No Russian Link Experiment

Blocked Communication,

Yesterday I included some links from RT (Russia Today), Sputnik, and (Iranian) Press TV. The email bcc send was massively blocked by incoming spam-filters. I'm not sure if it was completely blocked, but it may well have been. Let me know if you got it: "Inconvenient Everything 2/8/17". It can be viewed on johndayblog.com . Anyway, I'm not linking to those sites today. It's an experiment to see if the news gets through if I self-censor sites, with content being my usual subversive pollution for your mind.

Alan Kurdi's Syrian aunt supports Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's peace initiative to get the US to stop feeding the horrors of war in her country.

https://medium.com/@TulsiGabbard/my-country-was-destroyed-b0aecb445478#.q1zpx8i1s

Drilling has reportedly resumed in frozen North Dakota. It's hard weather to drill, and harder weather to resist. Remember the freezing fire-hose assaults? DAPL is BACK!

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/08/activists-plan-emergency-actions-in-18-states-to-protest-approval-of-dakota-access-pipeline/

"CNBC, Bloomberg or Fox Business have no clue just how bad the situation will become for the United States as its energy sector continues to disintegrate.  While the Federal Government could step in and bail out BIG OIL with printed money, they cannot print barrels of oil."  Major US Oil Industry Bloodbath Continues (Rex Tillerson's EXXON is the "cleanest dirty shirt".)

https://srsroccoreport.com/the-blood-bath-continues-in-the-u-s-major-oil-industry/

The FBI, among many other American authorities and power elites, was very impressed with the organization and policing of Nazi Germany, enough to secretly bring thousands of key Nazis into the US with secret visas, in "Operation Paperclip". The FBI has put that expertise to work, and is expanding the applications ahead of anticipated social chaos. American Fascism is here already. You may not have been directly affected yet. (Maybe this news is ok from an American website, even if subversive. Testing, testing, testing...)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-08/silent-terror-fbi-could-fourth-reich-happen-here

Proposed US Ambassador to EU (no diplomat) Ted Malloch says Greece needs out, needs the Drachma, that it's inevitable, and that the existence of the EU in 18 months is highly questionable. (How to do all this?)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/08/trump-envoy-declares-odds-on-greece-will-break-from-euro

Italian Bank-Bailout-Czar throws in the towel, dejected and bitter from recent experience.

Penati complained the fund had been created in an emergency and given "40,000 tasks but no resources", adding that to be effective it would have needed an extra 4 billion euros...  Penati said his job had taken him inside some dark corners of Italian banking. "I had never looked at banks from the inside ... I was stunned they are run in this way," he said... Monte dei Paschi (MPS) is now to be rescued by the state.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-italy-banks-atlante-idUKKBN15M28B

Central bankers didn't take this well. No financing, anywhere for Le Pen's Front Nationale.

"Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s chief economic adviser Bernard Monot met with Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau in September and set out her party’s plans to take control of the central bank and use it to finance government spending. The central bank has become one of Le Pen’s key targets as she fleshes out her plans for taking control of the French economy and leaving the euro. She intends to revoke the Bank of France’s independence and use it to finance French welfare payments and service the government’s debts after abandoning the European monetary union."

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-09/trump-s-oval-office-tweets-force-ceos-to-choose-fight-or-flight

Germany accelerates gold repatriation plans by 3 years. Half of German gold will be in Frankfurt by the end of 2017. ("Barbarous relic", what's the hurry?)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-bundesbank-gold-idUKKBN15O192

Tell a lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth." Joseph Goebbels 1939

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian authorities have killed at least 13,000 people since the start of the 2011 uprising in mass hangings at a prison north of Damascus known to detainees as "the slaughterhouse," Amnesty International said in a report Tuesday...

The headline numbers of 5,000 to 13,000 are calculated on the base of unfounded hypotheticals. The report itself states that only 36 names of allegedly executed persons are known to Amnesty, less than the number of "witnesses" Amnesty claims to have interviewed. The high number of claimed execution together with the very low number of names is not plausible.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/02/amnesty-report-hearsay.html#more

Hearing Voices

Inconvenient Everything

Say What?

The furor unleashed by the remarks of President Donald Trump in response to Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly’s calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “a killer” during an interview broadcast Sunday has continued to reverberate.

In response to O’Reilly’s denunciation of Putin, Trump stated: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump went on to cite Iraq in support of his statement. O’Reilly’s face went slack. He clearly did not know what to say. The new leader of the “Free World” had wandered seriously off message.

As far as the capitalist politicians of both parties and the media are concerned, Trump committed an unpardonable offense: he—in this one instance, and for purely pragmatic reasons related to his immediate political needs—had said something true about US imperialism’s role in the world.  Thanks, Tom.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-blurts-out-the-truth-about-us-killings-and-the-media-goes-wild/5573366

California Representative Maxine Waters shows group loyalty and denounces Trump and Putin roundly.  

"How can a president, who is acting in the manner that he's acting, whether he's talking about the travel ban, the way that he's talking to Muslims, or whether he's talking about his relationship to Putin, and the Kremlin -- and knowing that they have hacked our D-triple-C  -- DNC, and knowing that he is responsible for supplying the bombs that killed innocent children and families in, um – in, um– yeah, in Aleppo," “And the fact that he is wrapping his arms around Putin while Putin is continuing to advance into Korea"   http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/maxine-waters-does-it-again-slams-trump-supporting-korea-invading-putin

Eric Zeusse believes that, "Things will continue to get worse until the US stops lying about Crimea". Crimea has been part of Russia longer than the USA has been a country. Drunken Nikita Khruschev transferred it to Soviet Ukraine, which didn't matter much at the time. The people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly in 2014 to rejoin Russia, which is less important than Khroschev's impulsive diktat in 1954. 

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/02/07/things-will-get-worse-until-us-stops-lying-about-crimea.html

President Trump says he doesn't know what is going on in Ukraine, and needs more information. That means that he's not supposed to speak the obvious truth again this time and mess things up again. Ukrainazis grossly broke the Minsk agreement by mounting an offensive into civilian cities with tanks and artillery, before they got driven out again.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201702071050411604-trump-doesnt-know-ukraine/

Germany's Angela Merkel and Russia's Vladimir Putin call for an immediate return to the cease-fire in east Ukraine (not Crimea, by the way).

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201702071050422103-kremlin-russia-germany-donbass/

The US Army, supposedly commanded by Donald Trump now, continues to mass tanks, artillery and troops on every Russian border it can reach, and conducts live fire exercises, explaining thusly:  "Atlantic Resolve is a demonstration of continued US commitment to collective security through a series of actions designed to reassure NATO allies and partners of America's dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine.”

https://www.rt.com/news/376513-us-tanks-arrive-estonia/

The White House considers designating Iran's Revolutionary guard, military unit, a "terrorist group", which would retroactively validate the administration claim that Iran is the #1 supporter of terrorism, despite the fact that these guys are very effectively fighting ISIS and other real terrorists in Syria. (The CIA "Dirty Tricks" department might qualify...)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-irgc-idUSKBN15N0AI

"IMF, Please Put Greece Out of Its Misery", Mish Shedlock discusses the austerity imposed on Greeks, for some shady deals between their former leaders and Goldman Sachs, which hid Greek borrowing at a great cost, to get Greece into the EU. Greeks have been totally betrayed by their former government, and Goldman Sachs was doing what Goldman Sachs always does. Greeks have to keep living like the Great Depression (see graph) while generating a 3.5% government surplus in taxes forever. Greek government debt ideal projections show it being 275% of GDP in 2060. Financing it will take 62% of GDP by then. "Inconceivable", right?  

https://mishtalk.com/2017/02/07/dear-imf-please-put-greece-out-of-its-misery/

Yves Smith looks at the same issue, the utter impossibility of Greece being able to keep digging this hole to China. The IMF really wants out of this futile role, and has clearly stated it's futility. Will Trump let them out of the next charade? German banks have to be paid. That's the bottom line. Banks and taxpayers cannot write off bad loans. (Goldman Sachs is ok, of course. Goldman took fees and left a decade ago.)  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/02/will-trump-administration-let-imf-escape-next-greek-bailout.html

Israeli MPs vote to retroactively legalize 4000 Jewish houses built illegally (even under Israeli law) on Palestinian land.

https://www.rt.com/news/376520-west-bank-settlements-legalized-bill/

Israelis attack Palestinians in Gaza with rockets and aircraft. Gaza has been under siege/blockade, an open air prison, since 2007. 

"The attacks came after the Israeli army claimed that a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip had hit open terrain in Ashkelon, without causing any injuries or damage."

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/02/07/509462/Gaza-Strip-Israel-strikes-Khan-Yunis-Gaza-City

On the same day that Betsy DeVos is (barely) approved as Secretary of Education, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie introduces a bill to eliminate the Department of Education completely on December 31, 2018. Here's the whole bill:  "The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018"

That's a school holiday, anyway...  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/house-republican-introduces-bill-abolish-dept-education-same-day-devos-confirmed-run

The Army Corps of Engineers, under orders from Commander-in-Chief Trump, approves the Dakota Access pipeline along the same route and cancels environmental impact studies.  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-idUSKBN15M2DU

Ed Dolan presents a Libertarian argument for a Universal Basic Income (less wasteful, less complicated, eliminates perverse incentives)

https://niskanencenter.org/blog/libertarian-take-universal-basic-income-seriously/

Check in the Mail

No Paradise

Utopians,

Neocolonial "capitalist paradise" or crony "socialist paradise": the net result is the same: expropriation and impoverishment. 

Charles Hugh Smith compares corrupt establishment looting of Greece and Venezuela. 

Corruption  destroys economy. Nobody can afford parasitic elites when they take complete control.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb17/expropriation2-17.html

Is the Trump Administration already over? Paul Craig Roberts looks at inflammatory statements by Defense Secretary Mattis, regarding Iran as Terrorist Sponsor #1, Russia as threat #1. He has threatened to intervene in China's internal affairs, which China sees as very different from trade. 

Mattis is skilled and intelligent, by all intimate accounts. Where is this going? 

Dr Roberts points out that Islamic Extremism is a long term American project, initiated during Russia's Afghan war in the 1980s, and manipulated since then to justify global war.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/02/06/trump-administration-already-paul-craig-roberts/

In a constitutional first, VP Mike Pence votes to break a cabinet-confirmation-vote tie in the Senate, and confirms weird Amway heiress with (proven) disastrous educational policies, Betsy DeVos, as Secretary of Education. This is a major step towards the stated goal of eliminating the Department of Education, isn't it?   http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/devos-confirmed-education-secretary-after-pense-casts-first-ever-vp-tiebreaking-vote

Trump admin does not take Ukraine's side, supports peace in border between Ukraine and Russia, and looks forward to working with Russia to eliminate ISIS. The possibility of strategic reset, no longer supporting global terrorism and the global war on that enemy, but cooperating with Russia, remains.

http://theduran.com/trump-administration-declines-support-ukraine/

Putin's Tough Choice, China or the West? (I think this maybe was not the original title. The divergence of Russian oil/gas interests from competitor, Iran are pointed out, and the possibility for EXXON CEO, now Secretary of State, Tillerson to promote Rockefeller interests in Russia is presented. A previous article proposed that Trump could represent Rothschild interests, over Rockefeller interests. Who knows if they even diverge? Russia certainly has long term investment deals with China, but needs some near term profits pretty badly.)

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Putins-Tough-Choice-China-Or-The-West.html

China protests new round of Iran sanctions, some against Chinese companies, working with Iran. China certainly needs Iranian oil and gas. Iran is a major destination of the New Silk Road. Iran sanctions present a subtle window of economic attack on Chinese interests.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/02/06/509355/Iran-China-US-protest-sanctions-list

Iran has never been seen having any ties with Daesh, al-Nusra Front or other terrorist groups, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. (You Americans know this is a lie. What are you trying to accomplish with it?)  https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201702061050390158-iran-terrorism-russia/

UK Speaker of the House of Commons won't let Donald Trump address the assembly. "That's an honor to be earned." Position currently is broadly endorsed.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/06/donald-trump-should-not-be-allowed-to-speak-in-westminster-hall-says-speaker

President Trump will honor the deal President Obama made with Australia (he has to) to accept about 1500 refugees held in concentration camps on Manus Island and Nauru, for trying to reach Australia illegally by smuggler's boats. There are a lot more than that. Trump is very unhappy with this "worst deal ever", but not as unhappy as these human pawns are. Aussie PM Malcolm Turnbull didn't get hung-up on (quite), though 25 min call was not an hour. Turnbull prevailed in Australia's interest.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/02/06/6-feb-17-world-view-trump-will-honor-australia-refugee-deal-despite-calling-worst-deal-ever/

Trump or Putin? EU loses story line on what the biggest threat to Europe now is. It looks like the Neocon-Clintonistas shift from Putin to Trump as biggest threat just jumped the pond. The global elite battle for supremacy is far from decided. EU heads of state meet in Malta. Francois Hollande, least popular French leader since Louis XVI, could become the next President of the European Council.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46384.htm

Loser in Paradise

Deconstruction Or Collapse

Accepting the Inevitable,

EU Parliamentarians will fight Donald Trump's ambassador to the EU, who favors EU deconstruction. “I helped bring down the Soviet Union, so maybe there’s another union that needs a little taming,” said Mr. Malloch in an interview with the BBC.

“These statements reveal outrageous malevolence regarding the values that define this European Union,” Mr. Verhofstadt and Mr. Weber wrote, adding that Mr. Malloch could seriously undermine the trans-Atlantic relationship. “We are strongly convinced that persons seeing as their mission to disrupt or dissolve the European Union should not be accredited as official representatives to the E.U.” Thanks Eleni

https://global.handelsblatt.com/politics/e-u-party-leaders-reject-donald-trumps-ambassador-pick-for-brussels-697087

Moon of Alabama says that Ukrainian PM Poroshenko was sure Clinton would win, banked Clinton, then swallowed advice from John McCain and Lindsay Graham to attack in the Donbass, further violating the ceasefire he has never really kept. Trump MET with Poroshenko's rival, Yulia Temoshenko, then had a fairly short and non-committal phone call with Poroshenko. This boxes "Porky" in, and boxes his ears, too. The assessment is that Ukrainian aggression was not hidden effectively, and is seen by all parties as a partisan effort to derail Trump detente with Russia. It's not working.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/02/russia-ukraine-neocon-ceasefire-sabotage-fails-to-change-trumps-mind-.html#more

Marine LePen is really clear about the purpose of her presidential campaign. "If elected, Le Pen says she would immediately seek an overhaul of the European Union that would reduce it to a very loose cooperative of nations with no single currency and no border-free area. If, as is likely, France's EU partners refuse to agree to this, she would call a referendum to leave the bloc."  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-fn-idUSKBN15J007?il=0

Euro fades in currency markets as Le Pen presidency begins to look possible.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-forex-idUSKBN15L02V?il=0

French bonds lose luster as recent French presidential front-runner Filon, now losing support for hiring his wife on national payroll, for questionable work, apologizes instead of punching back hard.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-06/market-not-happy-fillon-statement-spread-germany-spikes

Former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis urges Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to turn his back on Greece’s lenders, adopt a parallel payment system  and to unilateral restructure the loans held by the European Central Bank. “This two-pronged preparation is the only way to prevent another excruciating retreat by the prime minister in the short term and [German Finance Minister Wolfgang] Schaeuble’s plan in the long term.” Varoufakis suggested that Schaeuble’s strategy is to lead Greeks to the point of exhaustion so they ask to leave the euro themselves.  

http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2017/02/05/varoufakis-urges-tsipras-to-ditch-negotiations-adopt-parallel-system/

This article says that a "Transpacific Partnership" composed of the US, Japan and South Korea, and based on the power of the US military to defend them from China, may be plenty, and may already be well on the way to agreement, since Secretary of Defense Mattis visited those countries recently.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/05/op-ed-president-trumps-major-asian-breakthrough.html

China unveils a new ballistic missile that can nuke Japan, Taiwan and US bases in Asia. It's fast, and hard to intercept with ABMs.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-06/china-unveils-new-ballistic-missile-capable-threatening-taiwan-us-bases-asia

This voice from the Independent UK says that "Deluded Republicans are Accidentally Pushing for Progressive Corporate Tax Reform" This reform would encourage repatriation of corporate profits, by taxing all transactions within the US, regardless of corporate headquarters. (Hey, maybe they mean to do it correctly this time, fella.)

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/republicans-are-accidentally-pushing-for-progressive-tax-reform-a7563571.html

Professor Paul Craig Roberts: 150 masked “protesters” at Cal Berkeley, precisely 0.0039 percent of the 38,000 student body was all it took to shut down free speech at the University of California, Berkeley. The protesters are so confused that they see the shutdown as a victory for free speech. The 150 violent protesters are masked, so we don’t know if they are students or a Deep State operation against President Trump. The protesters are behaving as fascists by shutting down free speech. By associating the exercise of free speech with fascism, the protesters appear to be too stupid to be Cal Berkeley students. When I was a graduate student at Cal Berkeley, there were high admission standards.  http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/02/02/cal-berkeley-protesters-fascists/

Keystone XL needs much higher oil prices to be viable. Art Berman

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Keystone-XL-Needs-Much-Higher-Oil-Prices-To-Be-Viable.html

Which assets are most likely to survive the inevitable "System re-set"? Charles Hugh Smith (Not financial assets, but who you are, what you know/do, friends and family, and your house and land if you can keep up tax payments through some kind of income source.)

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb17/assets-survive2-17.html

Still Have Health

So Many Battlefields

Seeing Chaos,

It is hard to see clear patterns to what looks like the fog of war in the opaque world of political and financial elites. We should do what we can do in our own relations. The smoke and fire and shouting in the distance will affect us soon enough.

The Purpose of Decadence and the Pleasures of Coercion, Jim Kunstler

(The center did not hold. There is a pervasive social disintegration. Restructuring along new lines always takes decades. Create simple things that work, like bikes and gardens.)

Societies may not exactly be organisms with intentions, but they move in a particular direction because they are emergent phenomena. That is, they are self-organizing according to the circumstances and forces they are subject to at a certain time and place in history. Decadence is specifically the decay of social and cultural boundaries, a process that is manifestly accelerating now. Both sides of the political spectrum are acting out this dynamic, with the vacuum in the middle sucking vitality out of each side. The Left has become a kind of pagan religion of sacred victims and victimhood, collecting sacred injuries and martyrs. Its dark secret, though, is that these sacred things are only straw-dogs and wicker-men. The real animating motive for the Left these days is simply the pleasure of coercion, of exercising the power to punish their adversaries and watch them suffer. The Trump Right also enjoys the writhings and sufferings of its adversaries, squashed bug style, as it goes forth in the quixotic battle to bring back 1962 at all costs. Both the Left and the right show not a little sadism in their methods. In the background of these histrionics, the great groaning machine of Modernity lurches toward collapse — not the end-of-the-world as many foolishly imagine, but the end of a phase of history when things that used to work, don’t. At a certain point, we’ll have to try other ways of being with each other on this planet, and then for a while things will come together again.  http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/purpose-decadence-pleasures-coercion/

Representative Tulsi Gabbard, of Hawaii calls for a return to Glass-Steagall, The Banking Act of 1933, which served to stabilize American finance from then until it was revoked in 1999, about 9 years before something unstable happened as a direct result. (She's dressed in Red in this picture. This is a bipartisan effort. Keep watching Tulsi. She's a "Democrat".)  https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/rep-tulsi-gabbard-lawmakers-call-reinstatement-glass-steagall

"Trump Drives a Wedge in the EU", Mish Shedlock,  with some excellent commentary. Trump is pushing what seems wobbly, in the cases of EU structure, which never became stable. The EU is now clearly disintegrating. (He is also poking the massive Chinese debt Ponzi scheme here and there, in various ways. It is in American interests to have the EU, and/or China collapse first. Trump wants to push-what-is-soon-to-fall. It is classic method of those who wish to maintain control.)  https://mishtalk.com/2017/01/31/trump-drives-a-wedge-in-the-eu/

German Finance Minister (and career deep state Sith lord) Wolfgang Schauble agrees with Trump that "the Euro is too low for Germany". It is, of course, too high for Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal...  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-05/schauble-agrees-trump-euro-too-low-germany-blames-mario-draghi#comment-8951428

Grexit? This time? This spring? Greeks have been financially crushed, and further crushing is demanded by the EU. It is not possible for Greek Democracy to bleed Greeks more. Germany would probably not resist Grexit. It would be harsh. What new alliances would be open to Greeks? What would the losses to banks look like? Which banks? Which countries?  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/03/grexit-greece-debt-crisis-eu-germany-us

Italeave? Italy has had worse economic losses in the EU than Greece, and steadily, the whole time. Italy really needs the Lira back, and Italians know it and the 5-star movement supports Italian nationalism, with European cooperation, but a currency the can devalue to pay debts and compete in manufacturing.   https://mishtalk.com/2017/02/03/assessing-iexit-italy-increasingly-likely-to-abandon-the-euro/

Syria, Cradle of Civilization and Pivot of Global Power Games: Thanks Eleni. This is a really complex opening to endgame negotiations. The Saudis and Gulf Sheikdoms want their military forces in carve-outs of Syria. The US and Saudis have openly entertained this, ignoring Syrian sovereignty. Iranian interests are at odds with the sheiks. Iran has thousands of years of historical perspective. Russia and the US seek detente', though there is internal factional infighting. Little discussed here is Israel. Israel wants the Golan Heights oil and gas; will have it; will play very hard and as dirty as necessary.    http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/01/30/syria-cradle-of-civilization-and-pivot-for-the-global-power-games/

Ukrainian government attacks Donbass to sabotage US/Russia rapprochement    http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/02/ukraine-coup-government-tries-to-sabotage-us-russia-rapprochement.html

US Navy Seal attack on Yemen was a debacle planned for months, that Obama "couldn't OK because it needed a moonless night". The botched slaughter happened on Trump's watch. The element of surprise was lost, Osprey troop transport destroyed, ambush set up, women and children, including 8 year old American girl killed, rescue-team had to extricate our heroes, including the seal-martyr... Moon of Alabama looks into as much detail as possible. Trump was supposed to stop this stupid, evil shit, right? Just how did this get approved? Who benefits?  http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/02/crazy-ideas-about-the-us-attack-in-yemen.html

In the interview, Bill O’Reilly asked if Trump respects Russian President Vladimir Putin, to which the he replied, “I do respect him. Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get along with them.” After O’Reilly asks why, Trump answers: "He is the leader of his country. I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not, and if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS – which is a major fight – and the Islamic terrorism all over the world, that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.” O'Reilly pressed Trump on his statement, saying, "But he's a killer though. Putin's a killer." Trump shrugged the comment off, saying: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country is so innocent?”  (BOOM! Interrupting the SUPER BOWL? HUGE!)  https://www.rt.com/usa/376357-trump-putin-interview-killer/

The Greenland ice sheet is melting 6 times faster than predicted by current models.  Huh? Wuzzupwiddat?  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/02/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-600-percent-faster-predicted-current-models.html

Unreliable Forecaster

Skydiving Chuteless

Bracing for Impact,

We are going into a time where collapse of the postwar political economic structure, composed at Bretton Woods in 1947, has been gamed and parasitized as far as it can, while still appearing to live. The Bretton Woods agreement placed the US gold reserves and military at the heart of the trust-based-financial-system. They were the most trustworthy things in 1947. Upon this foundation of trust was debt, more and more debt, because debt was the actual basis of the money. Military and gold were necessary to support enough trust to accept debt as money. 

As trust became entrenched and more complacent, and as the world changed, US gold ran out. Oil was eventually and less formally substituted over time, creating the "petro-dollar". This was founded upon US military dominance of oil-production and transport routes, and assuring the cooperation of swing-state producers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, then just mostly Saudi Arabia. Countries like Libya and Iraq, who tried to denominate oil sales in currencies other than US dollars, were destroyed.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, debt has been expanded to answer the problems of unsupportable debt. That game has already passed from decreasing returns, to negative returns, which is vigorously obscured by governments and complicit media. No vested interest wants the game to end. The game will end, anyway. It always does. Then what?

Jordan Greenhall, whose analysis of the political/military insurgency of the "Red Religion" against the "Blue Church", I found so helpful, has 2 articles on Debt Jubilee, and will release a third article soon.

Debt Jubilee 1, Understanding how things have come to be as they are, and how that is.

https://medium.com/emergent-culture/it-is-time-for-a-global-debt-jubilee-part-i-901cd0ec305d#.vxp1kdoal

Debt Jubilee 2, A non-parasitic kind of money is needed, and what a debt jubilee is, isn't, and must include.

https://medium.com/emergent-culture/it-is-time-for-a-global-debt-jubilee-part-ii-a0d3576e9cdf#.y80uo5ndq

Nomi Prins looks at the Goldman Sachs relationships with Franklin Roosevelt and now Donald Trump. Very supportive of both, as you might expect. A World Made By and For Goldman Sachs. This says we must continue upon the current road to crisis.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176236/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins,_goldmanizing_donald_trump/

Acting Attorney General, Sally Yates is fired after failing to support the Trump ban on travelers from countries we bombed, temporary as it was. This is being portrayed as an unpredictable act by President Donald, and it might be, or it might be that creating the impression of unpredictability is important to the strategic action plan going forward.

"Mattis, who stood next to Trump during Friday’s signing ceremony, is said to be particularly incensed. A senior U.S. official said Mattis, along with Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford, was aware of the general concept of Trump’s order but not the details. Tillerson has told the president’s political advisers that he was baffled over not being consulted on the substance of the order." 

https://apnews.com/98c2a8cac3b74bde803f03af4e53af47/Trump-faces-blowback-from-Cabinet,-diplomats-for-refugee-ban

This article says that Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard's meeting with Syrian President Assad proves that US President Trump believes that Assad should stay in power. All of this is sensible, but no proof at all is actually presented. It's pure conjecture.

http://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/syria-crisis/1485-tulsi-gabbard-assad.html

Yes, Trump will pull the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accords. That is pretty clear. (Personally, I think that economic collapse will do what we have never seen such accords do. Politicians cannot fight against a profitable economy. It's a lie. Economic collapse is the only thing we have clearly seen cut CO2 emissions.)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-paris-climate-change-deal-myron-ebell-us-president-america-pull-out-agreement-a7553676.html

After a pleasant meeting with President Trump, UK PM Theresa May believes that the announcement of intent, triggering Article 50, can still be presented to the EU on March 9, about a month from now. There is certainly dissension in parliamentary ranks, and this might lead to some delays, even some later culling of unfaithful ministers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4175080/Theresa-aiming-trigger-Brexit-March-9.html#ixzz4XQL8zWEG

Every week or two the front runner in French elections, set for May, changes, but it sure won't be Marine LePen. That much is absolutely certain. (heh, heh, heh  :-) 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-idUSKBN15G43I

President Trump's likely EU Ambassador was somewhat instrumental in collapsing the Soviet Union, and envisions providing similar services in this new post.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/donald-trump-eu-ambassador-ted-malloch-tame-european-union-like-brought-down-soviet-union-russia-a7549696.html

President Obama ordered the :"extrajudicial" killing of a 15 year old American boy in Yemen. President Trump just gave the order that killed his 8 year old sister, shot in the neck by Navy SEALs. She was one of many women and children killed in this mini-invasion of Yemen to steal some computers, which might have important intelligence information.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/30/obama-killed-a-16-year-old-american-in-yemen-trump-just-killed-his-8-year-old-sister/

"Lessons For The Resistance, from The Bush Resistance", Ian Welsh

So Obama got in power, he bailed out the banks, he fucked over ordinary home-owners, he increased deportations and ramped up drone assassinations. He was far harsher on whistleblowers than Bush had been and he re-signed all the bad bills when the time came, like the Patriot Act and the AUMF, which had given Bush massive executive power and carte-blanche to spy, and assassinate, and go to war.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/lessons-for-the-resistance-from-the-bush-resistance/

Resisting Futility

American Holy War

Honest Agnostics,

Hubert in Kohala sent this article in reply to the War Of The Worlds news compilation. It gives a clear conceptual framework for America's current deep-state-regime-change struggle.

"The Blue Church should expect to meet the Red Religion in war. And in this conflict the Red Religion has the advantage. In the nature of every movement that has endured the crucible of selection, the Red Religion is much more coherent and focused than the dominant Church which is criss-crossed with internal conflict and in-fighting. The Red Religion was born into and optimized for new media (e.g, optimized for memes rather than films) and as the balance of power shifts from 20th Century media to 21st Century media, this inures to the advantage of the Reds. Going deeper, even as the Red Religion has developed an immunity to most of the primary techniques of the Blue Church, it has simultaneously developed its own memetic/values structure connected with deep human values that stem from ancient “tribal selection” and are highly attractive to the portions of the human family (men and women) who are focused on protecting and defending their tribe (hence the Red Religions’ intrinsic focus on Nationalism). In other words, over the short to mid term, most of the humans who are best prepared to wage war — who are most attuned to and psychologically ready for war — will be attracted to the Red Religion. They will be focused, almost entirely immune to the entire portfolio of Blue weapons and they will be armed with and optimized for 21st Century techniques of waging culture war."  

https://medium.com/deep-code/situational-assessment-2017-trump-edition-d189d24fc046#.cae9lht68

OODA-Loop refers to Observe-Orient-Decide-Act, a military conceptual structure that pertains to the adaptive behavior in a dogfight, on a battlefield, or in any theater of conventional or unconventional war. It was expounded by the designer of the F-16 Tomcat, fighter plane. It is broadly applicable. It's part of the analysis presented above. Advantages in battle go to the nimble fighter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

Pick One:

"Tulsi Gabbard speaks the truth on Syria; gets smeared by the mainstream media"  https://sputniknews.com/politics/201701291050132024-gabbard-smeared-over-syria/

"How Tulsi Gabbard became Assad's mouthpiece in Washington"  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/how-tulsi-gabbard-became-assads-mouthpiece-in-washington/2017/01/29/215e9c70-e4bf-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.45ba8b691eb2

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard says: “The reality is, Jake – and I’m glad you bought up that point – every place that I went, every person I spoke to, I asked this question to them. And without hesitation, they said ‘there are no moderate rebels, who are these moderate rebels that people keep speaking of?’

“Regardless of the name of these groups, the strongest fighting force on the ground in Syria is Al-Nusra or Al-Qaeda and ISIS. That is a fact. There are a number of different other groups, all of them are fighting alongside, with or under the command of the strongest group on the ground that is trying to overthrow Assad.”  http://yournewswire.com/congresswoman-obama-funded-isis/

Paul Craig Roberts sees the "Left Self-Destructing". I think that's how this weird secret war for control of the deep-state looks from one angle, but I think the real left took a nap 40 years ago, and is still snoring.    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/01/30/left-self-destructing-paul-craig-roberts/

 Dog In Some Fight