The leader of the free World, Barack Obama’s high school pot dealer who he thanked in his yearbook for the ‘good times’ was beaten to death by his lover after a series of fights over flatulence and drugs, MailOnline can reveal today.
Raymond Boyer, known as ‘Gay Ray’ to Obama and his marijuana smoking ‘Choom Gang’, was bludgeoned to death with a hammer seven years after he sold the future president and his friends drugs.
His lover Andrew Devere, a male prostitute, gave police a laundry list of reasons for the killing, including that Boyer, a surfer and unemployed chef, constantly put him down, made him beg for drugs and had a habit of breaking wind in his face.
Half the world economy is one accident away from a deflation trap. The International Monetary Fund says the probability may now be as high as 20pc.
It is a remarkable state of affairs that the G2 monetary superpowers – the US and China – should both be tightening into such a 20pc risk, though no doubt they have concluded that asset bubbles are becoming an even bigger danger.
“We need to be extremely vigilant,” said the IMF’s Christine Lagarde in Davos. “The deflation risk is what would occur if there was a shock to those economies now at low inflation rates, way below target. I don’t think anyone can dispute that in the eurozone, inflation is way below target.”
It is not hard to imagine what that shock might be. It is already before us as Turkey, India and South Africa all slam on the brakes, forced to defend their currencies as global liquidity drains away.
The World Bank warns in its latest report – Capital Flows and Risks in Developing Countries – that the withdrawal of stimulus by the US Federal Reserve could throw a “curve ball” at the international system.
In the global war for energy supremacy, Russia has won another victory over the United States.
This time, the battleground has been South Africa, where Russia’s state-owned nuclear power company, Rosatom, has just signed an agreement to build eight new reactors. Once all of them are operational, South Africa’s nuclear capacity will increase more than sixfold – from 1.8 gigawatts (GW) to 11.4 GW over the next 15 years.
This means that Russia will help develop the entirety of South Africa’s nuclear energy sector, including financing and training.
And just as importantly, South Africa will be using Russia’s nuclear fuel.
Rosatom has been busy signing these types of deals with other foreign countries as well—Finland, Turkey, Ukraine, even the United Kingdom—which guarantees that Russia will be able to keep a stranglehold on these countries’ nuclear industries.
The strategy is clear: Rosatom is aiming to become the world’s largest supplier of uranium in the coming years.
Remember what we said about the ongoing “Putinization” of Europe’s oil and gas; how Russia is planning to leverage its control over Europe’s energy to gain political and economic benefits?
The same thing is happening in uranium, except the stakes are even higher—because Putin is now looking to dominate the global nuclear market.
Russia and the former Soviet nations (colloquially called “the -stans”) already control nearly half of the world’s uranium supply:
Note that the United States only controls 3% of global uranium supply—and less than 15% of the enrichment capacity, despite the fact that it’s the largest consumer of uranium in the world.
While nuclear energy powers one out of every five homes in America, the US currently imports more than 90% of the uranium required for its nuclear reactors.
So what happens when one day Rosatom says “Nyet” to the American utilities? You can be sure that they’ll be scrambling to find any source of uranium they can get their hands on.
And they’ll pay far more than the current spot price of US$34.50/lb. You should know that the price of uranium accounts for just 3% of the total costs of a nuclear power plant, so whether the utilities pay $100 or even $200 per pound of yellowcake is irrelevant, as long as they can keep the reactors running and the lights on in America.
As the US and other countries scramble to get out from under Putin’s heavy thumb, for the right uranium producers outside of Russia’s sphere of influence, this will be a bonanza for the history books.
The several days of organized protests in Ukraine are notable for the relative lack of police violence. Unlike in the US, Canada, Thailand, Greece, and Spain, peaceful protesters have not been beaten, tear gassed, water cannoned, and tasered by Ukrainian police. Unlike in Egypt, Palestine, and Bahrain, Ukrainian protesters have not been fired upon with live ammunition. The restraint of the Ukrainian government and police in the face of provocations has been remarkable. Apparently, Ukrainian police have not been militarized by US Homeland Security.
What are the Ukrainian protests about? On the surface, the protests don’t make sense. The Ukrainian government made the correct decision to stay out of the EU. Ukraine’s economic interests lie with Russia, not with the EU. This is completely obvious.
The EU wants Ukraine to join so that Ukraine can be looted, like Latvia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal. The situation is so bad in Greece, for example, that the World Health Organization reports that some Greeks are infecting themselves with HIV in order to receive the 700 euro monthly benefit for the HIV-infected.
The US wants Ukraine to join so it can become a location for more of Washington’s missile bases against Russia.
Why would Ukrainians want to be looted?
Why would Ukrainians want to become targets for Russia’s Iskander Missiles as a host country for Washington’s aggression against Russia?
Why would Ukrainians having gained their sovereignty from Russia want to lose it to the EU?
Obviously, an intelligent, aware, Ukrainian population would not accept these costs of joining the EU.
So, why the protests?
Part of the answer is Ukrainian nationalists’ hatred of Russia. With the Soviet collapse, Ukraine became a country independent of Russia. When empires break up, other interests can seize power. Various secessions occurred producing a collection of small states such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, the former central Asian Soviet Republics, Ukraine, the Baltics, and the pieces into which Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were broken by “nationalism.” The governments of these weak states were easy for Washington to purchase. The governments of these powerless states are more responsive to Washington than to their own people. Much of the former Soviet Empire is now part of Washington’s Empire. Georgia, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, now sends its sons to die for Washington in Afghanistan, just as Georgia did for the Soviet Union,
These former constituent elements of the Russian/Soviet Empire are being incorporated into Washington’s Empire. The gullible nationalists, naifs really, in these American colonies might think that they are free, but they simply have exchanged one master for another.
They are blind to their subservience, because they remember their subservience to Russia/Soviet Union and have not yet realized their subservience to Washington, which they see as a liberator with a checkbook. When these weak and powerless new countries, which have no protector, realize that their fate is not in their own hands, but in Washington’s hands, it will be too late for them.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington quickly stepped into the place of Russia. The new countries were all broke, as was Russia at the time and, thus, helpless. Washington used NGOs funded by Washington and its EU puppets to create anti-Russian, pro-American, pro-EU movements in the former constituent parts of Soviet Russia. The gullible peoples were so happy to have escaped the Soviet thumb that they did not realize that they now had new masters.
It is a good bet that the Ukrainian protests are a CIA organized event, using the Washington and EU funded NGOs and manipulating the hatred of Ukrainian nationalists for Russia. The protests are directed against Russia. If Ukraine can be realigned and brought into the fold of Washington’s Empire, Russia is further diminished as a world power.
To this effect NATO conducted war games against Russia last month in operation Steadfast Jazz 2013. http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/10/17/nato-steadfast-jazz-exercise-chill-of-cold-war.html Finland, Ukraine, Georgia, and neutral Sweden have offered their military participation in the next iteration of NATO war games close to Russia’s borders despite the fact that they are not NATO members.
The diminishment of Russia as a powerful state is critical to Washington’s agenda for world hegemony. If Russia can be rendered impotent, Washington’s only concern is China.
The Obama regime’s “Pivot to Asia” announced Washington’s plan to surround China with naval and air bases and to interject Washington into every dispute that China has with Asian neighbors. China has responded to Washington’s provocation by expanding its air space, an action that Washington calls destabilizing when in fact it is Washington that is destabilizing the region.
China is unlikely to be intimidated, but could undermine itself if its economic reform opens China’s economy to western manipulation. Once China frees its currency and embraces “free markets,” Washington can manipulate China’s currency and drive China’s currency into volatility that discourages its use as a rival to the dollar. China is disadvantaged by having so many university graduates from US universities, where they have been indoctrinated with Washington’s view of the world. When these American-programmed graduates return to China, some tend to become a fifth column whose influence will ally with Washington’s war on China.
So where does this leave us? Washington will prevail until the US dollar collapses.
Many support mechanisms are in place for the dollar. The Federal Reserve and its dependent bullion banks have driven down the price of gold and silver by short-selling in the paper futures market, allowing bullion to flow into Asia at bargain prices, but removing the pressure of a rising gold price on the exchange value of the US dollar.
Washington has prevailed on Japan and, apparently, the European Central Bank, to print money in order to prevent the rise of the yen and euro to the dollar.
The Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Partnerships are designed to keep countries in the US dollar payments system, thus supporting the dollar’s value in currency markets.
Eastern European members of the EU that still have their own currencies have been told that they must print their own currencies in order to prevent a rise in their currency’s value relative to the US dollar that would curtail their exports.
The financial world is under Washington’s thumb. And Washington is printing money for the sake of 4 or 5 mega-banks.
That should tell the protestors in Ukraine all they need to know.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.
“Knockout” attacks have been reported in several states around the country and now investigators believe three people have been attacked in our area.
Police in Lower Merion are investigating two attacks in the area, and Philadelphia detectives are investigating an attack in Northeast Philadelphia.
It’s a violent crime that in other parts of the country has proven fatal.
Videos from cities around the country show people being punched and beaten at random.
The attackers are calling their crimes a game, the goal being to knock out the victim with one punch.
Mark Cumberland is a victim of a “Knockout” assault.
“Someone asked me for a cigarette and by the time I got my hands out my pocket I was getting hit by four kids.”
He says, “It was hard seeing and I’m still having trouble breathing and swallowing.”
Cumberland was walking out of a Fox Chase pizza shop on November 11th when he was attacked.
“There’s no reason at all. I mean, I didn’t get robbed, they didn’t take nothing from me. They just beat me up.”
Lower Merion Police say suspects Samuel Hayles and Markus January were arrested on October 29th, just moments after they allegedly ambushed and beat a 63-year-old man who was walking his dog.
Lt. Frank Higgins of the Lower Merion Police says, “He punched him right in the mouth and knocked him to the ground. The victim began to scream and yell for someone to call the police.”
A neighbor of the victim, Jeri Greenfield says, “I think it’s absolutely horrible. I think this is a beautiful neighborhood and I didn’t expect anything like that here.”
An elderly man was also attacked when he was mowing his lawn outside of his home.
The suspect in that attack is still on the loose.
Bruce Myer, a neighbor of the elderly victim says, “A kid came up to him and just punching him in the mouth. He ended up laying the street with his lawnmower.”
The only apparent motive in these attacks, as in all “Knockout” attacks, is to inflict injury on a random victim.
It’s very sad that before you used to walk on the street with no worries whatsoever,” neighbor Al Ciavijo said.
The elderly victim is now using a cane and a walker to get around. He has had to undergo multiple medical procedures.
That suspect is still on the loose, as are the suspects in the Northeast Philadelphia attack. – CBS
Despite the botched launch of Obamacare, the United States as a whole, because of its opposition to the health-care law and support of gun rights, is still more of an embarrassment than the president, said Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein. He also asserted that then-senator Obama wouldn’t have been “beating” on George W. Bush if Bush had rolled out a dysfunctional program as president.
Weinstein, a big donor to the president, downplayed the problems with Obamacare’s implementation and the misleading promise that Americans could keep their insurance plans, saying that Obama “made a mistake — he’s human.”
“This is the only country in the world where we don’t have a health-care,” he told CNN’s Piers Morgan over the weekend “Countries embarrass us around the world — this is the only country in the world where we don’t have a gun law.”
“Obama’s not embarrassing — the country’s embarrassing,” he said. – nationalreview.com
Oprah Winfrey, one of the wealthiest people in the world, is throwing the race card again.
During an interview with the BBC Friday, she not only said that President Obama is treated with disrespect because he’s black, but also that entire generations of white racists are going to have to die for racism to end
WILL GOMPERTZ, BBC: The issue of the civil rights movement, and the way that black people around the world are treated, particularly I suppose in, around the world…
OPRAH WINFREY: Around the world.
GOMPERTZ: Around the world. Look at place like Russia, it’s, you know…
WINFREY: Around the world.
GOMPERTZ: So is this, is this, I suppose from a movie point of view, what the movie and the messages hold and the other movies we were discussing, and “Scottsboro Boys,” are these historical comments or are we still looking at a contemporary issue?
WINFREY: Good question. Well phrased. Good job. It would be foolish to not recognize that we have evolved in that we’re not still facing the same kind of terrorism against black people en masse as was displayed with the Scottsboro boys. It’s gotten better. Are there still places where people are terrorized because of the color of their skin, because of the color of their black skin? Yes. But there are laws that have allowed us to progress beyond what we saw in the Scottsboro boys and beyond the even the prejudice we see in “The Butler.”
Notice that Winfrey added “color of their black skin.” Why not just leave it as “color of their skin?”
Why do folks such as her only see racism through the prism of how blacks are treated? By looking at the problem so narrowly, doesn’t it make matters worse?
The US is by far the most diverse nation in the world containing more ethnic and religious groups than any other on the planet.
Likely each of them has at times rightly or wrongly felt mistreated for the color of their skin or their religious beliefs.
When we as a nation look at this problem more honestly and not just as it pertains to one group, racism will have a chance of being solved.
Unfortunately, Winfrey has another solution:
GOMPERTZ: Are you saying problem solved?
WINFREY: I’m saying problem not solved. I’m saying that, you know, that’s the beauty of a film like “The Butler,” and it’s the beauty of a film like “12 Years a Slave,” and it’s the beauty of what we’re seeing on stage with “Scottsboro Boys” is that it allows people to see where the root of the problem started. It allows people to see, “Oh, that’s where it all started, this is how far we’ve come, and now this is how much farther we need to go.” Of course problem is not solved. You know, as long as people can be judged by the color of their skin, problem’s not solved. As long as there are people who still, there’s a whole generation – I say this, you know, I said this, you know, for apartheid South Africa, I said this for my own, you know, community in the south – there are still generations of people, older white people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die.
So in Winfrey’s view, it’s older white people that are the problem, and once they die, racism ends.
Yet three months ago, she said of the George Zimmerman verdict, “It’s ridiculous to look at that case and not to think that race was involved.”
Zimmerman’s only 30 years old and is Hispanic.
It is patently absurd to suggest that racism is caused by old white people when racism and religious bigotry cut across all generations and ethnicities.
But folks such as Winfrey don’t want to look at it that way, for they have a different agenda:
GOMPERTZ: Do you think, has it ever crossed your mind that some of the treatment of Obama and the challenges he’s faced and some of the reporting he’s received is because he’s an African-American, and if he wasn’t an African-American, if he was a white guy, those wouldn’t have happened, he wouldn’t have been treated in quite the same way, he wouldn’t have to deal with quite the same confrontations?
Some question, huh? You’d think Obama was the first president to ever have challenges and confrontations. Was Gompertz on another planet when George W. Bush was regularly being attacked by his opponents?
With the race card nicely placed on the tee, Winfrey predictably hit it a long way:
WINFREY: Has it ever crossed my mind? It’s crossed my mind probably as many times as it’s crossed your mind. Probably it’s crossed my mind more times than it’s crossed your mind. Just the level of disrespect. When the Senator yelled out, “You’re a liar.” Remember that? Yeah, I think that there is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs, and that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he’s African-American.
What Winfrey conveniently ignores is that she endorsed and campaigned for Obama BECAUSE he was an African-American. He wouldn’t have gotten her support or been elected if he wasn’t.
More importantly, if he was just some white guy from Chicago that nobody had ever heard of, he never would have beaten Hillary Clinton in 2008.
How sad that she forgets that.
But that’s not the saddest part about folks like Winfrey throwing the race card this way.
What’s sadder is that as an African-American woman that has attained a level of success and notoriety greater than 99.99 percent of the people that have or ever will walk on this planet, she could be a positive role model concerning racism rather than helping to fuel it.
Why doesn’t someone of Winfrey’s obvious intellectual prowess understand that?
Imagine how much better it would have been for all Americans including blacks if she answered Gompertz’s racially charged question this way:
Is some of the treatment of Obama because he’s an African-American? Maybe some. But I think that’s exaggerated. The President of the United States is the most powerful person on the planet receiving greater scrutiny than any other. As a result, he’s challenged by people on both sides of the aisle, and that’s a good thing because it acts to prevent him or her from becoming too powerful.
Unlike other nations, our President is not a king or dictator, and although many claim the treatment of Obama is harsher because he’s black, I would say that for the most part, he isn’t being treated any differently than George W. Bush before him or Bill Clinton before him. In fact, I would make the case that because he’s black, he’s been treated far better by most of the media than any President in my lifetime.
So let’s not be so quick to throw the race card all because Obama has his critics. That comes with the territory, and if you don’t have big enough shoulders to take the hits, you should have never campaigned for the job.
Imagine the headlines and the positive example Winfrey could have set by telling people the truth.
Is that just too difficult for her? Doesn’t she know that every time she dishonestly throws the race card, she’s undermining a solution?
Oh. That’s right. Her solution is that generations of racists have to die to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, with folks like her out there fanning the fires of discontent, they’re inculcating new generations with racist thoughts thereby making it necessary for A LOT of generations to die off before this problem ever gets solved.
Oprah Winfrey is going around the world telling everyone that Americans are racist while she promotes her new race-baiting film.
Oprah Winfrey has been a prominent supporter of Barack Obama. She thinks that both he and the Office of President have been treated with contempt because of the colour of his skin.
“There’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he’s African American. There’s no question about that and it’s the kind of thing nobody ever says but everybody’s thinking it.”
Meanwhile Senators have dug up new report of an Obamacare failure so dismal it is hard to believe.
Among four major insurance companies, a total of only five people have enrolled in the president’s health plan in Washington, D.C.
Delaware reported only four people had enrolled in Obamacare as of Tuesday, even though the state used a $4 million grant to hire four community organizations to provide marketplace guides. That worked out to $1 million spent on each enrollee.
The worst numbers from any state to report is actually just a single number, as in the number one. Just one person has reportedly enrolled in Obamacare in North Carolina. And even that person is technically still not enrolled, having yet to pay. So, zero people enrolled in Obamacare as of Oct. 15.
Cyber-attacks are increasingly becoming the primary threat against the United States, according to the head of the FBI.
During his first testimony as the new FBI director, James Comey told Congress on Thursday that while the threat of traditional terrorist strikes inside the United States is now lower than it was before 2001, the potential threat from cyber-attacks continues to rise.
“That’s where the bad guys will go,” Comey said, as quoted by the Guardian. “There are no safe neighborhoods. All of us are neighbors [online].”
Comey’s comments were echoed by Rand Beers, the acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, and Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, both of whom also testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
The three officials agreed that while the potential for an attack on the scale of 9/11 is more likely to occur overseas, Congress should be wary of rolling back surveillance programs like the one employed by the National Security Agency. Over the next decade, cyber-attacks are likely to become the primary domestic threat, they said.
The officials added that any changes to the US surveillance program should be on the “margins,” and not directly affect the agencies’ “core capabilities.”
In fact, Beers and Comey both pushed Congress to expand the government’s power to gain access to data held by privately owned companies, with Beers suggesting that new legislation grant corporations liability protection for sharing sensitive information with federal agencies.
According to the Guardian, at least one senator, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), expressed concern over the suggestion, saying that companies should have the chance to willingly cooperate with the government before being told to hand over data.
In 2008, the US passed legislation protecting telecommunications companies and internet providers helping the government conduct warrantless surveillance from privacy lawsuits.
USA Today reported that the officials noted how difficult it is to detect self-radicalized terrorists, and that Americans are urged to report something suspicious when they see it.
“The challenge of the home-grown violent extremist is that [the person] really doesn’t hit all the trip wires,” Olsen said. – RT
“If we don’t do something real soon, I think you’ll have to agree that we’re going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It’s one or the other in 1964. It isn’t that time is running out — time has run out!” – Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1964.
A half-century after the man once known as Detroit Red spoke those words, the last grains of sand are trickling from the hour glass of what has passed for democracy in America. The principle of one-person, one vote – or any meaningful franchise, at all – is no longer operative for the majority of Black people in the state of Michigan, whose largely African American cities are run by emergency managers accountable to no one but Rick Snyder, the venture capitalist in the governor’s mansion. The same bell is tolling for every urban center in the land, as hegemonic finance capital creates the template for direct corporate rule through the systematic destruction of Detroiters’ citizenship rights.
The 82 percent Black metropolis has been reduced to a Bantustan in both the economic and political senses of the term. Surrounded by some of the richest counties in the nation, the impoverished city exemplifies a national racial wealth gap that is more profound than that which existed in South Africa at the height of apartheid, as detailed by Jon Jeter in this issue of BAR (See “Worse Than Apartheid: Black in Obama’s America”). The Emergency Manager law, passed by the Republican state legislature after rejection by voters in a referendum, makes the Bantustan analogy complete, with a Black corporate lawyer overseeing the dismantling of every mechanism of local democracy. Kevyn Orr’s ascension as plenipotentiary of Wall Street is also the ultimate logic of the most vulgar current of African American politics, which seeks only Black representation at the highest levels of power, no matter whose interests are served. Wall Street long ago scoped this Black weakness, and has exploited it at every political level.
“The same bell is tolling for every urban center in the land.”
Detroit’s dissolution also sounds the death knell for a generation’s dreams of authentic “Black Power” through purely electoral means in collaboration with corporate “renaissance” schemes. The Black masses have never been envisioned as part of any “renewal” of the cities under corporate auspices. Rather, investment is contingent on Black disempowerment and removal – the corporate axiom from which the Emergency Manager regime logically flows. Barack Obama, as loyal (and lawyerly) a servant of the banks as Orr, accepts the validity of the premise, which is why he raises no principled objection to Detroit’s disenfranchisement, either in its particulars or as a model for urban America.
The drama unfolds in bankruptcy court, a venue whose rules were written almost entirely by the financial capitalist class. By virtue of the Emergency Manager law, Detroit is represented in court by its nemesis, Kevyn Orr – which is like imposing Newt Gingrich as chief counsel for the NAACP. (The Detroit NAACP seeks to halt the proceedings on voting rights grounds.) Orr’s office is referred to as “the city” in both legal terms and by idiot corporate media, who confuse the public by reporting, as did Detroit PBS correspondent Christy McDonald, this week, that the issue is “whether the city can go ahead with its bankruptcy” process. In fact, hardly an elected official or candidate exists that openly supports bankruptcy, especially under Kevyn Orr’s terms (Detroit holds a meaningless mayoral and council election, next week).
Orr may be the most hated man in Detroit – a fact that would be noted by every media outlet in the nation, if the metropolis were largely white. But the Detroit model for democracy’s demolition is depicted as a white supremacist morality play, in which corruption and incompetence are the inevitable fruits of Black majority rule, which must be extirpated by any means necessary. White Americans, in general, can be distracted by the slightest hint of ghetto graffiti from seeing their own futures written on the wall.
“Detroit is represented in court by its nemesis, Kevyn Orr – which is like imposing Newt Gingrich as chief counsel for the NAACP.”
Kevin Orr, ensconced in a $5,000 per month luxury penthouse condominium paid for by one of Governor Snyder’s private slush funds with contributions from secret corporate donors, is building the template for urban democratic dissolution from scratch. He is a crude and unimaginative man, doing Wall Street’s bidding with little finesse in the bright light of day. His arrogance is buttressed by the certainty that he is backed by the real rulers of the American State, Wall Street, and that the outcome in Judge Steven Rhodes’ federal bankruptcy court will create precedent to render all of America’s cities servile and neutered. Orr is also aware that his coloration provides perfect cover for his mission – added value for his services, well worth the luxury suite. (The judge ruled that Orr’s accommodations were irrelevant to the case.)
First-responders, revered in the post-911 United States, are crucified along with the rest of the city rabble. Orr ejected 8,000 city retirees under age 65 from their city-paid $605 per month health insurance, including police and firefighters. The state constitution specifically forbids impairing pensions, which average only $18,000 a year, yet Orr testified that he thinks federal law allows him to override those protections. He and the governor, who was subpoenaed by unions, both claimed they didn’t start out wanting to bankrupt the city – but why would Snyder hire bankruptcy lawyer Orr unless that were the intention? The lying duo claimed they never conspired to push Detroit into the venue, and that it was the unions that refused to negotiate in good faith. Apparently, “good faith” means negotiating away rights guaranteed by law.
“Orr ejected 8,000 city retirees under age 65 from their city-paid $605 per month health insurance, including police and firefighters.”
Orr admitted that he never even raised the subject of getting the state to help Detroit out of its fiscal difficulties. And, why would he? His mission is not to save the city, but to break it into auctionable pieces and to garnishee its remaining revenue streams for bankers. His opening fiscal reorganization plan would pay off Bank of America and UBS, who have already made millions on a 2005 derivatives scheme with the city, establishing Britain’s Barclay’s Bank as the super-priority creditor with dibs on $4 million a month in Detroit casino revenues if the city defaults.
To ensure that the city can never escape the clutches of capital, the contract would allow Barclay’s to immediately declare Detroit in default if Emergency Financial Manager rule is ended for any reason – that is, the corporate plan calls for the permanent cessation of democracy in Detroit.
That’s the plan for the whole country. Wall Street recognizes that it cannot effectively consume the public sphere as long as the public retains the electoral democratic mechanisms to stop it. In other words, concentrated capital can no longer coexist with even the thin gruel of American democracy. The Black polity is the weakest link in the U.S. democratic armor. White folks won’t protect it, and Black folks have the least resources to defend it. The generals of Wall Street have purposely chosen Detroit as the decisive battleground, where the power of massed capital will be hyper-charged by an endemic, unreconstructed racism that can reliably be expected to deny that democracy is really at stake, at all. It’s just, you know – “the Blacks.”
And even some Black folks will agree. – Black Agenda Report
Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke so many of the stories about government surveillance leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, has been a nightmare for the Obama administration.
Now he’s leaving the Guardian, the British newspaper where he published those articles, to pursue what he calls a “once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity.”
News of Greenwald’s departure was broken by the website BuzzFeed. The journalist, who is also a lawyer, says he’s not ready to provide specifics. “Because this news leaked before we were prepared to announce it, I’m not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture, but it will be unveiled very shortly,” he said in a statement.
But whatever the particulars, it’s probably safe to anticipate that his new news operation will specialize in hard-edged, investigative reporting fueled by a liberal agenda.
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Greenwald indicated he didn’t plan to be playing small ball. He said his new organization would be “a very well-funded… very substantial new media outlet.” He won’t say where the money is coming from until the official announcement.
And he will clearly be the man, building the operation from scratch. “My role, aside from reporting and writing for it, is to create the entire journalism unit from the ground up by recruiting the journalists and editors who share the same journalistic ethos and shaping the whole thing — but especially the political journalism part — in the image of the journalism I respect most,” he said.
Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, says he’ll continue to do so. But while some of the staff will be based there as well, he says the news outlet’s main outposts would be in New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.
The Snowden correspondent’s new gig will be funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Reuters reported, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Greenwald, known for his crusading liberal approach, had nothing but good things to say about the Guardian. The two seemed a perfect fit, since the British news outlet is also known for its activist, left-leaning approach.
“My partnership with the Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved,” Greenwald said.
Right back atya, the Guardian responded. “Glenn Greenwald is a remarkable journalist and it has been fantastic working with him,” spokeswoman Jennifer Lindenauer said. “Our work together over the last year has demonstrated the crucial role that responsible investigative journalism can play in holding those in power to account. We are of course disappointed by Glenn’s decision to move on, but can appreciate the attraction of the new role he has been offered. We wish him all the best.”
Greenwald, who began his journalism career with the pioneering online magazine Salon, has had an enormous impact on the political climate in the United States. His stunning disclosures of massive government collection of email and phone data of ordinary Americans with absolutely no connection to terrorism shook lawmakers and ordinary citizens alike.
At first the conventional wisdom in Washington was that this was no huge deal. Much of the initial outrage focused on leaker Snowden rather than the stunning information he had leaked.
But that soon changed as new details continued to emerge. In July, the House came close to passing a measure to block the NSA’s wholesale collection of telephone records. Before Snowden and Greenwald, such a close vote, or even a vote at all, would have been unimaginable.
In September, four senators introduced legislation to rein in the NSA. And even staunch defenders of the snooping like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, say that reforms are in order.
Greenwald is aggressive, passionate and fearless. It will be fascinating to watch his new venture take shape. – USAToday
China’s likely sale of sophisticated missiles to Turkey over the objections of its NATO allies might have angered Washington and other capitals, but it should not have been a surprise.
Even as the U.S. has spent billions of dollars and lost hundreds of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, Beijing has been quietly upping its presence in the Middle East.
Militarily, the U.S. – which maintains a permanent aircraft carrier presence near the Gulf as well as dozens of other warships and major bases in Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – is by far the dominant regional power.
China has tended to follow Russia’s lead on the Middle East, sometimes appearing sidelined on issues such as Syria.
Beijing’s economic, political and diplomatic clout, however, is growing fast. China’s Ministry of Commerce said last month China-Arab nation trade now reaches $222 billion a year, 12 times its 2002 level. That would outstrip U.S.-Mideast trade, valued at $193 billion in 2011.
Militarily too, China’s footprint is rising. As well as maintaining a three-ship antipiracy task force in the Indian Ocean and occasionally sending ships to the Mediterranean, Beijing has deployed UN peacekeepers to Lebanon.
Turkey’s choice of a $3.4 billion deal to acquire the Chinese FD-2000 missile defence system rather than rival U.S. or European systems may be a sign of things to come.
“It is a wake-up call,” said Christina Lin, a former U.S. official and now fellow at the School for Advanced International Studies who last year briefed the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs on the issue. “China is looking to get a lot more involved in the Middle East and is being increasingly accepted there.”
China’s interests in the region, she said, ranged from energy and investment to countering the spread of jihadist militancy, a major worry for Beijing in its Muslim provinces.
The firm that makes the missile system, China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC) is under US sanctions for violations of the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act. While Turkish officials said the deal was not yet officially finalised, it was likely to go through.
U.S. and other NATO officials complain it may not be compatible with other NATO systems and may increase the risk of cyber attack or other interference across the alliance. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Western states were overeacting to what was essentially simply a commercial decision.
Mixing commerce and geopolitics, experts say, is at the heart of Beijing’s approach. Chinese officials have become regular visitors to most Mideast states while a range of regional leaders including Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah have all visited China.
The aftermath of the “Arab Spring” and Washington’s abandonment of longtime proxies such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, some analysts say, has left some governments keen to find alternative allies. Even longtime U.S. partners feel the draw.
“I personally have close friendly relations with various Chinese leaders, current and former,” Jordan’s Abdullah told Chinese media last month. “We are interested in building on this relationship… because China plays a vital role in promoting world peace and stability and has an influential role in regional issues.”
Beijing has long been a major supplier of small arms to the region – the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute this month reported 2006-10 sales to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Qatar. Still, the Turkish deal is seen as a major breakthrough for its advanced weapon sales.
China’s soaring energy needs are seen as a major motivator, coming just as the U.S. gets closer to energy independence and budget constraints and public reluctance hit its military presence.
The International Energy Agency expects China’s Mideast oil imports to grow from 2.9 million barrels per day in 2011 to 6.7 million in 2035, a projected 54 percent of total Chinese oil imports.
Already, Chinese national oil companies are amongst the biggest players in Iraq and Iran and Beijing is both Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner and the biggest single purchaser of Iran’s crude.
That purchasing power has effectively allowed China and other Asian powers to determine how successful U.S. and European sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program can be.
In the long run, some analysts suggest Beijing’s oil needs could actually bring it closer to the West, particularly on Iran. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says Chinese defence sales to Tehran have already notably fallen.
“If Washington (were to) substantially reduce its military presence in the region, oil security concerns might compel Beijing to play a larger role in defusing the primary threat to the free flow of oil – the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” former CIA energy analyst Erica Downs told a congressional probe into Chinese trade practices earlier this year.
“NEW SILK ROUTE”
China’s regional ambitions, however, go well beyond defence deals and oil. While some 75 percent of U.S.-Mideast trade remains energy-related, China has deliberately diversified and says more than half its regional trade is now non-energy.
Last month, China hosted a five-day China-Arab States Expo in Its north-west Ningxia Hui Autonomous region.
“Though the trade growth is fast, there is still room for improvement,” Zhu Weilie, director for the Centre for China-Arab States Co-Operation Forum Studies told Xinhua. “The two sides should enhance mutual trust to improve communications in political, economic and cultural fields.”
Infrastructure projects have been a major focus. Port operator Cosco owns part of Egypt’s Port Said container terminal. Rail ventures include Medina to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Mediterranean to Red Sea in Israel and Ankara to Istanbul in Turkey.
In the longer term, there is also talk of linking Turkey and Central Asia to China by rail, providing Chinese goods access to Europe through what some analysts call “a new Silk Route”.
Ultimately, Chinese investment may prompt the kind of backlash already seen in Africa. Its attempts to befriend everybody may also prove unsustainable – its stance on Syria has already irritated some Gulf states and prompted an angry protest at its embassy in Libya.
For now, however, it remains broadly welcomed. In July, a Pew Centre survey showed China viewed more positively than the U.S. in every Mideast state except Israel.
“If you talk to diplomats in the Gulf, they are very impressed,” former U.S. official Lin said. “Chinese ambassadors in the region tend to speak very good, classical Arabic while the Americans still expect everyone to talk in English.” – Reuters
A well informed diplomatic source told a Lebanese newspaper that “the US war on Syria had started and ended the moment those two ballistic missiles were fired, leaving inconsistent information, as Israel denied and Russia confirmed, until an Israeli statement was issued indicating they were fired in the context of an Israeli-US joint drill and fell in the sea, and that they were not related to the Syrian crisis.”
The source further told the Lebanese daily As-Safir that “the US forces fired these two rockets from a NATO base in Spain, and were instantly detected by the Russian radars and confronted by the Russian defense systems, so one of them exploded in the airspace and the second one diverted towards the sea.”
In this context, the source pointed out that “the statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry, which stated the detection of two ballistic missiles fired towards the Middle East, intended to neglect two points: the first was the location from which the two rockets were fired, and the second was their downing. Why? Because the moment the full military operation was launched, Head of the Russian Intelligence Service contacted the US intelligence and informed it that “hitting Damascus means hitting Moscow, and we have removed the term “downed the two missiles” from the statement to preserve the bilateral relations and to avoid escalation. Therefore, you must immediately reconsider your policies, approaches and intentions on the Syrian crisis, as you must be certain that you cannot eliminate our presence in the Mediterranean.”
“This unannounced direct confrontation between Moscow and Washington increased the Obama Administration’s confusion and certainty that the Russian side was ready to move until the end with the Syrian cause, and that the US did not have a way out of its impasse except through a Russian initiative which would save America’s face…” he added.
From this point, the diplomatic source clarified that “in order to avoid further US confusion, and after Israel denied knowing anything about the rocket firing in its first statement, which is the truth, Washington demanded Tel Aviv to adopt the rocket firing to save its face in front of the International Community, especially since these two rockets were the beginning of the US aggression on Syria and the announcement of the beginning of military operations, after which US President Barack Obama was supposed to go to the G20 Summit in Russia to negotiate the destiny of Syrian President Bashr Al-Assad. However, he went to find a way out of the impasse he’s in.”
The source further indicated that “after the US-Russia rocket confrontation, Moscow intended to increase its number of military experts in Russia, and added to its military units and destroyers to enhance its military presence in the Mediterranean. It also set a time for announcing about its initiative on stopping the aggression on Syria after the G20 Summit, after drawing a side scene on the sidelines of the summit which was followed by two successive visits for Iranian Foreign Minister, Hussein Amir Abdul Lahyan, and Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid Al-Moallem, in which a way out was agreed on with the Russian side, and it included a Syrian announcement on approving the Russian initiative regarding putting Syrian chemical weapons under international supervision and preparing Syria for joining the non-proliferation treaty.
Finally, the source pointed out that “One of the first results of the US-Russian military confrontation was the British House of Commons’ rejection to participate in a war on Syria. This was followed by European stances, most significantly, the German stance announced by Chancellor Angela Merkel.” – almanar.com
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