Pentagon Chief Rejects Military Cooperation With Russia

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One day after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told US NATO allies they will have to pay up and meet their mandatory quota of 2% of GDP (which only 5 nations currently satisfy, among them the US and Greece), on Thursday the Pentagon’s new chief also had some bad news for Russia when he rejected any kind of military collaboration with Russia, despite previous calls by Putin for the West to work with his country on Syria and other issues.
Quoted by the WSJ, Mattis said at NATO’s Brussels headquarters that ‘We are not in a position right now to collaborate on a military level’ adding that ‘our political leaders will engage and try to find common ground or a way forward where Russia, living up to its commitments, will return to a partnership of sorts, here with NATO.’ Prior to the meeting, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed hope for cooperation but warned that ‘attempts to build a dialogue from a position of strength with regard to Russia are hopeless.’
Mattis’s remarks came after Mr. Putin made a plea for the alliance and other nations to cooperate with Russia. ‘It’s in everyone’s interest to resume dialogue between the intelligence agencies of the United States and other members of NATO,’ said Mr. Putin, addressing Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Feb 16, 2017.

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CITY ERECTS PRISON CAMP TO DEAL WITH HOMELESS – CUTTING OFF FOOD AND WATER

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The City of Santa Ana has come up with an innovative and despotic way of keeping their homeless population in check – imprison them. The city is now party to a federal lawsuit over unreasonable seizure, false imprisonment, and due process violations.
Heading up the lawsuit on behalf of Michael Diehl, who has lived at the encampment for three years, is the ACLU of Southern California. The lawsuit demands the immediate removal of the 6-foot-tall chain-link fences penning in 75-100 people and their belongings.
‘Defendants’ actions have not only illegally restricted the liberty of the homeless people living in the encampment, but it has also cut them off from access to food, water, and medical care thus threatening their health and well-being,’ the lawsuit states.
According to Courthouse News:
Diehl was shot in the head at a Tustin convenience store in 2009. He lost his right eye and doctors were unable to remove the bullet from his head. He takes medication every day to control seizures that have become more frequent with the increased presence of authorities at the encampment, he says in the complaint.

This post was published at The Daily Sheeple on FEBRUARY 16, 2017.

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LAND OF THE ‘FREE’: MORE US-BORN AMERICANS DETAINED AT BORDER, ASKED FOR ‘PAPERS PLEASE’ AS ‘LIBERTY LOVERS’ CALL FOR AN EVEN BIGGER POLICE STATE

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The most confounding development since Donald Trump took office is the mounting number of people basically begging for a bigger police state than we already have here in America… but more on that in a moment.
Stories are coming out of all corners of the U. S. with much more frequency in recent months about people being ‘stopped and frisked’ without any probable cause whatsoever, American-born citizens being detained for hours at the border for seemingly no reason at all (unless profiling based on nothing more than a foreign-sounding name is now legal ‘probable cause’), and ICE has increased random ‘stings’ in cities nationwide where people are just rounded up and detained in large groups to check everyone’s papers… please (except for the ‘please’ part).
Cases in point include an American female Olympian who happens to be Muslim with a Muslim name who was detained for two hours at the border without any reason given. Fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad won a bronze medal during the 2016 Olympics. She also ‘won’ the honor of being detained for an extreme vetting session based on…?
Come on. We all know what it was based on.

This post was published at The Daily Sheeple on FEBRUARY 15, 2017.

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The Trump Presidency: RIP

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Has Donald Trump overestimated his presidential power? The answer is yes.
Is Steve Bannon, Trump’s main advisor, politically inexperienced? The answer is yes.
We can conclude from the answers to these two questions that Trump is in over his head and will pay a big price.
How large will the price be?
The New York Times reports that US ‘intelligence agencies…sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.’
Former National Security Agency (NSA) spy John Schindler tweeted on Twitter that a senior intelligence community colleague sent him an email stating that the deep state had declared nuclear war on Trump and that ‘He will die in jail.’ It is possible that this will be the case.
At the end of World War II, the military/security complex decided that the flow of profits and power from war and threats of war were too great to be relinquished to an era of peace. This complex manipulated a weak and inexperienced President Truman into a gratuitous Cold War with the Soviet Union. The lie was created, and accepted by the gullible American people, that International Communism intended world conquest. This lie was transparant, because Stalin had purged and murdered Leon Trotsky and all communists who believed in world revolution. ‘Socialism in one country,’ declared Stalin.
Academic experts, knowing where their bread was buttered, went along with and contributed to the deceit. By 1961 the overarching power of the military/security complex was apparent to President Eisenhower, a five star general in charge of the US invasion of German occupied Western Europe during the Second World War. The private power that the military/security complex (Eisenhower called it the military-industrial complex) exercised disturbed Ike so much that in his last address to the American people he said we must guard against its subversion of democracy:
‘Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This post was published at Paul Craig Roberts on February 16, 2017.

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China May Bar US Ships From Passing Through Its Waters

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In a preemptive move to limit foreign naval presence in proximity to China and especially the disputed South and East China Sea islands, China’s People’s Daily reports the Beijing is set to revise its 1984 Maritime Traffic Safety Law, which would allow the relevant authorities to “bar some foreign” (read U. S.) ships from passing through Chinese territorial waters. The Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council announced Tuesday it is soliciting public opinions on the revisions. Think of it as an Air Defense Identification Zone, only in the water.
According to the Chinese press, the draft would empower maritime authorities to prevent foreign ships from entering Chinese waters if it is decided that the ships may harm traffic safety and order. The draft revisions would grant authorities the right to designate specific areas and temporarily bar foreign ships from passing through those areas according to their own assessment of maritime traffic safety. The revisions are based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and Chinese laws on the sea, adjacent areas and exclusive economic zones, the office said.
It was not clear how China would implement and enforce this bar, or what the punishment for transgressors would be.
Wang Xiaopeng, a maritime border expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the revisions will provide legal support for China to safeguard its maritime rights.
“As a sovereign State and the biggest coastal State in, for example, the South China Sea, China is entitled to adjust its maritime laws as needed, which will also promote peace and stable development in the waters.”

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Feb 16, 2017.

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Senator Finally Admits The Truth: America’s Hands Are Just As Dirty As Russia’s

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Last December, at the height of the “Russia hacked the election” scandal, we showed that between 1946 and 2000, the US had interfered in foreign presidential elections at least 81 times in the period from 1946 through 2000. And while millions of Americans were aware just how “innocent” the US government in general, and the CIA in particular, have been few dared to mention it in public.
Until today, when in an unexpected moment of honesty U. S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday the while idea of Russian involvement in U. S. election is bothersome, he added the United States doesn’t “come to the table with clean hands”, noting the CIA’s involvement in an Italian election in the 1940s. Of course, there are many, many other examples of CIA intervention, but we’ll settle for the admission of one to start.
Grassley said that intelligence community leaks of classified information should concern Americans just as much as foreign meddling in U. S. elections. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also equated apparent Russian interference in the 2016 election with past operations by the United States to influence the outcomes of foreign political contests.
Grassley, who has made encouraging and protecting government whistleblowers part of his portfolio in Washington, expressed deep reservations about the leaks that have informed news stories in recent days and ultimately forced Flynn’s ouster. Such leaks by intelligence officials are illegal and are not protected by whistleblower laws, Grassley said. “We need to start considering that it’s not only dangerous and scary that some foreign power attempts to influence our elections, but it may be even scarier that intelligence officials in our own government might be trying to undermine our government,’ he said.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Feb 15, 2017.

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Boondoggles for the Swamp Critters

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Monster or Mozart?
BALTIMORE – Investors seem to be holding their breath, like a man hiding a cigarette from his wife. It’s just a feeling, and it’s not the first time we’ve had it… but it feels as though it wouldn’t take much to send them all running.
Actually, they’re not going anywhere yet… but there is a lot of overconfidence by those who were very worried when prices were a lot better – click to enlarge.
Meanwhile… we’re coming to a deep (and to many readers disagreeable) conclusion. Yes, we are closing in on profundity, struggling to hold on to the rim lest we fall into the well.
It has to do with Mr. Trump’s plans and how he really could Make America Great Again – and how nations and individuals should conduct their lives, including their financial lives: not by guessing about the future, but about doing the right thing in the present.
Each day brings new headlines. Trump does this. Trump does that. Good? Bad? Now we have a formula to judge.
‘Trump Plans to Undo Dodd-Frank,’ said The Wall Street Journal recently. Win-win? Or Win-lose? The answer is simple: Win-win! How do we know? Because Dodd-Frank was not voluntary. You couldn’t say ‘no.’

This post was published at Acting-Man on February 16, 2017.

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