Less than two months...

For discussion of liberty, freedom, government and politics.
Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

The Republicans, of which Trump only recently became a part, had eight long years to come up with an Obamacare replacement. Fail.
An answer to the immigration issue. Fail.
A revised tax code. Fail.

Three strikes you're out. Why do sheeple still vote for failing Republicans? Trusting them is only for the insane.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-0 ... gedaboutit

Trump's "Beautiful Tax Plan"... Fuggedaboutit!

Nov 6, 2017 5:48 PM

Via MurraySabrin.com,

Last week President Trump’s tax plan was unveiled with great fanfare by the Congressional Republican leadership. Although President Trump babbled what he claimed to be the biggest tax cut in American history, the evidence is quite to the contrary.

Former Reagan budget director David Stockman dissects the “beautiful tax plan,” concluding that it is nothing less than a big scam. Tax cuts are not targeted toward the middle class but the highest income earners in the country and corporations. That is not to say that taxes should not be cut for upper income individuals, families and businesses, but all taxes should be reduced for everyone.

Closing so-called loopholes is another egregious flaw in Trump’s tax “reform.” There are no tax “loopholes” in the tax code. There are only exemptions. deduction and credits. A loophole is term used by politicians and tax grabbers who think any individual, family or business that pays less taxes is getting away with not paying their “fair share.” “Fair taxation” is an oxymoron if there ever was one. Taxes are coerced from workers and business owners. Thus, taxation should have no place in a free society.

If the American people really want to live in a free society (and that is a big if considering who we have elected as president, legislators or governor around the country for decades) that will create the greatest prosperity for all working folks, they should agitate for the abolition of all taxes. I make the case for abolishing all taxes America in my 1995 book Tax Free 2000: The Rebirth of American Liberty.

Why should taxes be reduced substantially or abolished altogether? Reducing taxes does three things for families and businesses.

First, less money going to the taxman means that people can spend more on their families’ needs.

Second, less money going to the taxman means that people can save more for the future.

Third, less money go to the taxman means that people can increase their charitable contributions.
But the big government proponents would scream in horror… “What about the poor?” “What about the elderly and disabled?” “What about the children and education?” “What about infrastructure?” “What about our national security?” “What about all the regulatory agencies?” And on and on and on. (I explain in Tax Free 2000 how the services that people want will be funded by voluntary exchange, and how people will make choices about what social welfare services they want to support with their charitable contributions. I also discussed the transition from the current welfare-warfare state to a free society.)

For both liberals (progressives) and conservatives they cannot conceive of a free society… one in which people are in charge of their earned incomes as opposed to having to cough up anywhere from 10 to 50% of their income to the political elites that run the country who are supported by special interests and crony capitalists that put them into office.

In addition, one of the major benefits of a tax-free society would be the end of U.S. military intervention overseas. A tax-free America would end undeclared wars and bring the troops home from the hundreds of military bases around the world, ending the military industrial complex’s global empire. Substantially lower taxes or a tax-free society would end America’s welfare-warfare state once and for all, and make the United States the greatest magnet for capital, which would boost both employment and living standards considerably.

Trump’s tax plan should be deep-sixed because it does not address the fundamental issue – federal government spending. As long as the federal government spends $4 trillion a year, which keep on increasing in good and bad times, America’s welfare-warfare state will eventually lead us to national bankruptcy, because growing entitlements and global military commitments are financially unsustainable.

Trumpnomics does nothing to take us on a journey toward a freer economy. In fact, Trump’s tax plan continues the bipartisan consensus in Washington DC, namely that without the federal government spending $4 trillion a year the economy would implode. Now is the time to have the debate that former President Clinton said we should have years ago about the role of government in a free society.

I am an unabashed, unapologetic proponent of reducing both taxes and federal spending substantially, with the goal of creating a tax-free society. Where do you stand? For liberty or statism?

justkeepswimming
captain of 100
Posts: 104

Re: Less than two months...

Post by justkeepswimming »

No, I hadn't seen those so I apologize! If you're pointing out members of the CFR then I get you, I promise I get you:)

So, I'm with you up to a point on your Trump opinions. He's a knucklehead, everyone knows that, but what Trump haters don't seem to get is the 'why' when they ask 'why' would somebody support him. The majority of people who voted for Trump don't love him, they really don't even like him, but they tolerate him because Trump was the only one of 19 GOP candidates who didn't tell voters how to think...Trump listened and then he had more of a dialogue with the voters than the others did. All the other candidates acted so above the voters' ideas, like the people were there to support them, not the other way around.

Of all the people I know who actually voted for Trump, they did so because nobody else was listening.

We can hate on Trump all we want but unless we allow the other side to talk and be heard in a civil dialogue then they will keep supporting him.
Silver wrote: November 6th, 2017, 9:06 pm
Then perhaps you haven't seen viewtopic.php?f=61&t=44250&p=818818#p818818
Or viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46957&p=818690#p818413

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

You unfortunately don’t get me at all. You claim “Trump listened.” I say that was the Marmalade only pretending to listen. The country needs an immigration solution. Trump guaranteed a wall paid for by Mexico. He might as well have been selling snake oil to all the hayseeds that voted for him. Desperation makes people do illogical things. The candidate Marmalade promised an immediate Obamacare repeal and the masses went wild. What he delivered is nothing like what those people he was supposed to be listening to wanted. I could go on ad nauseum but Trump supporters have clearly proven how bankrupt their politics are. They continue to defend a lying, perverted, elitist defender of wickedness such as that found in Saudi Arabia.

justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 2:38 am No, I hadn't seen those so I apologize! If you're pointing out members of the CFR then I get you, I promise I get you:)

So, I'm with you up to a point on your Trump opinions. He's a knucklehead, everyone knows that, but what Trump haters don't seem to get is the 'why' when they ask 'why' would somebody support him. The majority of people who voted for Trump don't love him, they really don't even like him, but they tolerate him because Trump was the only one of 19 GOP candidates who didn't tell voters how to think...Trump listened and then he had more of a dialogue with the voters than the others did. All the other candidates acted so above the voters' ideas, like the people were there to support them, not the other way around.

Of all the people I know who actually voted for Trump, they did so because nobody else was listening.

We can hate on Trump all we want but unless we allow the other side to talk and be heard in a civil dialogue then they will keep supporting him.
Silver wrote: November 6th, 2017, 9:06 pm
Then perhaps you haven't seen viewtopic.php?f=61&t=44250&p=818818#p818818
Or viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46957&p=818690#p818413

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

More bloody murder because Trump is part of the NWO and allowing the MIC direct him. Any support of the House of Saud will further indict the American people come judgment day. Same for the wicked cabal at the top of Israeli politics these days.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-0 ... on-lebanon

"Explosive" Leaked Secret Israeli Cable Confirms Israeli-Saudi Coordination To Provoke War

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Nov 7, 2017 9:23 AM

Early this morning, Israeli Channel 10 news published a leaked diplomatic cable which had been sent to all Israeli ambassadors throughout the world concerning the chaotic events that unfolded over the weekend in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which began with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's unexpected resignation after he was summoned to Riyadh by his Saudi-backers, and led to the Saudis announcing that Lebanon had "declared war" against the kingdom.

The classified embassy cable, written in Hebrew, constitutes the first formal evidence proving that the Saudis and Israelis are deliberately coordinating to escalate the situation in the Middle East.

The explosive classified Israeli cable reveals the following:

On Sunday, just after Lebanese PM Hariri's shocking resignation, Israel sent a cable to all of its embassies with the request that its diplomats do everything possible to ramp up diplomatic pressure against Hezbollah and Iran.
The cable urged support for Saudi Arabia's war against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
The cable stressed that Iran was engaged in "regional subversion".
Israeli diplomats were urged to appeal to the "highest officials" within their host countries to attempt to expel Hezbollah from Lebanese government and politics.


Left: Israeli PM Netanyahu, Right: Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman

As is already well-known, the Saudi and Israeli common cause against perceived Iranian influence and expansion in places like Syria, Lebanon and Iraq of late has led the historic bitter enemies down a pragmatic path of unspoken cooperation as both seem to have placed the break up of the so-called "Shia crescent" as their primary policy goal in the region. For Israel, Hezbollah has long been its greatest foe, which Israeli leaders see as an extension of Iran's territorial presence right up against the Jewish state's northern border.

Trita Parsi ✔@tparsi
This is a EXPLOSIVE thread that proves how Saudi and Israel are deliberately coordinating to escalate the situation in the MidEast. https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/9 ... 1713941505
3:31 PM - Nov 6, 2017
23 23 Replies 347 347 Retweets 350 350 likes
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The Israeli reporter who obtained the document is Barak Ravid, senior diplomatic correspondent for Channel 10 News. Ravid announced the following through Twitter yesterday:

I published on channel 10 a cable sent to Israeli diplomats asking to lobby for Saudis/Harir and against Hezbollah. The cable sent from the MFA in Jerusalem [Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs] to all Israeli embassies toes the Saudi line regarding the Hariri resignation.
The Israeli diplomats were instructed to demarch their host governments over the domestic political situation in Lebanon - a very rare move.
The cable said: "You need to stress that the Hariri resignation shows how dangerous Iran and Hezbollah are for Lebanon's security."
"Hariri's resignation proves wrong the argument that Hezbollah participation in the government stabilizes Lebanon," the cable added.
The cable instructed Israeli diplomats to support Saudi Arabia over its war with the Houthis in Yemen. The cable also stressed: "The missile launch by the Houthis towards Riyadh calls for applying more pressure on Iran & Hezbollah."
Barak Ravid ✔@BarakRavid
1 \ I published on channel 10 a cable sent to Israeli diplomats asking to lobby for Saudis\Hariri &against Hezbollah http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?Artic ... 90&sid=126
2:11 PM - Nov 6, 2017

האיום האיראני: ישראל מיישרת קו עם סעודיה נגד מעורבות טהראן וחיזבאללה בלבנון
משרד החוץ שיגר מברק הנחיות לכל שגרירויות ישראל בו התבקשו לפעול נגד המעורבות של חיזבאללה ואיראן במערכת הפוליטית בלבנון
news.nana10.co.il
16 16 Replies 386 386 Retweets 243 243 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Watch today's Hebrew broadcast Channel 10 News report which features the Israeli diplomatic cable - the text of which is featured in Channel 10's screenshot (below) - here.



Below is a rough translation of the classified Israeli embassy cable using Google Translate as released by Israel's Channel 10 News:

"To the Director-General: you are requested to urgently contact the Foreign Ministry and other relevant government officials [of your host country] and emphasize that the resignation of Al-Hariri and his comments on the reasons that led him to resign illustrate once again the destructive nature of Iran and Hezbollah and their danger to the stability of Lebanon and the countries of the region.

Al-Hariri's resignation proves that the international argument that Hezbollah's inclusion in the government is a recipe for stability is basically wrong. This artificial unity creates paralysis and the inability of local sovereign powers to make decisions that serve their national interest. It effectively turns them into hostages under physical threat and are forced to promote the interests of a foreign power - Iran - even if this may endanger the security of their country.

The events in Lebanon and the launching of a ballistic missile by the signatories to the Riyadh agreement require increased pressure on Iran and Hezbollah on a range of issues from the production of ballistic missiles to regional subversion."
Thus, as things increasingly heat up in the Middle East, it appears the anti-Iran and anti-Shia alliance of convenience between the Saudis and Israelis appears to have placed Lebanon in the cross hairs of yet another looming Israeli-Hezbollah war. And the war in Yemen will also continue to escalate - perhaps now with increasingly overt Israeli political support. According to Channel 10's commentary (translation), "In the cable, Israeli ambassadors were also asked to convey an unusual message of support for Saudi Arabia in light of the war in which it is involved in Yemen against the Iranian-backed rebels."

All of this this comes, perhaps not coincidentally, at the very moment ISIS is on the verge of complete annihilation (partly at the hands of Hezbollah), and as both Israel and Saudi Arabia have of late increasingly declared "red lines" concerning perceived Iranian influence across the region as well as broad Hezbollah acceptance and popularity within Lebanon.

What has both Israel and the Saudis worried is the fact that the Syrian war has strengthened Hezbollah, not weakened it. And now we have smoking gun internal evidence that Israel is quietly formalizing its unusual alliance with Saudi Arabia and its power-hungry and hawkish crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

justkeepswimming
captain of 100
Posts: 104

Re: Less than two months...

Post by justkeepswimming »

Don't you think this has mostly to do with Trump's naivete? He promised so much w/o ever having had to work with other branches of government. He's used to bullying bankers, architects, engineers, city leaders, etc.
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 9:38 am You unfortunately don’t get me at all. You claim “Trump listened.” I say that was the Marmalade only pretending to listen. The country needs an immigration solution. Trump guaranteed a wall paid for by Mexico. He might as well have been selling snake oil to all the hayseeds that voted for him. Desperation makes people do illogical things. The candidate Marmalade promised an immediate Obamacare repeal and the masses went wild. What he delivered is nothing like what those people he was supposed to be listening to wanted. I could go on ad nauseum but Trump supporters have clearly proven how bankrupt their politics are. They continue to defend a lying, perverted, elitist defender of wickedness such as that found in Saudi Arabia.

justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 2:38 am

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 11:16 am Don't you think this has mostly to do with Trump's naivete? He promised so much w/o ever having had to work with other branches of government. He's used to bullying bankers, architects, engineers, city leaders, etc.
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 9:38 am You unfortunately don’t get me at all. You claim “Trump listened.” I say that was the Marmalade only pretending to listen. The country needs an immigration solution. Trump guaranteed a wall paid for by Mexico. He might as well have been selling snake oil to all the hayseeds that voted for him. Desperation makes people do illogical things. The candidate Marmalade promised an immediate Obamacare repeal and the masses went wild. What he delivered is nothing like what those people he was supposed to be listening to wanted. I could go on ad nauseum but Trump supporters have clearly proven how bankrupt their politics are. They continue to defend a lying, perverted, elitist defender of wickedness such as that found in Saudi Arabia.

justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 2:38 am
It is you that is naive. Don't you think that the abundance of evidence already mentioned, and, in the case of visual images, displayed, in this thread make your point laughably wrong? How do you or the Trumpsters explain away the presence of Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Extraordinaire, in the White House Oval Office at least three times since the Marmalade took office? Why must the Secretary of the Treasury be a known lawbreaker? Why so many CFR in the administration? Why so many Goldman Sachs traitors? Why Mad Dogs who want a bankrupt country to expand its empire to the point of collapse? Trumpsters have and will continue to ignore these most critical issues because it requires a paradigm shift. No man is so blind as he who will not see.

justkeepswimming
captain of 100
Posts: 104

Re: Less than two months...

Post by justkeepswimming »

Do you promote a solution or just talk down to all of us in a very condescending tone? I admire your passion, truly, but my goodness...
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 1:11 pm
justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 11:16 am Don't you think this has mostly to do with Trump's naivete? He promised so much w/o ever having had to work with other branches of government. He's used to bullying bankers, architects, engineers, city leaders, etc.
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 9:38 am You unfortunately don’t get me at all. You claim “Trump listened.” I say that was the Marmalade only pretending to listen. The country needs an immigration solution. Trump guaranteed a wall paid for by Mexico. He might as well have been selling snake oil to all the hayseeds that voted for him. Desperation makes people do illogical things. The candidate Marmalade promised an immediate Obamacare repeal and the masses went wild. What he delivered is nothing like what those people he was supposed to be listening to wanted. I could go on ad nauseum but Trump supporters have clearly proven how bankrupt their politics are. They continue to defend a lying, perverted, elitist defender of wickedness such as that found in Saudi Arabia.

justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 2:38 am
It is you that is naive. Don't you think that the abundance of evidence already mentioned, and, in the case of visual images, displayed, in this thread make your point laughably wrong? How do you or the Trumpsters explain away the presence of Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Extraordinaire, in the White House Oval Office at least three times since the Marmalade took office? Why must the Secretary of the Treasury be a known lawbreaker? Why so many CFR in the administration? Why so many Goldman Sachs traitors? Why Mad Dogs who want a bankrupt country to expand its empire to the point of collapse? Trumpsters have and will continue to ignore these most critical issues because it requires a paradigm shift. No man is so blind as he who will not see.

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 1:42 pm Do you promote a solution or just talk down to all of us in a very condescending tone? I admire your passion, truly, but my goodness...
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 1:11 pm
justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 11:16 am Don't you think this has mostly to do with Trump's naivete? He promised so much w/o ever having had to work with other branches of government. He's used to bullying bankers, architects, engineers, city leaders, etc.
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 9:38 am You unfortunately don’t get me at all. You claim “Trump listened.” I say that was the Marmalade only pretending to listen. The country needs an immigration solution. Trump guaranteed a wall paid for by Mexico. He might as well have been selling snake oil to all the hayseeds that voted for him. Desperation makes people do illogical things. The candidate Marmalade promised an immediate Obamacare repeal and the masses went wild. What he delivered is nothing like what those people he was supposed to be listening to wanted. I could go on ad nauseum but Trump supporters have clearly proven how bankrupt their politics are. They continue to defend a lying, perverted, elitist defender of wickedness such as that found in Saudi Arabia.

It is you that is naive. Don't you think that the abundance of evidence already mentioned, and, in the case of visual images, displayed, in this thread make your point laughably wrong? How do you or the Trumpsters explain away the presence of Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Extraordinaire, in the White House Oval Office at least three times since the Marmalade took office? Why must the Secretary of the Treasury be a known lawbreaker? Why so many CFR in the administration? Why so many Goldman Sachs traitors? Why Mad Dogs who want a bankrupt country to expand its empire to the point of collapse? Trumpsters have and will continue to ignore these most critical issues because it requires a paradigm shift. No man is so blind as he who will not see.
Why didn't you ask sooner? The country must repent of its support for Trump as well as for the secret combination that makes their little Orange puppet prance around. That's the solution although I'll have to give credit to Moroni for it.

As for my tone, decades of warnings from the modern prophets didn't awaken the Saints to their "awful situation." Do you really want to take umbrage with the way this little peon on a tiny little forum addresses the slumbering and the willfully ignorant? If so, remind me to tell you how to make all my posts go away through the "Manage foes" function.

justkeepswimming
captain of 100
Posts: 104

Re: Less than two months...

Post by justkeepswimming »

Dang, you're intense!!

I'll just read your stuff silently w/o responding now :)
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 2:01 pm
justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 1:42 pm Do you promote a solution or just talk down to all of us in a very condescending tone? I admire your passion, truly, but my goodness...
Silver wrote: November 7th, 2017, 1:11 pm
justkeepswimming wrote: November 7th, 2017, 11:16 am Don't you think this has mostly to do with Trump's naivete? He promised so much w/o ever having had to work with other branches of government. He's used to bullying bankers, architects, engineers, city leaders, etc.

Why didn't you ask sooner? The country must repent of its support for Trump as well as for the secret combination that makes their little Orange puppet prance around. That's the solution although I'll have to give credit to Moroni for it.

As for my tone, decades of warnings from the modern prophets didn't awaken the Saints to their "awful situation." Do you really want to take umbrage with the way this little peon on a tiny little forum addresses the slumbering and the willfully ignorant? If so, remind me to tell you how to make all my posts go away through the "Manage foes" function.

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

Neocons, warmongers, fake liberals, fake media, and companies which make products that go boom in the night want America to continue to build its empire. They will fall and America will fail as the blind follow the Tangerine and the left protests for they know not what.

It's a sad anniversary of voting for evil.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-0 ... redibility

Of Red Lines & Lost Credibility

Nov 7, 2017 8:50 PM

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

A major goal of this Asia trip, said National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, is to rally allies to achieve the “complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

Yet Kim Jong Un has said he will never give up his nuclear weapons.

He believes the survival of his dynastic regime depends upon them.

Hence we are headed for confrontation. Either the U.S. or North Korea backs down, as Nikita Khrushchev did in the Cuban missile crisis, or there will be war.

In this new century, U.S. leaders continue to draw red lines that threaten acts of war that the nation is unprepared to back up.

Recall President Obama’s, “Assad must go!” and the warning that any use of chemical weapons would cross his personal “red line.”

Result: After chemical weapons were used, Americans rose in united opposition to a retaliatory strike. Congress refused to authorize any attack. Obama and John Kerry were left with egg all over their faces. And the credibility of the country was commensurately damaged.

There was a time when U.S. words were taken seriously, and we heeded Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum: “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”

After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1991, George H.W. Bush said simply: “This will not stand.” The world understood that if Saddam did not withdraw from Kuwait, his army would be thrown out. As it was.

But in the post-Cold War era, the rhetoric of U.S. statesmen has grown ever more blustery, even as U.S. relative power has declined. Our goal is “ending tyranny in our world,” bellowed George W. Bush in his second inaugural.

Consider Rex Tillerson’s recent trip. In Saudi Arabia, he declared, “Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against … ISIS is coming to a close … need to go home. Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home.”

The next day, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi responded:

“We wonder about the statements attributed to the American secretary of state about the popular mobilization forces. … No side has the right to intervene in Iraq’s affairs or decide what Iraqis do.”
This slap across the face comes from a regime that rules as a result of 4,500 U.S. dead, tens of thousands wounded and $1 trillion invested in the nation’s rebuilding after 15 years of war.

Earlier that day, Tillerson made a two-hour visit to Afghanistan. There he met Afghan officials in a heavily guarded bunker near Bagram Airfield. Wrote The New York Times’ Gardiner Harris:

“That top American officials must use stealth to enter these countries after more than 15 years of wars, thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent was testimony to the stubborn problems still confronting the United States in both places.”
Such are the fruits of our longest wars, launched with the neo-Churchillian rhetoric of George W. Bush.

In India, Tillerson called on the government to close its embassy in North Korea. New Delhi demurred, suggesting the facility might prove useful to the Americans in negotiating with Pyongyang.

In Geneva, Tillerson asserted, “The United States wants a whole and unified Syria with no role for Bashar al-Assad … The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end.”

Well, perhaps? But our “rebels” in Syria were routed and Assad not only survived his six-year civil war but with the aid of his Russian, Iranian, Shiite militia, and Hezbollah allies, he won that war, and intends to remain and rule, whether we approve or not.

We no longer speak to the world with the assured authority with which America did from Eisenhower to Reagan and Bush 1. Our moment, if ever it existed, as the “unipolar power” the “indispensable nation” that would exercise a “benevolent global hegemony” upon mankind is over.

America needs today a recognition of the new realities we face and a rhetoric that conforms to those realities.

Since Y2K our world has changed.

Putin’s Russia has reasserted itself, rebuilt its strategic forces, confronted NATO, annexed Crimea and acted decisively in Syria, re-establishing itself as a power in the Middle East.

China, thanks to its vast trade surpluses at our expense, has grown into an economic and geostrategic rival on a scale that not even the USSR of the Cold War reached.

North Korea is now a nuclear power.

The Europeans are bedeviled by tribalism, secessionism and waves of seemingly unassimilable immigrants from the South and Middle East.

A once-vital NATO ally, Turkey, is virtually lost to the West. Our major Asian allies are dependent on exports to a China that has established a new order in the South China Sea.

In part because of our interventions, the Middle East is in turmoil, bedeviled by terrorism and breaking down along Sunni-Shiite lines.

The U.S. pre-eminence in the days of Desert Storm is history.

Yet, the architects of American decline may still be heard denouncing the “isolationists” who opposed their follies and warned what would befall the republic if it listened to them.

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

Yesterday, Tuesday, was election day in America and the anniversary of Marmalade taking office. Today, the 8th of November, is the actual date it occurred in 2016, a day which shall live in infamy in our history.

This thread has been reporting on the various ways Trump has shown his true colors (besides orange) as a globalist in his first year in office. This post will look ahead. What is the NWO planning next? The article provides one writer's view. You tell the rest of us if the writer knows what he's talking about.

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2017/11/leban ... t-gas-war/

Lebanon – the next front in the Great Gas War.

by Golem XIV on NOVEMBER 7, 2017 in LATEST
The Great Gas War has already two distinct fronts: The now relatively quiet Northern Front in Ukraine and the Southern Front in Syria in which the Western empire has been losing. It looks to me that Lebanon is being targeted as the next front, where the West hopes its loses might be recouped.

Yesterday, November 6th, Reuters reported,

Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Lebanon had declared war against it because of attacks against the Kingdom by the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah.

This comes after Israel, Saudi’s long time though largely un-offical best friend in the region, has been very publicly preparing to renew its own war with Lebanon – or more accurately with Hezbollah. As the American news journal Newsweek put it recently,

ISRAEL PREPARES FOR ANOTHER WAR WITH HEZBOLLAH AS IDF PRACTICES LEBANON INVASION.

Why now and why Lebanon? Well the rulers of Saudi, a Sunni dominated country, will tell us that it is because Hezbollah is a Shia terrorist organisation. “Hezbollah” literally means the “Party of Allah” or “Party of God”. Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan yesterday pointedly referred to Hezbollah as, “the Lebanese Party of the Devil”. Saudi is not alone of course, Hezbollah has also been listed as a terrorist organisation by America, Israel, the Arab League, the UK and the EU. It is also, however, part of the popular government of Lebanon having seats in its parliament.

I suggest, however, a powerful reason that a new war with Hezbollah may be in the offing is because Lebanon is the next link in any gas pipeline that could potentially bring Iranian Gas to Europe. That was the reason the West decided to “liberate” the Syrian people and it will be why they decide to enforce the same salvation upon the people of Lebanon. Having failed to liberate the Syrians, Saudi, the West, its Sunni Gulf allies and Israel will now see if they can succeed in blocking any Iranian gas ambitions by liberating the Lebanese from their own government. I would not be surprised to hear quite soon from opposition groups vocally denouncing the government or at least Hezbollah. I expect spokes people from those groups to suddenly get a global platform along-side American and regional supporters such as Saudi.

When I look at Saudi I can’t help but notice that it has , all in a short space of time, begun wars in neighbouring Yemen and Syria, and declared first Qatar and now Lebanon supporters of terror if not actually themselves terrorists. Saudi has gone from a nation surrounded by allies or at least states with whom it had basic diplomatic relations, to a nation surrounded by enemies. It begins to remind me of Israel in that respect.

Gas of course is not the be all and end all. In many ways it is a surface marker, the means for regional and global struggles for political power and influence. For Saudi it is the basis of its struggle for regional supremacy with Qatar. For America it is the regional marker for its proxy struggle with Russia for political dominance and for control over gas supplies to Europe. America has sided with Saudi. Russia and China have sided with Qatar. Qatar struck a decisive blow for dominance and for a new Qatar focussed power structure when it opened the region’s only clearing house for settlement of Gas contracts in Yuan.

I see the political turmoil inside Saudi as a struggle between those who see the House of Saud’s only hope for a future to be to remain firmly aligned with America and therefore by extension, with Israel, versus those who might consider switching or at least splitting their allegiance so as to move closer to Russia/China. A move which might be correct but which would concede to Qatar some large portion of what has been up till now Saudi’s pre-eminence.

Wars in Yemen, Syria and soon Lebanon make the divide between these two possible futures for The House of Saud, very sharp.

For Israel it will mean war and troops on the ground. America will certainly help in the air but Israel will shed blood on the ground.

What will Russia do? I doubt it will put troops into Lebanon. But I could very easily see it extending in to Lebanon the air support it has deployed in Syria. I could see Iran being tempted to send troops or at least ‘advisors’ or perhaps just ‘allow’ zealots who want to go, to do so. And that itself may be part of what some in America would like – tempt Iran into lending support and then declare anew that Iran is, pointing at new evidence, a state sponsor of international terror. America has desired a confrontation with Iran for a long time and want a new excuse.

The Great Gas War has not finished. I suggest it is about to open a new front. A front that could ignite a wider conflict.

In case anyone should be interested to read my analysis of the Syrian front of the Great Gas War here are the links to the three articles in that series:

Syria Cui Bono – Part Three – Europe and the USA

Syria Cui Bono – Part Two – Qatar, Saudi, Russia and Gas

Syria – Cui Bono – Part One

Silver
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Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-ne ... globalists

Tuesday, 07 November 2017
Trump’s China Entourage: Heavy With Goldman Sachs, Rothschild, CFR Globalists
Written by William F. Jasper

Trump’s China Entourage: Heavy With Goldman Sachs, Rothschild, CFR Globalists

Will President Trump make good on his promise to get tough on China, one of his signature campaign pledges? Americans who are expecting him to do so have good reason to be concerned about the president’s current Asia excursion, which is focusing on both trade and security issues. The president’s visit to China on Thursday, November 8, is a central event of the multi-nation tour, which also includes stops in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Accompanying Trump is Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who is leading a delegation of dozens of business leaders, many of whom have been key promoters of the type of deals with the communist regime that candidate Trump denounced.

According to a list published by CNBC, the Trump-Pence-Ross entourage to Asia will include 29 CEOs and corporate leaders, with some of the most prominent of these representing major China boosters, such as Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Wall Street investment titan Goldman Sachs; Kevin McAllister, of airplane behemoth Boeing; Steve Mollenkopf, of telecom equipment and microchip maker Qualcom; Shane Tedjarati, of technology/defense/aerospace conglomerate Honeywell; Andrew Liveris, of chemical giant DowDuPont; Donald Chen, of food processor and agricultural colossus Archer Daniels Midland; Jose Emeterio Gutierrez Elso, of the Westinghouse Electric Company; and Mitch Snyder, of defense/aerospace company Bell Helicopter, Textron.

For many of these business elites, this current Asian trip is a follow-up to the even larger confab of corporate globalists who earlier this year attended the China Development Forum 2017 in Beijing, which we reported on in March.

Government Sachs: The Vampire Squid

As the Trump Asia trip was getting underway, one reason for Lloyd Blankfein’s presence became obvious. “Goldman Sachs is partnering with sovereign fund China Investment Corp (CIC) to jointly launch an up to $5 billion fund to invest in U.S. manufacturers, according to people familiar with the situation,” Reuters reported Monday. “The details of the fund will be announced on Thursday as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to China,” the Reuters report continued, citing people “who declined to be named as the information is not public yet.”

Not mentioned in the Reuters article, or any of the other articles reporting on the new investment partnership, is another very important connection in the Goldman Sachs-CIC venture: John L. Thorton. Thornton played a major role in building the Goldman Sachs presence in China in the 1980s and 1990s, making the firm into the chief underwriter for deals with China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). China’s SOEs and SWFs are, of course, government-owned and government-operated affairs, which is to say that they are completely operations of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The “vulture capitalists” at Goldman apparently get on very well with the apex predator communists of China. After working his way to co-president of Goldman Sachs, Thornton stepped down from his executive position in the firm in 2003, but continued as an advisor. His early “retirement” merely shifted his involvement in China to a different — and higher — plane. He helped launch the Global Leadership Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Often referred to as “China’s MIT,” Tsinghua University is a premier technology and business center for the communist regime, as well as an incubator for top Communist Party officials. Thornton is a professor at Tsinghua, as well as serving as a director of the Global Leadership Program. He also founded (and funded) the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, where he is chairman of the board of trustees.

Especially important to the just-announced Goldman Sachs-China Investment Corp deal is the fact that Thornton sits on the International Advisory Board of CIC. He also has served on the boards of China Unicom and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, as well as many other international corporations, such as Intel, Ford, News Corp, and HSBC. His efforts have not gone unappreciated by his comrades in China’s Politburo. In 2008, Thornton was awarded the Friendship Award of the People’s Republic of China, “the highest honor presented by the Chinese government to foreign experts working in China.” Like Lloyd Blankfein, Thornton is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the premier organization that has been promoting world government for the past century. Goldman Sachs is also a top corporate member/funder of the CFR, providing the highest level of financial support, at the “Founder” level.

Besides business ties on corporate boards, Thornton has important ties to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that undoubtedly are influencing the agenda of the Trump Asia tour beyond even the substantial Goldman-CIC deal. Ross sits on the Brookings board of trustees, which, as we have mentioned above, is chaired by Thornton. He has even hosted Brookings events at his Hampton estate. Brookings has become one of the most influential think tanks transmitting the CFR’s globalist agenda. Also worthy of special note is Ross’s attendance at the super-secret Bilderberg Group gathering this past June, along with other members of the Trump administration. In addition, Ross ran, for a quarter of a century, a major division of N.M. Rothschild & Sons, the legendary banking dynasty notorious for its political skullduggery and conspiracy. This significant career experience, which was certainly instrumental in boosting him into the billionaires club, is not mentioned in his “Official Biography” posted on the Commerce Department’s website. Neither does the bio mention Ross’s membership in Kappa Beta Phi, a secret society of Wall Street bankers (not to be confused with the scholastic fraternity Phi Beta Kappa) that includes, among others, former Goldman Sachs chairmen Robert Rubin (Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary) and John C. Whitehead (former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York).

A principal component of the CFR’s “New Word Order” plan for global governance is the push for “convergence” between the communist and non-communist nations: the gradual, but continuous and rapidly escalating, push for intertwining and merging the economic, political, and social institutions of both systems. Thornton and Goldman Sachs are definitely leaders in the convergence business.

The inclusion of Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein in the trade delegation was a danger signal from the get-go — but it was no big surprise. As we have reported several times previously, the number of Wall Street insiders (especially from Goldman Sachs) invited into the new administration caused cries of outrage from many of the Trump faithful, since Candidate Trump had slammed his Republican primary opponents Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, as well as Hillary Clinton, for their ties to the hated investment giant that has become known as “The Vampire Squid.” In an article this past March entitled Team Trump’s Troubling Tentacles: The Goldman Sachs Vampire Squid, we profiled some of the most disturbing early picks for key cabinet and advisory positions closely tied to Goldman Sachs: Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin; White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramuchi (subsequently fired by President Trump); Dina Habib Powell, economic assistant to the president; Jay Clayton, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and Gary Cohn, director of Trump’s National Economic Council.

Gary Cohn’s appointment is particularly alarming, since in order to join the Trump administration he resigned his position as president and co-chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs. On leaving Goldman, he was awarded a severance package approaching $300 million. When he leaves the Trump administration, he can be expected to resume lucrative relations of one kind or another with the Wall Street giant, as have other Goldman execs who have temporarily gone into “public service.”

As we noted earlier this year in a number of articles, the choices President Trump has made for cabinet members and advisers do not bode well for America. It is unrealistic to believe that the globalists who surround him will assist in “draining the swamp” that they have helped build and that has been so beneficial to them in accruing both wealth and power. Nor is it likely that they will assist in implementing any policies that will reverse the disastrous and suicidal course the globalists have set over the past several decades with regard to China; that is to say, building it into an economic, technological, and military superpower.

Silver
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Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

Save us, Obi Orange Kenobi. You're our only hope.

Here's the reality of the recent talk about tax cuts. Yes, the following article takes a few moments to read and digest. What would you sacrifice to know the truth? Then having learned the truth, how might you prepare differently?

Multiple images and a few videos at the link but not copied below. Wake up, y'all.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-10/tax-cut-scam

The Tax Cut Scam

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Nov 10, 2017 8:11 AM

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

I can’t help shake this sinking feeling: This tax cut package that is being peddled by the current administration is a scam. Why? Because the entire narrative is dishonest and predicated on false, make belief premises.

Sven Henrich ✔@NorthmanTrader
Rich guys giving themselves tax cuts telling you it'll trickle down & economic growth will be nothing but milk and honey & it will all pay for itself

Surely people are not falling for this?
11:19 AM - Nov 9, 2017
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Look, I don’t like paying more taxes than I have to. Nobody does and I’m not opposed to tax cuts if they actually do something positive for society and the economy. Get Republicans and Democrats together to work something out that helps address our structural issues. I’m all for it.

But my take is that this game that is being played here is a snow job and an obvious one at that and I’ll tell you why.

Let’s start with the obvious: The very people that are pushing for it have an inherent conflict of interest. Everyone of these people stands to gain personally from the very tax cuts they are pushing:



The main narrative: It’ll stimulate economic growth. Let me simply state the obvious here: These 3 folks having larger cash positions and getting enormous refunds will not add to economic growth, it will just add wealth to them.

And it’ll add wealth to their children & families:



That’s after all what the estate tax repeal is all about. Don’t kid yourself.

Gary Cohn struggled to justify all this today in his interview on CNBC. In fact he didn’t justify anything, but rather admitted the larger point: It’s a tax cut for the top 1%.

“we see the whole trickle-down through the economy, and that’s good for the economy”
Why would it trickle down if it’s not a tax cut for the top 1%?

Well because that’s what it is:

“$1 trillion in net cuts for business, $200 billion through the estate tax, and $300 billion for individuals. So, four times as much in business tax cuts and estate tax as for individuals.”
And right here the narrative and premise dies.

First off, corporations are doing great and have more cash than ever. What do they do with most of their cash? It goes to dividends (10% of people own 90% of stocks, 50% of people don’t own any stocks) and of course buybacks. Goldman itself had already done a projection on this late last year:

“We expect tax reform legislation under the Trump administration will encourage firms to repatriate $200 billion of overseas cash next year,” David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist, said in a Friday note, referring to companies in the S&P 500. “A significant portion of returning funds will be directed to buybacks based on the pattern of the tax holiday in 2004.”
None of that adds to economic growth for the bottom 90% it adds to the wealth of the top 1%.

And it’s not even honest to call it the top 1%. It’s really the top 3 if you will.

Wake up to reality:

“The three richest people in the US – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – own as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population, or 160 million people.

Analysis of the wealth of America’s richest people found that Gates, Bezos and Buffett were sitting on a combined $248.5bn (£190bn) fortune. The Institute for Policy Studies said the growing gap between rich and poor had created a “moral crisis”.

In a report, Billionaire Bonanza, the thinktank said Donald Trump’s tax change proposals would “exacerbate existing wealth disparities” as 80% of tax benefits would end up going to the wealthiest 1% of households.

“Wealth inequality is on the rise,” said Chuck Collins, an economist and co-author of the report. “Now is the time for actions that reduce inequality, not tax cuts for the very wealthy.”

The study found that the billionaires included in Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in the US were worth a combined $2.68tn – more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the UK.

“Our wealthiest 400 now have more wealth combined than the bottom 64% of the US population, an estimated 80m households or 204 million people,” the report says. “That’s more people than the population of Canada and Mexico combined.”

The report says the “billionaire class” continues to “pull apart from the rest of us” at the fastest rate ever recorded. “We have not witnessed such extreme levels of concentrated wealth and power since the first gilded age a century ago.”
Wealth inequality is real and this tax cut will exacerbate it further.

But the package will create economic growth? That’s the line used to justify the package without any explanation or response to the structural challenges ahead. Remember the baby boomers are retiring and social security is a key driver in upcoming budget strains:



Cohn didn’t even bother to answer the question:

Harwood: Another thing Larry Summers told me: ‘The country wants to spend more on defense. We’ve got a whole lot of baby boomers retiring. We are going to need more money for government and not less.’ The Penn-Wharton model — run by a former Bush administration economist, not a Democrat — says that this plan by 2040 will lose $4 trillion. During that time, the number of people on Social Security is going to go from 45 million to 72 million. How in the world does that make sense?

Cohn: We firmly believe that we are creating a model that creates economic growth in this country.
That’s his answer.

Instead of answering the question he hides behind the talking point without offering evidence. That’s called playing tennis without the net. And worse: It shows he doesn’t want to or can’t answer the hard questions. Because he doesn’t know or care. It’s called can kicking. Just get the tax cut through and count your winnings.

And then the first of 2 key lies:

Harwood: But you know no tax cut’s ever paid for itself.

Cohn: The years that we increased deficit are years when our economy is slowing down.
Here’s a fact: There is no evidence that tax cuts have produced long term sustainable economic growth, but rather larger deficits are in the immediate future as tax revenues start falling short.

Here’s the history folks, a wonderful bi-partisan track record of deficit spending.:



Note the immediate deficit growth following the Bush tax cuts in 2001. What did they do? Spent trillions on wars. What are they doing now? Increasing military spending.

Remember fiscal conservatives? Me neither. It’s a slogan. They don’t exist. On either side of the isle.

But here’s the 2nd big lie, and perhaps the worst in the entire charade:

Not a single scenario that I have seen, budget or tax plan or otherwise assumes any growth downside. Ever. It’s all milk, honey and rose petals everywhere hence the consequences are not accounted for and the sheep are led to the cliff thinking there is no risk anymore:



This is insane.

And so I ask:

Sven Henrich ✔@NorthmanTrader
Why does an economy, after 8 years of central bank stimulus, require fiscal stimulus?
7:12 AM - Nov 9, 2017
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The answer is it doesn’t. There is no strategic rationale behind the tax cuts other than to personally benefit the very people that are pushing for them. It’s a marketing ploy that will eventually end up in trillion dollar deficits again and benefit cuts. The corporate sector is not hurting. It’s sitting on record cash. No sign of stress, but that’s where the tax cut focus is.

Look, THIS is the forecast of the debt consequences WITHOUT any slowdown or recession in the plan:

“The GOP’s tax bill would add $1.7 trillion to the national debt over the course of a decade, and increase the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio by 5.9 percentage points, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”


And what do these projections look like with a slowdown or recession coming and tax revenue missing? Nobody knows, because nobody has run the numbers and apparently nobody is demanding answers to such a question.

Why not? Because economic growth will just magically happen.

Please.

The economy and markets are already awash with 8 years of artificial liquidity and the loosest financial conditions in decades:



We may see a temporary bump in growth from people spending the tax cut crumbs thrown their way and adding to their credit card balances already back to 2007 levels:



But be very clear that if any of these rosy growth projections don’t pan out know who pays for it all. You, the tax payer. Cause they’ll come for your social security money to pay for it all:


Sven Henrich ✔@NorthmanTrader
"Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care".
George Carlin was a prophet. He called it all years ago.
2 minutes of pure truth.
7:51 AM - Apr 28, 2017
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Remember the guys driving all this are former Goldman Sachs bankers. Nothing has changed:


Sven Henrich ✔@NorthmanTrader
SPOTTED: An Irishman tells it like it is..

-A classic, but nothing's changed.
3:15 PM - May 1, 2017
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The joke may be on all of us when the next slowdown hits. And the bankers? They will have moved on and will have taken their newly found cash with them.



Don’t fall for it. This tax cut is a scam that will expand wealth inequality to even more absurd levels.

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shadow
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Location: St. George

Re: Less than two months...

Post by shadow »

Of course tax cuts are for the rich. They're the ones paying taxes.

Silver
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Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

shadow wrote: November 10th, 2017, 7:56 am Of course tax cuts are for the rich. They're the ones paying taxes.
Except the liar-in-chief, Mr. Tangerine himself, has told everyone it's a tax cut for the middle class because that's what the sheeple like to hear.

Silver
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Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

Yeah, go ahead and pretend, my sheeple. Changing your paradigm is hard.

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/t ... 3adcf.html

1. "My administration is working with Congress to develop a plan that will deliver more jobs, higher pay, lower taxes for businesses of all sizes and middle-class families all across the nation. So it's not only business taxes, it's middle-income families, it's families at every level -- every level, tax cuts."

2. "Second, we will cut taxes for middle-class families. This is a major, major tax cut -- the biggest since Ronald Reagan. (Applause.) The pipefitters and plumbers, and nurses, and police officers -- all the people like you who pour their hearts into every penny earned in both the offices and oilfields of America -- you're the ones who carry this nation on your back, and it's time for you to get the relief that you deserve. It's enough. It's enough. (Applause.)"

3. "That's why our tax plan will reduce taxes for our middle class, and allow them to keep more of their own money -- keep that hard-earned money where you can spend it the way you want to spend it, or guess what? You can also save it. Nothing wrong with that. But it's your money, not the government's money. (Applause.)"

4. "So we will provide tax relief to middle-income families through a combination of benefits, such as raising their standard deduction, increasing the child tax credit, and lowering tax rates substantially. (Applause.)"

5. "We no longer have to accept a tax code that lets special interests win at the expense of the middle class. We no longer have to accept a rigged system -- you know all about rigged systems; we talked about that plenty of times in the campaign."

Silver
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Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

Warmongers in the Marmalade administration are planning to kill more of our troops in Afghanistan. Did you guys vote for that?

http://news.antiwar.com/2017/11/12/trum ... ghanistan/

Trump Will Let US Troops Resume Joint Operations in Afghanistan
US Troops Will Accompany Afghans on Combat Operations
Jason Ditz Posted on November 12, 2017Categories NewsTags Afghanistan, Pentagon, Trump
After years of severely limiting US joint operations with Afghan troops, President Trump has authorized US troops to accompany the Afghan military on combat operations across the country, intended that US forces will request airstrikes and artillery fire.

This is in keeping with the ongoing US escalation in Afghanistan, which is intended to prevent the Taliban from continuing to overrun more territory. Though the Pentagon had presented the troops as on an advise and assist mission it seemed likely this would involve US combat eventually.

On the other hand, the whole reason the US military began severely limiting direct contact with the Afghan military in the first place is because of massive numbers of “green-on-blue” attacks in which Afghan troops or infiltrators were killing US troops.

This points to the US plan for the Afghan escalation being to get more troops to the front lines faster, no matter how it’s done. This again underscores that the Pentagon’s claim of a “stalemate” is false. In reality, the US-backed forces are losing ground, and the Pentagon is scrambling to try to slow those losses down.

Silver
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Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

Isn't it unfortunate that we have a joke for a President when things are going from very bad to worse?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-1 ... -only-goes

"Thank Goodness The Stock Market Only Goes Up..."

Nov 13, 2017 11:53 AM

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

It must be exciting to wake up on a gilded bed somewhere in Riyadh and realize that you are Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, mover and shaker of Middle East order. Actually, exciting just to have woken up at all.

Perhaps Prince MBS checks to make sure that there aren’t seventy-two virgins in the room before he rises to prayers, state business, and the prospect of World War Three.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been a giant gasoline bomb waiting to explode for decades. It occupies one of the geographically least hospitable corners of the earth. Its existence as a modern (cough cough) state relies strictly on the reserves of oil discovered as recently as the late 1930s, that is, within the lifetime of people still reading this blog. The oil supply is in steep decline, and so, of course, is the stability of the kingdom.

Politically, it’s a super-medieval operation, an absolute monarchy tied to a severe religious order with the law floating precariously between the two, and old-fashioned customs such as the public beheading of criminals (for misdeeds such as “adultery,” “atheism,” and “sorcery”). The Saud clan has controlled the throne all these years, and its grip on power is slipping as the country itself slips into the prospective next era of its history, minus the endless gusher of oil that has made its existence possible - hence, a true existential crisis without the usual pseudo-intellectual @#!!$#!%.

How are they going to support the thirty or forty million people who will still be there when the oil exports dribble down? Most of the work done in the country is performed by foreign “guests.” The indigenous folk don’t even remember how to milk a camel, let alone run routine maintenance on a desalinization plant. (And what are you going to run the de-sal plant on when the oil runs down?) These are questions that must drive thoughtful Saudi royalty mad.

Hence, the Kingdom is going mad. The current king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, is the latest in a line of geriatric monarchs. His brother and predecessor, Abdullah, spent his last years in a limbo of medical life-support (virgins standing by), and Salman is reputed to be dotty. Crown Prince MBS has assumed more of the king’s duties by necessity, but the land is filled with thousands of other princes, many of them frustrated, angry, and jealous of the Crown Prince’s prerogatives.

One can only imagine the clouds of intrigue wafting through the ornate corridors of wealth and power. Crown Prince MBS is lately out to deprive his many royal rivals of those two critical assets, and a couple of said rival princes - Abdul Aziz bin Fahd and Mansour bin Muqrin - were offed altogether (gunfight, helicopter crash) two weeks back. A score of non-royal public officials and business poobahs have also been arrested, including top ministers (Finance, Economy & Planning), the former CEO of the national airline, and a brother of Osama bin Laden, whose family ran the country’s biggest construction company.

It really amounts to a nascent civil war and it comes around at exactly the moment that the Kingdom’s arch-enemy, Iran, is feeling comfortably aggressive. Iran, formerly known as Persia, is a much sturdier old polity that has been around long before there was much ado about oil. They were fighting the ancient Greeks and Romans back in the day, and won a few rounds. But, of course, Iran has a good deal of oil, too. And having pissed off the Americans not so long ago by overrunning the US embassy and all, our country has been striving to punish them ever since — especially making it difficult for them to sell oil to our “friends” in Europe. As it happens, there are plenty of customers elsewhere for Iran’s oil — and, yes, they will eventually face their own depletion problems, but they do have the world’s largest untapped reserve stash next door in Iraq, which they are steadily and increasingly coming to control. And they do have that millennium-and-a-half beef with Arabia’s Sunni branch of Islam headquartered in KSA.

Crown Prince MBS may see war as a unifying theme for his domestic difficulties. He has a fifty-plus years’ stock of American war toys that have hardly been used - except for turning neighboring Yemen into a landfill. The USA has been KSA’s staunch ally all these years, and MBS has every reason to believe we have his back, as Iran probably believes Russia has its back. And then there is Israel in the background with its nuclear-armed subs… Israel, which actually took seriously Iran’s declaration a few years ago to wipe it off the face of the earth - and which now much of the world castigates Israel for so doing.

And in the middle of all this, poor, feckless, Hezbollah-haunted Lebanon, and the boneyard formerly known as Syria. The region is seriously coming apart. Someone is going to make a dangerous misstep.
Trump Stocks.jpg
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The Golden Golem of Greatness has been off far away sampling General Tsao’s chicken and Singapore noodles.

And this country is completely preoccupied with Sex Among the Stars. Thank goodness the stock market only goes up.

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

https://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/ ... -fed-posts

Thursday, 16 November 2017
Powell, Taylor, El-Erian: Trump Sets Up Another CFR/Globalist Sweep of Top Fed Posts
Written by William F. Jasper

Hope for seeing any kind of fundamental monetary reform under President Donald Trump is fading fast. Audit the Federal Reserve System (aka, “the Fed”)? Not likely, with a Trump cabinet and economic advisers that hail from Wall Street’s top vulture investment firms and bailout bums (think Goldman Sachs, Rothschild, Carlyle Group, Blackstone, Citi, etc.) and the globalist think tanks (Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings, Peterson Institute).

President Trump’s nomination of Jerome Powell (shown) earlier this month, to replace Janet Yellen as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, is a signal of plans to continue the same Fed policies that for decades have been undermining our economy and destroying our middle class, during both Democratic and Republican administrations. As The New American’s Bob Adelmann reported on November 3, Powell is a member of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and has become wealthy by toeing the Wall Street establishment line throughout his long career. Janet Yellen is also a member of the same elitist clique that has been running the Federal Reserve since its inception, making the Trump transition at the central bank merely another rotation of CFR musical chairs.

Former congressman Ron Paul commented in a recent column that Trump’s candidates for top Fed slots are merely “more of the same!” Dr. Paul, who has authored and championed “Audit the Fed” bills in Congress over the past three decades, noted that “candidate Trump also promised to support Audit the Fed and even voiced support for returning to the gold standard. But, he has not even uttered the words ‘Audit the Fed,’ or talked about any changes to monetary policy, since the election.”

Powell, who was nominated to the Fed board by President Obama, not only has supported the Bernanke-Yellen “quantitative easing” and other destructive Fed policies, but was a vocal opponent of efforts to audit the Fed. His was a key voice in the establishment choir arguing that the Fed must be allowed to operate in secrecy to preserve its “independence” from political pressure. Likewise, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin backs continued secrecy masquerading as independence. “The Federal Reserve is organized with sufficient independence to conduct monetary policy and open market operations,” Mnuchin said during his confirmation hearings, in response to a question from Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat. “I endorse the increased transparency we have seen from the Federal Reserve Board over recent years.”

Increased transparency? As we have reported many times previously, the repeated claims of transparency at the Fed do not transparency make. The only transparency worthy of the name is the kind of transparency that can only be accomplished through a genuine, independent, thorough, annual audit -- not a partial, in-house, one-time, fraudulent “audit,” as we have seen in the past.

Prior to Trump’s announcement of Powell as his Fed chair pick, the financial press was quoting unnamed sources inside the administration that pointed to Stanford economist John Brian Taylor as a top contender for the post. Taylor, a Keynesian interventionist, reportedly, is now in the running for the number two spot of vice chairman, which is being vacated by Stanley Fischer (CFR). Taylor is also a CFR member. However, Mohamed El-Erian is yet another insider rumored to head the short list of prospective candidates for vice chair. Like Yellin, Powell, Fischer, and Taylor, Dr. El-Erian is also a member of the CFR, as well as a former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He was co-chief investment officer of Pimco (along with Pimco founder and “Bond King” Bill Gross), the world’s largest bond fund manager. When El-Erian left Pimco in 2014 — following a famous, rancorous blow-up with Gross — the fund had nearly $2 trillion under management. Pimco’s Total Return Fund was also the largest mutual fund in the world. He is now chief economic adviser at Pimco’s parent, Allianz, the German insurance and financial services behemoth. Wolfgang Ischinger, the global head of government affairs at Allianz, is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Ischinger is also a member of the world government-promoting Trilateral Commission, as is Allianz CEO Oliver Bate. Not surprisingly, Allianz was one of the many globalist corporations that opposed the Brexit, helping crank up “Project Fear,” in a desperate (and failed) effort to derail the British populist effort that successfully campaigned to remove Britain from the European Union. El-Erian penned a piece for Fortune magazine warning that Brexit risked Britain’s economic future.

A Fed run by Powell/Taylor or Powell/El-Erian would continue the same path that we have seen in previous administrations. In January 2014, Trump’s White House predecessor made eerily similar appointments. “President Obama’s plan to name Stanley Fischer as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve was made official on January 10,” we reported at the time, in an article titled, CFR Sweep at Fed: Fischer, Brainard, Powell to Join Yellen.

“At the same time he announced Fischer’s appointment,” we noted, “the president also named Lael Brainard and Jerome Powell to positions as governors on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board. Fed Chairman Janet Yellen and Vice Chairman Fischer also serve as governors.”

“Unremarked in any of the media coverage of the appointments,” we continued, “is the significant fact that all four of these Obama nominations to one of the most powerful institutions on the planet are not only members, but high-level operatives, of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the premier U.S. ‘think tank’ promoting world government for the past century.”

However, the picture was even worse than that. We went on to note that, “Federal Reserve Board Governor Daniel Tarullo is also a CFR member” and “Stanley Fischer was named this past September to be a 'distinguished fellow in residence' at Pratt House, the CFR’s New York City headquarters.” In addition, we observed that “many additional CFR members and officers have rotated in and out of top positions at the Fed, Treasury, and the big Wall Street firms, such as former Fed Chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, as well as current Federal Reserve Regional Bank Presidents William Dudley (New York City), Dennis P. Lockhart (Atlanta), Richard W. Fisher (Dallas), and current Federal Reserve Board of Governors members Daniel K. Tarullo, Jerome H. Powell ... and Janet Yellen.”

Finally, we reported that “this curious Pratt House influence extends back over the past century to the founding era of the Fed, to such top Wall Street Insiders as Paul Warburg, who was the chief architect of, and propagandist for, the Federal Reserve act, and one of the founding directors of the CFR.” And we listed the former Fed chairmen who were prominent CFR members, from Eugene Meyer on up through Alan Greenspan and beyond.

Although candidate Donald Trump did not make auditing or abolishing the Fed a signature issue of his campaign, as he did with his pledge to “Build the Wall,” to dump NAFTA and the UN Paris climate accord, he did bash the Fed to score points with Tea Party activists and conservative/constitutionalist voters. And he did commit to supporting the commonsense effort — which is also morally compelling — to assure that the robber barons at the Federal Reserve will finally be held accountable through a legitimate audit. It will not be possible to Make America Great Again if that does not happen.

Silver
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Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2017/1 ... roy-yemen/

Why Are We Helping Saudi Arabia Destroy Yemen?
by Ron Paul Posted on November 21, 2017
It’s remarkable that whenever you read an article about Yemen in the mainstream media, the central role of Saudi Arabia and the United States in the tragedy is glossed over or completely ignored. A recent Washington Post article purporting to tell us “how things got so bad” explains to us that, “it’s a complicated story” involving “warring regional superpowers, terrorism, oil, and an impending climate catastrophe.”

No, Washington Post, it’s simpler than that. The tragedy in Yemen is the result of foreign military intervention in the internal affairs of that country. It started with the “Arab Spring” which had all the fingerprints of State Department meddling, and it escalated with 2015’s unprovoked Saudi attack on the country to reinstall Riyadh’s preferred leader. Thousands of innocent civilians have been killed and millions more are at risk as starvation and cholera rage.

We are told that US foreign policy should reflect American values. So how can Washington support Saudi Arabia – a tyrannical state with one of the worst human rights record on earth – as it commits by what any measure is a genocide against the Yemeni people? The UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs warned just last week that Yemen faces "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims." The Red Cross has just estimated that a million people are vulnerable in the cholera epidemic that rages through Yemen.

And why is there a cholera epidemic? Because the Saudi government – with US support – has blocked every port of entry to prevent critical medicine from reaching suffering Yemenis. This is not a war. It is cruel murder.

The United States is backing Saudi aggression against Yemen by cooperating in every way with the Saudi military. Targeting, intelligence, weapons sales, and more. The US is a partner in Saudi Arabia’s Yemen crimes.

Does holding hands with Saudi Arabia as it slaughters Yemeni children really reflect American values? Is anyone even playing attention?

The claim that we are fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen and thus our involvement is covered under the post-9/11 authorization for the use of force is without merit. In fact it has been reported numerous times in the mainstream media that US intervention on behalf of the Saudis in Yemen is actually a boost to al-Qaeda in the country. Al-Qaeda is at war with the Houthis who had taken control of much of the country because the Houthis practice a form of Shi’a Islam they claim is tied to Iran. We are fighting on the same side as al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Adding insult to injury, the US Congress can’t be bothered to even question how we got so involved in a war that has nothing to do with us. A few conscientious Members of Congress got together recently to introduce a special motion under the 1973 War Powers Act that would have required a vote on our continued military involvement in the Yemen genocide. The leadership of both parties joined together to destroy this attempt to at least get a vote on US aggression against Yemen. As it turns out, the only Members to vote against this shamefully gutted resolution were the original Members who introduced it. This is bipartisanship at its worst.

US involvement in Saudi Arabia’s crimes against Yemen is a national disgrace. That the mainstream media fails to accurately cover this genocide is shameful. Let us join our voices now to demand that our US Representatives end US involvement in Yemen immediately!

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

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Sirocco
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Re: Less than two months...

Post by Sirocco »

Trump being president has been the only good thing 2017 has had for me.

Silver
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Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

More Yemen/Shia sins on the head of His Royal Time Magazine Orangeness:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-2 ... puff-piece

Though Human Rights Watch has consistently shown itself to be merely critical of countries and regimes considered enemies of the West (for example rarely criticizing US/UK allies while focusing on Syria or Russia), the report comes amidst growing public awareness of the long ignored and forgotten Saudi-US bombing of Yemeni civilians, and consequent humanitarian disaster still unfolding.

Even less known is that fact that Saudi Arabia recently flattened an entire civilian town, Awamiya, in the country's restive Shia-dominated east in a sectarian driven campaign to crush dissent with overwhelming military force. The siege of Awamiya last summer was well documented, with Saudi war crimes caught on video, yet fawning pro-Saudi journalists in major newsrooms in the West have never so much as raised the issue with the Saudis or their US State Department backers.

Silver
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Re: Less than two months...

Post by Silver »

Under what authority? Where in the mostly-ignored Constitution does it say that the executive branch of the government has the right to keep soldiers in Syria (much less put them there in the first place)? Americans love politicians who break campaign promises as well as their oaths of office. The Marmalade's murders keep adding up.

http://news.antiwar.com/2017/12/05/pent ... -in-syria/

Pentagon: US Troops to Remain in Syria
Deployment Will Continue 'As Long as Necessary'
Jason Ditz Posted on December 5, 2017Categories NewsTags Pentagon, Syria
Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon announced on Tuesday that the US intends, as a matter of policy, to keep ground troops in Syria “as long as necessary,” irrespective of the fact that ISIS, the group they were initially deployed to fight, has almost no territory left in the country.

Pahon says US troops are going to stay to “support our partners and prevent the return of terrorist groups,” both goals which, one must note, are absolutely open-ended, and unlikely to ever be declared “accomplished.”

Though the Pentagon had long been very public about the fact that their deployment to Iraq was a permanent one, the war in Syria is different, in no small part because the Syrian government never authorized US troops to deploy there, and isn’t supporting the idea of them staying.

Instead of making it lawful, US officials are playing up the idea that a “new ISIS” could emerge at any moment, rising as if magic from the desert sands, and the US wants to have troops deployed in such areas just in case.

Fiannan
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Re: Less than two months...

Post by Fiannan »

Though the Pentagon had long been very public about the fact that their deployment to Iraq was a permanent one, the war in Syria is different, in no small part because the Syrian government never authorized US troops to deploy there, and isn’t supporting the idea of them staying.
Sadly, "international law" is merely a concept to employ to manipulate the masses when needed. In the real life of international relations it is no different than various mafia families fighting for turf.

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BeNotDeceived
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Re: Less than two months...

Post by BeNotDeceived »

Sirocco wrote: November 21st, 2017, 6:29 pm Trump being president has been the only good thing 2017 has had for me.

Image


17Q2 aka Trump's Effection, indeed began 7yrs prosperity, which doth continue according to definition. Eclipse-1 occurred when the definition was met, and Eclipse-2 is on the forecast for when it ends. Even better, the native pic is no longer too big to post. Image
Last edited by BeNotDeceived on December 16th, 2018, 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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