the Israelis feared that Mr. Clinton, when he was campaigning for President, will be a repeat of Mr. Carter. He wanted to press them for peace with the Palestinians and all that stuff. They feared… Clinton wasn’t that… but they feared he was that… And I think Mr. Epstein was sent early on to catch up with President Clinton.

MintPress News (MPN) | Well, that’s interesting because the first year Clinton was in office, Epstein was already attending donor dinners at the White House and making White House visits as well.

ABM | Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. I believe his biggest client was Mr. Clinton catch, or catch, or whatever, and he had a few other congressmen and what not but Clinton was, was his biggest catch.

Thus, Ben-Menashe argues, when Bill Clinton’s candidacy in the 1992 U.S. Presidential election became clear, efforts were made to target him via sexual blackmail and Jeffrey Epstein was chosen for that purpose. Bill Clinton was eventually blackmailed by the state of Israel and his administration was also targeted by Israeli espionage as part of the “Mega” spy scandal. Epstein’s involvement in the Clinton administration and his visits to the White House date back to Clinton’s first year in office. More information on the Epstein-Clinton relationship can be found in this MintPress report.

In addition, MintPress also asked Ben-Menashe if he was aware of Ghislaine Maxwell being directly involved with her father’s intelligence-related activities prior to his death in 1991. Ben-Menashe noted that Ghislaine accompanied her father so frequently, including on a now-infamous 1989 party on Maxwell’s yacht where Donald Trump and several key figures in the PROMIS software scandal were in attendance, that she was involved in his intelligence-related activities to some extent. However, he stopped short of saying how involved she was or what she has specifically been involved in prior to her father’s death.

Julian Assange Needs Ghislaine Maxwell's Dead Man's Switch...,

torontosun |  British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s secrets about the rich and powerful are so explosive, her well-heeled pals are allegedly hiding her in luxurious safe houses.

“(She is being) protected because of the information she has on the world’s most powerful people,” a source told the New York Post.

She has also become the main focus of the FBI’s probe into Epstein’s dark world.

It was Maxwell who allegedly procured young and underage women to have sex with the convicted pedophile and his perverted pals. She has previously denied wrongdoing and has not been charged.

“Ghislaine is protected. She and Jeffrey were assets of sorts for multiple foreign governments. They would trade information about the powerful people caught in his net — caught at Epstein’s house,” the source told the tabloid.

“She is not in the U.S., she moves around. She is sometimes in the U.K., but most often in other countries, such as Israel, where her powerful contacts have provided her with safe houses and protection.”

Which Vindman-Looking Fooktard "Authorized" This?!?!?!

JerusalemPost |  Qasem Soleimani reportedly killed in Baghdad Airport, militia leader blames Israel, US "The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing the mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani," said Iraqi PMF spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi.

IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani was reportedly among those killed in an airstrike inside Baghdad International Airport, along with Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. 

The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces spokesperson claimed that Israel and the US are behind the attack.

Iraq's Security Media Cell announced late Thursday night that three katyusha rockets had targeted Baghdad Airport.

Really .45? REALLY!?!?!?!?

tothepointanalysis |  It was not enough for the Israelis to convince their own Jewish citizens that Zionist racism was righteous self-defense and support of Palestinian rights the equivalent of anti-Semitism. This logical fallacy had to be pushed on Israel’s primary ally, the United States. And, at least in the halls of power, this effort has been remarkably successful, probably because the Zionist lobby has a lot of money to help or hinder ambitious American politicians. 

However, outside of those halls, the effort has been exposed for what it is: a dangerous reversal of categories that threatens to turn the clock back on much of the post-World War II progress in political, civil and human rights. As the growing popularity of the boycott Israel movement (BDS) has shown, American citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have an increasing ability to see the reality of the situation. A survey released in mid June 2017 by an organization known as the Brand Israel Group, “a coalition of volunteer advertising and marketing specialists” who consult for pro-Israel organizations, indicated that “approval of Israel among American college students dropped 27% between the group’s 2010 and 2016 surveys” while “Israel’s approval among all Americans dropped 14 points.” Brand Israel’s conclusion: in the future, the U.S. may “no longer believe that Israel shares their values.” This is the case not because of any big increase in anti-Semitism, but due to ever-growing evidence of Israeli racism.

One reaction to this increasing popular clarity of vision is President Trump’s executive order. If, in this case, colleges and universities do not enforce the Zionist logical fallacy, they lose federal money. 

Part V—Conclusion

Governments do not have a very good reputation for telling their citizens the truth. For instance, just this month it was made known that the U.S. government and military misled the American people about the ability to achieve victory in the Afghan war—a conflict that has been going on for 18 years. The same thing occurred during the Vietnam War. However, it is one thing to withhold information, or downright lie about a situation, and another to urge a population to swallow the category contradictions Trump and the Zionists are peddling. There is something Orwellian about that. It is no mistake that it is the brightest of college students, those who are actually overcoming ignorance and practicing the art of thinking straight, who are most put off by this propagandistic tactic. 

As for those Zionist students who claim that protests against Israeli policy and behavior on their campus make them feel uncomfortable, or even unsafe, they might try to learn something from those feelings. After all, it’s the closest they will ever come to the much more profound feelings of anxiety and danger that Palestinians feel every day, in their own homes, neighborhoods and campuses as well. So which category do all of us want to defend—the category of state-sponsored racism or the category of human, civil and political rights? Just be sure not to confuse one for the other.

Is 2020 The Year Shit Starts Getting Real For You Other 9%'s Here Too?

I find it hard to listen to establishment fake news front Amy Goodman and crew. However, this is recent Arundhati Roy, and thus, I'm making an exception. The real shizzles and bizzles - where Roy breaks it down even for the slow cats who don't pay close attention - can be found here.  Since I don't expect you to pay $5.00 for this lecture, I surely wouldn't, here's a temporary link that should enable you to listen to it for free for the next couple of weeks. Click on the January 1st 2020 9:00am radio broadcast when it goes live at this location in a few minutes. 

Oh, lastly, you're welcome for the KKFI hookup. Of special note (you need to check out these shows) are The Boogie Bridge, Old-G's Hangout, and Lynn's Beautician's Blues. You will thoroughly enjoy each one of these. Yesterday's Beautician's Blues was straight FYRE!!! Don't say I never did you any favors.

Unparalleled Genius For Being Hated and Getting Expelled

politico |  New York Times columnist Bret Stephens ambushed and gravely wounded his own career on the evening of Dec. 27 when his piece about—bear with me here—the alleged superior intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews went live on the Times website.

As Twitter fury rose to smite Stephens for his “The Secrets of Jewish Genius” column and press coverage tilted hard against him, his editors attempted some post-publication damage control. They went back into his column and simply deleted the most provoking passages from his copy, expunged the reference (and link) to a controversial and brutally debunked race-science paper from 2005, and added a note explaining that it was not Stephens’ “intent” to argue that “Jews are genetically superior.”

 The Times disavowal and re-edit (tellingly neither co-signed nor acknowledged by Stephens) was too little and too late—if you’re going to edit a piece, the smart move is to edit before it publishes. More than that, it was clearly wrong about what he was saying. Jewish genetic superiority was the exact direction his woolly argument was headed, something easily deduced from reading the passages excised from the original column. If Stephens and his editors want to insist he was merely misunderstood, they do so at their own peril. As writer Paul Fussell observed long ago, when a writer is as widely “misunderstood” as Stephens claims he was, it’s almost always the writer’s fault.

The Stephens self-mauling did not come as a complete surprise. Just a few months ago, he assumed a vindictive and petty pose by bullying a professor who playfully called him a “bedbug” on Twitter. Other Stephens columns in the Times about global warming and Ilhan Omar had been irritating the paper’s liberal readers (he’s a conservative) since he moved over from the Wall Street Journal in 2017, but by outraging readers across the political spectrum, his “Jewish Genius” piece marked a new personal low.

Yogi Adityanath Genuinely Intends to Cleanse the Muslims

scroll |  In March 2017, the Bharatiya Janata Party decisively won the Uttar Pradesh elections after its leaders openly pitted Muslims against Hindus, with no less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi insinuating that the majority community was not getting a fair deal. “If you create kabristaan [graveyard for Muslims] in a village, then a shamshaan [cremation ground for Hindus] should be created, he declared at one rally.

India’s ruling party had not fielded a single Muslim candidate. The new assembly, dominated by the BJP, had fewer Muslims than any time in its history. This was bad enough – for anyone who believes India’s most populous state cannot afford to politically marginalise one-fifth of its 200 million people.

Then, one evening, the news broke: Adityanath had been chosen by BJP to become the chief minister of the state. 

To say it was a shock would be an understatement.

Here was a firebrand monk whose entire politics revolved around fuelling hostility towards Muslims. A five-time member of Parliament, he had criminal cases against him for leading violence against Muslims. He had brazenly justified this violence on national television. 

One of the first decisions Adityanath took as chief minister was to order raids on slaughter-houses and butcher shops. This was done ostensibly to enforce regulations. But the state could not explain why its concern for health and hygiene was limited to a single industry. Muslims, as the largest producers and consumers of meat in the state, were not fooled: they saw this as an attack on their livelihoods and food habits.

Princess of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)?

caravan |  Outside the venue, around two dozen people had gathered to protest. They were neither irate protestors opposing her domestic policies nor activists angered by her stance on America’s wars. They were people such as Baljit Kumar, a young Dalit refugee residing in nearby Riverside. “She supports the people I ran from in India,” Kumar told me. Claiming that Gabbard’s congressional campaign financing is heavily augmented by American affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh—the parent organisation of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—protestors held bold red, white and blue signs proclaiming her “Prince$$ of the R$$.” Since 2015, a handful of articles in online Western media outlets have speculated about Gabbard’s perceived closeness to the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the BJP.

The mood inside the hall was different. As she concluded her speech, the crowd chanted: “Tulsi! Tulsi!” The emcee, Jimmy Dore—a comedian who hosts a popular YouTube show, and is a Gabbard supporter—opened the floor up for questions. As hands went up all around, he pointed to me. Aware that my prepared question was about to strike a discordant tone, I removed my hat and glasses.

“It is getting serious,” Gabbard joked.

“In your first two terms in office, you met the RSS spokesperson at least three times,” I said. “You spoke at many RSS events, including two in India. When did your collaboration with the RSS begin and how much money have they given you?”

The usually unflappable Gabbard, who speaks with slow deliberation, grimaced. She paused long enough for an audience member to shout, “Speak up.” Finally she responded. “I am a soldier, and I took an oath,” she began. “One oath in my life. That was an oath to serve and protect this country, to put my life on the line for the people of this country.”

She grew more emphatic. “We stand for aloha. We stand for diversity. We stand for peace and bringing people together around these shared ideals of freedom and opportunity for all people.” Gesturing to the audience to stand, she continued, “Thank you everybody for standing with me. It is this kind of attacks that are rooted in religious bigotry that we must stand together and condemn. Whether these attacks are being targeted at Hindus, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or Jews, or atheists, or Catholics, we must stand united and condemn this hate and bigotry because an attack against one of us is an attack against all of us.” Again, the crowd chanted, “Tulsi, Tulsi.”

This is typical of how Gabbard responds to questions about the depth of her relationship with Modi, her association with affiliates of the Sangh Parivar—the family of organisations working with the RSS—or the identity of many of her key donors. Such queries are dismissed as signs of “Hinduphobia.” When an article in The Intercept described her as “a rising progressive star, despite her support for Hindu nationalists,” Gabbard lashed out with an opinion piece for Religion News Service, headlined: “Religious bigotry is un-American.” She said her critics were “trying to foment anti-Hindu sentiment.”

Yet, as they say, the devil is in the details.

Hindutva and Zionism

mondoweiss |  Large-scale protests have been roiling Indian cities since earlier this month, when the country’s parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, CAA. It offers citizenship to any refugees from the neighboring (majority-Muslim) countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who are members of non-Muslim “minority” communities in those countries—but notably not to any Muslims. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had introduced this clearly discriminatory measure as part of a package of anti-Muslim steps he has taken since his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won an increased majority in the Lok Sabha (parliament) last April.

The BJP was founded in 1980 as a party that proudly and explicitly pursues “Hindutva” (Hindu power) in a country that, throughout the 50 years after it won Independence from Britain in 1947, had remained committed to the determinedly non-religious form of civic equality envisaged by the Congress Party and key independence-era leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The Congress Party is now but a shadow of its earlier self. In the April elections, the BJP won 303 of the Lok Sabha’s 543 elected seats.

Democrats and progressives around the world have been united in protesting the BJP’s radically pro-Hindutva (or “saffronizing”) policies. It is instructive, therefore, to note the many parallels between the BJP’s policies and the classic kinds of policies Zionists have pursued both on the ground in Palestine and in the lavish p.r. campaigns they have run worldwide. Modi, it turns out, can teach us all a lot about Zionism. Here, in a nutshell, are Modi’s step-by-step lessons for how to create and defend an exclusivist, ethno/sectarian-nationalist state:

ADOS REALLY Need to Consider Tipping Point Pragmatism...,

asiatimes  |  he Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), often termed “the world’s largest NGO,” is considered the parent organization of the right-wing, Hindu nationalist political party: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The RSS sought to dispel British colonial rule in India, but also to combat Muslim separatists, soon extending their militancy towards Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, and lower-caste communities. During WWII, the RSS drew inspiration from fascist movements in Europe  –  notably admiring Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini for their ideologies on strengthening nationalism through racial purity .

In 1939, RSS ideologue MS Golwalkar wrote: “To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races  –  the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”  Golwalkar was not alone.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, another ideologue who helped shape Hindutva wrote, “If we Hindus in India grow stronger, in time these Muslim friends of the League type will have to play the part of German-Jews instead.”

While references to early far-right European influences are not explicitly found in the RSS’ official “Vision & Mission” today, the statement repeatedly calls for the protection, preservation, and dominance of Hindu culture through the “re-organization” of society. This philosophy, formally known as “Hindutva”, espouses similar ideas as Italy’s Fascist Party (PNF) and Germany’s Nazi Party of instituting ultra-nationalism through forging adherence to a single, pure Hindu society.

An official RSS statement echoes this. The “Sangh is unique in according primacy to the inculcation of patriotism in all citizens and in all life’s activities. […] Erosion of the nation’s integrity in the name of secularism, economic and moral bankruptcy, incessant conversions from the Hindu fold through money-power, ever-increasing trends of secession, thought-patterns and education dissonant with the native character of the people, and State-sponsored denigration of anything that goes by the name of Hindu or Hindutva: these pervasive tendencies provide ample proof of the soundness of the philosophical foundation of the Sangh as conceived by Dr Hedgewar and its continued relevance for the survival and health of the Hindu society and of the nation as a whole.”

Compare this to Adolf Hitler’s visions of the ideal relationship between the State and race, it’s not hard to see an ideological likeness .

“Thus the highest purpose of the folkish State is the care for the preservation of those racial primal elements which, supplying culture, create the beauty and dignity of a higher humanity. We, as Aryans, are therefore able to imagine a State only to be the living organism of a nationality which not only safeguards the preservation of that nationality but which, by a further training of its spiritual and ideal abilities, leads it to the highest freedom,”  Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf in 1925.

India is Ruled by a Nazi Party with its own Sturmabteilung (RSS)

newyorker |  Muslim-Hindu harmony was central to the vision of India’s founders, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid the foundation for a secular state. India is home to all the world’s major religions; Muslims constitute about fourteen per cent of the population. As the British Empire prepared to withdraw, in 1947, Muslims were so fearful of Hindu domination that they clamored for a separate state, which became Pakistan. The division of the subcontinent, known as Partition, inspired the largest migration in history, with tens of millions of Hindus and Muslims crossing the new borders. In the accompanying violence, as many as two million people died. Afterward, both Pakistanis and Indians harbored enduring grievances over the killings and the loss of ancestral land. Kashmir, on the border, became the site of a long-running proxy war.

India’s remaining Muslims protected themselves by forging an alliance with the Congress Party—Gandhi and Nehru’s group, which monopolized national politics for fifty years. But the founders’ vision of the secular state was not universally shared. In 1925, K. B. Hedgewar, a physician from central India, founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an organization dedicated to the idea that India was a Hindu nation, and that Hinduism’s followers were entitled to reign over minorities. Members of the R.S.S. believed that many Muslims were descended from Hindus who had been converted by force, and so their faith was of questionable authenticity. (The same thinking applied to Christians, who make up about two per cent of India’s population. Other major religions, including Buddhism and Sikhism, were considered more authentically Indian.)

Hedgewar was convinced that Hindu men had been emasculated by colonial domination, and he prescribed paramilitary training as an antidote. An admirer of European fascists, he borrowed their predilection for khaki uniforms, and, more important, their conviction that a group of highly disciplined men could transform a nation. He thought that Gandhi and Nehru, who had made efforts to protect the Muslim minority, were dangerous appeasers; the R.S.S. largely sat out the freedom struggle.

In January, 1948, soon after independence, Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a former R.S.S. member and an avowed Hindu nationalist. The R.S.S. was temporarily banned and shunted to the fringes of public life, but the group gradually reëstablished itself. In 1975, amid civic disorder and economic stagnation, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended parliament and imposed emergency rule. The R.S.S. vigorously opposed her and her Congress Party allies. Many of its members were arrested, which helped legitimize the group as it reëntered the political mainstream.

The R.S.S.’s original base was higher-caste men, but, in order to grow, it had to widen its membership. Among the lower-caste recruits was an eight-year-old named Narendra Modi, from Vadnagar, a town in the state of Gujarat. Modi belonged to the low-ranking Ghanchi caste, whose members traditionally sell vegetable oil; Modi’s father ran a small tea shop near the train station, where his young son helped. When Modi was thirteen, his parents arranged for him to marry a local girl, but they cohabited only briefly, and he did not publicly acknowledge the relationship for many years. Modi soon left the marriage entirely and dedicated himself to the R.S.S. As a pracharak—the group’s term for its young, chaste foot soldiers—Modi started by cleaning the living quarters of senior members, but he rose quickly. In 1987, he moved to the R.S.S.’s political branch, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P.

That's a Lot of Ashy Little Rascals with Big Ole Ass-Whooping Sticks!

afp |  As Indian protests against a new citizenship law have intensified, so has police use of "lathis", sturdy sticks used to whack, thwack and quell dissent since British colonial times -- to sometimes deadly effect.

At least 27 people have died in the past two weeks of protests, mostly from bullets, but hundreds more have been injured in clashes between demonstrators and riot police wielding the bamboo canes.

Images shot by AFP and other media of officers hitting people with them, in some cases apparently indiscriminately lashing out at passers-by and even minors, has only fuelled public anger.

One video of a group of Muslim women in New Delhi protecting a cowering male fellow student from a police lathi barrage spread like wildfire on social media in India.

Those who have experienced a blow from a lathi, measuring five or six feet (1.5-1.8 metres) and made of stout bamboo or plastic, say it leaves a numbing sensation that lasts for days.

Multiple strikes can break bones, cripple and even kill.

"From being used as means to regulate crowds, lathi has turned into a lethal weapon," said V. Suresh, the secretary general of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), a non-profit rights group.

"It is... being freely used, so much so that as a country we have become inured to it. Lathi is seen as a normal but it is a horrible weapon," Suresh told AFP.

"Nothing legitimises its brutal use."

- Fear and awe -

Many believe the lathi originated as a martial arts accessory in South Asia. It was also used by feudal landlords against poor peasants, emerging as a symbol of unquestioned power and authority.

All About Overcoming BeeHotches...., EVERYTHING ELSE is Conversation

Tracking Monsters Presumes You Have the Nerve and Means to Do Something About Them

project-syndicate |  We are living in the Dark Ages of inequality statistics. More than a decade after the “Great Recession,” governments are still unable to track accurately the evolution of income and wealth. Statistical agencies produce income-growth statistics for the population as a whole (national accounts), but not for the “middle class,” the “working class,” or the richest 1% and 0.1%. At a time when Google, Facebook, Visa, Mastercard, and other multinational corporations know intimate details about our private lives, governments still do not capture, let alone publish, the most basic statistics concerning the distribution of income and wealth.

This failure has huge costs for society. The perception that inequalities are reaching unjustifiable heights in many countries, combined with a lack of any possible informed choice for voters, is fodder for demagogues and critics of democracy.

Making matters worse, experts in the field of inequality are sometimes depicted as being overly reliant on specific methodological approaches, as illustrated in The Economist’s recent cover story, “Inequality illusions.” But, of course, data in the social sciences are by their very nature open to challenge, which makes methodological debates largely unavoidable. The question is where to draw the line between legitimate academic disagreement about inequality levels and trends and outright inequality denialism.

Whether or not inequality is acceptable – and whether or not something should be done about it – is a matter of collective choice. To help inform the debate, more than 100 researchers from around the world have joined forces to develop innovative methods for compiling inequality statistics through the World Inequality Database, which now covers more than 100 countries. The WID includes the widest possible array of available data sources, from household surveys, tax-administration data, national accounts, and wealth rankings published in the media, to the “Panama Papers,” through which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists exposed stockpiles of wealth stashed in various tax havens.

Monsters Cause Wars and Go to Exhausting Lengths to Cover-Up Their Crimes

speigel |  On Nov. 23, DER SPIEGEL reported on the background of the so-called Magnitsky sanctions (the English report was published on Nov. 26). The sanctions, applied by the U.S. and others to Russian officials, are largely based on depictions provided by the former investor Bill Browder and are related to the fate of his employee Sergei Magnitsky.

Magnitsky died in 2009 in a Moscow prison under circumstances that haven't been completely clarified. Browder claims that Magnitsky was murdered because he had uncovered a tax scandal. The report from DER SPIEGEL describes the inconsistencies in Browder's version of events and demonstrates that he is unable to present sufficient proof for his claims.

Browder has now gone public with his complaints about the DER SPIEGEL story in the form of a letter to the newsmagazine's editor-in-chief in addition to a complaint filed with the German Press Council. In his letter, he accuses DER SPIEGEL of having misrepresented the facts.

We believe his complaint has no basis and would like to review why we have considerable doubts about Browder's story and why we felt it necessary to present those doubts publicly. The English text of the original story can be found here, and the paywall has been removed from the German version, which can be read here. In addition, you will find links below to some of the sources that we relied on in our reporting.

Peasants Tolerate the Hot Breath of Monsters on the Backs of Their Necks...,

Kunstler |  What is most perilous for our country now, would be to journey through a second epic crisis of authority in recent times without anybody facing the consequences of crimes they might have committed. The result will be a people turned utterly cynical, with no faith in their institutions or the rule of law, and no way to imagine a restoration of their lost faith within the bounds of law. It will be a deadly divorce between truth and reality. It will be an invitation to civil violence, a broken social contract, and the end of the framework for American life that was set up in 1788.

The first crisis of the era was the Great Financial Crash of 2008 based on widespread malfeasance in the banking world, an unprecedented suspension of rules, norms, and laws. GFC poster-boy Angelo Mozilo, CEO and chairman of Countrywide Financial, a sub-prime mortgage racketeering outfit, sucked at least half a billion dollars out of his operation before it blew up, and finally was nicked for $67 million in fines by the SEC — partly paid by Countrywide’s indemnity insurer — with criminal charges of securities fraud eventually dropped in the janky “settlement.” In other words, the cost of doing business. Scores of other fraudsters and swindlers in that orgy of banking malfeasance were never marched into a courtroom, never had to answer for their depredations, and remained at their desks in the C-suites collecting extravagant bonuses. The problems they caused were papered over with trillions of dollars that all of us are still on-the-hook for. And, contrary to appearances, the banking system never actually recovered. It is permanently demoralized.

How it was that Barack Obama came on-duty in January of 2009 and got away with doing absolutely nothing about all that for eight years remains one of the abiding mysteries of life on earth. Perhaps getting the first black president into the White House was such an intoxicating triumph of righteousness that nothing else seemed to matter anymore. Perhaps Mr. Obama was just a cat’s paw for banksterdom. (Sure kinda seems like it, when your first two hires are Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.) The failure to assign penalties for massive bad behavior has set up the nation for another financial fiasco, surely of greater magnitude than the blow-up of 2008, considering the current debt landscape. Not a few astute observers say they feel the hot breath of that monster on the back of their necks lately, with all the strange action in the RePo market — $500 billion “liquidity” injections in six weeks.

Remove Fairness from Society and You Create the Conditions for Revolt

nakedcapitalism |  This site regularly discusses the rise of neoliberalism and its consequences, such as rising inequality and lower labor bargaining rights. But it’s also important to understand that these changes were not organic but were the result of a well-financed campaign to change the values of judges and society at large to be more business-friendly. But the sacrifice of fair dealing as a bedrock business and social principle has had large costs. 

We’ve pointed out how lower trust has increased contracting costs: things that use to be done on a handshake or a simple letter agreement are now elaborately papered up. The fact that job candidates will now engage in ghosting, simply stopping to communicate with a recruiter rather than giving a ritually minimalistic sign off, is a testament to how impersonal hiring is now perceived to be, as well as often-abused workers engaging in some power tit for tat when they can. 

But on a higher level, the idea of fair play was about self-regulation of conduct. Most people want to see themselves as morally upright, even if some have to go through awfully complicated rationalizations to believe that. But when most individuals lived in fairly stable social and business communities, they had reason to be concerned that bad conduct might catch up with them. It even happens to a small degree now. Greg Lippmann, patient zero of toxic CDOs at Deutsche Bank, was unable to get his kids into fancy Manhattan private schools because his reputation preceded him. But the case examples for decades have gone overwhelmingly the other way. My belief is that a watershed event was the ability of Wall Street renegade, and later convicted felon Mike Milken, to rehabilitate himself spoke volumes as to the new normal of money trumping propriety. 

Another aspect of the decline in the importance of fair dealing is the notion of the obligations of power, that individuals in a position of authority have a duty to those in their sway. 

The abandonment of lofty-sounding principles like being fair has other costs. We’ve written about the concept of obliquity, how in complex systems, it’s not possible to chart a simple path though them because it’s impossible to understand it well enough to begin to do so. John Kay, who has made a study of the issue and eventually wrote a book about it, pointed out as an illustration that studies of similarly-sized companies in the same industry showed that ones that adopted nobler objectives did better in financial terms than ones that focused on maximizing shareholder value.