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Sunday, March 17, 2019

Repression Justified

Criminally Knowledgeable,

You may be sentenced to 14 years in prison in New Zealand for sharing the video of the mosque attack, made by the shooter. You can be imprisoned for 10 years for "possessing" it in any way. In England, a young man has been arrested for speaking favorably (we presume) of it on social media.
This is a big jump in the level of punishment to enforce censorship. These things tend to get used more and more liberally as ruling regimes lose their grip on power.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-16/nz-threatens-10-years-prison-possessing-mosque-shooting-video-web-hosts-warned

NZ police want all information on any internet user who makes any comment about the Christchurch mosque shooting. 
They "ask" website hosts to "save it for them".
Responding to the preservation request, Kiwi Farms owner Joshua Moon - a US citizen living abroad, asked "Is this a joke? I'm not turning over information about my users. The person responsible for posting the video and manifesto PDF is myself."
Tell your superiors they're going to make the entire country and its government look like clowns by trying to censor the Internet. You're a small, irrelevant island nation barely more recognizable than any other nameless pacific sovereignty. You do not have the clout to eradicate a video from the Internet and you do not have the legal reach to imprison everyone whose posted it. If anyone turns over to you the information they're asking for they're not only cowards, but they're fucking idiots.

W​hat is the next phase for humanity? Thanks Charles.
​Transitions are social transformation processes that cover at least one generation. In this article I will use one such transition to demonstrate that humanity is at a crossroads: up to a third world war or will humanity create new heaven on earth.
When we consider the characteristics of the phases of a social transformation we may find ourselves at the end of what might be called the third industrial revolution. Transitions are social transformation processes that cover at least one generation (= 25 years). 
A transition has the following characteristics:
​-​It involves a structural change of civilization or a complex subsystem of our civilization
​-I​t shows technological, economical, ecological, socio cultural and institutional changes at different levels that influence and enhance each other
​-I​t is the result of slow changes (changes in supplies) and fast dynamics (flows) ..
Transitions are initiated by inventions and discoveries, new knowledge of mankind. New knowledge influences the other four components in a society. At the moment there are few new inventions or discoveries. So the chance of a new industrial revolution is not very high...
The five pillars for a stable society: Food, Security, Health, Prosperity, Knowledge.
At the end of every transition the pillar Prosperity is threatened. We have seen this effect after every industrial revolution.
The pillar Prosperity of a society is about to fall again. History has shown that the fall of the pillar Prosperity always results in a revolution. 
Because of the high level of unemployment after the second industrial revolution many societies initiated a new transition, the creation of a war economy. This type of economy flourished especially in the period 1940 – 1945.
​(​I​ vote for One Straw Revolution​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HveaqQy9hUc )

"As the U.S. and the EU struggle to iron out their differences on trade, Trump said, “they are willing to talk to us and if they don’t talk to us, we’re going to do something that’s going to be pretty severe economically. We’re going to tariff a lot of their products.”  ...
Trump wants a trade deal that includes agriculture. The EU says no.
Trump wants Germany to increase military spending, Germany has plans to cut military spending according to Eurointelligence. I do not know if Trump is aware of this yet. Discussion below.
Trump wants Germany to scrap Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline between Russia and the EU underneath the Baltic Sea. The EU sided with Germany.
Trump wants the EU to buy US Liquid Natural Gas, but the EU instead will buy from Russia because its cheaper. This is part of the Nord Stream 2 issue.
Trump wants the EU to abide by his sanctions on Iran. Instead, the EU created a mechanism in which European suppliers can trade with Iran in euros rather than dollars as a means to get around US sanctions. The mechanism is little used, if at all, but the idea infuriates Trump.
EU tariffs on US cars are higher than US tariffs on EU cars. US tariffs on EU SUVs and Trucks are way higher than EU tariffs on US trucks and SUVs but that doesn't matter.
Trump does not want Germany to use 5G technology from China's Huawei. Germany said it will go ahead. It is almost forced to. The reason is Germany is far behind the US. Its 4G technology is made by Huawei. My understanding is that there is compatibility between 4G and 5G if the vendor is the same. Thus, Trump's demand could set back Germany a couple of years.​..
One of the reasons Trump is anxious to close a deal with China is so he can blast the EU with a massive dose of Tariffs. I do not think he wants two simultaneous trade wars.

Next week’s visit to Italy by Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has nearly everyone jittery. The recent announcement by Five Star Movement Leader Luigi Di Maio that his country is prepared to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China to be a part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative has set off a firestorm of response from Donald Trump to Angela Merkel to Di Maio’s own coalition partner, Lega leader Matteo Salvini...
This is a strong statement of independence by Italy as they join Hungary, Poland, Greece and Portugal, who all have MOU’s with China. And it’s not like Hungary and Poland are high on Merkel’s Christmas card list. Both are dealing with Article 7 proceedings to strip them of their EU voting rights.  

France has ended two months of citizen debates in which Yellow Vest supporters were invited to air their grievances. Parisians who spoke with RT said the meetings were a stunt used by Emmanuel Macron and won’t lead to real change.
“It would surprise me if he takes any measures, but I don’t expect anything,” one Yellow Vest supporter told RT.
“Macron has a habit of just talking, but with no results in the end,” another activist said. “In my opinion, nothing will come of it.”

Paris Luxury Stores Looted, Burned In "Yellow Vest" Riots​  [The Mainstream media take invites harsh state repression]
President Emmanuel Macron cut short a skiing trip in the Pyrenees to return to Paris for a crisis meeting, as hooded protesters went on the rampage in Paris, leaving a trail of destruction in the touristic heart of the city.
The police appeared overrun as protesters swarmed the Champs-Elysees, vandalising and later setting fire to Fouquet's brasserie, a favourite hangout of the rich and famous for the past century -- as well as luxury handbag store Longchamp, a bank, another restaurant and several news stands.

​RT has some good video footage and an injured team member in Paris, not injured by Yellow Vests.​ 
There was a lot of Black Block (usually Agents Provocateur) presence. Balaclavas and French flags identify "bad people".
Saturday’s rally saw thousands of people flooding the streets of downtown Paris, with many wearing black balaclavas and holding French flags.   

G​ardening While Rome Burns


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Saturday, March 16, 2019

Words Of War

Speaking Freely​

This week the Senate voted to cease and desist US military cooperation with allies Saudi Arabia and UAE in waging the war in Yemen, which according to the United Nations has created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent history. The Wednesday vote was was 54 to 46, including seven Republicans voting with the Democrats.
The “war powers” legislation has been widely seen as a direct rebuke of Trump's foreign policy amid broader pushback over his defense of Saudi Arabia in the wake of last year's Jamal Khashoggi killing at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. The invocation of the War Powers Act of 1973 expressly prohibits US military action not previously approved by Congress.
A House vote is expected soon, which would require President Trump to immediately withdraw American military support from the Saudi-led coalition. Trump said in December he would veto the Senate resolution if it ever reached his desk, which now appears likely.
Meanwhile Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday heaped criticism on Congress for seeking to end Washington support for military efforts in Yemen, saying that if US lawmakers "truly care about Yemeni lives", they would back Riyadh.
Speaking in response to the Senate resolution, Pompeo said further: 
We all want this conflict to end. We all want to improve the dire humanitarian situation. But the Trump administration fundamentally disagrees that curbing our assistance to the Saudi-led coalition is the way to achieve these goals.
Predictably, Pompeo framed US involvement in Yemen in terms of preventing Iranian expansion in the broader Middle East. 
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-15/pompeo-tells-senators-they-dont-truly-care-about-yemeni-lives

Colbert Smears Tulsi Gabbard To Her Face While Telling Zero Jokes​, sister Caitlin in Oz, 
Tulsi is running for President, against "our" humanitarian wars that create Hell.​ 
She's a big problem...

In order to appease the internet censors, today’s Caitlin Johnstone article has been replaced with a breaking report from the National News Conglomerate. NNC: Obey.
Washington, D.C. (NNC) — Following the publication of the results of a groundbreaking new study this week, experts are now reporting that every single person who questions western military interventionism is both an antisemitic bigot and a Russian national.​..
“Take Tulsi Gabbard, a longtime critic of US interventionism,” Overton said while explaining how ASPCD reached its conclusions. “Her affection for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is well-documented, and Assad, being an ally of Putin, is effectively Russian. This makes Tulsi Gabbard a Russian by proxy, which probably explains why Putin loves her so much.”

The US State Department announced on Friday that it would be joining the European Union and Canada to impose new sanctions against Russia in response to the Kremlin's "continued aggression in Ukraine."   

In the latest bizarre story to come out of the US "endless war" in Afghanistan, American warplanes obliterated an allied Afghan military post in an act of "self defense" on Wednesday.
The incident took place in the tribal Uruzgan province of south-central Afghanistan and reportedly began when a joint convoy of US troops and Afghan Special Forces came under fire by another unit of Afghan ground troops in what appears a major instance of accidental friendly fire resulting in a devastating two dozen total casualties on the Afghan side.

DARPA is so concerned about the possibility of a cyberattack taking down our power grid that they held an extended exercise recreating such a scenario late last year.  And even though scientists tell us that it is inevitable that a “solar tsunami” will absolutely devastate our power grid at some point, our leaders on the federal level refuse to spend the money that it would take to protect our basic electrical infrastructure.  In addition, Russia, China, North Korea and others have developed extremely advanced EMP weapons, and we have absolutely no protection against them.  One way or another, an extended blackout will eventually happen in the United States, and so we should try to learn some lessons from what is going on in Venezuela right now.  
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/cyberattacks-solar-storms-and-emp-weapons-the-u-s-power-grid-is-extremely-vulnerable-and-an-extended-blackout-is-inevitable

Venezuela's large-scale military exercises are set to begin this weekend in order to secure the national electric power grids and water supply systems.
"This coming weekend, the military drills dubbed Ana Karina Rote are being resumed at their second stage," Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said Wednesday as reported by Sputnik International.
The move came amid reported sabotage at the country's major Guri hydroelectric power plant. Earlier this week, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro stated that two people were detained on suspicion of attempted wrecking of the country's power system. Maduro earlier accused the U.S. of the attack, saying that it was committed by using "high-tech" weapons that "only the U.S. government has in the world."
Power has been "100-percent" restored across Venezuela, the government announced late Wednesday, while supplies of running water had been 80 percent restored.

​Who put oil in the drinking water? How?
While the power outage in the country which holds the world’s largest oil reserves has shut down oil production and processing operations as well as the main oil export terminal, the blackout has caused massive shortages of running water.
Residents in the town of San Diego in the Carabobo state woke up to see black stuff running from their taps on Wednesday in what appeared to be water contaminated with crude oil.
​https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Venezuelas-Latest-Nightmare-Crude-Oil-In-The-Tap-Water.html

Moon of Alabama
The CIA is the main suspect in the military style raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid. It now launched a somewhat hapless effort to deflect from it. The Spanish report in which Spanish government sources accuse the CIA said:
At least two of the 10 assailants who broke into the embassy and interrogated diplomatic staff have been identified and have connections to the US intelligence agency. The CIA has denied any involvement but government sources say their response was “unconvincing.”
That the CIA is the main suspect in the assault was reported on Wednesday in the Spanish mainstream paper El Pais. The paper made the extra effort to publish an abbreviated English language version. It was widely picked up by other international outlets. Some of the assailants were Asian and spoke Korean language. They were probably from the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), a subsidiary of the CIA know for its extremely hawkish politics. It often rigs elections in South Korea in support of hawkish conservatives candidates.
Attacking a foreign embassy in a third country is far out of bounce of international law and diplomatic decency. After the El Pais report something had to be done to direct the attention away from the CIA and to find some other culprit.
A story was thought up and pushed to the favorite CIA outlet, the Washington Post. It wasn't the CIA which did it, writes the Post's national security reporter, it was a CIA controlled 'regime change' organization.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/cia-blames-its-proxy-for-its-raid-on-north-koreas-embassy-in-spain.html#more

​Hurricane forecasting was ok in the 1970s, right?​ 5G wireless has to go forward. It's our future...
The FCC, which want to proceed with a 5G auction, is at odds with the commerce department, the defense department, and NASA.
The dispute regards wavelength frequencies currently used by public and private weather satellites, weather balloons, and ocean buoys to predict the weather.
NASA and the Commerce department have serious concerns.
Please consider Critical weather data threatened by FCC ‘spectrum’ proposal, Commerce Dept. and NASA say.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine urged the FCC to remove a policy paper [bandwidth] proposal that “would have a significant negative impact on the transmission of critical Earth science data supporting public safety, natural disaster and weather forecasting."

​Will 5G be the new cigarettes?​ Do you remember how cigarette smoke used to be everywhere? Why don't we hear more about this cancer research?
In northern California, parents are fighting like mad to have a cell phone tower removed after a fourth child at a single elementary school was diagnosed with cancer…  

​EU (unelected) President​ Donald Tusk advises EU 27 to be favorable to a nice long Brexit delay, while the Brits think things over again...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/14/donald-tusk-to-encourage-eu27-to-be-open-to-long-brexit-delay

​Today is supposed to be a big Saturday for the Yellow Vests:
The fundamental problem with media coverage regarding regarding the Yellow Vests is that it fails to see it as an already-permanent movement, or even a possibly-permanent one: each week must be either the biggest one yet, or the very last one...
The Yellow Vests are like the Vietcong: it’s not that they are so innately tough, it’s that they have nowhere else to go. Ask a protesting Yellow Vester and they’ll tell you: they have no money to pay their bills, much less do anything fun on the weekends… so why not go protest and enjoy what you can’t buy – camaraderie? ...
Other polls show that while a majority wants the marches to stop, a majority still supports the Yellow Vests – these are two different things, and the latter is more significant in the long (and short!) term...
 It’s long, hard work, and it’s in the cold. (The fact that France has a winter protest movement is truly unprecedented, and should have immediately put our gauges into the red.)  ...
Yellow Vests absolutely do not care what anyone thinks, except their fellow Yellow Vests, and so they are not going to quit the field just because polls show a majority wants them to stay home. “These polls are all politically manipulated,” a Vester told me...
 March 16 is indeed an “Ultimatum” because it has been expressly designed to give the Yellow Vests’ verdict on Macron’s two-month “National Debate”, which was the biggest and most attention-getting concession he made to the movement.
The National Debate, LOL.… Fidel Castro-sized speeches from Macron, minus a Fidel Castro-sized heart for his nation and for international solidarity...
Macron has gone back to business-as-usual – being Mack the Knife: He announced that he will rewrite the unemployment system by himself, ending 30+ years of collaborative efforts between unions and bosses...
Yes, the Vesters have caused a four-month stop in the onslaught of “reforms”, but Macron’s return to his usual modus operandi means that we will soon be talking about unions during the week, Yellow Vests on the weekend.

​Volunteer​
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Thursday, March 14, 2019

One More Step

Cliff Standing,

Moon of Alabama asks:
Did John Bolton, President Trump's national security advisor, order an assault on the North Korean embassy in Spain to get an advantage in the nuclear talks?
On February 22 the embassy of the DPRK in Madrid was raided by a gang of thugs:
A group of men entered North Korea's embassy in Madrid, bound and gagged staff, before driving off with stolen mobile phones and computers, Spanish media has reported.
...Spanish police are investigating after El Confidencial reported a woman escaped the embassy last Friday screaming in Korean, prompting residents nearby to call police.
After she reportedly revealed staff were tied up and gagged, officers knocked on the door to investigate, but were met by a man who told them everything was fine.
Soon after, two cars left the compound at high speed, one of them carrying the man who had answered the door. Police did not enter the building, but staff walked out soon after the incident.e might be missing.
...Kim Hyok Chol was ambassador to Spain until September 2017, when the Spanish government expelled him and another diplomat following Pyongyang's round of nuclear tests and missile launches over neighbouring Japan.
The name Kim Hyok Chol sounds familiar. He recently was in the news when he led the North Korean delegation in the nuclear talks​...

​How many dollars of medical repair does it take to fix one dollar of knife-in-the-back? How much has been secretly spent already?
​At his Monday press conference, Mike Pompeo said “we’ve asked (Congress to appropriate) up to $500 million…to restore the economy of the Venezuelan nation (sic) (and) help Juan Guaido.”
He failed to explain the ongoing Trump regime coup plot, nor that it’s all about replacing Bolivarian social democracy with US-controlled tyranny – DLT and hardliners surrounding him wanting control over Venezuelan oil, gas, gold, and other valued resources.
It’s what the scourge of imperialism is all about, Guaido an illegitimate US designated puppet, usurper in waiting, traitor to Venezuela and its people, belonging in prison longterm for his highest of high political crimes.
What the Trump regime calls “democratic transition” in the Bolivarian Republic and other targeted countries is all about gaining imperial trophies – intolerant of democracy everywhere, notably at home.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-regime-wants-500-million-intervention-venezuela/5671281

​Charles Hugh Smith:
How States/Empires Collapse in Four Easy Steps
The promises cannot be met, and so society decays into warring elites and competing constituencies.
There is a grand, majestic tragedy in the inevitable collapse of once-thriving states and empires: it all seemed so permanent at its peak, so godlike in its power, and then slowly but surely, too many grandiose, unrealistic promises were made to too many elites and constituencies, and then as growth decays to stagnation, the only way to maintain the status quo is to appear to meet all the promises by creating money out of thin air, i.e. debauching the currency.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar19/empires-collapse3-19.html

​The British Parliament is poised to vote on whether it will accept No-Deal Brexit as an option 15 days from now.​
EU on no-deal Brexit motion: 'like Titanic voting for iceberg to move'
European commission makes clear no deal remains on table unless agreement is reached

​"Zugwang" is a German word for a situation in chess play, where to make the only possible move, assures defeat on the move after that. (Always the plan?)
​Well there is a way out of ‘Zugzwang Brexit’ – but it is the political equivalent of forfeiting the game.
The UK could revoke Article 50 and simply accept that the country has failed to reach political accord. May has twice failed to get her deal through the House of Commons and it seems likely that any further version, negotiated by any of her successors would meet a similar fate.
By revoking the mechanism by which a member state leaves the EU – dignity and sanity could momentarily be restored and the country could dampen the fuse of the ticking time bomb which Theresa May so recklessly and foolishly lit. 
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/13/brexit-zugzwang-how-the-uk-can-escape-the-fierce-checkmate-stalemate-of-now/

​Can't have THAT!
​While a disorderly Brexit would hurt the EU, several top European officials warned that no delay would be granted unless Britain comes up with a clear and substantial plan, which it would try to achieve if given more time. But European bureaucrats may have more reasons not to tolerate Britain dragging its feet, MEP from Scotland David Coburn told RT.
If we end up staying beyond a certain period, we have to take part in the European elections. Then what you are going to see is 73 Nigel Farages returned to the European Parliament. It would make the government of the EU impossible. They would probably want to throw us out, I should think.
https://www.rt.com/uk/453785-brexit-european-parliament-election/

A simple but important study by Luciano Celi shows what is the real energy return that oil companies manage to attain. Much smaller than you would have believed, in several cases it is today well below 10. Which means that renewable energies already produce a larger EROI than oil and gas. No more excuses for not switching to renewables as fast as possible! And we have to do it fast because, as Celi shows, we are on the edge of the Net Energy Cliff of fossil fuels...
 The industrial society experiences Net Energy, not EROI (energy return on energy invested), decline. As shown in the graph above, there is a strong non-linear relation between Net Energy and EROI. For a long range of EROI values, say from 100 to 10, the Net Energy is declining very slowly. Presently although the EROI decline is quite clear the Net Energy is still well above 90%. The society feels pretty safe. The problem is that we are walking along a cliff and it is increasingly urgent to make an energy transition, before finally ending up in the abyss.

​(The US military uses the most.)
Resource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions
Extraction also causes 80% of biodiversity loss, according to comprehensive UN study

Coca-Cola has revealed for the first time it produces 3m tonnes of plastic packaging a year – equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute – as a report calls on other global companies to end the secrecy over their plastic footprint.  

​First, review scientific data supplied by Bayer/Monsanto about whether this is carcinogenic enough to do it. 
If not, then no need to look at whether they are criminals producing said data.​ 
"Unpoisoning" a thoroughly poisoned well?
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A trial in which a California man alleged his use of Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused his cancer went to a federal U.S. jury after lawyers for both sides delivered their closing arguments on Tuesday...
Hardeman’s case has proceeded differently from the earlier trial, with an initial phase exclusively focused on scientific facts while omitting evidence of alleged corporate misconduct by company representatives.
Following the first phase, the six jurors in San Francisco federal court were asked by U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria to decide whether Roundup was a “substantial factor” in causing Hardeman’s cancer.

​Undefined​
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Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Losing War Games



Blue Team,

US forces repeatedly lose WW-3 war games, just can't win WW-3 war games against Russia and China. 
So spend more?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-09/us-gets-its-ass-handed-it-world-war-iii-simulation-rand

The U.S. National Security Council issued a direct warning to Italy last weekend for its coziness with China. The country has been considering participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), where one segment of the global economic effort aims to unite Europe with China.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte believes otherwise. Conte has overruled the foreign ministry and joined right-wing Eurosceptics in his push for closer cooperation with China.“With all the necessary precautions, Italy’s accession to a new silk route represents an opportunity for our country,” Conte said Friday.
President Xi Jinping is expected to travel to Italy from March 22-24, and Conte said Rome and Beijing are expected to agree to a framework deal during the state visit. Conte also announced his plan to attend an upcoming BRI summit in China.
The Italian leader’s plan to attend a BRI summit in Beijing next month has caused panic in Brussels and Washington, as Italy is on course to become the first G7 country to gravitate to China’s trade initiative that US and EU officials have intensely criticized.  
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-12/us-issues-warning-about-italy-being-made-great-again-through-chinas-bri

Pepe Escobar says Chinese love Italy and nice Italian stuff.
Geraci states the obvious; the BRI link will allow more of Made in Italy to be exported to China. As someone who lives between Europe and Asia, and always discusses BRI while in Italy, I see that all the time. The appeal of Made in Italy for the Chinese consumer – food, fashion, art, interior design, not to mention all those Ferraris and Lamborghinis – is unrivaled, even by France. Chinese tourists just can’t get enough of Venice, Florence, Rome – and shopping in Milan.  
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/03/article/marco-polo-is-back-in-china-again/

Detailed report from Chinese perspective.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3001150/italian-pm-giuseppe-conte-ignores-us-warnings-and-pushes

Theresa the Traitor?
Cast your mind back to summer last year. The Cabinet gathered at the Prime Minister’s country retreat of Chequers, on the sylvan Chiltern downs. There was very important business: Theresa May, flanked by senior civil servant Olly Robbins, presented the draft agreement for Britain’s departure from the EU...
 For Leavers in the Cabinet, it was a shocker.  Scarcely anything appropriate for a renewed sovereign nation could be found in this document, which seemed an abject surrender to Messrs Barnier and Juncker. For Brexit voters, it was hard to believe that their government would consider such punitive clauses; their faith in Theresa May, until then buoyant, was shattered. And this document, we were told, was only the initial negotiating stance – it could get worse...
It was widely reported that Theresa May paid a visit to Angela Merkel in Berlin shortly before the Chequers meeting. What did they discuss?  We weren’t told at the time...
According to a confidential source who has seen a complete transcript of the meeting, the two leaders agreed to a plan that Mrs May allegedly told the Chancellor would “appease” Brexit voters while nonetheless enabling her to get rid of those Tories who were (in her words) “against progress and unity in the EU.” According to the transcript, Mrs May is also reported to have agreed “to keep as many EU laws and institutions in effect as she could despite the current groundswell of anti-EU hysteria in Britain” (again, apparently her words). It is claimed that both leaders agreed that the only realistic future for the UK was as a member of the EU, and that in the likely course of events Britain would re-join the EU in full at some time after the next general election.
The transcript also indicated that the Withdrawal Agreement was essentially a German production, with the original draft completed in May 2018 in Berlin. It was then sent to the Cabinet Office marked “Secret”. After much to-ing and fro-ing in the subsequent few weeks, including several telephone calls between Mrs May and the Chancellor the final draft was completed late in June, with the Chancellor telling Mrs May that she was happy with it. However, a few more small concessions by the UK would be needed later on, just to keep the EU happy.
https://www.politicalite.com/brexit/brexit-bombshell-a-german-brexit-a-scandal-of-subversive-statecraft/

Tom Luongo:
The Brits voted to leave the EU because of this. Euroskeptic parties are rising across Europe. The latest rebuke of the EU came in Austria’s Salzburg, a traditional center-left stronghold just voted for a Lega-style nationalist/populist majority.
Now people like Theresa May, who never supported Brexit, are using this negotiating period to hand to the EU everything it wants in the Withdrawal Agreement to blackmail the British people to accept an even worse arrangement than had they not voted to leave in the first place.
This point cannot be understated.
Because it is the model for how the EU will fight the rising opposition to its rule.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-12/blackmail-balderdash-brexit-wasnt

Parliament really has to vote that it is OK with no-deal-Brexit, or Britain will have conditions forced upon it. That was never the intent of voters.
Donald Tusk has warned after the second big defeat of Theresa May’s deal​ ​that he expects a credible reason for any delay to Brexit.
Moments after the prime minister announced that the House of Commons would vote on an extension to the article 50 negotiating period beyond 29 March, the European council president issued an EU red line.
“Should there be a UK reasoned request for an extension, the EU27 will consider it and decide by unanimity,” a spokesman for Tusk said. “The EU27 will expect a credible justification for a possible extension and its duration. The smooth functioning of the EU institutions will need to be ensured.”​...
​After losing by 149 votes, the fourth largest defeat ever on a government motion, May nevertheless told the Commons she would allow a free vote in her party on an article 50 extension. She said such an extension would be short, and that it risked a new cliff-edge in June, suggesting the British government is looking at a three-month delay.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/12/credible-justification-needed-to-delay-brexit-says-donald-tusk

George Galloway predicts...
What happens next in the short term is easy to predict. A "No deal" Brexit will be rejected Wednesday evening but only thanks to opposition votes. She released her own MPs from party discipline by announcing a "free-vote" because she could not countenance at least half of her own side voting for No Deal (not least because they were all elected on precisely that platform). But the government's own members – the so-called "payroll vote" of a hundred plus, together with almost all of the opposition members will comfortably (for now) bury the "zero-option" of No-Deal.
The next night the House will vote again comfortably in favour of seeking an extension of Article 50 thereby abandoning the pledge repeated like a mantra so often that Britain would leave the EU on March 29th. Assuming the EU agrees Britain then sails not just into uncharted waters but an uncharted raging torrent of bitterness, confusion, currency tumult, uncertainty and certain political change.​..​
I have said all along that no negotiator in any form of life, the law, trade unions, a troubled marriage EVER goes into a negotiation telling the other side that whether the other side makes concessions or not that they will NOT walk away under any circumstances. That's what Mrs May has been doing with the EU right from the start. Because her heart was never in it.  
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/453677-may-brexit-defeat-deal/

Hey, LOOK, Mexico has a Good President! ("Me canso ganso")
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s first 100 days in office have combined a compulsive shedding of presidential trappings with a dizzying array of policy initiatives, and a series of missteps haven’t even dented his soaring approval ratings.
Lopez Obrador has answered more questions from the press, flown in more economy-class flights, posed for more selfies with admiring citizens and visited more genuinely risky areas with little or no security than several combined decades of his predecessors. He’s also surprised many by maintaining a cordial relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, helping contain Central American migrant caravans while resisting U.S. efforts to oust the leftist government of Venezuela.
https://apnews.com/e94737e30a5a49589fa9b5159070fdbf

Venezuela is getting electricity back to places little by little.
President Nicolas Maduro gave a televised address on Tuesday evening, offering more details about the alleged attack against the country’s electrical infrastructure. According to Maduro, both the computerized system in the Guri Dam, on Thursday afternoon, and the central electrical “brain” in Caracas, on Saturday morning, suffered cyber attacks, while recovery was delayed by physical attacks against transmission lines and electrical substations.​..
  Self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido has blamed the electricity crisis on government mismanagement and corruption, dismissing the government’s cyber attack thesis on the grounds that the system is analog, and attributing the national outage to a lack of qualified personnel needed to reactivate the grid. However, these claims have been called into questionby people with knowledge of the system.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14377

China says it is ready to help Venezuela to restore its power grid. The South American country suffered a five-day blackout, with Caracas accusing Washington of cyber “sabotage.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Beijing had noted reports that the power grid had gone down due to a hacking attack.
“China is deeply concerned about this,” Lu said, adding that Beijing “hopes that the Venezuelan side can discover the reason for this issue as soon as possible and resume normal power supply and social order.
https://www.rt.com/business/453697-china-venezuela-electricity-help/

She has advanced Media Gladiator Skills already. Where will she go in the power structure? Where will the power structure go?
On the issue of Wells Fargo's relationship with the private prison industry and the Trump administration's child detention policy, Ocasio-Cortez asked sharply: "Mr. Sloan, why was the bank involved in the caging of children?"    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/12/watch-ocasio-cortez-grills-wells-fargo-ceo-over-profiting-caging-children-and


Facebook bans links to Zero Hedge. So Facebook wins?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-11/facebook-bans-zero-hedge
https://www.rt.com/news/453593-zero-hedge-facebook-complaints/

Elizabeth Warren ads are also banned from Facebook. Weird...
It seems that Senator Warren said Facebook had become too powerful and was abusing that power. 
Update: Politico's Cristiano Lima reports that Facebook will restore the ads "in the interest of allowing robust debate."  .
Nice that Facebook has decided to "allow" the Senator to criticize their abuse of censorship power...
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-11/elizabeth-warren-ads-banned-facebook

It looks like Zero Hedge won after a few days; "friends in high-enough places..."
While we were in the dark about what had triggered Facebook, or what was the company's motive, we were humbled and delighted not only with the media coverage this event received, but far more so with the outpouring of support we received from readers and across social media, where Zero Hedge had not been yet banned, like Twitter, where figures from various industries and across the political spectrum voiced support and came to our defense, with many condemning what we felt was an arbitrary decision.
Among those who spoke up were President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., Nigel Farage, Peter Thiel's liberal foil at Thiel Capital, Eric Weinstein, Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson and many others.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-12/facebook-reverses-zero-hedge-ban-says-it-made-mistake

"The House That Spied On Me" is a detailed study of what it is like to set up and live in a house where the bed and toothbrush, coffee-maker and vacuum cleaner are all smart, and the sound activated surveillance camera sends out movies of you, not just burglars (Don't Forget!) 
The human experience is well related, and instead of being easier, it turns out to be incessantly annoying. All those little brains need your attention. All of the activity of the smart devices was routed through a special interface, an internet service provider for the house, so all of the data going out about the house and occupants was monitored. 
This is fine investigative journalism.
https://gizmodo.com/the-house-that-spied-on-me-1822429852

Never Alone
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Monday, March 11, 2019

Poised...

Defining Property,

​The Golan is part of Syria, but Israel has based most of Israeli agriculture on that water for the past 50 years, and now there is found to be oil and gas..
Syria has notified Israel through United Nations diplomatic channels that it is prepared to go to war if Israel does not leave the Golan Heights. 
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad reportedly sent the message through the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), Christine Lund, this past week, according to a World Israel News report and later picked up other major Israeli sources, including The Jerusalem Post. “Syria will attack Israel if it does not leave the Golan Heights,” Mikdad told the UN representative.
Mikdad further warned Lund that Syria will respond with force should Israel continue its attacks on Syria, which have occurred more than a dozen times over the past year, but which seem to have recently paused following Russia's announced delivery of the advanced S-300 anti-air missile defense system to Damascus late last year.  
“We will not hesitate to confront Israel,” Syria's Mekdad said. “We are also not scared away by its [Israel’s] supporters who are helping to perpetuate the occupation of the Golan,” he added.
Damascus' firm warning appears a response to a controversial bill recently under renewed consideration by US Congress, co-sponsored by Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, and Democratic Rep. Mike Gallagher, which aims to give formal US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights region.
Meanwhile, multiple Israeli political leaders have responded to Syria's historic claim to the Israeli-occupied Golan and willingness to go to war over it. While speaking on a visit to the Golan Heights, Blue and White party politicians Gabi Ashkenazi, Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz and Moshe Ya'alon vowed, "It is ours and it will stay ours" — certainly a dominant sentiment that cuts across Israeli party lines.

​"Two to Tango" is a quorum...
​Well informed sources say that “it all depends on the direction the Israeli elections will take. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu estimates his chances are high enough to win a second term, then he will not venture any time soon into a new confrontation with Syria and its allies. The date of the next battle will be postponed. But, if he believes he will lose the election, then the possibility of his initiating a battle becomes very high. A serious battle between Israel on one hand and Syria and Iran on the other would be sufficient enough to postpone the elections. Netanyahu doesn’t have many choices: either he wins the election and postpones the corruption court case against him, or he goes to jail”.
https://ejmagnier.com/2019/03/07/syria-preparing-its-missiles-for-the-next-battle-with-israel/

Israel hammers Gaza for 3rd night in ‘vigorous response’ ordered by Netanyahu

Electrical systems in Venezuela have been targeted by another cyberattack, President Nicholas Maduro has said. Caracas has accused the US of “sabotage”, while US officials blame local corruption and mismanagement for the blackout.
After a failure at the Guri hydroelectric power plant left much of the country without power on Thursday night, Venezuelan authorities managed to restore power to “many parts” of the country. However, the country’s grid took another hammering on Saturday, with many of the restored systems knocked out once again, the country’s embattled president said.
According to Maduro, the systems had been nearly 70 percent restored when “we received another attack, of a cybernetic nature, at midday… that disturbed the reconnection process and knocked out everything that had been achieved until noon.”

Paul Craig Roberts.
Don’t you think something is fishy when the presstitutes orchestrate a fake news “humanitarian crisis” in Venezuela, but totally ignore the real humanitarian crises in Yemen and Gaza?
Don’t you think something is really very rotten when the expert, Alfred Maurice de Zayas,  sent by the UN to Venezuela to evaluate the situation finds no interest by any Western media or any Western government in his report?
Don’t you think it is a bit much for Washington to steal $21 billion of Venezuela’s money, impose sanctions in an effort to destabilize the country and to drive the Venezuelan government to its knees, blame Venezuelan socialism (essentially nationalization of the oil company) for bringing “starvation to the people,” and offer a measly $21 million in “humanitarian aid.”​ ...​
In paragraph 37 of his report, de Zayas says:  “Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns with the intention of forcing them to surrender. Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees. A difference, perhaps, is that twenty-first century sanctions are accompanied by the manipulation of public opinion through ‘fake news’, aggressive public relations and a pseudo-human rights rhetoric so as to give the impression that a human rights ‘end’ justifies the criminal means. There is not only a horizontal juridical world order governed by the Charter of the United Nations and principles of sovereign equality, but also a vertical world order reflecting the hierarchy of a geopolitical system that links dominant States with the rest of the world according to military and economic power. It is the latter, geopolitical system that generates geopolitical crimes, hitherto in total impunity.”  ​...Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and an abundance of other natural resources including gold, bauxite and coltan. But under the Maduro government they’re not accessible to US and transnational corporations.
The Media Is Lying About Construction At Sohae Launch Facility
In the aftermath of the Hanoi Summit, President Trump has been barraged with attempts to undermine his confidence in the good faith of Kim Jong Un and his intentions to deal fairly with the United States in the negotiation process concerning denuclearization and de-escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula. One of the primary causes of concern has been a series of reports from NBC News claiming that “commercial” satellite footage shows that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been engaging in fresh construction at their Sohae Launch Facility in preparation for an alleged missile launch or test.​..​
The NBC report, written by Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Andrea Mitchell, concerns satellite imagery released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) purported to have been taken on March 2, 2019. The imagery suffers from two defects – the fact that the images show two different facilities being attributed as one by the media, and that the purported construction activity indicates dismantling of the Sohae site rather than fresh additions or repairs. Side by side comparisons of the photos show that they are in fact taken from two different locations. This discrepancy might be apparent to an analyst with knowledge of North Korea’s Sohae Launch Facility, but not to an average member of the public.Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who has already taken a lot of heat from her party for being outspoken against senseless war and regime change, has released a strong statement in support of WikiLeaks.

“If the government can change the designation Wikileaks from being a news organization (Obama Admin’s designation of Wikileaks) to a hostile intelligence agency (Trump Admin’s designation), then any entity – online and offline – is in danger of being designated a ‘hostile intelligence service’ if they carry out investigative reporting that the US government or a particular administration considers to be hostile to itself,” Gabbard wrote in a series of tweets on Saturday. “This will have a chilling effect on investigative reporting of powerful government agencies or officials, including the president, intel agencies, etc. This is a serious breach of our constitutional freedoms and every American – Democrat, Republican or Independent – must stand up against it.”  

Tim Gibbons of Missouri Rural Crisis Center, a support group for family farmers set up during the 1980s farm crisis, says the cycle of economic shocks has blended with government policies to create a “monopolisation of the livestock industry, where a few multinational corporations control a vast majority of the livestock”. Gibbons explains: “They are vertically integrated, from animal genetics to grocery store. What they charge isn’t based upon what it costs to produce, and it’s not based on supply and demand, because they know what they need to make a profit. What they have done, through government support and taxpayer support, is to intentionally overproduce so that the price stays low, sometimes below the cost of production. That kicks their competition out of the market. Then they become the only player in town.
“Over time, it has extracted wealth and power from communities. We can see how that has impacted rural main streets. You can see the boarded-up storefronts. You can see the lack of economic opportunity.” Gibbons says that corporations game the system by obtaining low-interest, federally guaranteed loans to build Cafos that then overproduce. But they know the government will buy up the surplus to stabilise prices. “The system has been set up for the benefit of the factory farm corporations and their shareholders at the expense of family farmers, the real people, our environment, our food system,” he adds.
“The thing that is really pervasive about it is that they control the rules of the game because they control the democratic process. It’s a blueprint. We’re paying for our own demise.

​What If Politics Can't Fix What's Broken? Charles Hugh Smith​
Government can't rescue a status quo which is failing due to negative return on investment (ROI), gross inefficiencies, the loss of trust in corrupt institutions , and all the other ills that are intrinsic to centralization of power and capital.
As a result, the greater the government's power, the greater the polarizationas the self-serving elites seek to protect their share of the pie as the pie shrinks. Each camp becomes increasingly extreme, and compromise is recognized as a process that erodes every camp's power and income.
The political solution is take-no-prisoners domination and the eradication of rivals' power to veto or contest the domination of the winner. This drive to polarization is the result of centralized elites attempting to ​at​tribute the system's increasing failure to their competing elites.
This is the politics of decline and collapse. This is the only possible output of centralized power grabs by self-serving elites, i.e. the status quo.

​Externalizing Blame​
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Saturday, March 9, 2019

Blame Dead Victims

Eavesdropping,

Deeply Embarrassing to the Deep State, Putin's doing, again...
Vovan and Lexus, Russian telephone pranksters known for their trolling of politicians from around the world, have struck again, targeting US special representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams to find out more about the US-backed effort to unseat that country's legitimate government. Sputnik got ahold of the full audio from the talks.
Posing as Swiss President Ueli Maurer, who also serves as the country's finance minister, the pranksters contacted Abrams on two occasions – in mid-February and early March, speaking to him for over 23 minutes about Swiss policy on the ongoing effort to freeze the Venezuelan government's assets as part of broader plans to replace President Nicolas Maduro with US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido.  

S​topping Venezuela's heart... This is like bombing cities. Even the rich Venezuelan's get hurt. This will reduce their support for the US.
A massive power outage at the Guri Dam in Venezuela caused 18 of the country’s 23 states to go dark on Thursday, bringing life to a halt. Caracas has alleged it’s the work of Washington, where key politicos seemed to know about the attack almost as it happened. An activist told Sputnik it’s the “first act in a new play” of regime change.​..
​Venezuelan Vice President Dulcy Rodriguez pointed the finger firmly at Washington, which since January 23 has backed the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, a parliamentarian named Juan Guaido, as the legitimate leader of the country, seeking Maduro's ouster. She noted that only three minutes after the blackout began, US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted about it, gloating that the "Maduro regime is a complete disaster."
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201903091073076691-US-Attack-Venezuelan-Power-Grid-First-Act-New-Play/

​I've been watching the story of the 40 tons of stolen Syrian gold being accepted by US Special Forces, to give ISIS safe-passage out of their tomb. The Syrian press has now broached the subject of US theft of Syrian gold, which it obviously is. Gold is worth stealing from enemies of the dollar.
The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, “Gold deal between United States and Daesh” (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, “US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located.”

​Satellites are different from ballistic missiles. The launch vehicles need very different burn characteristics. North Korea will resume satellite testing, not ballistic missile testing. Moon of Alabama:
​To understand why North Korea is using this satellite launch to maybe bring the U.S. back to the table we have to go back to the negotiations between the two parties.
Before the first summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore both sides agreed that the U.S. would freeze large scale maneuvers in and around Korea while North Korea would stop ballistic missile testing as well as nuclear tests. This 'freeze for freeze' agreement was held up since. Trump recently reconfirmed that no large maneuvers would take place.
North Korea would like to keep the 'freeze for freeze' agreement alive. A satellite launch is not contrary to that agreement. Unfortunately  some U.S. officials, i.e. John Bolton, and North Korea hawks like Victor Cha may well want to use a satellite launch to declare it dead.
The first summit ended with a signed Joint Statement, a sequenced four step agreement in which the U.S. promised to lift some sanctions (1) and an end to the state of war (2) while North Korea commited "to work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" (3) and to recover remains of U.S. personal killed during the Korea war (4).
Trump had asked for and was granted an additional personal favor. Kim promised Trump to blow up North Korea's nuclear test tunnels and to dismantle a missile engine test stand. He fulfilled both but is now walking back on the second point.
The U.S. has not fulfilled its side of the bargain. The Trump administration still demands the "full denuclearization" of North Korea before the lifting of sanctions. That position contradicts the Joint Statement. It is also utterly delusional. North Korea never agreed to and will never agree to completely denuclearize. The best deal the U.S. can get (pdf) is one that limits the extend of North Korea's nuclear arsenal and prevents the proliferation of its nuclear technology. The logic is simple:
North Korea has the bomb. This is how deterrence works. If Saddam Hussein or Muammar al-Qaddafi had finished their bombs, they’d both likely still be around.
During the recent summit in Hanoi North Korea offered to destroy its largest nuclear complex which includes the Yongbyon reactor used to make plutonium and an uranium enrichment site. As a "corresponding measure" it demanded the lifting of those sanctions that most directly hurt its people. But the U.S. side was not willing to take that deal:
With Trump preparing to leave the hotel, North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui hurriedly brought the US delegation a message from Kim, two senior administration officials and a person briefed on the matter said. The message amounted to a last-ditch attempt by the North Koreans to reach a deal on some sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
US and North Korean officials had been haggling over a shared definition of the sprawling, three-square-mile [Yongbyon] site and the last-minute overture sought to advance the North Koreans' proposal for dismantling it. But the message did not make clear whether the North Koreans shared the US's expansive definition of the facility and US officials asked for clarity.
Choe rushed back to get an answer. Kim replied that it included everything on the site.
But even when Choe returned with that response, the US delegation was unimpressed and didn't want to resume the negotiations. Within hours, Trump would be wheels up for Washington.
"We had to have more than that," Trump said when asked about Yongbyon before leaving Hanoi. "We had to have more than that because there are other things that you haven't talked about, that you haven't written about, that we found."...
The U.S. continues to walk away from the Joint Statement Trump signed in Singapore and is back to making threats​...
During the latest round China, Russia and South Korea were on the side of the United States. Now, after North Korea demonstrated that it is reasonable and made good offers to get to a deal, neither China nor Russia will support further sanctions. ​China already urges to​ ​lift sanctions in response to the "positive will" that North Korea demonstrates.
China is North Korea's biggest trade partner. If it reopens its border to North Korea trade, all U.S. sanctions are in vain.

​I really respect Ilhan Omar these days, though I fear she will not live out the year. Busting Obama and AIPAC is heresy for Democrats.
​Buried near the end of a Friday Politico article on Rep. Ilhan Omar and her polarizing impact on the Democratic party is a stunning comment by the Minnesota Democrat; former president Obama's "hope and change" was nothing more than a mirage.
As she saw it, the party ostensibly committed to progressive values had become complicit in perpetuating the status quo. Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor. -Politico
"We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was," said Omar. "And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile." 
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-08/ilhan-omar-blasts-obama-caging-kids-along-border-getting-away-murder-overseas

The UK and Ireland really have no interest at all in enforcing the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Leave it open, while declaring it to be a border... People won't even stand for a convenient fiction, though...
So the EU has given the U.K. a 48 hour ultimatum to come up with an acceptable change to the Irish Backstop. But, the problem is, and Brussels knows this, there is no acceptable change to the Irish Backstop.
There can be no re-implementation of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and the EU will not accept an open border because then it will negate its entire legal structure as a customs union.
Rock meet hard place, but this isn’t the U.K.’s problem. It is the EU’s. And Theresa May has been avoiding the issue the entire time allowing Brussels to set the terms of the surrender negotiations rather than say, “Ball’s in your court. We’re happy to leave the border open.”
That arrangement is anathema to the other 27 countries in the EU. But, again, that is their problem. And it shouldn’t be Theresa May’s responsibility.
Brussels’ bullying on this is pure theatre. There is a solution but they don’t want to admit it. They don’t want to admit it because they don’t have to… yet.
Why? Because they still believe they can get the British people to stand down and allow Parliament to deliver BRINO (Brexit-in-Name-Only) using the Irish border as the stalking horse.

​Heard in West Belfast, by Patrick Cockburn:
“Stupid, stupid English for getting us into this pickle. We were doing nicely and then they surpassed themselves [in stupidity].”...
The most important of these risks can be swiftly spelled out. Focus is often placed on the sheer difficulty of policing the 310-mile border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because there are at least 300 major and minor crossing points. But the real problem is not geographic or military but political and demographic because almost all the border runs through country where Catholics greatly outnumber Protestants. The Catholics will not accept, and are in a position to prevent, a hard border unless it is defended permanently by several thousand British troops in fortified positions...
 It is unrealistic to the point of absurdity to imagine that technical means on the border could substitute for customs personnel because cameras and other devices would be immediately destroyed by local people. A new border would have to be manned by customs officials, but these would not go there unless they were protected by police and the police could not operate without British Army protection. Protesters would be killed or injured and we would spiral back into violence.

​EU goes "poof" when?
There is a dual Italian crisis brewing in the European Union. On the one hand, it is a political, or even geopolitical, crisis. Italy is undermining the unity of the European Union; blocking the EU’s recognition of those behind the coup in Venezuela as the legitimate authority; preventing the expansion of sanctions against Russia; and even supporting the ‘yellow vest’ movement in France, which is arousing the anger of the French government.
On the other hand, the crisis is economic in nature. Italy is once more sliding into a recession (economic growth was negative in the country); Italian banks are again facing financial problems; and the business media has already estimated that the Italian economic crisis could blow up the entire European banking system.

​Jim Kunstler on the loss of local community to globalized mass merchandise machines:
​That was some bargain they got. The chain-stores got approved and the Main Streets died, but that wasn’t the end of it. This dynamic also destroyed networks that gave local citizens an economic and social place. Locally owned business people were the caretakers of the town. They took care of two buildings — their place of business and their home. They sat on library, school, and hospital boards and donated money to running local institutions. They employed people who lived in town and there were consequences for treating them well or badly. There was even a time in this country when local business people wouldn’t dare to put up an insultingly ugly building...
What is your place now? A cubicle in the marketing department of Old Navy? An aisle in the Home Depot? A desk in the Diversity and Inclusion office of some State University, pushing to sort the student population into racial and sexual categories because all other ways of belonging in society are gone? Or do you occupy ten square feet of sidewalk with a tarp and a shopping cart? None of those places are liable to furnish a personal sense that life is worth living.  
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/a-place-of-your-own/

​Cog in the Machine​
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Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Narrative Control Slips

​Pink Slips,​

Helen of DesTroy is an unattributed writer for RT, whose stuff you see daily, and which stories you can catch up on weekly, collected on her blog. Here is a long essay, for people who already pay plenty of attention, about ​"narrative control​"​ by the deep state. 
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Effect
Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
Lazy propaganda is largely to blame for the lapse in narrative superiority. 
The same tawdry psy-ops are recycled again and again, as we see now in Venezuela, where Iran-Contra felon and smirking genocide enthusiast Elliott Abrams has been wheeled out of cold storage to work his death-squad magic on a population we’ve already tried and failed to hypnotize with the promises of neoliberalism. 
Just as the one-two punch of fake Iranian revolutions made the fatal error of running the same script twice in most “protesters’” lifetimes, the attempt to overthrow Maduro comes less than two decades after the US-backed effort to overthrow Chavez – also led by Abrams – and it’s not fooling anyone. 
It doesn’t help that the total nobody they picked to lead the charge was a stranger to 80% of all Venezuelans, or that John Bolton couldn’t even keep from blurting out the truth – that this entire pantomime of humanitarian intervention is being conducted to pillage Venezuela’s sweet, sweet oil, which has the gall to sit beneath one of the last socialist holdouts in the western hemisphere.  
http://helenofdestroy.com/index.php/74-the-sorcerer-s-apprentice-effect

'Anti-Semitism' Is a Cover for Censorship​, Finian Cunningham​    (Wow! Brilliantly simple, Thanks Eleni)
Whether against the Yellow Vests, or US congressmen or UK politicians, the accusation is meant to stop thought

Democratic party patricians work to assure Trump re-election in 2020 by rigidly enforcing status quo within "their" party. Moon of Alabama.
The unwillingness of the Democrats to have real political discussion is also visible in their attempt to subdue the new young House members who have come up with real new proposals and ideas. The use of the Zionist lobby AIPAC and false claims of 'anti-semitism' against them is especially outrageous:
When Representative Ilhan Omar landed a coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Fiske began working the phones to Capitol Hill.
Alarmed by messaging that he saw as anti-Semitic and by Ms. Omar’s support for the boycott-Israel movement, Mr. Fiske, a longtime activist with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, began texting and calling his friends in Congress to complain. He is hoping Aipac activists will punish Ms. Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, with a primary challenge in 2020.
On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders will mete out one form of punishment: Spurred by outrage over Ms. Omar’s latest comments suggesting that pro-Israel activists “push for allegiance to a foreign country,” they will put a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the House floor.
'Anti-semitism', in the false sense of AIPAC and the Democratic leadership bound to it, is anything that is not 100% in support of the racist state of Israel and the Zionism ideology.
The resolution is aimed at House member Ilhan Omar who suggested that such automatic dual loyalty is a problem. It also proves that she is right:
Ilhan Omar @IlhanMN - 20:01 utc - 3 Mar 2019
I am told everyday that I am anti-American if I am not pro-Israel. I find that to be problematic and I am not alone. I just happen to be willing to speak up on it and open myself to attacks.
Ilhan Omar will not be the only one to be targeted like that. The Lobby is aiming at two more:
In Florida, Mr. Fiske said it was time for “pro-Jewish voices to speak up” about Ms. Omar and two other Democratic freshmen who have been critical of Israel: Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
And he offered a prediction: “They are three people who, in my opinion, will not be around in several years.”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/democrats-take-two-more-step-to-clear-the-way-for-trumps-reelection.html#more

Narrative slipping, slipping, slipping...
Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would end the nearly two-decade-long Afghanistan War.
The 2019 American Forces Going Home After Noble Service Act would have the United States declare victory in Afghanistan and set a 45-day deadline for a plan to withdraw all U.S. forces within a year, according to a statement accompanying the bill’s text.
It would also set a “framework for political reconciliation to be implemented by Afghans."
Additionally, the legislation would require the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to be repealed at the end of the withdrawal.

​We must finally be approaching "The Rapture", "The End Days"​...
A group of Democrats are hoping that they can roll back the war on drugs with a new federal marijuana legalization bill.
Dubbed the Marijuana Justice Act of 2019, the bill would see marijuana finally removed from the federal list of controlled substances, legalizing the plant on a nationwide level and removing a range of obstacles from vendors and purveyors across the United States.
The bill would also expunge the criminal records of anyone who had been charged with possession while also calling for anyone currently incarcerated for the offense to petition for an immediate re-sentencing. Those convicted under prohibition laws would also be provided job training and resources under the act.

​"The Problem Itself Is The Solution:" 5G millimeter wavelengths radiation is rapidly absorbed by flesh, which it releases energy into at the cellular level. These studies have all been done with less energetic and longer wavelengths, already in use and already causing harm.​ 
Result: Birth Control!    (I really think eye, ear and brain problems will surface first.)
Several early studies found that our current cell phone technology has a negative affect on male fertility…
A 2005 mouse study found “a significant genotoxic [DNA-damaging] effect on…spermatozoa.”
A 2007 rat study found “significantly higher incidence of sperm cell death,” suggesting “that carrying cellphones near reproductive organs could negatively affect male fertility.” And a 2009 rat study found that the radiation from cellphones “negatively affects semen quality and may impair male fertility.”
And about a decade ago, a study that looked at men that were being treated at an infertility clinic concluded that using a cell phone had a substantial impact on sperm quality…

​I need a Brian Chip to Be Super Smart. Give me one with no NSA-Back-Door, and not 5G, please!
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/brain-computer-interface/

​So what's Plan-B?​ Aren't "we" already knee-deep in geoengineering with our current chemtrails? We need acid-rain again?
Before passing away from heart disease on February 18, climate scientist Wallace Smith Broecker left behind a "final warning" to fellow scientists - telling them in a video recorded days before his death that humanity must deploy a volcano-inspired "solar shield" in order to cool down the atmosphere, according to NBC News.   
Broecker, who popularized the phrase "global warming" in 1975 (right as the notion of "global cooling" became unpopular) - warned that world leaders aren't acting quickly enough to halt the production of carbon dioxide, and the only solution is to geoengineer "the sulfur solution." 
The theory is that the planet might be cooled, in a worst-case scenario, by releasing massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere some 70,000 feet above the Earth’s surface. The idea would be for jets to release so much SO2 that they would mimic a massive volcanic eruption, like the one at Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which shrouded much of the planet in a sulfurous cloud, cooling the Earth by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for a full year. -NBC News
"If we are going to prevent the planet from warming up another couple of degrees, we are going to have to go to geoengineering," said Broecker, adding that continued inaction could result in "many more surprises in the greenhouse," known as Earth.
​https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-05/deathbed-video-godfather-climate-science-begs-world-leaders-deploy-last-ditch-solar

Second empire to lose "the jewel in the crown".
With the U.S.’s attempt at regime change in Venezuela going nowhere fast it’s becoming increasingly obvious that major vassals allies aren’t scared of the consequences of defying us.
India, in particular, has been quite clear in its opposition to Trump’s edicts on who they can and cannot trade with. And with Prime Minister Narendra Modi reeling from a corruption scandal it’s clear he isn’t going to give Trump an inch on important trade issues, especially with Modi in full re-election mode.
Not only has India defied the U.S. over buying Iranian oil and Russian S-400 missile defense systems but now they continue to flaunt U.S. sanctions on Venezuela upping its purchases from 400,000 barrels per day to more than 600,000.

​Et tu, Qatar?​
Russia and Qatar appear to be getting closer to striking a landmark deal for transfer of the S-400 anti-missile defense system to Doha, considered the most advanced anti-air system of its kind, and lately the result of tensions with the West wherever it is present, whether in Syria or Turkey. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated at a press conference Monday while standing alongside Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani that Moscow is "ready to consider Doha’s requests for weapons delivery, if such requests appear," according to TASS news agency.​..
Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East at Al Udeid air base​..​.
But since Saudi-led GCC states initiated a blockade against tiny but oil and gas rich Qatar staring in 2017, ties between Doha and Moscow have actually improved and grown. Qatari FM al-Thani addressed the continuing GCC crisis by saying:
With regards to Saudi or other countries, it is none of their business, it's a sovereign decision by Qatar.
Last month reports suggested the Saudi king had threatened "military action" in a personal letter to French President Emmanuel Macron should Qatar move forward with obtaining the S-400s from Russia.

​"China Has No Choice"​, Jeffrey Snider
Behind everything is the same thing. Keynes was right. Inflation is one monetary evil, but its twin is far, far worse. At least with inflation things are moving, Chinese peasants are progressed up into the middle class even if it is more expensive when they get there.
Deflation, however, is when everything stops; Dante’s Hell was freezing cold. It doesn’t have to be all at once like in the early thirties, this can be a prolonged affair dragging out across more years than anyone cares to remember. The frog isn’t being slowly boiled, it is being progressively frozen. It is now almost completely frigid, too cold to be able to leap out of the icy water. Stuck here without any other options, it must conserve its energy as best it can and hope that it can somehow survive.
If given a choice, you pick the heat of high inflation over this every day of the week; until you realize it isn’t your choice. It never really was.

​Short-Term-Thinking Emperor?​
Coming just hours after Trump wrapped up a Monday meeting with his trade team (leaving little doubt about the source of the leak), two Trump administration insiders told BBG that they're worried that the president is pressuring negotiators to make a deal because he's worried that stocks could tank if the US moves ahead with the next batch of punitive tariff increases. They're also worried that the president sees a deal as a crucial PR victory ahead of the 2020 election, as well as something that could help redeem his inability to secure a deal with North Korea in Hanoi. At risk is the possibility that Trump could approve a deal without forcing any material concessions from Beijing (aside from promises to buy billions of dollars in agricultural products and Jack Daniels whiskey).  

​Central Banks set up liquidity swaps for no-deal Brexit. (Can't let anything bad happen...)
​https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-05/eu-ecb-active-emergency-currency-swap-line-brace-no-deal-brexit

It's getting shakier for the French power elites. The harder they grasp, the more slips through their fingers. 
They finally have to do a pre-emptive strike on Marine LePen. They have been saving it for the right moment.
Prosecutors have called for French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen to be tried for tweeting pictures of atrocities committed by the Islamic State group, judicial sources said.
As VoE reports, Le Pen shared the gruesome images in December 2015, a few weeks after ISIS jihadists killed 130 people in attacks in Paris – and after a French journalist drew a comparison between the jihadist group and her party. Her move sparked widespread condemnation in France.
One of the pictures showed the body of James Foley, an American journalist beheaded by the Sunni extremists. Another showed a man in an orange jumpsuit being run over by a tank and the third showed a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage.
‘Daesh is this!’ Le Pen wrote in a caption, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
She is facing a possible three year jail term and a fine of EUR75,000 if an investigating magistrate decides a trial should take place for ‘circulating violent pictures liable to be seen by children’.


H​umble Narrator​
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