I am all good with this being a world that people choose to come to to enjoy, compete, even spar/war with others. But I object to it being a world, where those who do not want to participate in murder and mayhem are forced to die at the hands of those who want to kill.

I wonder if it even matters. If we are on the cusp of a major financial crisis, that budget will take a hit regardless of the actual numbers. Our military has accumulated a lot of ‘drag’ in the form of a growing number of seriously injured war vets. That number is constantly growing, and each new addition brings another lifetimes worth of medical costs. The VA is swamped now, today, at current levels.

Also, the growing divide within America means fewer will be joining up out of patriotism, and the caliber of recruits will continue to decline, greatly increasing the likelihood of battlefield mishaps due to incompetence and eroding everyone’s confidence in the people serving around them.

This will lead, inevitably, to losses on the battlefield. Big losses, both in numbers and in prestige, and eventually in domestic support. Apparently Trump still believes the problems we have can be resolved by throwing more money at them. I think what he is missing is that we are now past the point where a bigger budget will have any effect. It simply does not matter what amount you hurl at them, they have now progressed so far that they WILL unfold now regardless of what you do. The bigger budget will only go down the same rathole as the trillions before, and we won’t get any more value from that investment. The quality of both recruits and equipment (sourced from corporations that have been given total freedom to profit at all costs) will continue to decline, as will the credibility and ultimately the authority of the US military around the world.

What the military, and all the other agencies of .gov needed was CLEANSING and REFORM. There’s no price tag on those, you either do them or you don’t. But if you don’t, then no amount of money will make a bit of difference, except to your blown-up budget.

This is one area where me and Col. Trump FUNDAMENTALLY disagree. (Warning: spoof).

The defense budget needs to be increased five fold, not 13%, but 65%, to $1,026,300,000,000, by fiscal 2019.

The coming war with Iran, then Russia, demands our utmost preparedness for the terror attacks they will partner up with North Korea to sponsor beforehand. It is simply a new geopolitical reality that it will cost at least half a trillion dollars more each year to keep America safe from international haters of freedumb who hate us for our freedumbs.

Once we decide to bravely, heroically, and distinctively preemptively nuke Pyongyang, it is imperative we increase our defense budget to $2,052,600,000,000 for fiscal 2020, so we are able to hire enough Dreamers to both fight the Chinese and build alligator, eel, and pirhana infested moats around all government buildings, financial institutions, and synagogues here in the Homeland.

Then, and ONLY THEN, once the moats have been built, we should make a two part statement announcing plans for another five fold increase in the defense budget to $10,263,000,000,000 for fiscal 2021, along with another statement announcing imminent nuclear war with everyone. It is debatable which should be announced first.

But the new ten trillion/year defense budget will definitely keep us safe, while also allowing us to hire, at better wages, considerably more military personnel to help with the tens of millions of Islamic refugees we will take in per year to resettle in America’s rural communities.

written by paul-martin foss

Friday January 26, 2018

A year after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, analysts and commentators are assessing both his performance in the first year of his presidency as well as the outlook for the remainder of his first term. Entering office as a surprise winner and a political neophyte, many people didn’t know just what to expect from Trump. Would he do what he pledged to do as a candidate, or was his campaign rhetoric just a lot of hot air to bamboozle enough people into voting for him? One of Trump’s most popular promises was to “drain the swamp” and, while the President has tried to make some strides in that respect over the past year, there are concerning signs that any swamp draining may be coming to an end.

Personnel Is Policy

One of the primary rules in politics is “personnel is policy.” What a politician says he’ll do is less important than who he hires to implement his policies. In many cases, the people he hires may not agree with his policies and may work to surreptitiously (or not so surreptitiously) undermine and co-opt him. We certainly see this on Capitol Hill all the time, where class after class of freshman Congressmen enters Congress pledging to fix the way Congress works. Yet time after time they get corrupted by the system in Washington. Why is that? It’s because of the people they hire.

Coming into office often with no experience of how things operate in DC, they rely on their respective party apparatuses to staff their offices. They’ll hire Hill veterans as their chiefs of staff and legislative directors, staffers who are more concerned with the future of their careers and who consequently do everything they can not to upset party leadership so that they can maintain their ability to work on the Hill and work the government/lobbying revolving door. We’re seeing much the same thing happening in the White House today too, as Trump continues to hire establishment Republicans who wouldn’t be out of place in a Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, or John McCain White House.

A prime example of that was Reince Priebus, President Trump’s first White House chief of staff. Trump’s initial appointment of Priebus as chief of staff was a confusing one, as Priebus’ establishment credentials all but guaranteed that he would try to bring as many establishment operatives to the White House as possible. By all accounts there was a civil war of sorts within the White House regarding appointments both within the White House and at cabinet agencies, as the pro-Trump insurgent wing fought things out with the establishment and its cadre of opportunistic former never-Trumpers.

While rumors of Priebus’ ouster were at first thought to be a promising sign that the insurgents were winning, Trump’s appointment of Secretary of Homeland Security and former Marine Corps general John Kelly as Priebus’ successor dashed any hopes of that occurring. Kelly immediately cracked down on access to the President, appointing himself as the gatekeeper through whom all information to and from the President was to flow. In less than a month Kelly had forced Steve Bannon out of the White House, and he slowly began to purge the White House of Trump loyalists. Anyone who wasn’t going to go along with Kelly’s organizational plans wasn’t going to last long.

One of the more recent loyalist departures was that of Omarosa Manigault, the former The Apprentice contestant who served as Director of Communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison and who reportedly enjoyed direct access to President Trump. By all accounts Omarosa bristled at Kelly’s attempts to control staffers’ access to the President, and attempted to continue contacting the President directly. Kelly obviously couldn’t handle what he viewed as insubordination and, after a series of scathingly negative articles in the media about Omarosa’s personality and job performance, she was forced out too.

Trump Supporters Replaced With Establishment Figures

It isn’t just the White House that has seen departures either. Cabinet agencies have witnessed similar incidents, such as Tom Price’s resignation as Secretary of Health and Human Services. In Price’s case, as with Omarosa and others, his departure fell into a familiar pattern. The official is targeted for removal, either by disgruntled insiders or outside political opponents, a series of negative articles in the vehemently anti-Trump media ensues, the media continue to fan the flames as long as they can, and eventually the target either resigns or is forced to quit.

In many cases the replacements after these resignations are retreads from previous administrations, or candidates favored by the establishment. For instance, the nominee to succeed Price at HHS, Alex Azar, served as General Counsel and Deputy Secretary at HHS during the George W. Bush Administration before becoming the top lobbyist for pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and later President of the company’s US operations. Kelly’s replacement as Secretary of Homeland Security was his chief of staff while at DHS, Kirstjen Nielsen, another veteran of the George W. Bush Administration.

Trump’s replacement for Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser was LTG H.R. McMaster, an Army general whose 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty, was critical of Vietnam-era military leaders for not questioning and criticizing the strategy they received from civilian leaders. McMaster’s deputy national security adviser was Dina Powell, a former managing director and partner at Goldman Sachs, and his pick to replace her is Nadia Schadlow, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The policies these appointees pursue, too, are nothing more than a continuation of some of the worst violations of our freedoms, such as pushing for reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA and forcing states to comply with the REAL ID Act. These appointees and their policies wouldn’t be out of place under any other establishment administration, so how exactly does Trump expect to drain the swamp by appointing these people and why is he doing it?

Foreign Policy Is the Canary in the Coal Mine

President Trump is increasingly hemmed in by the people he has chosen to staff his administration. Kelly is doing his best to control the flow of information to the President so that he can control what ideas Trump can choose from. Kelly’s relationship with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, a former Marine Corps general, and National Security Adviser McMaster is said to be a close one, meaning that Trump’s foreign policy will essentially be controlled by generals who have fully embraced the mindset and world view of the military-industrial establishment. Given the trust Trump has placed in “his generals,” it is unlikely that we’ll see a sensible foreign policy coming from the White House any time soon.

Trump’s ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has taken a far more hawkish line than candidate Trump ever did, and has been doing that since day one with no repercussions. Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, recently announced a “new” US policy towards Syria that is committed to the overthrow of Syrian President Assad, a policy whose outcome would have a severe destabilizing effect on the Middle East and whose execution would continue the risk of provoking a war with Russia. The US Senate has increasingly become emboldened in standing up to President Trump too, questioning some of his anti-establishment appointments or, in the case of former Congressman Scott Garrett, Trump’s nominee to head up and reform the Export-Import Bank, rejecting them outright. Establishment figures finally sense that the populist wave that swept Trump into office is subsiding, and they are beginning to feel their oats.

Many in Trump’s electoral base are unaware of the political machinations that are going on to isolate and co-opt the President. They see passage of a tax reform bill, withdrawal from TPP, and continued movement towards building a border wall as signs that Trump is still “winning.” But recent comments from Kelly, who called Trump’s previous stances on immigration and the border wall “not fully informed” make it clear that the cabal encircling the President has its own ideas and will continue working to bring them to fruition. They’ll chip away at Trump and his policy ideas piece by piece until they are able to substitute their own ideas for his.

The establishment’s ideal is to surround the President with policy experts who present him with a limited range of policy options which have the establishment’s stamp of approval, excluding any non-interventionist or outside-the-box thinking. They hope to then get the President to claim their ideas for his own when doing his victory laps, making him think that he was responsible for what are actually the same doomed-to-fail policies that have circulated throughout DC for decades. When things inevitably go belly up, it will be Trump taking the blame in the media while the establishment figures advising him slink back to their think tanks, law firms, or lobbying firms to await the next President they can hijack.

The establishment isn’t averse to using the media to nudge Trump towards their side either, as Kelly’s latest interview indicates. Although there have been some reports that Trump is getting fed up with Kelly, he recently took to Twitter to support his chief, capitulating to the establishment to ensure the appearance of a unified front within the White House. One thing is for sure, there won’t be any changes in the direction of White House policy until Kelly leaves or is fired. But even then, Trump may be so hopelessly encircled by now that he’ll end up picking another establishment chief of staff, perhaps even at the recommendation of those closest to him.

Parallels Between Trump and Reagan

Trump’s current situation brings back memories of President Reagan’s first term, when chief of staff James Baker, a former Democrat and Bush family friend, was able to put his allies in key positions, ensuring that he was largely successful in keeping President Reagan from enacting any real conservative policies or appointing conservatives to key positions such as the Supreme Court. Another poor personnel pick, Treasury Secretary (and later White House chief of staff) Don Regan, chaired the US Gold Commission and was instrumental in neutering the nascent movement to return the US dollar to a commodity standard, thus completely sidelining a policy that was important to Reagan.

What the Reagan Revolution could have accomplished was nipped in the bud, replaced by what we have now come to know as neoconservatism – a focus on hawkish and interventionist foreign policy, making peace with the welfare state, and economic views that pay lip service to free markets while continuing a policy of big government and crony capitalism. Large budget deficits and a series of proxy wars all over the world were the Reagan legacy, and set the pattern for the actions of future Presidents.

Had it not been for the Soviet Union’s collapse and the post hoc ergo propter hoc assignation of the collapse to the Reagan Administration’s military spending, Reagan’s stature would not be nearly what it is today. Unfortunately the timing of that collapse, even though it was economically inevitable, provided neoconservative foreign policy with a shot in the arm that it has continued to ride for the past quarter of a century in an attempt to maintain its veneer of legitimacy.

We’re facing a similar, Reagan-like situation with President Trump now, as the voters who put him into office intending to give Washington the middle finger have found their man stymied at every turn. If Trump supporters fail to understand what is going on and reflexively support everything coming out of the White House because they view it as originating from President Trump, then their ability to actually effect a change in Washington’s policies will be virtually nil.

The policy establishment surrounding the President knows what it wants and has a strategy to achieve it. They believe that dangling red meat issues like the border wall in front of Trump supporters, or occasionally rattling sabers against North Korea or Iran, giving those in the base just a taste of what they want, is enough to keep them placated while the establishment pursues its own ambitions. Trump supporters are still in the honeymoon phase right now, so that strategy may work, at least for the present.

If Trump supporters don’t wake up and recognize what is transpiring very soon, by the time they realize that they’ve been hoodwinked and that Trump has become the establishment’s Manchurian President it will be too late. Any possibility for good that could have come out of the Trump White House will have been squandered and it may take another generation or more before a similar opportunity presents itself.

Reprinted with author’s permission from Red Tea News.

Nikita Kruschev noted this: Maybe America can destroy Russia “many times” (by today’s standards), but Russia only needs to destroy America once –

“Yes, I know what Kennedy claims, and he’s quite right. But I’m not complaining… We’re satisfied to be able to finish off the United States first time round. Once is quite enough. What good does it do to annihilate a country twice? We’re not a bloodthirsty people.”

• As quoted in Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (1974)

We already know that Russia’s 69bil dollar army can rival the USA military at every level except the Navy. Can you imagine what the 215bil Chinese military can do? and what they can do together with Russia?

 

“Don’t be surprised if S-400’s make their way to Damascus in the near future. It would be a provocation to Israel for sure, but at some point they have to know that continued aggression against the Assad government will end.”

By TOM LUONGO 

Souurce: Gold Goats ‘n Guns

The more I read the headlines the more I hope our nukes are no longer at Incerlik air base in Turkey. U.S. policy in Syria has morphed into this zombie strategy of advancing the “Assad Must Go” no matter what.

No matter how many times the pro-Assad coalition shoots our goals in the head, the more our tactics shift so that we can keep coming.

It’s embarrassing, really. When things become an unmitigated failure on the ground, we normally just ‘declare victory and leave.’ But, in the case of Syria, where the groundwork for this invasion began fifteen years ago, we simply won’t let it go.

Syria was to be the crowning achievement of the Brzezinski/Wolfowitz Doctrine of sowing chaos in Central Asia and isolating Iran from Russia and both of them from China.

An atomized or compliant Syria would be the wedge which would put a docile Turkey on Russia’s southern border.

It would create a staging ground for further destabilization of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iraq, pushing Iran’s influence in the region back behind its borders.

At the same time we would cut Iran off from the world via economic sanctions against not only it but anyone who dared to business with it.

From there the entire continent could be kept in the dark ages, fighting internecine tribal wars for another two generations while gunboat dollar diplomacy would perpetuate the conflict by selling arms and drugs to all sides.

It was a nice plan if you are a would-be world emperor. There’s only one problem.

The Power of No

Putin said no. Iran said no. And there was no way to stop them from saying no strongly enough to use their logistical advantages against us. This exposed our duplicity of ‘fighting ISIS.’

We were behind all of this but it was the proxies who were going to be blamed for it.

And that’s where Turkey comes in. President Erdogan was perfectly willing to go along with the plan until it became obvious that we couldn’t seal the deal in Syria.

When Russian air support and Iranian/Hezbollah ground support turned the war around it exposed his complicity in ISIS’s oil trading to finance ‘the caliphate.’

Erdogan saw the writing on the wall. He was to be the patsy.

He began backing off on the U.S.’s plans. He cut deals with Putin over Turkstream, nuclear power and missile defense systems. He stopped the free flow of terrorists between Idlib and Aleppo, around the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

Without Erdogan doing this, Aleppo would never have been liberated. The war would be a quagmire.

Once this path was set in stone, the Saudis tried to blame Qatar last summer after Trump read everyone in the Arab world (and Israel too) the riot act on funding terrorism.

The biggest miscalculation in the Syrian war was the failed attempt to remove Erdogan. We were behind that. Putin saved Erdogan’s life. And for that the foundation of the current situation was laid.

Turkey’s military intrusion into northern Syria last year was met with zero howls of protest from Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. The only ones to complain were Syria, which they must for legal reasons.

But, Turkey’s actions, despite some two-faced rhetoric from Erdogan, has been solidly in its own interests which dovetail with Russia’s goals to secure the territorial integrity of Syria. And for the military brass in charge of our operations there to not see or expect this is incredibly short-sighted, and now, frankly, incompetent.

Defense Secretary James Mattis continues to not get it when it comes to Turkey and the Syrian Kurds. Mattis still wants to use the ISIS hobgoblin to sell a blatant abrogation of Syria’s sovereignty and U.S. colonization of Kurdish-controlled territory to pressure Iran.

From RT:

He urged Turkey to exercise restraint, stating that it has already disrupted the peaceful return of refugees and could be seen as an opportunity for Al-Qaeda and IS.

“This could be exploited by ISIS and Al-Qaeda, obviously, that we’re not staying focused on them right now. And obviously it risks exacerbating the humanitarian crisis that most of Syria is going through,” Mattis said

At the same time Secretary of State Rex Tillerson looks completely out of the loop in Syria, backing off on the plan to build a 30,000 strong ISIS 2.0 “Border Security Force” in the region east of the Euphrates River where Kurdish SDF forces have had to stand by and watch Mattis’ military escort ISIS fighters out of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor to fight the Assad government in the future.

With friends like these why would Erdogan show any restraint whatsoever?

The Wrath of Erdo-Khan

The biggest tell that this is now a full-blown proxy war is the Russians pulling all military assets out of there before Turkey’s move.

In fact, after he’s done in Afrin, Erdogan will have his military move east and begin sweeping the entire region of U.S./SDF forces along the Turkish/Syrian border.

And that sets up a potentially ugly outcome for the U.S. Its NATO ally is already attacking our proxy army while our leadership can only issue weak verbal protests.

Why? Because to do more would be to admit that there are more than 2000 troops in Syria. It would have to admit we are building more than a dozen bases around the country. We’re in violation of international law, but the U.S. public doesn’t know the extent.

Notice also that President Trump isn’t saying squat about Turkey. All the minions of the Deep State are – Pence is in Israel, Tillerson still keeps to the “Assad Must Go” script and Mattis is actively handling diplomatic duties.

What happens when the Turkish army moves against Manbij or crosses the Euphrates?

Remember, the Syrian Arab Army still controls two major towns in the hart of SDF-controlled territory. The U.S. dare not attack them in response to Turkey advancing east.

Moreover, I see no hew and cry from the usual suspects at the U.N. over this. The U.K. came out in support of Turkey.

At some point everyone acts in their own best interest. And for Erdogan, acting as Russia’s proxy army against the U.S.’s proxy army is the height of survival instinct.

Russia’s Proxy War

Meanwhile, Russia is letting everyone know that the drone strike on the airbase in Latakia was a one-off event. Another recent RT report has S-400 missile defense systems being delivered to both the air base that was attacked as well as the naval station at Tartus where the Russian navy is parked.

Don’t be surprised if S-400’s make their way to Damascus in the near future. It would be a provocation to Israel for sure, but at some point they have to know that continued aggression against the Assad government will end.

And while Russia can’t and shouldn’t directly intervene over Israel’s bombing campaign, giving Syria the tools it needs to defend itself it can do.

These S-400’s are a clear statement by the Russians that they will not tolerate further harassment for political purposes. They will be staying in Syria. The drone strike was meant as a warning to Putin. It was also an ill-conceived plot to weaken his political support at home during the election season.

Putin knows the U.S. Deep State will not stop trying to wriggle out of the trap set for them in Syria. He knows how far they are willing to go to win. No plot is too desperate and if is sparks another war on Syrian soil, so be it.

But, all it will do is erode what bargaining position we have left in Syria. The choice now is orderly retreat or a rout at the hands of our NATO ally, who will not stop until the Kurdish threat to Turkey’s integrity is over.

And with it the ignominious end of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s dream of a subjugated Asia.

I’ve lived in the US for about 12 years and everyone I have ever met hated going to high school, in their young years, as they were bullied there – for being too fat, too small, too tall etc – only one girl I know liked it there (and she was good looking, but dumb).

Children simply copy their parents and their country’s foreign policy (based on stupid bullying by dumb psychopaths). At the same time, I don’t think I have ever met a brave person in the US of AIPAC – and I think it’s because people did not have healthy childhoods where they were able to safely interact, experiment, make mistakes etc – as they do in normal countries. That’s why they all seem stuck in high school mentality for their whole lives (famous producers, directors, Hollywood big shots etc. that I have met, all seem like that). Always ready to slavishly submit to whoever is ‘popular’…

American collapse is much more severe than we suppose it is. This is probably the best description of US of AIPAC I have ever seen – I agree on every single point as a foreigner who’s lived there for more than a decade. And I think DC is the worst, with by far the worst people, biggest cowards and craziest psychopaths (I lived there during Snowden’s leaks).

January 22nd, 2018 – Fort Russ News –
– by Alex Balan, for FRN –

This Saturday, around 10.000 Romanians mostly turned out and organized by Soros (and US-AID and NED) NGOs gathered around the movement Rezist (identical name to Otpor used by Soros against Serbia – ed) and other Romanians, mostly employees of foreign multinational companies gathered in the Romanian capital for a so called anti corruption rally targeting the anti-globalist socialist Government of Romania and its patriotic and popular reforms.

The Sorosistas were shipped from all around the country to the capital, mainly from the town of Cluj Napoca which is a hotbed of treacherous NGO’s sponsored from abroad. Facebok and twitter were used to mobilize them.The aim of the protest was surely to cause another Maidan like protest, as seen in Ukraine – occupy the main centre, Revolution square, and set up tents.

Their violent intentions were later uncovered when Romanian police seized various weapons ranging from knives gas pistols pyrotechnics bastons.

Sorosistas did manage to knock down police fences and block traffic for awhile, but were later pushed back by the Romanian police’s prompt reaction. It took only 4 minutes to clear the main square of provocateurs, most scattered while tens got arrested.

This is not the first time these subversive actions take place. These protest take place once a month, their aim to stop the government s judiciary and other reforms which would give power to Romanian courts and limit the influence of the American founded DNA anti-corruption agency whose sole purpose is to destroy Romanian capital, put rich Romanians in jail under false pretenses with fabricated dossiers, and their wealth later sold off to foreigners.

The hypocrisy is that if corruption doesn’t mean the neo-colonial project to transfer sovereign capital into the hands of foreign capitalists, and the expense of the living conditions and work opportunities of millions of Romanians, then it has little meaning in reality, at all. So the American founded ‘DNA’ anti-corruption agency is in fact a leading force of real corruption, if meaningfully defined, in Romania today.

These liberal EU-phile demonstrators in Romania are called bots, most of them ordinary appointees employed in the so-called NGO sector or in multinational companies that want to stop reforms in Romania. The goal of the reforms of the socialist government is to have multinational companies pay higher taxes, and and laws which forbid the selling of land and mineral resources to foreigners, the judiciary would also thus be in the hands of Romanians, and not the US anti-corruption agency DNA, etc. In recent years, the agriculture business in Romania has been hit hard by EU intervention and speculation schemes, which in real terms have seen an increase in food costs for Romanians, and a decrease in local production, below capacity.

The socialist PSD government won a landslide victory in elections which took place 13 month ago , they have over 50% in both houses, the Parliament and the Senate, while liberals have around 20%. This is an important fact, given that millions of Romanians turned out in this legal process. While the demonstrations appear large, they are nothing like a referendum on the last election, numerically speaking. They must be understood as a vocal minority which refuses to respect the will of the Romanian people, who have grown tired of neo-liberal reforms at the behest of the US and EU.

It’s interesting that Romanians which work for multinational companies are often forced by their slave-masters to attend these violent protests and are threatened with sacking if they don’t comply. This is because the socialist Government wants to raise taxation of multinationals in Romania which till now have mostly avoided paying any taxes through various malversation schemes. The Soros backed and Gene Sharp inspired protesters of ‘Rezist’ are famous for displaying flags of foreign countries at their meetings, in particular US, Canadian and Israeli, which clearly shows which countries sponsor and pay them to cause chaos.

Does “Washington” hate Assad? WHO is “Washington” … Who is Assad, for that matter? We can post cuddly pictures of the dude with an uber ‘western-style’ Melanie type of trophy wife… leading a frail patriarch outta church… or go after him for gassing his guys n gals… it makes no difference at the ‘end of days.’

What matters is ‘the narrative.’ A narrative which poses X’s noble and determined….fill in your fake adjectival overkill here….against Y’s destructive and scurrilous…. repeat as above…here. This is Kabbalism in action. This is the source of their mastery of minds, media, and the middle east. With naive readers suitably submitted to the hypnotic trance, you can sell any ol’ canard. Like this one.

Now … the folks defending their fields and villages against an incursion by a jihadist regime and its jihadi proxy mercs… become “remaining ragtags of allegedly anti pro-democracy rebels”… while the actual remaining ragtags of a once mighty jihadi army get folded into the Turks’ campaign to ‘make the world safe again’… for religious fanatics, misogynist rapists, and the real riff-raff of the muddled east! All the stuff an altright wing nut sheeple loves to gobble up!

Now the Turkish Islamist TERROR STATE “reasonably enough, is to be regarded as an existential threat”… existential threat? To whom?… where have we heard that phrase before… OH YA! — THAT OTHER muddled eastern TERROR STATE with Tel Aviv (no make that Jerusalem) as its capital!

OOPSY. This is all exposed… This ALL IS A LIE. More insane agitprop from the usual suspects… packaged and ‘rebranded’ in the latest flavor of Paul Institute for Peace.

Rinse, and start again.

By Jeff Foxworthy:

If plastic water bottles are okay, but plastic bags are banned, — you might live in a nation (state) that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

WE DO LIVE IN SUCH A DUMB COUNTRY!!

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives latest F-16 or F-35 fighter jets to the crazy leaders in Israel or Saudis — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If an 80-year-old woman who is confined to a wheelchair or a three-year-old girl can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more “safe”, according to the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

RT discussed the issue with Richard Barbrook, academic in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages at the University of Westminster.

“In 1984 George Orwell has this idea that a large number of the population had telescreens where the television spies on you as well as gives you propaganda. And this is the source of the logical extension of this,” Barbrook told RT.

“We all carry around mobile phones, we have laptops, now people have these voice activated assistants and obviously this is all collecting data on you,” he continued.

Barbrook says it is interesting that people became paranoid about voice surveillance and it any form of surveillance 20-30 years ago, but now just accept it.

“Often, lots of it is happening in the commercial sector and the NSA is basically piggybacking on the back of this,” he added.

Asked about the privacy implications of massive collection of voice recording by NSA, Barbrook pointed out that “it is blanket surveillance, not tracking people.”

He said he doesn’t think anybody would argue that the police should chase terrorists or pedophiles.

“But we are not talking about just targeted surveillance, what we are talking is – everybody, everything, every piece of data by everybody being collected and scanned by software for anything that looks deviant,” he explained.

“You can’t tell. You could say ‘They are only after the bad guys.’ But what happens if suddenly there is a massive protest movement in Western countries, then they could start targeting people involved in very legitimate things like demonstrations, strikes, even people who vote the wrong way, as far as the American government is concerned,” he noted.

Barbrook also claimed that whistleblowers seem to be one of the NSA’s priorities “as they [NSA] don’t want people to know what they are doing.”

By Viktor Katona – Jan 21, 2018

It’s difficult to imagine an energy company that’s more hated and more closely monitored than Gazprom…

Perhaps in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill, BP attained similar levels of public oversight.

Nevertheless, defying most trends, 2017 will go down in history as one of Gazprom’s successful years: for the first time in history, its share in Europe’s gas consumption reportedly reached 40 percent.

Despite seemingly crippling U.S. sanctions specifically targeting Gazprom’s European endeavors and the EU’s hastily engineered gas rules, the construction of Nord Stream 2 has been going forward as planned, moreover, the project’s European partners (Shell, Engie, OMV, Uniper, Wintershall) wholly fulfilled their financial obligations.

Gazprom increased gas sales to almost all its buyers in Europe. Germany’s intake reached a historic maximum of 53.4 BCm (Nord Stream-I utilization rate was equally at an unseen high of 93 percent). Turkey took in 29 BCm (18 percent growth). France totaled 12.3 BCm (7 percent growth). A combination of cold weather, low price and shrinking domestic gas output in Europe led Gazprom to a spectacular increase in production, too — its year-on-year growth amounted to 52 BCm/year.

Related: Azerbaijan: A Crucial Energy Hub

Despite regularly occurring fakes that Gazprom is running short of gas, the gas giant is still keeping idle at 100-120 BCm/year of surplus production, mostly on the Yamal peninsula. So technically it can increase its supplies even further, but the real question is whether there will be sufficient demand to meet it.

Further dramatic Europe-bound increases are unlikely until Nord Stream 2 gets onstream. The next few winters might not be as cold as previous ones; oil-pegged gas prices start to appreciate and demand is constrained by existing supply routes. Still, once a pipe dream, now Nord Stream 2 increasingly stands out as Gazprom’s future claim on further European consolidation. The European Commission antitrust enquiry is effectively retracted from the DG Comp’s agenda after Gazprom agreed not to object to cross-border sales of resold Russian gas and make destination clauses flexible.

The EU legal service’s legal opinion on the applicability of the Third Gas Package to an offshore pipeline Nord Stream 2 (it found it was not) all but buried any future European Commission aspirations to block the project. The European Council chief, Donald Tusk, keeps on urging member states to adopt new EU gas rules which would specifically target maritime gas pipelines feeding the EU, however, Germany and France seem highly reluctant to go along with it. If the required legislation is not passed unilaterally before Nord Stream 2 is built (and its construction is already well underway and expected to be finished in 2019), Germany could treat the gas pipeline as a domestic matter, similarly to Nord Stream 1, and act without the EU’s supervision.

Apart from a very few of staunch Gazprom opponents in the European Union, like Poland or Lithuania, most countries might ease their antagonism vis-à-vis Gazprom as the Ukraine-Russia gas conflict slowly disentangles (displays of solidarity are a must on European level). The Stockholm Arbitration Court’s recent ruling, with both sides claiming victory, stipulates that Ukraine maintains a contractual take-or-pay obligation to buy at least 4 BCm/year and Gazprom ought to supply at least 5 BCm/year.

Despite a history of belligerent rhetoric throughout 2017 when Ukraine received no Russian gas from Gazprom (only reversed Russian gas resold from EU countries), the national company Naftogaz indicated willingness to start buying as soon as Q1 2018. This might be a bit too optimistic, considering the Stockholm Court is to deliver an opinion on another issue, the Gazprom-Naftogaz transit contract, however currently almost no one doubts this will happen after the court dealings are over. The underlying motive is quite simple: On average, Ukraine has been paying a premium of 25-30 dollars per MCm to European traders for remarketed Russian gas, roughly a $35-40 million loss every month.

While the fate of Gazprom in Europe lies mostly in German hands, the company’s eastward progress has been dramatic — often so swift that it was difficult to follow. Not only is the construction of the 38 BCm/year Power of Siberia-1 going according to schedule, the sides have already agreed on the day exports will begin: December 20, 2019. The Western route of China-bound supplies, the so-called 30 BCm/year Altay pipeline (also known as Power of Siberia 2) is still lingering around and further details about its future should be expected in Q2 2018 after the dust whipped up by the presidential elections has settled. While Power of Siberia-1 will be mostly sourced from Eastern Siberian fields in Sakha/Yakutia and Irkutsk Oblast, the proposed Power of Siberia-2 will be fed from the Yamal Peninsula up north. Related: $70 Oil Cripples European Refiners

Most recently, another potential Russo-Chinese gas project has popped up, namely the Sakhalin-Vladivostok-China pipeline with an estimated delivery volume of 8 BCm/year. Gazprom and the Chinese national company CNPC have signed an initial agreement on the issue (which doesn’t mean anything because the crucial issue, as always, will boil down to pricing formulae), but doubts remain whether Gazprom will be able to provide the required gas volumes. The problem is 10 years ago the Sakhalin-I consortium — the only one so far capable of providing the gas (roughly equivalent of the Chayvo field’s peak output) — tried to build a gas pipeline following a similar route; however, Gazprom vetoed it on the grounds that its exclusive monopoly on gas exports disallows other producers to sell their gas abroad.

So to sell additional volumes of gas to China, Gazprom would need the consent of the ExxonMobil-led consortium, which might not be as enthusiastic about the gas giant’s prospects as they would like to think (just think of Rosneft, whose gas output is widely expected to reach 100 BCm/year by 2020 and is desperate to break Gazprom’s export monopoly).

The Ministry of Energy is pressurizing the Sakhalin-I consortium to find a consensual agreement with Gazprom, steering clear of any legislative changes, yet it will be a long and tough negotiations process. But with the gas export monopoly confirmed by authorities to remain fully in the hands of Gazprom, thinking big is not an eventuality but a must.

By Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com