Month: June 2019

Tariffs–Winners And Losers And Economics

Our Trade War With China!  Who’s gonna win and who gonna lose?

With all the words flying around about this legal aspect or another…..the news on our trade war with China takes a back seat…..but I think it needs to be in the forefront……

I found an article that tells the winners and losers in this trade war (I am hoping that you will actually read the referenced article)…..areas of our economy like technology, agriculture, steel, etc……

U.S. companies in everything from computer chips to tractors have said President Donald Trump’s trade wars, including disputes with Beijing and global steel tariffs, have had an impact on them.

Even for some of the expected winners, such as steel companies, the benefits of the president’s tariffs are not entirely clear.

Trump said on May 5 he would raise tariffs on $200 billion (£159 billion) worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%, ratcheting up pressure on Beijing to agree to a deal.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china-winners-losers-factbo/winners-and-losers-in-trumps-trade-war-with-china-idUKKCN1TK1UM

And yet the markets have not tanked on the bad news for the bigger of our corporations…..

Is this a good thing…… these tariffs?

This “Booming Economy” that we hear about from Trump, the GOP and others is looking a lot like the economy……wait for it……under Obama…..

In some key ways, the Donald Trump economy, on fire last year but slowing this year, is starting to resemble the one he inherited from his predecessor .

There are the rock-bottom bond yields, plodding economic growth and, not to be understated, the Federal Reserve seemingly pulling all the strings, a role that was only exacerbated in the days since the financial crisis and Great Recession and continues to the present day.

Those similarities came into even sharper focus this week, when the benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield fell below 2% for the first time since Trump became president, and the Fed’s indication, if something just short of an outright promise, that it soon will be cutting rates about half a year since its most recent hike.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way: The 2017 tax cut and aggressive moves toward deregulation were supposed to pull the U.S. economy out of its glacial move higher. That happened in 2018, but policymakers and Wall Street pros are growing increasingly fearful that a slowdown if not outright recession is on the horizon, and the Fed is being asked again to ride to the rescue.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/20/the-trump-economy-is-starting-to-look-more-and-more-like-the-obama-economy.html

Oh Snap!  All the comparisons to what Obama did…will this make the list for Supreme Beloved Leader?

Me thinks this news will not see the light of day.

There is other news that is missed by the MSM……some economists are predicting a crash is coming…..but can Trump hold it off until after the election…..

If he times it right, Donald Trump might set back the Democratic Party for a generation or more; if he misses, he’ll go down in history along with Herbert Hoover as the guy who brought the nation an economic disaster.

Back in 2007 and early 2008, many of us were convinced that an economic crash was coming, and that George W. Bush and his Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, and Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, knew it.

And we also thought that they were doing everything they could to hold it off so it would happen after the 2008 election, so if a Democrat was elected they could say the crash was because people were “worried about the incoming Democrats,” and if McCain won it would be his problem, not Bush’s.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/18/can-donald-trump-hold-economic-crash-until-election

What do you think?

Would a crash change your mind on voting this time around?

Damn! That Was Close!

First day of Summer and the temp is 105….and that is not the only place the temps are rising….

For weeks the rhetoric has been steadily ramping up…the Hawks, Pompeo, Bolton and Cotton, have been prodding the president to respond to Iran with force……

And yesterday those voices for war almost got their way…….

A US official says the military made preparations Thursday night for limited strikes on Iran in retaliation for the downing of a US surveillance drone, but approval was abruptly withdrawn before the attacks were launched. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, tells the AP that the targets would have included radars and missile batteries. The New York Times, citing anonymous senior administration officials, reports that President Trump approved the strikes, but then called them off. The White House on Thursday night declined requests for information about whether Trump changed his mind.

According to the official who spoke to the AP, the strikes were recommended by the Pentagon and were among the options presented to senior administration officials. It was unclear how far the preparations had gone, but no shots were fired or missiles launched. The military operation was called off around 7:30pm Washington time, after Trump had spent most of Thursday discussing Iran strategy with top national security advisers and congressional leaders, the official says. Asked earlier in the day about a US response to the attack, Trump said, “You’ll soon find out.” Trump declared that “Iran made a very big mistake” by shooting down the drone over the Strait of Hormuz. But he also suggested that shooting down the drone was a foolish error rather than an intentional escalation of the tensions that have led to rising fears of open military conflict.

For once in a long while Trump shows excellent instinct…..this time a decision that I agree with…..emotions need to be dialed down and a muzzle put on the Hawks.

The US does not need another devastating war….all those calling for a strike on Iran do not take into consideration what that action will mean to our troops.

Return To Political Warfare

First of all we need to explain what “political warfare” entails……

Political warfare is the use of non-military means to manipulate and undermine the political system of a competitor. Political warfare with Russian and Chinese characteristics involves the use of myriad tactics—cyberattacks, disinformation, electoral meddling and others—to disrupt and destabilize the political systems of America and its allies, thereby rendering these countries less geopolitically effective. Authoritarian powers are “using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies,” warns the 2017 National Security Strategy, to “shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, [and] divide our Nation.” As the turmoil sowed by Vladimir Putin’s intervention in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 shows, these campaigns are having an impact.

We now know what is meant by the term…..we know about Russia and the others that are trying this back door approach but what about the attempts by the US?

Expanding on weekend reports that the US had been carrying out cyberattacks against Russia’s electricity grid and other infrastructure, Russian news agencies are quoting unnamed security sources who say that the US attacks were thwarted.

Kremlin officials said they consider the reports “worrying,” and that a major cyber war was possible. Security officials said that so far they remain able to neutralize all of the US attempts to infiltrate and plant malware in the systems.

Maybe there is a new way to approach this technique……

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-wage-political-warfare-38802

The Rand think tank has issued a new white paper on political warfare…..

he United States faces a number of actors who use a wide range of political, informational, military, and economic measures to influence, coerce, intimidate, or undermine its interests or those of its friends and allies. This brief summarizes a study that provided a clearer view of these adversarial measures short of conventional warfare and derived implications and recommendations for the U.S. government and military. To this end, at the request of the sponsor, RAND Corporation researchers examined the historical and current practices that fall into this realm of conflict short of conventional war. The starting point was the term political warfare, as defined in 1948 at the outset of the Cold War by U.S. diplomat George Kennan: “Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (as . . . the Marshall Plan), and ‘white’ propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of ‘friendly’ foreign elements, ‘black’ psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.”[1]

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10071.html

This is the battleground of the future between “major powers”….the days of massive armies attacking each other is all but dead.

Learn the fight or be conquered.

Welfare Fraud

Closing Thought–20Jun19

I hear a lot about all the fraud committed by these illegal immigrants that are sucking off the Food Stamp program and other programs for the poor…..I think that most of it is just noise from haters.

But I will admit that there are some fraud within the programs for the poor….like this one from the state of New York…….

13 arrested in record welfare fraud sweep

https://www.wwnytv.com/2019/06/14/arrested-largest-welfare-fraud-sweep-st-lawrence-county-history/

Damn! And not one Hispanic among them….not even an African-American who use to take the brunt of the rhetoric……

I am not say there is no fraud by immigrants…..this story like the ones the idiots read is one case….but since they can make the leap to accuse everyone of the immigrant class…..why can I not do the same?

When Are They Friends?

We have been fighting Al-Qaeda and ISIS for going on two decades…AQ more so than ISIS….then came Syria and we seem to side with AQ …the AQ that did the 9/11 attacks…..to fight ISIS in the Levant….

Seriously!

I read a couple of disturbing reports about these two barbarous groups….

First a report for about a year ago…..

Less than two decades after the attacks of September 11, the U.S. government has now effectively allied with the Al Qaeda terrorist group it has long blamed for planning and executing those attacks, which still remain the worst terror attacks to have ever taken place on U.S. soil.  

Despite the U.S. having launched the war in Afghanistan, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the years-long “War on Terror” as a means of allegedly countering Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the past year has revealed several instances in which Washington has been making “deals” with, protecting, and even (indirectly but knowingly) arming Al Qaeda operatives in countries like Yemen and Syria. The about-face has come as the U.S.’ interest in “counter-terrorism” throughout the Middle East has been superseded by regime-change policies targeting countries like Yemen, Syria and Iran.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/9-11-al-qaeda-syria-yemen/249127/
 
Secondly……ISIS…….

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said on the senate floor Thursday, before a vote that would bar U.S. arm sales with three Arab states: “The facts are not contested. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain have allowed U.S. arms to be funneled to radical Islamist groups throughout the Middle East.”

Paul is right. No one really contests this.

 
I have written about this in the past….US tax dollars supporting the most barbarous groups on the face of this world.
 
The voters need to know….we get so much BS as news while the real stuff goes on and no one notices thanks to the lousy reporting of the MSM…..keep us fed with sex and TV and we will follow the most despicable candidate…as 2016 proved.
 
Who is the good guy?  Who is the bad guy?
 
Why do we continue to allow crap to be the way this country does business?
 
We cannot save ourselves from ourselves……until we learn to look deeper we will continue to allow mental midgets to run our lives for us.

ISIS In The Shadows

Do not think for a moment that ISIS is defeated.

It may have gotten a bloody nose in Iraq and Syria but that is only a setback  not a defeat.

ISIS has announced the new “caliphate” being born…..the region of Kashmir on the sub-continent is a region of violence and what better place for ISIS to resurrect its barbarity?

In mid-May 2019 ISIS announced the establishment of a province in India. The newly dubbed “Wilayah of Hind” (Indian Province) was announced by its Amaq News Agency. The same statement claimed the infliction of casualties on the Indian Army in Amshipora in the Shopian district of Kashmir.

There are at least five things that are clear:

  1. There is no physical geographical “province” called “Wilayah of Hind.” The claim is not true and the so-called province is not real.
  2. While the claim of provincial establishment may seem preposterous, it is not so in light of the larger strategy. An austere and hardline form of Islam has roots in India as far back as the mid 18th century, often centered around the teachings of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi. ISIS is very likely attempting to inspire Indian Muslims with a very personal narrative regarding this iconic Shah.
  3. The combined statement of the very real and confirmed strike in Kashmir along with the illusory claim to have established a province in India are a continuation of the ISIS strategy of attempting to establish global meaning of regional conflicts and also to reinvigorate their ultimate victory narrative recently suffering dramatic setbacks in the Levant.
  4. The fact that ISIS claimed a province in India rather than Kashmir may indicate the interests of its financiers. The group’s report card is not looking good as a result of its territorial withdrawals and its financiers may be re-enthused by in-roads into India.
  5. The group is recruiting in Kashmir for strikes in India.

https://thedefensepost.com/2019/05/08/islamic-state-education-children/

There are ways of making sure that the ‘caliphate’ continues ….the education of children…..and ISIS has a sure fire system in place……

The so-called Caliphate has been territorially defeated, but Islamic State has left behind a dangerous legacy. Thousands of children are stuck in camps in Iraq and Syria, while some children of foreign parents have been able to return to their home countries. ISIS spent years indoctrinating them, including through a form of formal schooling. Textbooks used by ISIS show one part of its efforts to corrupt a new generation with its extremist ideology.

Islamic State had long harbored goals of becoming more than an insurgent group. Military victories through 2013 and 2014 saw it sweep across Iraq and Syria, capturing territory the size of Great Britain, and giving it the resources and population needed to start building a proto-state.

Among its state-like endeavours was a formal education system.

https://thedefensepost.com/2019/05/08/islamic-state-education-children/

Bombs and bullets kill the flesh but the hearts and minds is hard to defeat without a proper attack plan…..so far I have seen nothing to lead us to neutralize the damage this education does.

ISIS is not dead…just waiting for the time to re-establish itself.

Watch This Space!

The Afghanistan Conundrum

At what point does the US leave the battleground known as Afghanistan? Every president since the beginning of the US involvement has said that our troops were not there indefinitely…and yet 18 years on and they are still there….

And very little with change with this next election…..candidates are asked about keeping troops in Afghanistan and the canned response is….”not indefinitely but a realistic approach to withdrawal”……and that has been the answer for 15 years maybe longer….

Afghanistan is a conundrum…….

In January 2018, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani publicly admitted that without American support, his government and the Afghan National Army couldn’t last very long. That remains the case today: the government is in disarray and the ANA is barely holding out against the Taliban-led insurgency.

Yet US President Donald Trump understandably wants to disentangle America, if possible through a political settlement, from what has become an unwinnable war. As such, the Taliban and their supporters have no compelling reason to let the Afghan government and the United States off the hook easily. And given the complex web of conflicting interests in Afghanistan, separate US and Russian efforts to reach an enduring settlement may not succeed.

Afghanistan’s problem is not primarily a military one. Despite the ANA’s heavy losses (more than 45,000 personnel since mid-2014) and increased insecurity in the country, the army has managed to prevent the Taliban from taking over any major city on a lasting basis. US funding of the ANA to the tune of some US$4 billion per year, together with allied operational assistance, has been crucial in this regard.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-afghanistan-conundrum/
 
Before Trump’s Acing SecDef left office he announced a possible break through in negotiations with the Taleban…….
US negotiations with the Taliban have been making substantial progress in recent months, and there seem to be high hopes that a meeting next week in Doha would be a breakthrough moment. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen suggested the deal is already effectively made.

Shaheen announced on Twitter Tuesday that the US had pledged to accept a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and furthermore to never again interfere in Afghan affairs.

That is certainly the direction the talks have been going, but US military spokesman Col. Dave Butler denied that any such deal was made, saying that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

But the basic framework has always been a US withdrawal and the Taliban keeping ISIS and al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan. Further details may need to be worked out to finalize everything, and it’s not clear where they are in that process.

Still, for the US to completely deny that a deal is agreed to seems dishonest, even if technically it isn’t finalized. The US likely just isn’t ready to make this part of the deal official, because of the backlash from Congressional hawks who want to keep troops in Afghanistan forever.
 
(antiwar.com)
Bits and pieces released to give the illusion of looking for a solution to the continuing problem of our stay in Afghanistan……
 
Will our weary troops ever see home again?

The Other Independence Day

Closing Thought–19Jun19

Nope not a sequel to a popular SciFi movie….but a second American independence Day…..19June….or as it has become known as…Juneteenth……..

Juneteenth falls on June 19 each year. It is a holiday whose history was hidden for much of the last century. But as the nation now observes the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s onset, it is a holiday worth recognizing. In essence, Juneteenth marks what is arguably the most significant event in American history after independence itself—the eradication of American slavery.

For centuries, slavery was the dark stain on America’s soul, the deep contradiction to the nation’s founding ideals of “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and “All men are created equal.” When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, he took a huge step toward erasing that stain. But the full force of his proclamation would not be realized until June 19, 1865—Juneteenth, as it was called by slaves in Texas freed that day.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/juneteenth-our-other-independence-day-16340952/

Another part of our history that usually gets overlooked for the more sanitized version of the days after the end of the Civil War.

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

How Can You Tell?

There is one sure fire way to know that the Trump 2030 campaign is now if full lie mode and reeling toward the general in 2020….

How can you tell for sure?

Think back to 2015…..Trump rides down his golden escalator and makes his campaign fire off…..his speech had a lot but the main thing was all those immigrants…you remember the criminals, rapists, ill, etc that are pouring into the country and those already here……

And then when the 2018 was in swing he mentioned those immigrant caravans moving North through Central America….the caravans of invading criminals, gang members and all around undesirables….

Not to worry…the 20230 campaign was set for a kick off and those immigrants become a major part of that kick off….

President Trump is threatening to remove millions of people living in the country illegally. In a pair of tweets Monday night—the eve of formally announcing his re-election bid—Trump said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would next week “begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.” “They will be removed as fast as they come in,” he wrote. An administration official told the AP the effort would focus on the more than 1 million people who have been issued final deportation orders by federal judges but remain at large in the country. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to explain the president’s tweets.

It is unusual for law enforcement agencies to announce raids before they take place. Some in Trump’s administration believe that decisive shows of force—like mass arrests—can serve as effective deterrents, sending a message to those considering making the journey to the US that it’s not worth coming. Trump has threatened a series of increasingly drastic actions as he has tried to stem the flow of Central American migrants crossing the southern border, which has risen dramatically on his watch. He recently dropped a threat to slap tariffs on Mexico after the country agreed to dispatch its national guard and step-up coordination and enforcement efforts.Trump will formally launch his re-election bid Tuesday night at a rally in Orlando, Fla.—a state that is crucial to his path back to the White House

But not to worry….Trump’s kick off had other familiar stuff….2016 election, Clinton, NO collusion etc……

Could the Trump jewel be losing its luster?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/14/whither-the-trump-paradox/

“I Am So Sorry”! Thus Spake Biden!

2020 is heating up and the leader of the pack (another rock reference) Joe Biden is reversing most of his conserv stances from the past….he is trying to convince the babbling throngs that he is a progressive….to do this he has set off on an “Apology Tour” across the US….and one voter has seen it for what it is….pure fecal matter…..

His letter to Biden…..

Dear Mr. Biden:

News outlets are reporting that you’re determined to prevent your campaign from turning into an “apology tour” this summer. But your only other option is a campaign of denial — sinking deeper into a quagmire of unsustainable pretense.

After your flip-flop late last week that finally renounced your 40 years of support for the Hyde Amendment’s discriminatory limits on reproductive rights for low-income women, the New York Times reported that your campaign’s “larger concern” has been “the implications of Mr. Biden spending too much time reversing or expressing remorse for his past policy stances.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/12/why-an-apology-tour-is-needed-an-open-letter-to-joe-biden/

Biden is trying to cover all his bases ahead of the upcoming debates next week……he is trying to stop any chance of a break out by an also ran…..

But to me actions have spoken louder than his apology….a Centrist does not change its spots in mid-stream….and neither will Biden.