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Nov 3rd, 2020 Fiscal-Conservative, Social Liberal Ballot walk-through for Washoe County
This post acts as an alternative viewpoint to the extreme-left list here.
Preface - My Bias and Background
I'm not a neutral party - I am decidedly pro Trump. This does not extend to the rest of the Republican Party, however. I'm simply opening with my background so everyone has full disclosure of any potential biases I may have. I am a former democrat who got disillusioned after Bernie was abused in the 2016 election primaries and decided to #walkaway. I am a furry, LGBTQ, and have lived in Reno for over a year now, having fled the corruption and mismanagement of California for a much free-er state - pretty much the antithesis of a stereotypical "Trump supporter". As a younger voter, I voted Kerry in 04, Obama in 08 and 12, and in 2016 I voted Trump after Bernie was no longer an option - a moot point in California. I grew up in the Philippines until '91 when Mt. Pinatubo erupted and forced my military family (chair force, woo!) to evacuate Clark AFB. We've lost everything more than once, and I spent years in a trailer park and on the supplemental food programs in elementary school. My parents both worked two jobs - Dad as an Air Force MP (and eventually rose to Lt. Col before retiring and continuing on in civil Service) and security guard, and mother as a maid at the Radisson hotel chain and fast food worker - which allowed us to actually rise out of poverty and own a house, and go to better school programs. Their work ethic is what's taught me the drive and focus that's allowed me to own my own house here in Reno - with my fantastic husband. It hasn't been an easy road, but I very much know what the American dream is about - I've lived it and want nothing more than for others to have the opportunities to do the same. My recommendations, if any, below are colored through that lens of those experiences. Onto the ballot.
Ballot Summary
This is a quick short summary of how to vote from a Fiscal Conservative perspective. See the long explanations below. I am only going over items that have an actual choice, and am choosing to include all slots on my Ballot (Assembly District 31 and county district 4). For information on all candidates and their statements, links to their websites, etc, please see the official Washoe County voter information page on Candidates. President: Trump, Donald J & Pence, Michael R. Congress District 2: Amodei, Mark E. State Assembly District 31: Dickman, Jill Or Daly, Skip County Commission District 4: Hartung, Vaughn Supreme Court Seat D: Herndon, Douglas Court of Appeals Dept 3: Bush, Susan District Court Judge Dept 10: Sigurdson, Kathleen A. District Court Judge Dept 11: Shannon, Greg District Court Judge Dept 13: Robb, Bridget Question 1 - Strip constitutional status of the Board of Regents and allow state legislature to review and change the governing organization of state universities and federal grants: Yes on Question 1. Question 2 - Remove constitutional amendment declaring marriage between a man and woman only: Yes on Question 2. Question 3 - Require the Board of Pardons to meet more often, and allow the Board of Pardons to issue pardons without the Governor's approval: Yes on Question 3. Question 4 - Encodes the voter's bill of rights, a legislative statute since 2002, into a constitutional amendment: Yes on Question 4. Question 6 - Amend the constitution to require all electric providers start providing increasing amounts of energy from renewable sources so that 50% are provided by renewable sources by 2030: No on Question 6. The below section reviews my reasoning for the above selections.
Candidates
We shall address all people you can vote for in the below sections.
Biden's got 47 years of experience in politics, and has almost nothing to show for it. His slogan is a cheap Chinese knockoff of "Make America Great Again" - much like Biden himself; he's unoriginal, having plagiarized many speeches and policy goals. What he does have to show for it isn't good. He's directly responsible for the crime bill that's put millions of BIPOC behind bars - rocketing the US to the highest incarceration rates in the world per the Human Rights Watch, with 70-80% of those being African Americans. He proudly called it the Biden Crime Bill in his failed 2008 bid. From 1983 to 2000, prison admissions for African Americans grew 2600% directly due to this bill - and no that's not a typo. He's got a long history of racist behavior that demonstrates this wasn't an "unintended side effect" either - he opposed desegregation. And that's not new news, either - Biden has openly said the N word on the senate floor - twice, though to be fair he was quoting someone else, the double standard is absurd - anyone else that had done so wouldn't have been given a pass. He also is on record directly praising Grand Cyclops Robert Byrd, who led a 150 person chapter of the KKK, calling him a close friend and mentor.. Don't forget, though, he's not racist because he noted poor kids are just as smart as white kids. Biden's racist past is so damning that he had no other option but to choose a minority, "diverse" VP. His choice of Kamala Harris was not based on actual political qualifications, merely she was one of the candidates most "diverse" to fit the bill. What an achievement - becoming choice for VP based solely on your race and gender. Biden's abused his power as Vice President to solicit bribes from both China and Russia through his Son, Hunter Biden - an irrefutable fact that has been admitted to in Ukrainian courts by Burisma, noting that they did not refute the allegations that payments to Hunter were bribes to then-VP Joe Biden. The most the general media has done is not to refute the relationship, but to claim that Hunter's millions in payments from Russian Oligarchs are somehow... unrelated to his Father's position. Totally believable, don't you get paid tens of millions in fields you know nothing about as a 'consultant'? You can review the full senate report and supporting evidence here. Biden, if elected, has pledged to raise taxes. You can see the entire fact check and history associated with this comment here. Now this is a bit dishonest - because the Trump tax cuts raised taxes on the wealthy - substantially - by capping the amount of money they could deduct from their federal taxes to $10,000 for state and local taxes (e.g. property taxes, income taxes). Joe biden's tax bill went up by millions because of the Trump Tax Cuts - as did his wealthy backers. That's why they want to repeal them. And the middle class who can't afford the tax firms and million dollar homes end up footing the bill for it. Biden's energy platform is one that would significantly raise costs and kill jobs, exposing the rest of the country to the same energy policy goals as California - which we can all see is working so well in a state that can't even provide power for all their electric vehicles. The gross mismanagement under the name of "green" initiatives rejects the simple basics and facts of energy consumption, failing to provide sufficient supply and then blaming the people when the demand is exceeded. With no mention of any renewable or green energy sources actually capable of satisfying demand (e.g. Nuclear), the result is simply that people revert to dirtier, more destructive means of fulfilling their needs (e.g. the mass use of diesel and gas generators as the state fails to provide basic needs, or importing energy from other states at a premium). There's a reason CA's electricity is over $.80 per kw/hr. Do you want ours to increase from the ~ $0.08 kw/hr? CA's infrastructure resembles that of a third world country, not a shining beacon and example for the world to see on how to do things right. I don't think I really need to go into the war-mongering of Biden, but I will address one extremely offensive ad I've seen recently around here - the MRAP ad. This is straight up bullshit on so many levels it makes me see red. Biden's involvement in the MRAP boils down to awarding a $45bn contract that was funded from stealing from other military funding (like veteran healthcare) to a manufacturer tied to his campaign, after an anti-Bush blitz in 2007. The original program, valued at $15bn, would have uparmored humvees and aligned with the Military's long term goals for versatile, modular equipment; and had just as effective of results as the MRAP. Now for all of you careful readers, you may recognize the term "MRAP" and realize that this was one of the hallmarks of the militarization of the US police. This is a direct result of the wasted money on the MRAP program Joe Biden championed and created. The vehicles serve no purpose in the Military strategy outside of a true wartime scenario, and thus have been a waste of taxpayer dollars. The Pentagon, in an effort to save face, has repurposed these vehicles to domestic law enforcement to offset the cost. Joe Biden is directly responsible for the militarization of our police force. And he claims he can fix it? Please. Biden's would likely not serve his term if elected, meaning realistically, you're voting for Kamala Harris - a corrupt cop that knowingly withheld exculpatory evidence from thousands of cases (primarily against BIPOC under Biden's bill), and even attempted to block DNA testing for a man on Death Row. Sources Her only qualifications to begin her career was her affair with Willie Brown, through political kickbacks and corruption - a common theme for this ticket. The rest of the platform is rehashed, failed policies from the past decades - lots of empty promises but demonstrated failures to achieve the stated outcomes time and time again. Nobody in their right mind could support this ticket. I guess that's why only the left-minded do. *rimshot*
Blankenship is a former CEO of Massey Energy and was convicted of willfully violating mine safety standards, and was sentenced to one year in Prison. He has no experience in politics and very little relevant history to speak to. He was a former Republican, and the party platform is... convoluted and unclear. Near as I can tell, it's very strictly aligned with concepts of states rights, non-intervention, increased bill of rights protections, and minimal government. I agree with the other post that this is generally a spoiler candidate with no actual plan or goals.
Jorgenson won the Libertarian primary in one of the most competitive ones in a while, securing the nomination after four rounds of voting and becoming the first female presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party. Jorgenson advocates for eliminating civil asset forfeiture and qualified immunity, ending the war on drugs and abolishing the scheduled substance program, has promised to pardon all non-violent drug offenders if elected, and urges the demilitarization of the police. Jorgenson's foreign policy platform is one of non-interventionism, going beyond that to stump for a true free market and eliminate foreign aid, embargos, sanctions, and military intervention, bringing our Military back to the homefront only. She's very much in support of open borders and removing national quotas on immigration. Jorgenson has aggressively criticized government spending and vowed to slash spending and reduce the need for elevated taxes in that manner, vowing to block additional borrowing and spending, but not actually providing any solid strategies to reducing spending. Jorgenson's open-borders policy may appeal to some voters, as will her fiscal conservationist mantra; however while strong on principle I find she lacks meaningful concrete plans.
Trump-Pence - Republican Party
Platform - The Republican party chose not to publish an updated Platform this year and is using the same core principles of 2016.
Official Slogan - "Make America Great Again", "Keep America Great", "Promises Made, Promises Kept"
Donald Trump secured presidency in 2016 and has since been subjected to non-stop negative press and "mistakes" by major media, big tech, and other sources to vilify and demonize his candidacy and presidency. Even the post I'm responding to falsely and incorrectly claims, repeatedly, that Trump's a White Nationalist, making easily disproven claims that he won't denounce white supremacy/nationalists when he has - dozens of times. It's irrefutable at this point, even FactCheck.org begrudgingly has noted the truth - yet the media loves pulling out an easily disproven statement to distract from Biden's racist past by projecting it on Trump. This is a common pattern, as is found by claims being made and widely published, then quietly retracted in a foot note before a defamation suit gains ground. Unlike Biden, however, Trump has in 4 years done more than Biden has done in over 47. Trump is running on his accomplishments, and has demonstrated how effective he can be even despite 4 years of non-stop interference from now-known to be fabricated Russian Collusion allegations. It's worth noting that we now, officially and publicily, know that the Russian Collusion story was not only fake, it was a Hillary Clinton Campaign ploy to distract the public from the contents of her leaked e-mails. Once Trump Won, it was then used as a grounds to attempt to impeach or remove him from office (see the Mueller Investigation). The DNI Declassification this week seals the deal on the entire saga. Trump's accomplishments are many, and he's kept a lot of his campaign promises, resulting in a rapid economic recovery once he took office. Obama's handling of the Bush recession was a disaster, with the ~ 11M jobs created under the Obama-Biden administration being low-wage, part time service jobs, not meaningful manufacturing or full time positions. Trump's policies, on the other paw, have seen record full time employment, with rising wages as businesses were forced to compete for scarce labor on an open market. Without needing a federal minimum wage increase that arbitrarily rammed costs down business throats, we achieved even here in Reno a $15 starting wage for many retail positions, with white and blue collar and other work having even higher salaries. Trump reversed Biden's disastrous crime bill, orchestrating and signing the First Step Act which eliminated the mandatory prison terms that put millions of BIPOC behind bars for non-violent drug offenses. Trump's championing of the NAFTA repeal and USMCA trade agreement, closing loopholes that have screwed over US small businesses in favor of international corporations like Walmart that have enriched other countries at the expense of our middle class. Trump's built the wall, significantly cutting illegal immigration and drug flows into the US. Like it or hate it, he's delivered on that promise - and the cuts into illegal immigration and strict enforcement have directly resulted in rising wages and employment for our inner cities where they competed with Americans for jobs. Immediately after ICE raids, minority Americans found tons of economic opportunity taking over those jobs. And he's not just going after the illegals, but the businesses and owners that hire them. That's not about "race", that's about protecting American interests. Trump, for the first time in decadesdecreased the Debt to GDP ratio by more than 1.2% - in 2017, reducing it from 105% to 104% in his first year. The last time that occurred by that amount was 1969, though both Reagan and W. Bush also decreased the ratio, it was by far less. Trump's tax cuts directly helped the middle class by doubling the standard deduction, increasing child credits, and the unemployment decreases and salary increases wildly outpaced projections. We achieved record employment - and not cheap, unreliable service industry jobs. Real jobs that people can build families and lives on. Trump legalized Hemp production as part of the 2018 Farm bill, tracking to make more efficient, green products the right way - by letting the market select for and produce better products, not arbitrarily enforcing deadlines and penalties to favor donor companies that can't exist on a fair market. Trump's investment into our minority communities has delivered on what Biden and Democrats have promised, without result, for decades. Trump's Platinum plan slates a half trillion dollars for investment into Black and minority communities. There's a reason that, in four short years under Trump, we've seen 3 million new jobs and 500,000 black-owned small businesses. The opportunity for the American Dream was made real - because that's what Trump cares about. Every American having the opportunity to be great. Honestly, I really could keep listing all day but I've spoken enough about Trump. If you're better off now than you were four years ago, vote Trump. Trump's running on his accomplishment. Biden's running on "orange man bad." That's not a platform, that's betting that you've been conditioned to hate everything Trump's done without cause or reason. When ever major corporation and media outlet, and tons of multi-decade established politicians all are telling you what to believe, and you believe it, you're not part of any "resistance" - you're the establishment. And for all the gnashing of teeth... he's been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace prize - for things he actually did. Nomination for work to denuclearize the Korean PeninsulaNomination for the Serbia-Kosovo peace deal.Nomination for the Isreal-UAE peace deal.Nomination for the diplomatic efforts of ending wars and encouraging peace throughout the world. Trump's ending wars. Vote against that, if your conscience allows.
Ackerman regurgitates failed Democrat platform policies, a mere carbon copy of the DNC platform. While she claims to oppose Citizens United, of her reported ~ $345k in funding, the corporate SuperPAC front for the DNC, has contributed $292,720 - nearly 85% of her campaign funding. ActBlue has spent almost 2.5 billion dollars in 2020 to push DNC candidates - more than 22% of the overall spending by all PAC's in the country. So it's quite a stretch to claim she's opposed to Citizens United while collecting funding from the single largest Citizens United-enabled SuperPAC in the country. Calling for an enforced $15 minimum wage rejects the reality of doing business - as California demonstrates, hemorrhaging 400,000+ jobs, businesses fleeing the state, and record unemployment and resulting crime. You can't just declare an arbitrary number and expect it to magically make problems go away because you ignore economic realities. A $15 wage in low skill positions is absolutely possible, and we can see that here in Reno with companies like Best Buy offering it as a starting wage - but that arises out of competition for labor, forcing companies to cut profit margins to remain competitive for tight labor markets; forcing the arbitrary wage doesn't accomplish that - it sets an impossibly high standard for small businesses and allows larger businesses to simply pass the costs onto the consumer. This isn't news and isn't unexpected behavior. It's well documented and observed, and representative of government officials that think they can ignore the laws of physics and economics to impose their will, while never having to experience the consequences themselves. Her separation from reality extends into believing somehow that solar energy is a realistic replacement for current sources (if she was serious on green energy, she'd be talking nuclear); or wanting a second disastrous amnesty program for illegals; which is what caused that "wage gap" for native-born minority Americans - the influx and amnesty of low-skilled migrants directly competes with and crushes wages of Americans in the job market - it's not theory, it's fact.). I found it amusing to review her "Racial Justice" page, which is a combination of things Trump already did, or that directly criticize her party's past achievements. She supports defunding the police, ending the second amendment by proxy and curtailing the rights of Americans, and supports reparations. She's explicitly anti-gun, claiming that firearms are for hunting, and wants to create a federal registration program and ban semiautomatic firearms (per her "I agree with groups like Moms Demand Action that more is still needed.") Notably absent from her platform is the concept of self-responsibility - it's all government give-aways from the taxpayer to buy votes. Extremely socially liberal, to the point of pandering, and no sense of fiscal responsibility at all. Printing money won't solve problems. Hard pass.
Amodei is a pretty unremarkable rank and file Republican. He is generally fiscally conservative, but has indicated support for increased defense spending (not a point in his favor). He's openly pro-life, lower taxes, and has supported legislation for COVID relief. Amodei's got some accomplishments, including the Northern Nevada Land Act and Conservation Economic Development Act, which enjoyed bipartisan support. Amodei does support a compromise on illegal immigration, favoring a plan to naturalize DREAMERS, a position that places him more towards center than his Republican colleagues. He also openly supports tax reductions across the board and is a fiscal hawk. It's worth noting that Amodei has a nuanced approach to nuclear energy and I feel like he would actually support true green initiatives that can actually work, such as investing in nuclear energy and water capture technologies that could work within the framework of the economy, not try (and fail) to dictate to it. Overall, while I disagree with Mark on some things (like pro life), his centrist positions on things like DREAMERs and lack of overt evidence of corruption earn him my support - he seems reasonably socially liberal and fiscally conservative.
Hansen's platform and history are light. The other post accurately attributed that she believes "Let people who are vulnerable to coronavirus stay home". This candidate is rather extreme in some of their views, though "Lunatic" may be going a little far for my tastes. Hansen is anti-illegal immigration, pro second amendment, and aligns closely with the "tea party" type republicans. Too far right for my taste, and overall does not earn my vote. She's essentially a spoiler candidate to try to take the far-right vote away from a moderate like Amodei.
State Assembly District 31
Note that you can find information on the other State Assembly Districts and State Senate District at the Washoe County candidate index.
Skip, like Ackerman, regurgitates the Democrat platform talking points, but has no meaningful action or commitments to show for it. His legislative history is, well, pathetic. He literally hasn't done anything of note - just sponsoring bills to "Express appreciation". Really? His voting record isn't really noteworthy - the big negative being his support for tax increases on property and businesses - he's voted in favor of three major tax hikes that will severely harm job creation in the state. He did indicate that he isn't going to blindly support them on the second round of revisions, noting
“Depending on which version of the three come forward, I’m hoping there’s some consensus that develops after that,” he said. “If there is, then I think all parties are going to be supporting it. But right now that’s in a state of flux.”
He has indicated he does not support defunding the police. It is worth noting that he surprisingly broke with party lines on the 2nd amendment, voting against restrictions, which earns him a solid "left leaning centrist" position in my book. I have no reason to vote for him, and only light reason to vote against him based on his tax platform - overall, he seems like a fair candidate and I don't fault anyone that would support him. I might, myself. We'll see.
Dickman seems like a pretty rank and file Republican, regurgitating much of their platform on her issues page. Dickman's legislative prowess is much more significant, however, as can be seen on the bills she's sponsored (oddly enough broken on billtrack50). Her voting record and positions are pretty clear, pushing education reforms, tax reductions and blocking tax increases, however she does want more "free market" healthcare that I see as a negative. Her 2nd amendment positions and efforts are significant, as is her opposition to sanctuary cities and support for law enforcement. Overall, I deem her to be solidly right-wing, and if the election were held today, barely, barely earning my support based on her tax platform. We'll see.
Marie Baker is a newcomer to the political scene and does not appear to have any clear positions or record to refer to. Watching the statements, her positions appear to be typical Democrat/Socialist leanings. Quick notes on her "why should voters vote for you" statements:
Anti-special interest
Anti-development in flood plains
How she will address affordable housing and development concerns
I will note that how she presents herself and her positions is very uncertain and lacking confidence, and unfortunately I don't believe she would be able to hold her own in the political arena.
Vaughn is running on his record as a county commissioner, and is his final term attempt - he will not be eligible to run again if successful. In particular, he has noted issues regarding homelessness and touting his success on rehabilitation and homeless work programs. He's also taken a lot of steps and been internationally recognized for his work regarding water conservationism and quality. Overall, he presents as a much more experienced politician and his record doesn't have anything disqualifying to my view. I feel like he would better serve our community with that experience, hence my support for him.
Judicial Selections
Supreme Court Seat D
This is a hotly contested seat light on details. The RGJ did an article on the topic.
Ozzie seems well-intentioned, however he is openly and vehemently anti-2A per his own website, and is very much at risk of being an Activist Judge. He's a democratic politician - not a judge, and seeks to abuse the judiciary to further a political agenda. Pushing to reduce the rule of law is not a position a judge should take, and that's what his position with Cash Bail is. The diversity quota behavior only serves to further highlight differences instead of recognizing that all Americans should be and are equal in the eyes of the law. By pushing anything short of that, he merely preserves a dying legacy of racism. Hard pass on activist judges - they cannot be impartial.
Herndon is by no means a clean comparison, however he does have significantly more experience as a prosecutor and has significant community involvement. His rulings and history appear to be largely neutral and he received the highest performance score of any district court judge in the Review Journal's 2019 Judging the Judges survey, with an 85% retention rating in said survey and earning their endorsement. I can't find any disqualifying remarks or positions on him, which is what I would expect of a judge expected to maintain neutrality, hence he gets my vote.
Bonnie's history is pretty lackluster, and she's responded to Ballotpedia's candidate Connection survey. She has pushed for adding additional three judge panels as well as citing that she'd like more opinions out of the court.
Bush's history is likewise lackluster, and also responded to the survey. She makes a point about needing someone with experience representing clients in the family and criminal divisions that I find compelling and thus support her over Bulla.
Sattler published an opinion article at the RGJ making the case for his re-election. I don't know what it is, but it rubs me significantly the wrong way and comes off as sleezy. I really can't justify any rational explanation for it, but I don't what I've seen of his column and website.
Not really much on her one way or another, which is what I like to see in a Judge. Between her and Sattler, I'll go with her.
District Court Dept 11
This race has comments from both candidates via the RGJ.
Dollinger, Paige
Official Website - Note, page appears to have expired with her web host and I reviewed the google cache of it.
Not really any information to be found outside of the Gazette statements. Her embracing of technology is encouraging.
Shannon, Greg
Official Website - None found.
Given the lack of information on the candidates, I based my decision on their statements to the Gazette. I don't find anything disqualifying or negative about Paige, I just find Greg's observations a bit more compelling, particularly his comment noting representation for fathers within the family court.
Nothing of note compelling for or against the candidate.
Robb, Bridget
Official Website - None found.
While researching, I did find that Bridget has been involved in addressing corruption with other judges, a serious point in her favor. Otherwise, I don't see much on her. Between the two, Bridget has more points in her favor and earns my support - I'll always value integrity.
Questions
Honestly, not going to be much in terms of explanation on these.
I find the arguments in favor more compelling than the arguments opposing it, as the regent's arguments in opposition seem more self-preservationist than anything. I really am not strongly committed on this item - it's a tentative yes vote from me.
As a LGTBQ individual, I really gotta say... this question's moot. It's a virtue signal - the US Supreme Court constitutional rulings mooted this. A yes vote will clean up the constitution and eliminate that bigoted stain from Nevada's legislative books, though, so get 'er done Reno. There's not even any documented opposition to it (as is only right.) Hard yes.
More often reviews of our criminal justice system and pardons, and allowing the committee to do so without having to convince the Governor? I really don't see any downsides here. Hard yes.
This is a move to enshrine the voting rights passed in 2002 as an amendment. I see no fuckery afoot and this is a solid addition to our state constitution. Hard yes.
Hoo boy. This is gonna be the shitshow of a question. Besides being a virtue signal and ignoring that we're already tracking to, without such concrete demands, have 25% renewable sources, there's tons of evidence of what such policies will result in. We've seen it in CA - $.80 per kw/hr electricity, rolling blackouts, and other failings because there's simply no non-nuclear renewable source that can fill the consumer demand. Putting this demand into our constitution is absurd, self-destructive virtue signalling that ignores the harsh realities of living in a desert. We don't need a codified concrete mandate that will fuck over market forces and encouragement. It's impossible to create enough "green" energy in 10 years to provide 50% of our power grid's requirements from it, so we'd have to shut down other sources or outsource the needs, raising costs and killing business investments here. We've got multiple data centers coming to Nevada - bringing high tech, skilled, high paying jobs with them, and such a bill would torpedo those plans fast in favor of states with less absurd requirements like Idaho and Texas. Hard. Fucking. No. If you have any question of what the results of such a policy would be, just look at CA - they can't even keep their lights on. This question is just a poison pill from California and California transplants to make Nevada a blackout-ridden shithole. If we want renewable energy, we should be pushing for nuclear reactors to satisfy this need, not making impossible mandates to virtue signal. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Given the general liberal echo chamber that is reddit, I'm grateful to the mods for not caving to mob mentality and allowing alternative points of view. I hope people have found this list useful.
Lost in the Sauce: DHS hides intelligence that reveals Trump using Russia's playbook, again
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Trump’s playbook is Russia’s playbook
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in July withheld an intelligence bulletin warning of a Russian plot to spread misinformation regarding Joe Biden's mental health. The bulletin, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of U.S. Candidates to Influence 2020 Election,” was blocked by the office of acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf on July 9.
The bulletin states that analysts had “high confidence” in their conclusion. However, a DHS spokesperson tried to defend the “delay” in issuing the document by saying it did not meet the agency’s standards. This is curious because just a week later, on July 16, DHS circulated a bulletin on anarchists in Portland that officers admitted they had “low confidence” in. Why was the Russia memo held back but the Portland one released?
Trump has been pushing the same line of attack against Biden for months - yet another instance of Russia and Trump operating from the same playbook. For instance, in March Trump said there was “something going on” with Biden; in June Trump ran selectively edited ads asserting that Biden is “unfit to serve as Commander in Chief”; last month Trump ran a digital ad portraying Biden as perpetually confused and mentally unstable. Most recently, Trump said questions about his own health are only in the news because “they want to try and get me to be on Biden's physical level."
DHS is just the latest agency in the Trump administration to erode election security, following actions by the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) last month. DNI John Ratcliffe announced he was ending in-person congressional briefings on election security ahead of November and AG Bill Barr removed a leading career official at the Justice Department’s national security division, replacing him with an inexperienced political appointee. The ODNI’s decision to halt congressional election briefs may have been influenced by top White House officials. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, among others, have repeatedly discussed in meetings with staff and with Trump “how to restrict and control the flow of information on such sensitive topics to Capitol Hill.”
One White House official told The Daily Beast that Meadows has for months been wary of the type of briefings on Capitol Hill that Democratic sources can potentially use to try to make Trump look bad through surreptitious leaks to media outlets.
Meanwhile, interim Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Marco Rubio (R-FL) said last week that his committee will be granted an exception to the ODNI’s new policy and continue to receive in-person briefings from top U.S. intelligence officials about election-security issues. This essentially means that only Democrat-led committees have been cut out of the process ensuring election security. House Democrats wrote to Ratcliffe insinuating if his office does not provide the previously scheduled briefings this month they will issue subpoenas and/or defund the ODNI in the appropriations bill due by the end of the month. Read the letter here. In addition to attacks on Biden’s health, DHS has determined that Russia is seeking to “amplify” concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections by promoting allegations that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud. Intelligence analysts say this strategy has been underway since at least March, coinciding with Trump’s own assaults on mail-in voting.
For instance, in March Trump said if he agreed to funding vote-by-mail expansions in the first coronavirus stimulus bill, the U.S. would see “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” (clip). Fact check: Neither party has historically benefited. On April 7, at the White House press briefing, Trump claimed: "Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters… They're fraudulent in many cases" (clip). Fact check: There is no evidence that mail ballots are dangerous or fraudulent.
At a White House press briefing on Friday, Trump denied there is any proof that Russia poisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Instead of backing the German government's analysis of Nalvany's illness, Trump then redirected the criticism from Russia to China (clip).
"I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's tragic. It's terrible; it shouldn't happen. We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look. It is interesting that everybody is always mentioning Russia - and I don't mind you mentioning Russia - but I think probably China, at this point, is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than Russia. Because the things that China's doing are far worse.”
Trump then went on to say he’s “taken stronger action against Russia than any other country in the world,” but added “I do get along with President Putin” (clip).
RELATED: Leaked notes obtained by the Telegraph say that when Theresa May asked for Trump to take a strong stand after Russia poisoned Sergei Skripal, Trump replied “I’d rather follow than lead.” He pushed May to “put together a coalition” first.
The Trump administration plans to deport a Russian national living in America, a move experts say is in response to a politically motivated request by Russia. Gregory Duralev was persecuted by the Russian state for exposing corruption. He fled to America and applied for asylum in 2015. While waiting for a decision on his application, he was arrested by ICE and jailed for nearly 18 months. His case is now in court.
“DHS has acted no better than the Russian authorities,” Duralev said. “They simply fabricated charges against me for violations I never committed — and if DHS can trump up charges against immigrants with impunity, nobody can guarantee they won’t start doing it” to regular Americans. “So that’s the main message I now hope to send.”
Michael Cohen & Peter Strzok
Former FBI agent Peter Strzok has a book coming out called “Compromised.” In it, he alleges that FBI investigators came to believe it was “conceivable, if unlikely” that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office:
“We certainly had evidence that this was the case: that Trump, while gleefully wreaking havoc on America’s political institutions and norms, was pulling his punches when it came to our historic adversary, Russia,” Strzok writes. “Given what we knew or had cause to suspect about Trump’s compromising behavior in the weeks, months, and years leading up to the election, moreover, it also seemed conceivable, if unlikely, that Moscow had indeed pulled off the most stunning intelligence achievement in human history: secretly controlling the president of the United States — a Manchurian candidate elected.”
He now says he doesn’t believe that Trump is literally a Russian spy: “I don’t think that Trump, when he meets with Putin, receives a task list for the next quarter,” Strzok said, referencing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. “But I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.” In an interview with Politico, Strzok confirms that he and then-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, opened a counterintelligence case on the president, but that it likely was never pursued. Two weeks ago, NYT reported that Rosenstein secretly closed it. As if there weren’t enough political books coming out this summefall, Michael Cohen is releasing his, called “Disloyal: A Memoir.” The following a couple of quick takeaways: Cohen says that he, Trump, Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov, and others, watched a strip show in Las Vegas where one performer simulated peeing on another performer, who pretended to drink it. Trump reportedly reacted with “delight.” Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate mogul, is a trusted associate of Putin and reportedly served as a liaison between Trump and the Russian president during Trump’s trip to Moscow. WaPo:
On Russia, Cohen writes that the cause behind Trump’s admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is simpler than many of his critics assume. Above all, he writes, Trump loves money — and he wrongly identified Putin as “the richest man in the world by a multiple.” Trump loved Putin, Cohen wrote, because the Russian leader had the ability “to take over an entire nation and run it like it was his personal company — like the Trump Organization, in fact.” ...According to Cohen, Trump’s sycophantic praise of the Russian leader during the 2016 campaign began as a way to suck up and ensure access to the oligarch’s money after he lost the election. But he claims Trump came to understand that Putin’s hatred of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, dating to her support for the 2011 protest movement in Russia, could also help Trump amass more power in the United States.
USPS & mail voting
According to a Washington Post report yesterday, Postmaster Louis DeJoy engaged in campaign money laundering, also called a straw-donor scheme, at his former logistics business. Five of his former employees told WaPo that they were “urged” to donate to politicians in North Carolina and would be paid back through bonuses from DeJoy. Such a plan would allow DeJoy to illegally circumvent campaign donation limits.
“Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party. He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses,” said David Young, DeJoy’s longtime director of human resources, who had access to payroll records at New Breed from the late 1990s to 2013 and is now retired. “He would ask employees to make contributions at the same time that he would say, ‘I’ll get it back to you down the road,’ ” said [another] former employee. ...A Washington Post analysis of federal and state campaign finance records found a pattern of extensive donations by New Breed employees to Republican candidates, with the same amount often given by multiple people on the same day. Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates. Many had not previously made political donations, and have not made any since leaving the company, public records show.
More than one million mail-in ballots were sent late to voters during the 2020 primary elections, an audit by the USPS IG’s office determined. Most of the ballots were late, the USPS says, because local election boards sent the ballots to voters at the last minute. Official press release.
[The audit] found the problems during primaries had been most pronounced in Kentucky and New York, where a combined 628,000 ballots were sent out late. In 17 states, the audit found, more than 589,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters after the state’s ballot mailing deadline. In 11 states, more than 44,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters the day of or the day before the state’s primary election. One particularly troubling situation, auditors found, unfolded in Pennsylvania, where 500 ballots were sent to voters the day after the election.
Furthermore, only 13% of the ballots were mailed with the recommended bar code tracking technology. Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) was blocked from attending two scheduled tours of USPS facilities last week. Local Postal Service officials informed her and union leaders waiting to accompany her into the building that national USPS leadership had directed them to bar the group from the building. A Postal Service spokeswoman said they simply needed more notice for a tour. Many states, including important battleground states, are not legally permitted to process mail-in/absentee ballots until Election Day, leading to concern that results will be delayed by days or weeks. For instance, in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan election officials cannot even begin processing ballots until Election Day. Processing involves opening envelopes, flattening ballots to run through the scanning machine, and prepping for the scanning.
"When voters have to wait so long for results, it erodes trust in the process and leaves room for partisan bad actors to dispute the will of the people," said Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, a nonprofit organization.
AG Bill Barr made three stunning false claims about mail voting during an interview with Wolf Blitzer last week. First, Barr wouldn’t even acknowledge that voting twice is a crime - because just hours earlier, Trump encouraged his North Carolina supporters to vote twice to “test” the state’s mail-in voting system (clip).
BLITZER: It sounds like he’s encouraging people to break the law and try to vote twice. BARR: It seems to me what he’s saying is, he’s trying to make the point that the ability to monitor this system is not good. And it was so good, if you tried to vote a second time you would be caught if you voted in person. BLITZER: That would be illegal if they did that. If somebody mailed in a ballot and then actually showed up to vote in person, that would be illegal. BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.” BLITZER: You can’t vote twice. BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.”
Then, Barr tried to assert that foreign countries could fake ballots, but when challenged he admitted he had no evidence (clip).
BLITZER: You’ve said you were worried that a foreign country could send thousands of fake ballots, thousands of fake ballots to people that it might be impossible to detect. What are you basing that on? BARR: I’m basing — as I’ve said repeatedly, I’m basing that on logic. BLITZER: Pardon? BARR: Logic.
Finally, Barr cited a supposed incident of mail-in voting fraud in Texas. Too bad it doesn’t exist.
The payroll
Charles Rettig, the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner who has refused to release President Trump’s tax returns, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars renting out Trump properties while in office. Rettig makes $100,000 - $200,000 a year from two units at Trump International Waikiki. When first nominated, Rettig failed to disclose his financial ties to Trump Waikiki. When questioned by Congress, he did not directly answer concerns about the properties.
CREW: With Trump’s name removed from some buildings as it began to hurt property values, we can only imagine how toxic it would become if a bombshell in his tax returns were released. Which means the IRS Commissioner has a vested interest in the success of the Trump brand—and of preventing anything that could damage it.
Voice of America staffers say Trump appointee Michael Pack is threatening to wash away legal protections intended to insulate their news reports from political meddling. Since arriving, Pack has fired the network's leaders, pushed out agency executives, refused to approve allotted budgets, and refused to renew visas for foreign employees.
Further reading: “Deleted Biden video sets off a crisis at Voice of America,” Politico.
Pack suggested the staff he fired and foreign journalists he essentially kicked out may have been foreign spies, without offering any evidence to support his claim. A group of 14 senior VOA journalists are openly disputing his explanation:
“Mr. Pack has made a thin excuse that his actions are meant to protect national security, but just as was the case with the McCarthy ‘Red Scare,’ which targeted VOA and other government organizations in the mid-1950s, there has not been a single demonstrable case of any individual working for VOA — as the USAGM CEO puts it — ‘posing as a spy,’ ” they wrote.
The White House is searching for a replacement for Federal Trade Commission Chair Joe Simons, a Republican who has publicly resisted President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on social media companies. Simons, a veteran antitrust lawyer, cannot legally be removed by the president except in cases of gross negligence. But the White House has already interviewed at least one candidate for the post.
RELATED: The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William P. Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case.
Richard Grenell, formerly the highest-ranking out gay official in the Trump administration, has joined a law firm founded by Pat Robertson that has a history of opposing LGBTQ+ rights. Grenell also recently joined the Republican National Committee to do outreach to LGBTQ+ voters. The Trump administration has quietly named a new acting State Department inspector general. Matthew Klimow, the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan since mid-2019, is the third acting IG since Trump and Pompeo ousted Senate-confirmed IG Steve Linick in May. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s current special envoy to Northern Ireland, former Chief of Staff, and former acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is starting a hedge fund focused on financial services regulation. Ethics experts say Mulvaney explicitly using his knowledge of CFPB to place bets for and against companies gives him an unfair and perhaps illegal advantage.
Court and DOJ matters
Court cases The Trump administration must, for now, stop winding down in-person counting efforts for the 2020 census, a federal judge in California ordered. The three-judge panel hearing a challenge to Trump’s new anti-immigrant census policy seemed hostile to the government’s arguments in a hearing last week. A federal judge has stopped the Trump administration from enforcing a rule change that would let health care providers deny medical services to LGBTQ patients on the grounds of religion. Justice Department Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests. Broidy helped raise millions for Donald Trump’s election and the Republican Party. Barr ordered another round of changes to FISA rules, tightening the use of government surveillance on political candidates or their staffers — a move conservatives will likely cheer, as they have long criticized how the FBI investigated the Trump campaign in 2016.
Before conducting physical searches or wiretaps of a federal election official, members of the official's staff, candidates for federal office, or their staff or advisers, the FBI must now consider giving them a "defensive briefing," to tell them that they could be the target of foreign influence.
Resumee comparison - Post your favorite VP pick and list what experience they have that suits them to the job.
This is the only place on Reddit where it is even theoretically possible to have a good faith fact based political discussion on this topic with sexism kept to a minimum. Lets try it. Be enthusiastic for a woman you like on the internet. You can do it. I'll start. Tammy Duckworth:
Daughter of a diplomat who has lived overseas.
Bachelor degree in political science (1989 - U of Hawaii)
Masters Degree in International Affairs (1992 - George Washington University)
PhD in human services and public health (2015 - multiple schools interrupted by the draft to fight in Iraq and recovery from her amputations).
ROTC student that became a decorated Lieutenant Colonel before losing both her legs and being discharged (22 years in uniform).
Director of the Illinois Office of Veterans Affairs (3 years)
Started one of the first programs to help soldiers with PTSD.
Comes from a service family with multiple lines of ancestry to folks who fought in the American Revolution. Patriotic++.
Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the Federal Department of Veteran's Affairs (2 years)
Represented Illinois district 8 in the House for 4 years.
Senator from Illinois for 3 years.
The Duck is a triple threat educationally with her minor in public health being particularly applicable to our current COVID problems. Her degrees are much more applicable to the executive branch than the legislative as well. But she isn't just a bookworm, no! She has ample hands on experience at the office of Veterans Affairs in providing public services to citizens while her childhood exposed her directly too many different cultures. She has solid lived experiences to back up her paper credentials. Meanwhile her 7 years in Congress are more than sufficient to have built a professional network which can make negotiating with Congress easier. While the rest of the pack are mostly divided into highly experienced career bureaucrats whose public service has been by appointment vs less experienced politicians Duckworth has a foot in both camps. 5 years of appointments followed by 7 years of winning elections. Why choose one or the other when we can have both? Does it suck that "ambitious" is a compliment when aimed at a man and an insult when aimed at a woman? You bet it does. But this election will happen in our crappy, Trump-electing, world and people under the influence of ambient sexism still get to vote. Their vote still counts. When approached about being a VP potential Duckworth responded that she was surprised, honored, and would step up to serve her country in whatever manner was asked of her. This is the answer that makes it very very hard for misogynists to throw things at her that will resonate with normal people. And she is full of these kinds of answers. Not tough enough? 22 years in uniform. Not brave enough? Lost her legs in combat and has a chest full of medals. Looks down on stay at home moms? Funny, one of her legislative focuses has been supports for mothers. She was the first Senator to be pregnant while in office and got the Senate rules changed to allow her to take her newborn to work with her. She is a proud and doting mother who loves to bake cookies. Yes the end goal is to get rid of the double standard but you start by de-sensitizing normal people to the presence of women in these jobs. That makes it easier for the next one and so on. Incremental change is how lasting progress is made. Duckworth's military background makes her a natural ambassador and attack dog for Biden on issues relating to Trump's military misconduct. From firing officers who tried to protect their personnel from COVID to ignoring Russia putting bounties on US soldiers there is a lot of room to flip culturally Republican voters to Joe and the Duck is the perfect person to make that case. Her sex enhances the messaging as she reminds people that military service is a noblesse oblige arrangement - they give obedience but in return their superiors are supposed to look out for them. Not pack them like sardines into an aircraft carrier while COVID rampages through the ranks. This uses a well studied loophole in sexism where women incur no social penalty for advocating on behalf of someone else. As she is no longer in uniform she can advocate for the troops while still being able to pull upon her past service to advocate as someone who knows what it's like. No one can tell her she's just an emotional woman who doesn't understand that big tough soldiers can take it. Nor can she be waved off as some hippy just pretending to care for political gain. Her authenticity on this is unquestionable. With the Duck as his side we have the potential not simply to beat Trump, but to pull a reverse Reagan. Defeat the GOP so hard that we defeat Trump-ism. That we make them rethink their whole approach to politics. That we make them realize that the way of Trump is the way of defeat and they need to course correct. Tammy Duckworth for VP!
Alright, first time poster so we’ll see if you retards like what I got as I put way more effort into this than you deserve (even some charts for you to look at as you pretend to read). TLDR; guns & ammo, lots of people are buying lots of guns & ammo.SWBI, RGR, OLN, VSTO calls. COVID-19, Riots, and Protests = Lots of New Gun Owners It’s been highlighted in the news starting with COVID but with protestors calling for the defunding of the police (WCGW?) and police budgets actually getting slashed across the country people are understandably feeling a little anxious and becoming gun owners is massive numbers. MILLIONS OF FIRST-TIME GUN BUYERS DURING COVID-19 Coronavirus Fears Have Produced A Lot Of New Gun Owners Street violence stoke demand Even gun hating CNN commented on how many guns are being bought The FBI keeps track of background checks for firearms through their NICS system. For the latest months data (May) there were over 3 MILLION background checks run. It’s not a direct comparable but this loosely means there were roughly 3 million firearms transaction in that month. Third highest ever recorded (March 2020 and December 2015 were higher). The clear trend is that these purchases are only increasing over the short term. https://i.imgur.com/CWCfQB5.gif Source: FBI NICS records The FBI has provided a handy ‘Top 10” list and half of ‘highest days” and ‘highest weeks’ on record happened in 2020. Likely you’ll see a few more 2020 on that list by the end of the year. https://i.imgur.com/cAslVO0.png Election Years Common fact that election years always see a spike in gun sales as the NRA and Republicans always fear monger their base into thinking the next Democrat is going to take away all of their freedoms and surprise it works. Gun sales are again spiking in 2020. Why was this election years panic buying delayed compared to 2016? In 2016 no one thought Trump was going to win and Hillary aka satan was going to take everyones guns away so people started buying earlier since the “writing was on the wall”. But whoopsies CNN and MSNBC got it wrong and guns were safe for another 4 years and sales declined. In 2020 the polls and ‘experts’ assumed Trump basically had his reelection in the bag given how the economy was harder than a teenager on Viagra and was his to lose… and he lost it. COVID-19 tanking the economy with record unemployment and his attacks on protestors, stupid shit posted on twitter, all while threatening to deploy the US military has given Sleepy Joe a 10 point average lead in the polls by doing nothing but hide in his basement. So now everyone that thought their guns were safe are once again panic buying in earnest. 2020 is a bit different than years past in that Gun Control is a major part of the democratic policy platform that they are campaigning on. Francis O’Rouke in the primaries only had one policy that he was campaigning on and that was gun control with his famous "Hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47." Guess who Joe Biden picked to lead his gun control initiative? It rhymes with ‘Pork’. Here’s a few tid bits from Sleepy Joe’s gun control platform · Ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines · Regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act · Buy back the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines · Reduce stockpiling of weapons How does an anti-gun presidential candidate help sell guns? The greatest gun salesman in American history was good ole Barrack Hussein Obama and all he ever did was issue press conferences and talk a big talk but never actually did anything. Fun Fact: Donald Trump has issued more gun control edicts than Obamas entire presidency, but facts don’t matter, only perception does. People actually believe that the string pullers behind Joe Biden will go hard on gun control (but the NRA says that every election). Basically, I’m saying there is a high probability that if Joe Biden wins the election he’ll replace Obama as the greatest firearms salesman of all time and there will be a whole lot of gun buying leading up to that. Alright you’ve convinced me the world sucks and people are scared and buying lots of guns. How do you play this? Not to many names to choose from but we have 2 publicly traded companies that sell guns directly to the public and both have seen some big short term rallies, but there’s a lot of juice left in these names and the election is only going to create more gun & ammo buying. Both these names haven’t hit their 2016 peaks (last presidential election) and I think there’s enough other shit going on to help these names surpass those 2016 peaks due to new gun buyers (not seen in 2016) and panic buying because protests, rioters, and cops being terrible in additional to the normal and expected right wing buyers every election year. If we use 2016 as an example we see a trend upward as buying intensifies and then with the surprise Trump win a massive drop and then a continued trend down through his presidency as people stop panic buying. https://i.imgur.com/EuOdsD3.png https://i.imgur.com/b5lMPPu.png Here’s what I’ve done with the expectation that I’ll be buying more as the election cycle heats up. TLDR; Gun play SWBI 7/17 22.5c and RGR 7/17 80c if you have balls of steel oryou can go longer dated and holding through the election. Thanks for the tip asshole these names have already stonked… Logic dictates that if you buy a gun you’ll buy ammo next. On top of that the panic buying of ammo goes hand in hand with the panic buying of guns. The hoarding of ammo is part of the American dream. The popular .223 and 5.56 rifle round has doubled in price since the end of 2019. The little 22lr has tripled in price. Ammo.com did a special news update that ammo sales are through the roof from COVID. Directly from their site · 602% increase in revenue · 511% increase in transactions · 242% increase in site traffic · 84% increase in conversion rate · 16% increase in average order value We’re seeing the news report on this all over the country and this trend will only continue as we ramp up into election season. Couple examples. 'Ammo is really a scarcity:' Iowa gun stores feel effects of coronavirus hoarding Panic At The Gun Shop Floridians stockpiling guns and ammo amid national crises You can bet all the major ammo suppliers are operating at full capacity to try and meet this new found demand. Federal Premium Ammo posted on facebook a pic of their president in the shop loading ammo into boxes. Obviously a PR stunt but point being demand for ammo is up. https://i.imgur.com/BcvLnIU.png The two biggest retail ammo manufacturers in the country are Federal Premium and Winchester owned by Vista Outdoor (VSTO) and Olin (OLN) respectively. Both of these names haven’t stonked like the others and will likely see uplift from ammo sales but there’s a catch. Winchester Ammo segment for OLN represents 10-15% of EBITDA for the company so even if ammo sales is through the roof the rest of the business may choke on COVIDS donkey dong tempering said uplift from ammo sales. VSTO has higher exposure in that Federal Ammo represents 2/3rds of their sales but the other 1/3rd of the business is golf, camping, and camelbak gear that no one gave a shit about during COVID but could potentially see a resurgence in demand with lockdowns being lifted across the country. TLDR; Ammo Play is VSTO 11/20 15c and if you understand chemical jargon that I don’t OLN 8/21 15c ***EDIT*** 6/21/2020 Update Time for the follow up. If you bought at the time of this post all names are up with the clear winners being RGR and VSTO. OLN has been a kangeroo all week but I gave no promises on this one considering 70% of its EBITDA is tied to the energy sector which has more ups and downs than a bipolar teenager. I was disappointed with the markets response to SWBI's earnings report out after thursday's close which the market met with a collective "meh" with the name trading off from its pre-earnings release run up. The gun segment of SWBI beat even the highest inflated expectations of the street but it seems this was lost on the $90 million write off for the non firearms business that is being spun out in August. Management was very instructive highlighting that this buying spree is different as it includes lots of new gun owners with the expectation that some percentage of these new buyers will continue in shooting sports. Take away is that gun demand is only going to increase in 2020 with most likely a cool off in demand in 2021. The 4 analysts that cover the name upped their price targets with the average being $22.50. Hindsight is always 20/20 but if I could play SWBI again I would have bought the same 7/17 22.5c on Monday and then on Thursday you could have sold a 7/17 25c for more than what you'd paid for Mondays 7/17/ 22.5c locking in a 10% profit and essentially keeping a free call option through the earnings report. RGR and VSTO were pure money ending the week up despite the broader market kangeroo court.
Dollar goes up amid the troubles. Forecast as of 30.09.2020
Carry trades have been an important driver of the EURUSD fall in September. It should go on in October. Let us discuss the euro outlook and make up a EURUSD trading plan
Weekly fundamental US dollar forecast
Money rules the world. In summer, big traders were selling off the dollar. In autumn, they are eagerly buying it again. If we answer the question “Why?”, we can understand what will be next. The world is going to change after the pandemic and the US presidential election. The clue could be given by the assets crashed in September. It is not enough just to sell the greenback, one should buy something instead. Emerging markets’ currencies have significantly weakened in September, and the bet on carry trades hasn’t worked out. Carry traders were closing positions, going back to the US dollar, which has become one of its major growth drivers. In 2015-2019, amid the Fed monetary normalization, the greenback lost its appeal as a funding currency, giving the way to the euro and the yen. 2020 should have begun the golden age for carry traders. The federal funds rate crashed to a zero level, Treasury yield rolled down to all-time lows, and the rise of the US stock indexes up from the March lows reassured investors pressing down the volatility. Furthermore, most analysts suggested a grim outlook for the dollar, and speculators increased the USD shorts to a two-year high. The situation was perfect for carry traders!
Source: Wall Street Journal Remarkably, this perfect world has crashed because of the Fed. The Fed, by its vague explanation of the new average inflation targeting policy, has triggered the volatility rise, which pressed down the global risk appetite and supported the greenback strengthening. The situation has also been fueled by the disputes among the Republicans and the Democrats about the new fiscal stimulus package. But the responsibility of the central bank is clear. The US presidential election is another factor, which increases the FX volatility, discourages carry traders, and drives the USD index up. The presidential election is going to be the most important topic for financial markets in October. Ahead of the debates, the EURUSD rates were rising amid the concerns that Joe Biden could beat Donald Trump, which would send the dollar down. In fact, there wasn’t a constructive talk. The opponents frequently interrupted each other and even resorted to verbal insults, which emphasized their disrespect for each other. Based on the approval ratings, no one won. The major currency pair is unlikely to rally up. Uncertainty will drive Forex through November 4, and the greenback as a rule benefits form the uncertainty. Another matter is a new world. The world after the pandemic and the election. The world of carry trades and emerging markets’ currencies. After all, it too early to speculate about this.
You do the research! But before you begin, I challenge you to google this number for me, and tell me what it means for main stream media: US6506148 B2 Now, that I have your attention... read this: ▪️ The entire world is in lockdown. Let that sink in.. (If it hasn’t already) ▪️5G was being rolled out world wide before the lock down and briefly during the lock down (What stopped them?). Remember when they told us not to sit too close to the TV or stand in front of microwaves? Multiply that... (Research health effects of 5G) ▪️Prince Harry and Megan leave the royal family. (Why would they do that now?) ▪️Prince Andrew is a known pedophile, extremely close to Jeffrey Epstein(who is convicted pedophile & human/sex/slave trafficker)and visited Epstein Island multiple times. ▪️Research Epstein Island and the fight log of visitors to the island. (if you have a strong stomach) ▪️Reasearch Pizzagate(Clinton/Podesta emails) and fbi documents that reveal pedophiles “secret code language and symbolism” (if you can handle it) ▪️Wiki leaks exposed Hillary Clinton for being a child sex trafficker (along with Obama, Podesta and many other people in power) and she conveniently deletes around 340,000 emails, destroys a laptop and mobile phone she used while in office... and gets away with it?? ▪️Research the Weiner Laptop. This evidence is what had hardened NYC investigators vomiting and in tears. Truly horrifying acts against children but by who? Research... I’m not doing this for you. I already know. ▪️Trump is elected & he stays elected. Impeachment failed. (Jerome Corsi, delivered a pretty profound message about Trump/Obama, that comes to mind as I mention this, look it up.) ▪️Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood’s biggest germ, was finally arrested for sex crimes and all of a sudden he gets the “virus”? (huge pedo) ▪️Prince Charles & now also the Queen conveniently have the “virus”, yet the queen fled the palace to self isolate weeks ago...? ▪️Adrenochrome (children’s blood infused with adrenaline) is FDA approved, complete with patent information, google it. ▪️Epstein[did not]kill him self, in prison. ▪️Isaac Kappy [did not] hang himself from that bridge. Convenient how both Kappy and Epstein, were cooperating with the police and giving some really BIG names of those who participated in pedophilia and human trafficking, among other sick crimes against humanity, just “suicided”. Right? Riiiiight. ▪️Bill Gates is pushing to mandate vaccines[ingredients] and global depopulation(too many humans suffocate the earth). How convenient that Gates owns 15% of the WHO (World Health Organization). Yes, the WHO is a business, go figure. Which is also owned by George Soros and the Rockerfellers. Don’t know them? Do your research. Also, research Agenda 21. ▪️Bill Gates speaks about a pandemic on TedTalk[2015]and state we would not be ready for it, when it happens. ▪️Obama predicts a pandemic[2014] and speaks about it happening within next 5 years. Coincidence? I think not. ▪️Google images for the new 2020 quarter. How about that design? ▪️Luciferian entertainers like Madonna and Lady CaCa are attempting to guide their followers to blindly support Gates and his agenda for mandated COVID19 vaccines. Lady GaGa’s new album art looks like something from the human harvesting scene in the movie, the Matrix(very disturbing). Her album is also named “Chromatica” and once you learn what adrenochrome is, you won’t read that the same. Maybe listen to Madonna’s song “Illuminati” and learn why Madam X wears a patch over her left eye. (This information alone should make your stomach churn). Coincidence? Not a chance. ▪️ Marina Abramovic is a 73yr old (remember her age when you see her current photos)very dark, very morbid artist who stepped up as the new face of Microsoft, only to be removed 3 days after the commercial aired. Due to the massive amounts of negative feedback on the commercial for her “altered reality” goggles, she was forced to step down and the video was deleted. The masses are waking up and the collective seen her for monster she truly is, and publicity rejected her. (See how powerful UNITY is? We the people did that!) Abramovic’s dark art is an attempt to normalize her Luciferian ritualistic human sacrifices, blood lust, cannibalism and pedophilia. (Google “Spirit Cooking” and some images of her “art” but be warned, some is quite disturbing and children/babies/blood/bones are involved) ▪️Google is currently uncensored and you can access this information. (Why now?) ▪️A batch of tainted Adrenochrome was made in Wuhan... coincidence? (Connecting the dots yet?) ▪️US has deployed 30,000 troops to Europe. “for training”. Without masks or any hand sanitizer. Interesting... ▪️600 Mexican drug cartels have recently been arrested, one of the biggest busts in history by the U.S... why didn’t we hear about that? If you still don’t understand, you didn’t google (US6506148 B2) my 1st challenge at the top of this post. ▪️Trump speaks about the war on the “unseen enemy” often during his daily briefings. A few statements have stuck with me. Trump states that he’s never seen anything like “this”, that the closest comparison would be in 1917(WWI). Trump said that thousands of soldiers are being distributed throughout the states to help with “spill over in the streets” while fighting this unseen enemy and he has said that there will be lots of deaths but there would be many more if we didn’t act immediately. Trump is very careful with his words and will lead you to question whether or not he’s actually even talking about the virus. ▪️ The increase in “earthquakes” throughout the country is pretty alarming... Research the difference between underground bombs versus a naturally occurring earthquake and you realize that the majority are not earthquakes. ▪️ 298 Saudi’s royals, billionaires, lawyers and judges were recently arrested for crimes and corruption. ▪️2 Chinese nationals and 1 Harvard professor(Dr Lieber is the chair of the chemistry department at Harvard who specializes in nanotechnology)were prosecuted for economic espionage a few weeks ago, (they were all on China’s payroll) which is all extremely relevant to Wuhan, the “escape” of Covid-19 from a lab in Wuhan. Research this. ▪️People’s Liberation Army, who are they? ▪️Trump crashed the Federal Bank, bought all of the gold and now holds the keys to creating a gold back currency, removing the fiat. The Federal Bank and Treasury have basically merged. Trump is now the Chairman for the global banking system with the people’s money. No longer will 99% of the worlds wealth be owned by an evil, greedy and corrupt 1%, like the Rothschild, Rockefeller, Soros and Goldman families. ▪️Dozens of the worlds most powerful CEO’s have stepped down.. why? Amazon, Victoria’s Secret, Google, Disney, Microsoft, Groupon and over 1,300 of the top CEO’s.. gone. This was before the crash, mind you. (What are they running from???) ▪️ Thousands of arrests have been made for child trafficking, human trafficking and sex abuse.. but the media is not telling you that... what are they hiding? Nurses are coming forward speaking publicly about the fact they’re treating hundreds of children in hospitals right now.. not for Coronavirus but for malnutrition, some extremely deformed, and all with extreme psychiatric damage due to trauma. ▪️ It’s widely known there are underground tunnel systems (research D.U.M.B ) that have been used for decades to traffick people for sex slaves and organ harvesting, across the globe. There is currently a monumental military operation going down, lead by POTUS to uncover these children, arrest those involved, and stop this evil once and for all. Remember the earthquakes, in mentioned earlier? What you are seeing is a war. An invisible war that Trump keeps taking about... WWIII is a spiritual one It’s a war between Trump with his Secret Service against the elites, bankers and mainstream media. (& he’s winning) A war between good and evil. Pay attention to the bigger picture. Trump has arrested and caught more pedophile and child trafficking rings in the world... but I bet you didn’t know that because the mainstream (George Soros funded media) make out that he’s a moron... Trump will go down in history in the coming weeks. There is no need to panic or have fear. This whole thing is working out as it needs to for Trump and his team to remove the corruption and power that has taxed your hard earned dollars, loaded your loans and credit cards with interest and pulled wool over your eyes.. we have been living as slaves to the system for long enough. You’re going to see some big names get called out, to the point where you won’t want to believe it. Oprah. Ellen. Obama. Gates. Clintons. Podesta. Hanks. Madonna. Gaga. The list goes on and on and on... If you still believe that 9/11 was a terrorist attack from Osama Bin Ladin who trained donkeys to fly cessnas, which then magically upskilled into Boeing’s and flew aluminium planes into 580m steel reinforced towers that collapsed like a deck of cards, not to mention tower 7 which was a block away but folded. (Let’s not forget the 6 seals who took Osama down that were killed in a mysterious chopper crash. RIP fellas).... you’re in for a wake up call... Some of the big banks WILL go bankrupt, they are already on their knees, Income tax WILL go away and the elites will no longer rule you or the world. Don’t believe me? Take what I say with a grain of salt but do the research for yourself. Personally, I would read the Clinton emails on Wikileaks. Once you read those you’ll believe the rest. Many of the most powerful people are more sick and evil than you could ever imagine. Start listening to trumps daily press briefings. Read between the lines. WAKE UP! NOTHING CAN STOP WHAT’S COMING. 📷
“Charity” Accused of Sex Abuse Coordinating ID2020’s Pilot Program For Refugee Newborns
If the networks of the U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence community and a slew of other U.S. federal agencies were running the software of a company with deep ties, not only to foreign companies with a history of espionage against the U.S. but also foreign military intelligence, it would — at the very least — garner substantial media attention. Yet, no media reports to date have noted that such a scenario exists on a massive scale and that the company making such software recently simulated the cancellation of the 2020 election and the declaration of martial law in the United States. Earlier this month, MintPress News reported on the simulations for the U.S. 2020 election organized by the company Cybereason, a firm led by former members of Israel’s military intelligence Unit 8200 and advised by former top and current officials in both Israeli military intelligence and the CIA. Those simulations, attended by federal officials from the FBI, DHS and the U.S. Secret Service, ended in disaster, with the elections ultimately canceled and martial law declared due to the chaos created by a group of hackers led by Cybereason employees. The first installment of this three part series delved deeply into Cybereason’s ties to the intelligence community of Israel and also other agencies, including the CIA, as well as the fact that Cybereason stood to gain little financially from the simulations given that their software could not have prevented the attacks waged against the U.S.’ electoral infrastructure in the exercise. Also noted was the fact that Cybereason software could be potentially used as a backdoor by unauthorized actors, a possibility strengthened by the fact that the company’s co-founders all previously worked for firms that have a history of placing backdoors into U.S. telecommunications and electronic infrastructure as well as aggressive espionage targeting U.S. federal agencies. The latter issue is crucial in the context of this installment of this exclusive MintPress series, as Cybereason’s main investors turned partners have integrated Cybereason’s software into their product offerings. This means that the clients of these Cybereason partner companies, the U.S. intelligence community and military among them, are now part of Cybereason’s network of more than 6 million endpoints that this private company constantly monitors using a combination of staff comprised largely of former intelligence operatives and an AI algorithm first developed by Israeli military intelligence. Cybereason, thus far, has disclosed the following groups as lead investors in the company: Charles River Ventures (CRV), Spark Capital, Lockheed Martin and SoftBank. Charles River Ventures (CRV) was among the first to invest in Cybereason and has been frequentlyinvesting in other Israeli tech start-upsthat were founded by former members of the elite Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 over the last few years. Spark Capital, based in California, appears to have followed CRV’s interest in Cybereason since the venture capitalist who co-founded Spark and led its investment in Cybereason is a former CRV partnerwho still has close ties to the firm. While CRV and Spark Capital seem like just the type of investors a company like Cybereason would attract given their clear interest in similar tech start-ups coming out of Israel’s cyber sector, Cybereason’s other lead investors — Lockheed Martin and SoftBank — deserve much more attention and scrutiny.
Cybereason widely used by US Government, thanks to Lockheed
“A match made in heaven,” trumpeted Forbes at the news of the Lockheed Martin-Cybereason partnership, first forged in 2015. The partnership involved not only Lockheed Martin becoming a major investor in the cybersecurity company but also in Lockheed Martin becoming the largest conduit providing Cybereason’s software to U.S. federal and military agencies. Indeed, as Forbes noted at the time, not only did Lockheed invest in the company, it decided to integrate Cybereason’s software completely into its product portfolio, resulting in a “model of both using Cybereason internally, and selling it to both public and private customers.” Cybereason CEO and former offensive hacker for Israeli military intelligence — Lior Div — said the following of the partnership: Lockheed Martin invested in Cybereason’s protection system after they compared our solution against a dozen others from the top industry players. The US firm was so impressed with the results they got from Cybereason that they began offering it to their own customers – among them most of the top Fortune 100 companies, and the US federal government. Cybereason is now the security system recommended by LM to its customers for protection from a wide (sic) malware and hack attacks.” Rich Mahler, then-director of Commercial Cyber Services at Lockheed Martin,told Defense Daily that the company’s decision to invest in Cybereason, internally use its software, and include the technology as part of Lockheed Martin’s cyber solutions portfolio were all “independent business decisions but were all coordinated and timed with the transaction.” How independent each of those decisions actually was is unclear, especially given the timing of Lockheed Martin’s investment in Cybereason, whose close and troubling ties to Israeli intelligence as well as the CIA were noted in the previous installment of this investigative series. Indeed, about a year prior to their investment in the Israeli military intelligence-linked Cybereason, Lockheed Martin opened an office in Beersheba, Israel, where the IDF has its “cyberhub”. The office is focused not on the sales of armaments, but instead on technology. Marilyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin’s CEO, said the following during her speechthat inaugurated the company’s Beersheba office: The consolidation of IDF Technical Units to new bases in the Negev Desert region is an important transformation of Israel’s information technology capability…We understand the challenges of this move. Which is why we are investing in the facilities and people that will ensure we are prepared to support for these critical projects. By locating our new office in the capital of the Negev we are well positioned to work closely with our Israeli partners and stand ready to: accelerate project execution, reduce program risk and share our technical expertise by training and developing in-country talent.” Beersheba not only houses the IDF’s technology campus, but also the Israel National Cyber Directorate, which reports directly to Israel’s Prime Minister, as well as a high-tech corporate park that mostly houses tech companies with ties to Israel’s military intelligence apparatus. The area has been cited in several media reports as a visible indicator of the public-private merger between Israeli technology companies, many of them started by Unit 8200 alumni, and the Israeli government and its intelligence services. Lockheed Martin quickly became a key fixture in the Beersheba-based cyberhub. Not long before Lockheed began exploring the possibility of opening an office in Beersheba, the company was hacked by individuals who used tokens tied to the company, RSA Security, whose founders have ties to Israel’s defense establishment and which is now owned by Dell, a company also deeply tied to the Israeli government and tech sector. The hack, perpetrated by still unknown actors, may have sparked Lockheed’s subsequent interest in Israel’s cybersecurity sector. Soon after opening its Beersheba office, Lockheed Martin created its Israel subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Israel. Unlike many of the company’s other subsidiaries, this one is focused exclusively on “cybersecurity, enterprise information technology, data centers, mobile, analytics and cloud” as opposed to the manufacture and design of armaments. Haden Land, then-vice president of research and technology for Lockheed Martin, told the Wall Street Journal that the creation of the subsidiary was largely aimed at securing contracts with the IDF and that the company’s Israel subsidiary would soon be seeking partnership and investments in pursuit of that end. Land oversaw the local roll-out of the company’s Israel subsidiary while concurrently meeting with Israeli government officials. According to the Journal, Land “oversees all of Lockheed Martin’s information-systems businesses, including defense and civilian commercial units” for the United States and elsewhere. Just a few months later, Lockheed Martin partnered and invested in Cybereason, suggesting that Lockheed’s decision to do so was aimed at securing closer ties with the IDF. This further suggests that Cybereason still maintains close ties to Israeli military intelligence, a point expounded upon in great detail in the previous installment of this series. Thus, it appears that not only does Lockheed Martin use Cybereason’s software on its own devices and on those it manages for its private and public sector clients, but it also decided to use the company’s software in this way out of a desire to more closely collaborate with the Israeli military in matters related to technology and cybersecurity. The cozy ties between Lockheed Martin, one of the U.S. government’s largest private contractors, and the IDF set off alarm bells, then and now, for those concerned with U.S. national security. Such concern makes it important to look at the extent of Cybereason’s use by federal and military agencies in the United States through their contracting of Lockheed Martin’s Information Technology (IT) division. This is especially important considering Israeli military intelligence’s history of using espionage, blackmail and private tech companies against the U.S. government, as detailed here. While the exact number of U.S. federal and military agencies using Cybereason’s software is unknown, it is widespread, with Lockheed Martin’s IT division as the conduit. Indeed, Lockheed Martin was the number one IT solutions provider to the U.S. federal government up until its IT division was spun off and merged with Leidos Holdings. As a consequence, Leidos is now the largest IT provider to the U.S. government and is also directly partnered with Cybereason in the same way Lockheed Martin was. Even after its IT division was spun off, Lockheed Martin continues to use Cybereason’s software in its cybersecurity work for the Pentagon and still maintains a stake in the company. The Leidos-Lockheed Martin IT hybrid provides a litany of services to the U.S. military and U.S. intelligence. As investigative journalist Tim Shorrock noted for The Nation, the company does “everything from analyzing signals for the NSA to tracking down suspected enemy fighters for US Special Forces in the Middle East and Africa” and, following its merger with Lockheed and consequential partnership with Cybereason, became “the largest of five corporations that together employ nearly 80 percent of the private-sector employees contracted to work for US spy and surveillance agencies.” Shorrock also notes that these private-sector contractors now dominate the mammoth U.S. surveillance apparatus, many of them working for Leidos and — by extension — using Cybereason’s software. Leidos’ exclusive use of Cybereason software for cybersecurity is also relevant for the U.S. military since Leidos runs a number of sensitive systems for the Pentagon, including its recently inked contract to manage the entire military telecommunications infrastructure for Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). In addition to maintaining the military telecom network, Cybereason is also directly partnered with World Wide Technologies (WWT) as of this past October. WWT manages cybersecurity for the U.S. Army, maintains DISA’s firewalls and data storage as well as the U.S. Air Force’s biometric identification system. WWT also manages contracts for NASA, itself a frequent target of Israeli government espionage, and the U.S. Navy. WWT’s partnership is similar to the Lockheed/Leidos partnership in that Cybereason’s software is now completely integrated into its portfolio, giving the company full access to the devices on all of these highly classified networks. Many of these new partnerships with Cybereason, including its partnership with WWT, followed claims made by members of Israel’s Unit 8200 in 2017 that the popular antivirus software of Kaspersky Labs contained a backdoor for Russian intelligence, thereby compromising U.S. systems. The Wall Street Journalwas the first to report on the alleged backdoor but did not mention the involvement of Unit 8200 in identifying it, a fact revealed by the New York Times a week later. Notably, none of the evidence Unit 8200 used to blame Kaspersky has been made public and Kaspersky noted that it was actually Israeli hackers that had been discovered planting backdoors into its platform prior to the accusation levied against Kaspersky by Unit 8200. As the New York Times noted: Investigators later discovered that the Israeli hackers had implanted multiple back doors into Kaspersky’s systems, employing sophisticated tools to steal passwords, take screenshots, and vacuum up emails and documents.” Unit 8200’s claims ultimately led the U.S. government to abandon Kaspersky’s products entirely in 2018, allowing companies like Cybereason (with its own close ties to Unit 8200) to fill the void. Indeed, the very agencies that banned Kaspersky now use cybersecurity software that employs Cybereason’s EDR system. No flags have been raised about Cybereason’s own collaboration with the very foreign intelligence service that first pointed the finger at Kaspersky and that previously sold software with backdoors to sensitive U.S. facilities.
SoftBank, Cybereason and the Vision Fund
While its entry into the U.S. market and U.S. government networks is substantial, Cybereason’s software is also run throughout the world on a massive scale through partnerships that have seen it enter into Latin American and European markets in major ways in just the last few months. It has also seen its software become prominent in Asia following a partnership with the company Trustwave. Much of this rapid expansion followed a major injection of cash courtesy of one of the company’s biggest clients and now its largest investor, Japan’s SoftBank. SoftBank first invested in Cybereason in 2015, the same year Lockheed Martin initially invested and partnered with the firm. It was also the year that SoftBank announced its intention to invest in Israeli tech start-ups. SoftBank first injected $50 million into Cybereason, followed by an additional $100 million in 2017 and $200 million last August. SoftBank’s investments account for most of the moneyraised by the company since it was founded in 2012 ($350 million out of $400 million total). Prior to investing, Softbank was a client of Cybereason, which Ken Miyauchi, president of SoftBank, noted when making the following statement after Softbank’s initial investment in Cybereason: SoftBank works to obtain cutting edge technology and outstanding business models to lead the Information Revolution. Our deployment of the Cybereason platform internally gave us firsthand knowledge of the value it provides, and led to our decision to invest. I’m confident Cybereason and SoftBank’s new product offering will bring a new level of security to Japanese organizations.” SoftBank — one of Japan’s largest telecommunications companies — not only began to deploy Cybereason internally but directly partnered with it after investing, much like Lockheed Martin had done around the same time. This partnership resulted in SoftBank and Cybereason creating a joint venture in Japan and Cybereason creating partnerships with other tech companies acquired by SoftBank, including the U.K.’s Arm, which specializes in making chips and management platforms for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. SoftBank’s interest in Cybereason is significant, particularly in light of Cybereason’s interest in the 2020 U.S. election, given that SoftBank has significant ties to key allies of President Trump and even the president himself. Indeed, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son was among the first wave of international business leaders who sought to woo then-president-elect Trump soon after the 2016 election. Son first visited Trump Tower in December 2016 and announced, with Trump by his side in the building’s lobby, that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 jobs. Trump subsequently claimed on Twitter that Son had only decided to make this investment because Trump had won the election. Son told reporters at the time that the investment would come from a $100 billion fund that would be created in partnership with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund as well as other investors. “I just came to celebrate his new job. I said, ‘This is great. The US will become great again,’” Son said, according to reports. Then, in March of 2017, Son sent top SoftBank executives to meet with senior members of Trump’s economic team and, according to the New York Times, “the SoftBank executives said that because of a lack of advanced digital investments, the competitiveness of the United States economy was at risk. And the executives made the case, quite strongly, that Mr. Son was committed to playing a major role in addressing this issue through a spate of job-creating investments.” Many of SoftBank’s investments and acquisitions in the U.S. since then have focused mainly on artificial intelligence and technology with military applications, such as “killer robot” firm Boston Dynamics, suggesting Son’s interest lies more in dominating futuristic military-industrial technologies than creating jobs for the average American. After their initial meeting, Trump and Son met again a year later in June 2018, with Trump stating that “His [Son’s] $50 billion turned out to be $72 billion so far, he’s not finished yet.” Several media reports have claimed that Son’s moves since Trump’s election have sought to “curry favor” with the President. Through the creation of this fund alongside the Saudis, SoftBank has since become increasingly intertwined with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), a key ally of President Trump in the Middle East known for his authoritarian crackdowns on Saudi elites and dissidents alike. The ties between Saudi Arabia and SoftBank became ever tighter when MBS took the reins in the oil kingdom and after SoftBank announced the launch of the Vision Fund in 2016. SoftBank’s Vision Fund is a vehicle for investing in hi-tech companies and start-ups and its largest shareholder is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Notably, Son decided to launch the Vision Fund in Riyadh during President Trump’s first official visit to the Gulf Kingdom. In addition, the Mubadala Investment Company, a government fund of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), gave $15 billion to the Vision Fund. UAE leadership also share close ties to the Trump administration and MBS in Saudi Arabia. As a consequence, SoftBank’s Vision Fund is majority funded by two Middle Eastern authoritarian governments with close ties to the U.S. government, specifically the Trump administration. In addition, both countries have enjoyed the rapid growth and normalization of ties with the state of Israel in recent years, particularly following the rise of current Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Jared Kushner’s rise to prominence in his father-in-law’s administration. Other investments in the Vision Fund have come from Apple, Qualcomm and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, all tech companies with strong ties to Israel’s government. The Saudi and Emirati governments’ links to the Vision Fund are so obvious that even mainstream outlets like the New York Times have described them as a “front for Saudi Arabia and perhaps other countries in the Middle East.” SoftBank also enjoys close ties to Jared Kushner, with Fortress Investment Group lending $57 million to Kushner Companies in October 2017 while it was under contract to be acquired by SoftBank. As Barron’s noted at the time: When SoftBank Group bought Fortress Investment Grouplast year, the Japanese company was buying access to a corps of seasoned investors. What SoftBank also got is a financial tie to the family of President Donald Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.” According to The Real Deal, Kushner Companies obtained the financing from Fortress only after its attempts to obtain funding through the EB-5 visa programfor a specific real estate venture were abandoned after the U.S. Attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission began to investigate how Kushner Companies used the EB-5 investor visa program. A key factor in the opening of that investigation was Kushner Companies’ representatives touting Jared Kushner’s position at the White House when talking to prospective investors and lenders. SoftBank also recently came to the aid of a friend of Jared Kushner, former CEO of WeWork Adam Neumann. Neumann made shocking claims about his ties to both Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s MBS, even asserting that he had worked with both in creating Kushner’s long-awaited and controversial Middle East “peace plan” and claimed that he, Kushner and MBS would together “save the world.” Neumann previously called Kushner his “mentor.” MBS has also discussed on several occasions his close ties with Kushner and U.S. media reports have noted the frequent correspondence between the two “princelings.” Notably, SoftBank invested in Neumann’s WeWork using money from the Saudi-dominated Vision Fund and later went on to essentially bail the company out after its IPO collapse and Neumann was pushed out. SoftBank’s founder, Masayoshi Son, had an odd yet very close relationship with Neumann, perhaps explaining why Neumann was allowed to walk with $1.7 billion after bringing WeWork to the brink of collapse. Notably, nearly half of SoftBank’s approximately $47 billion investments in the U.S. economy since Trump’s election, went to acquiring and then bailing out WeWork. It is unlikely that such a disastrous investment resulted in the level of job creation that Son had promised Trump in 2016. Given that it is Cybereason’s top investor and shareholder by a large margin, SoftBank’s ties to the Trump administration and key allies of that administration are significant in light of Cybereason’s odd interest in 2020 U.S. election scenarios that end with the cancellation of this year’s upcoming presidential election. It goes without saying that the cancellation of the election would mean a continuation of the Trump administration until new elections would take place. Furthermore, with Cybereason’s close and enduring ties to Israeli military intelligence now well-documented, it is worth asking if Israeli military intelligence would consider intervening in 2020 if the still-to-be-decided Democratic contender was strongly opposed to Israeli government policy, particularly Israel’s military occupation of Palestine. This is especially worth considering given revelations that sexual blackmailer and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who targeted prominent U.S. politicians, mostly Democrats, was in the employ of Israeli military intelligence. Notably, Cybereason’s doomsday election scenarios involved the weaponization of deep fakes, self-driving cars and the hacking Internet of Things devices, with all of those technologies being pioneered and perfected — not by Russia, China or Iran — but by companies directly tied to Israeli intelligence, much like Cybereason itself. These companies, their technology and Cybereason’s own work creating the narrative that U.S. rival states seek to undermine the U.S. election in this way, will all be discussed in the conclusion of MintPress’ series on Cybereason and its outsized interest in the U.S. democratic process.
What is the Hyper Politicization Complex? Political Rankings was founded because of the current landscape in which America finds itself with regards to politics; a landscape that for simplicity’s sake we’ll summarize as “not good.” A landscape that needs many solutions, quickly, or there will be dire consequences. One such solution is an organization, like Political Rankings, to be a nonpartisan, comprehensive, and trustworthy source of political information for America (more on that later). At the risk of oversimplifying the extremely complex thing known as American politics, there are a number of dynamics we at Political Rankings have found at the core of why the landscape of American politics is the way that it is today. One such dynamic that will be discussed in this post we at Political Rankings are dubbing the Hyper Politicization Complex. Overview The Hyper Politicization Complex is a cycle that has 3 main parts: 1) the increasing amount of resources (especially money) being poured into politics year after year because the importance of controlling government is so high, 2) federal, state, and local governments constantly growing and impacting Americans’ lives at an increasing rate (especially the amount of money being spent by governments), 3) increasing number of Americans becoming more politically engaged (especially via campaign contributions). Let’s take a look at some numbers to better gauge the truth underlying the Hyper Politicization Complex. Money Poured Into Politics According to www.opensecrets.org, the total amount of money raised by campaigns for federal offices (Presidential, US House, US Senate) in 2007-2008 was over $3.2 billion. In 2009-2010 the number decreased 40.6% to over $1.9 billion, as is expected for midterms when there is no presidential campaign. In 2011-2012, the total amount jumped 87.8% back up to over $3.6 billion. In 2013-2014 the total amount dropped 51% back to over $1.7 billion. This was the general pattern for decades…until the 2 most recent election cycles. In 2015-2016 the total amount went up 79.1% to over $3.1 billion, but for the 2017-2018 midterms the amount raised only went down 12.6% to over $2.7 billion. The huge drop off didn’t happen this time and my prediction is that drop off won’t be a mainstay again for a long time. Want further proof? The 2019-2020 election cycle isn’t even over yet and the same total is already over $4.5 billion. Keep in mind, as big as that number sounds, it is only a fraction of a fraction of the total amount spent in American politics because in addition to the Presidential, US House, and US Senate campaigns, there are countless more campaigns for statewide offices and local offices. Money Spent By Government Another thing to further consider when it comes to magnitude of how much money we’re talking about is that campaign donations are only one way money can enter politics. Another way is lobbying/lobbyists, which most people typically associate with deep-pocketed corporations but nowadays even medium-sized corporations and local governments have lobbyists to make sure they have as much of a voice as possible when it comes to the spending that flows out of state capitals and Washington DC. This should be no surprise when we look at those numbers. The numbers from www.worldatlas.com show that state & local governments spent over $1.3 trillion in 2017, representing about 9% of total GDP for the United States and that the federal government spent over $658 billion in 2017, which made up about 5% of GDP. Note that spending figure from the federal government only accounts for the discretionary spending and not the mandatory spending or debt service that make up the entire federal budget of around $4 trillion for 2017. The same numbers for 2020 won’t be available until years afterward, but does anyone want to bet against my claim that the totals will be much, much higher? All of this should not be a surprise with regards to how much government exists today; government that is funded with money of course (also debt, but that’s another long story). There are millions of people employed at countless departments, agencies, bureaus, commissions, offices, and more spread out across federal, state, and local governments. This growth in government from decades or centuries ago is not surprising given that a growing populous (330 million and counting) means a growing demand on government services. Jokes on government employee laziness or government waste aside, most manifestations of government exist to serve a purpose. Those purposes have expanded not just vertically, but also horizontally from the traditional purposes of government however and this growth is somewhat surprising. Instead of just deciding how much of your paycheck you get to keep, making sure you don’t wake up with a foreign military camping in your front yard, and fostering diplomatic relations with foreign governments, now you are also told the manner in which you can use an aerosol can, the volume of your pet in a national park, that you cannot sell onion rings that are made from diced onions, and more. Response By Americans The fantasy that most forms of government can be eliminated is just that: a fantasy. Government isn’t going anywhere. An increasing number of Americans are realizing this fact and the fact that they either increase their political engagement to increase the chances government does what they want or don’t and watch while government does what others want. There are near infinite forms of political engagement, from discussing politics with family, to donating to a campaign, to running for office yourself. Whatever the engagement, the goal is also to prevent government from doing the opposite of what you want, which unfortunately has become more likely nowadays as the two parties become more diametrically opposed. Conclusion These are the 3 main parts that make up the Hyper Politicization Complex, a core dynamic of the (not good) landscape of American politics today. This landscape needs an organization like Political Rankings to be a nonpartisan, comprehensive, trustworthy source of political information. The next post will detail another dynamic for the (not good) landscape of American politics today.
It’s July 2020 and I’m about to turn 76, which, as far as I’m concerned, officially makes me an old man. So put up with my aging, wandering brain here, since (I swear) I wasn’t going to start this piece with Donald J. Trump, no matter his latest wild claims or bizarre statements, increasingly white nationalist and pro-Confederate positions (right down to the saving of the rebel Stars and Bars), not to speak of the Covid-19 slaughter of Americans he’s helped facilitate. But then I read about his demand for a “National Garden of American Heroes,” described as “a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live” and, honestly, though this piece is officially about something else, I just can’t help myself. I had to start there. Yes, everyone undoubtedly understands why Gen. George Patton (a Trump obsession) is to be in that garden, not to speak—given the president’s reelection politics—of evangelist Billy Graham, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and former president Ronald Reagan. Still, my guess is that most of you won’t have the faintest idea why Davy Crockett is included. I’m talking about the frontiersman and Indian killer who died at the Alamo. Given my age, though, I get Trump on this one and it gave me a rare laugh in a distinctly grim moment. That’s why I can’t resist explaining it, even though I guarantee you that the real subject of this piece is Osama bin Laden’s revenge. After all, The Donald and I grew up in the 1950s in different parts of the same bustling city, New York. We both had TVs, just then flooding into homes nationwide, and I guarantee you that we both were riveted by the same hit show), TV’s first miniseries, Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, starring the actor Fess Parker. Its pop theme song swept the country. (“Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free… Kilt him a b’ar when he was only three… Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.”) The show also launched a kids’ craze for coonskin caps. (Who among us didn’t have, or at least yearn, for one?) So how could a statue of Fess Parker not be in the Garden of American Heroes? And since Donald Trump is himself the essence of a bad novel (though he’s also become our reality), I just wonder: What about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, especially since there are no plans for Native Americans in his garden-to-be? They were a crew obviously put on Earth to be wiped out by white colonists, cowboys, and the cavalry in the kinds of Westerns both of us trooped to local movie theaters to see back then. Or how about Hopalong Cassidy (Hoppy!), that other TV cowboy hero of our childhood? Doesn’t he deserve to ride in that garden next to another Trump military fixation, Gen. Douglas MacArthur? After all, I know that Hoppy was real and this is how: When I was seven or eight, my father had a friend who worked for Pathé News and I rode in front of the tripod of his camera on the roof of that company’s station wagon in a Macy’s Day Parade in my hometown. (I still have the photos.) Somewhere along the route, Hoppy himself—I kid you not!—rode by on his white horse Topper and, since I was atop that station wagon and we were at about the same height, he shook my hand! And here’s what makes Cassidy especially appropriate for The Donald’s garden landscape: In the 1950s, he was the only cowboy hero who dressed all in black right up to his hat (normally, a sign of the bad guy) and, in the process, created a kid’s craze for black shirts (his version of a coonskin cap), breaking its past association with either Italian fascism or mourning and bringing it back into the culture big time. Tell me honestly, then, don’t you think a garden of “heroes” in the age of Trump should have a few black shirts and an increasingly Mussolini-ish look to it? AN AMERICAN GARDEN OF BLOOD So Donald Trump and I both lived through the same TV world in our childhoods and youth. We also lived through 9/11, still in the same city, although unlike him, I wasn’t practically a “first responder” at the site of those two downed towers, nor did I see all the Muslims celebrating across the river in Jersey City (as he claimed he did). Still, of one thing I’m convinced: Donald Trump is Osama bin Laden’s revenge. Of course, that was all so long ago. The new century had barely begun. I was only 57 and The Donald 55 when those two hijacked planes suddenly slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in our hometown, a third one plunged into the Pentagon in Washington, and a fourth (probably heading for the White House or the Capitol) crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after its passengers fought back. Ever since, all you have to do is write “9/11” and everyone knows (or thinks they know) what it stands for. But on 9/11, there was, of course, no 9/11. It was a breathtakingly unexpected event (although, to be fair, the CIA had previously briefed President George W. Bush on Osama bin Laden’s desire to hijack commercial planes for possible terror operations… oh, and there was that FBI agent in Phoenix who urged headquarters “to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools”). Still, the downing of those towers and part of the headquarters of the singularly victorious military of the ultimate superpower of the Cold War, the one already being called “indispensable” and “exceptional” in 2001, was beyond shocking. Admittedly, there’s history to be remembered here. After all, it wasn’t actually that military or that Pentagon that downed the Soviet Union. In fact, when the American military fought the Soviets in major proxy wars on a planet where nuclear catastrophe was always just around the corner, it found itself remarkably stalemated in Korea and dismally on the losing side in Vietnam. No, if you want to give credit where it’s due, offer it to the CIA and Washington’s Saudi allies, who invested staggering effort from 1979 to 1989 in funding, supporting, and training the Taliban’s predecessors, groups of Afghan Islamic extremists, to take down the Red Army in their country. Supporting them as well (though, as far as is known, probably not actually funded by the United States) was a rich young Saudi militant named, believe it or not, Osama bin Laden who, before that war even ended, had founded a group called “the Base” or Al Qaeda, and would, in 1996, declare “war” on the United States. Oh yes, and though it’s seldom mentioned now, when charges are flying fast and furious about the possible recent Russian funding of Taliban militants to kill at most a few Americans in Afghanistan, in those years the United States poured billions of dollars into… well, not to put it too subtly, empowering Islamic extremists to kill the soldiers of that other superpower by the thousands in… yes, Afghanistan. How’s that for shocking? In 1989, the defeated Red Army finally limped home from what the Soviet Union’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had taken to calling “the bleeding wound.” Only two years later, his country imploded and the United States was left alone, officially victorious, on Planet Earth (despite future fantasies of a horrific “axis of evil” to be faced), the first country in endless centuries of imperial rivalry to find itself so. And what exactly did that triumphantly indispensable, exceptional superpower do but, a decade later, get dive-bombed by 19—just 19!—largely Saudi hijackers in the service of tiny Al Qaeda and that wizard of terror Osama bin Laden, whose urge was then to provoke Washington into a genuine war in the Muslim world and so create yet more Islamic extremists. And did he succeed? You bet—and in a fashion even he undoubtedly hadn’t conceived of in his wildest dreams. Think of 9/11, in fact, as the greatest example of “shock and awe” in this century. Here’s a feeling I still remember from the weeks after the 9/11 attacks when I saw where the administration of President George W. Bush was heading toward the invasion of Afghanistan and then, God save us, Iraq; when I watched our mainstream media narrow its focus to this country as the most victimized yet dominating and exceptional place on Earth and Osama bin Laden as the ultimate evil on this planet; when I watched the never-ending memorial ceremonies begin and what soon came to be called “the war on terror” be launched with up to 60 (count ’em: 60!) countries in its gunsights, even if I didn’t yet know that, on 9/11 in the damaged Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had turned to an aide and said, “Go Massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not,” with a future invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq clearly in mind, though the Iraqi autocrat had no relation whatsoever to Al Qaeda (something you wouldn’t have known from the top officials in that administration in those years)—when, in short (though I didn’t yet think of it that way), I watched my own country become a “bleeding wound” that has never stopped flowing and, in Donald Trump’s Covid-19 moment, has turned into an American Garden of Blood. Back in late September 2001, despite having been deeply involved decades earlier in the nightmare of the Vietnam War (and opposition to it), I could already sense war coming, and it occurred to me that this was going to be the worst period I had ever experienced. Now that we’re in Donald Trump’s America, with hundreds of Americans dying daily of a disease that a reasonably responsible president and administration could have brought under control, the 3,000 deaths of 9/11 are beginning to look like a drop in the casualty bucket. (By the beginning of April 2020, Covid-19 deaths in New York City alone had already surpassed those of 9/11 by 1,000.) And I wasn’t wrong in that hunch about this being the worst period, was I? Mind you, it was just a gut feeling then, no more—even though it would soon enough lead, almost inexorably, to the creation of my website, TomDispatch, and its focus on what turned out to be America’s never-ending wars of this century. A PASSPORT TO NOWHERE Let’s get one thing straight, though. If, at that moment, you had told me that this country was going to launch a series of forever wars across what would turn out to be a significant part of the planet and fight them hopelessly for almost two decades or that, the more success proved absent in those same years, the more one administration after another would pour taxpayer dollars into the US military, the 17 “intelligence” agencies, and the rest of the national security state; that what’s still known, with no accuracy whatsoever, as the “defense budget” would years ago have become larger than those of the next seven best-funded military powers on the planet combined and, by 2020, the next 10, and would still be rising; that domestic investment, from infrastructure to pandemic preparedness, would be starved for money in those same years, and that just about no one would protest any of this in the halls of Congress or the streets of America, I would have thought you a madman—or rather, the world’s best writer of dystopian fiction. If you had told me that, in those very years, of the two great powers of this century, China and the United States—one rising, the other ever more clearly falling—the latter would lose approximately 7,000 military personnel (and at least another 8,000 military contractors) and many more wounded, not to speak of those who came home with PTSD or, under the pressure of repeated deployments to the sorriest of conflicts, committed suicide, while the former, as The New York Timesreported recently in the wake of a bloody (but not weaponized) clash on China’s disputed Himalayan border with India, would have lost next to none, I wouldn’t have believed you. (“In four decades,” as the Times wrote, “the People’s Liberation Army had lost just three soldiers to fighting abroad—troops who were killed in United Nations peacekeeping operations in Mali and South Sudan in 2016.”) If you had told me that, facing a devastating virus, the leader of one would largely suppress it—admittedly using the most authoritarian of methods—while, in his search for reelection, the leader of the other, officially still the greatest power on the planet, would ignore it, open the economy, churches, schools, and institutions of every sort and watch it run wild without a plan in sight; if you had told me that fewer than 5,000 people would die in the first of those countries and more than 134,000 (and still counting) in the other, leaving the American dead of 9/11 and the bloody wars of this century in the shade, and that it was all only getting worse, I wouldn’t have believed you. Not for a second. And if, above all, you had told me that, deep into those years of bleeding abroad and increasingly at home, a near majority of Americans would vote to (as I wrote during election campaign 2016) send a suicide bomber into the White House, I would have told you that, though Osama bin Laden had been killed by SEAL Team Six in Pakistan and buried in the briny deep in 2011, Donald Trump was his living revenge, and that bin Laden had won twice—once thanks to those ludicrous, murderous forever wars across much of the Muslim world, and the second time thanks to the pandemic from hell and the president from the same place. It’s July 2020 and I’m about to turn 76, which, as far as I’m concerned, officially makes me an old man. So put up with my aging, wandering brain here, since (I swear) I wasn’t going to start this piece with Donald J. Trump, no matter his latest wild claims or bizarre statements, increasingly white nationalist and pro-Confederate positions (right down to the saving of the rebel Stars and Bars), not to speak of the Covid-19 slaughter of Americans he’s helped facilitate. But then I read about his demand for a “National Garden of American Heroes,” described as “a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live” and, honestly, though this piece is officially about something else, I just can’t help myself. I had to start there. Yes, everyone undoubtedly understands why Gen. George Patton (a Trump obsession) is to be in that garden, not to speak—given the president’s reelection politics—of evangelist Billy Graham, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and former president Ronald Reagan. Still, my guess is that most of you won’t have the faintest idea why Davy Crockett is included. I’m talking about the frontiersman and Indian killer who died at the Alamo. Given my age, though, I get Trump on this one and it gave me a rare laugh in a distinctly grim moment. That’s why I can’t resist explaining it, even though I guarantee you that the real subject of this piece is Osama bin Laden’s revenge. After all, The Donald and I grew up in the 1950s in different parts of the same bustling city, New York. We both had TVs, just then flooding into homes nationwide, and I guarantee you that we both were riveted by the same hit show), TV’s first miniseries, Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, starring the actor Fess Parker. Its pop theme song swept the country. (“Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free… Kilt him a b’ar when he was only three… Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.”) The show also launched a kids’ craze for coonskin caps. (Who among us didn’t have, or at least yearn, for one?) So how could a statue of Fess Parker not be in the Garden of American Heroes? And since Donald Trump is himself the essence of a bad novel (though he’s also become our reality), I just wonder: What about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, especially since there are no plans for Native Americans in his garden-to-be? They were a crew obviously put on Earth to be wiped out by white colonists, cowboys, and the cavalry in the kinds of Westerns both of us trooped to local movie theaters to see back then. Or how about Hopalong Cassidy (Hoppy!), that other TV cowboy hero of our childhood? Doesn’t he deserve to ride in that garden next to another Trump military fixation, Gen. Douglas MacArthur? After all, I know that Hoppy was real and this is how: When I was seven or eight, my father had a friend who worked for Pathé News and I rode in front of the tripod of his camera on the roof of that company’s station wagon in a Macy’s Day Parade in my hometown. (I still have the photos.) Somewhere along the route, Hoppy himself—I kid you not!—rode by on his white horse Topper and, since I was atop that station wagon and we were at about the same height, he shook my hand! And here’s what makes Cassidy especially appropriate for The Donald’s garden landscape: In the 1950s, he was the only cowboy hero who dressed all in black right up to his hat (normally, a sign of the bad guy) and, in the process, created a kid’s craze for black shirts (his version of a coonskin cap), breaking its past association with either Italian fascism or mourning and bringing it back into the culture big time. Tell me honestly, then, don’t you think a garden of “heroes” in the age of Trump should have a few black shirts and an increasingly Mussolini-ish look to it? AN AMERICAN GARDEN OF BLOOD So Donald Trump and I both lived through the same TV world in our childhoods and youth. We also lived through 9/11, still in the same city, although unlike him, I wasn’t practically a “first responder” at the site of those two downed towers, nor did I see all the Muslims celebrating across the river in Jersey City (as he claimed he did). Still, of one thing I’m convinced: Donald Trump is Osama bin Laden’s revenge. Of course, that was all so long ago. The new century had barely begun. I was only 57 and The Donald 55 when those two hijacked planes suddenly slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in our hometown, a third one plunged into the Pentagon in Washington, and a fourth (probably heading for the White House or the Capitol) crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after its passengers fought back. Ever since, all you have to do is write “9/11” and everyone knows (or thinks they know) what it stands for. But on 9/11, there was, of course, no 9/11. It was a breathtakingly unexpected event (although, to be fair, the CIA had previously briefed President George W. Bush on Osama bin Laden’s desire to hijack commercial planes for possible terror operations… oh, and there was that FBI agent in Phoenix who urged headquarters “to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools”). Still, the downing of those towers and part of the headquarters of the singularly victorious military of the ultimate superpower of the Cold War, the one already being called “indispensable” and “exceptional” in 2001, was beyond shocking. Admittedly, there’s history to be remembered here. After all, it wasn’t actually that military or that Pentagon that downed the Soviet Union. In fact, when the American military fought the Soviets in major proxy wars on a planet where nuclear catastrophe was always just around the corner, it found itself remarkably stalemated in Korea and dismally on the losing side in Vietnam. No, if you want to give credit where it’s due, offer it to the CIA and Washington’s Saudi allies, who invested staggering effort from 1979 to 1989 in funding, supporting, and training the Taliban’s predecessors, groups of Afghan Islamic extremists, to take down the Red Army in their country. Supporting them as well (though, as far as is known, probably not actually funded by the United States) was a rich young Saudi militant named, believe it or not, Osama bin Laden who, before that war even ended, had founded a group called “the Base” or Al Qaeda, and would, in 1996, declare “war” on the United States. Oh yes, and though it’s seldom mentioned now, when charges are flying fast and furious about the possible recent Russian funding of Taliban militants to kill at most a few Americans in Afghanistan, in those years the United States poured billions of dollars into… well, not to put it too subtly, empowering Islamic extremists to kill the soldiers of that other superpower by the thousands in… yes, Afghanistan. How’s that for shocking? In 1989, the defeated Red Army finally limped home from what the Soviet Union’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had taken to calling “the bleeding wound.” Only two years later, his country imploded and the United States was left alone, officially victorious, on Planet Earth (despite future fantasies of a horrific “axis of evil” to be faced), the first country in endless centuries of imperial rivalry to find itself so. And what exactly did that triumphantly indispensable, exceptional superpower do but, a decade later, get dive-bombed by 19—just 19!—largely Saudi hijackers in the service of tiny Al Qaeda and that wizard of terror Osama bin Laden, whose urge was then to provoke Washington into a genuine war in the Muslim world and so create yet more Islamic extremists. And did he succeed? You bet—and in a fashion even he undoubtedly hadn’t conceived of in his wildest dreams. Think of 9/11, in fact, as the greatest example of “shock and awe” in this century. Here’s a feeling I still remember from the weeks after the 9/11 attacks when I saw where the administration of President George W. Bush was heading toward the invasion of Afghanistan and then, God save us, Iraq; when I watched our mainstream media narrow its focus to this country as the most victimized yet dominating and exceptional place on Earth and Osama bin Laden as the ultimate evil on this planet; when I watched the never-ending memorial ceremonies begin and what soon came to be called “the war on terror” be launched with up to 60 (count ’em: 60!) countries in its gunsights, even if I didn’t yet know that, on 9/11 in the damaged Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had turned to an aide and said, “Go Massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not,” with a future invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq clearly in mind, though the Iraqi autocrat had no relation whatsoever to Al Qaeda (something you wouldn’t have known from the top officials in that administration in those years)—when, in short (though I didn’t yet think of it that way), I watched my own country become a “bleeding wound” that has never stopped flowing and, in Donald Trump’s Covid-19 moment, has turned into an American Garden of Blood. Back in late September 2001, despite having been deeply involved decades earlier in the nightmare of the Vietnam War (and opposition to it), I could already sense war coming, and it occurred to me that this was going to be the worst period I had ever experienced. Now that we’re in Donald Trump’s America, with hundreds of Americans dying daily of a disease that a reasonably responsible president and administration could have brought under control, the 3,000 deaths of 9/11 are beginning to look like a drop in the casualty bucket. (By the beginning of April 2020, Covid-19 deaths in New York City alone had already surpassed those of 9/11 by 1,000.) And I wasn’t wrong in that hunch about this being the worst period, was I? Mind you, it was just a gut feeling then, no more—even though it would soon enough lead, almost inexorably, to the creation of my website, TomDispatch, and its focus on what turned out to be America’s never-ending wars of this century. A PASSPORT TO NOWHERE Let’s get one thing straight, though. If, at that moment, you had told me that this country was going to launch a series of forever wars across what would turn out to be a significant part of the planet and fight them hopelessly for almost two decades or that, the more success proved absent in those same years, the more one administration after another would pour taxpayer dollars into the US military, the 17 “intelligence” agencies, and the rest of the national security state; that what’s still known, with no accuracy whatsoever, as the “defense budget” would years ago have become larger than those of the next seven best-funded military powers on the planet combined and, by 2020, the next 10, and would still be rising; that domestic investment, from infrastructure to pandemic preparedness, would be starved for money in those same years, and that just about no one would protest any of this in the halls of Congress or the streets of America, I would have thought you a madman—or rather, the world’s best writer of dystopian fiction. If you had told me that, in those very years, of the two great powers of this century, China and the United States—one rising, the other ever more clearly falling—the latter would lose approximately 7,000 military personnel (and at least another 8,000 military contractors) and many more wounded, not to speak of those who came home with PTSD or, under the pressure of repeated deployments to the sorriest of conflicts, committed suicide, while the former, as The New York Timesreported recently in the wake of a bloody (but not weaponized) clash on China’s disputed Himalayan border with India, would have lost next to none, I wouldn’t have believed you. (“In four decades,” as the Times wrote, “the People’s Liberation Army had lost just three soldiers to fighting abroad—troops who were killed in United Nations peacekeeping operations in Mali and South Sudan in 2016.”) If you had told me that, facing a devastating virus, the leader of one would largely suppress it—admittedly using the most authoritarian of methods—while, in his search for reelection, the leader of the other, officially still the greatest power on the planet, would ignore it, open the economy, churches, schools, and institutions of every sort and watch it run wild without a plan in sight; if you had told me that fewer than 5,000 people would die in the first of those countries and more than 134,000 (and still counting) in the other, leaving the American dead of 9/11 and the bloody wars of this century in the shade, and that it was all only getting worse, I wouldn’t have believed you. Not for a second. And if, above all, you had told me that, deep into those years of bleeding abroad and increasingly at home, a near majority of Americans would vote to (as I wrote during election campaign 2016) send a suicide bomber into the White House, I would have told you that, though Osama bin Laden had been killed by SEAL Team Six in Pakistan and buried in the briny deep in 2011, Donald Trump was his living revenge, and that bin Laden had won twice—once thanks to those ludicrous, murderous forever wars across much of the Muslim world, and the second time thanks to the pandemic from hell and the president from the same place. Imagine if, in 1991 when the Soviet Union imploded, I had told you that in 2020, not quite three decades distant, an American passport would be, more or less literally, a document for a trip to nowhere. Talk about a bleeding, or even hemorrhaging, wound! In the years to come, I think it will be ever more obvious that Donald Trump was, in fact, proof of Osama bin Laden’s success, of the fact that 9/11 and those 19 hijackers were all that was needed to produce the world of his dreams and the wounds that went with it. And if, by the way, you wondered why I wrote this piece with the longest sentences I could possibly create, the answer is simple enough: two decades into the 21st century, I think it should be obvious that Americans have been given an exceptionally, perhaps even indispensably long sentence without parole on a planet already heating to the boiling point, 94,000,000 miles from the sun. No, this truly won’t be “the American century,” but I doubt it will be the Chinese one either. By the time this crew is done, it may be nobody’s century. Thanks a heap, Osama! This is your bleeding wound, too.
Latest U.S. Election Betting News. On the heels of the vice-presidential debate — during which a fly applied for temporary residency on Vice-President Mike Pence’s head, a moment many equated to a policital allegory — Joe Biden’s odds to win the 2020 presidential election continue to improve. History supports the view that betting on election outcomes is a risky strategy. Looking back We use the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow) as the proxy for U.S. stocks in the analyses below because of its longer history than the S&P 500, which wasn’t created until the late-1920s. The sportsbook is out with its first betting line since the vote. It’s offering odds on the Conservatives as -125 favorites to form the next Canadian government. Conservative Stephen Harper won three straight elections from 2006-11 before losing to Trudeau in 2015. Odds To Win Next Canadian Federal Election Our average includes all candidates that FiveThirtyEight considers “major.” Candidates with insufficient polling data are not displayed in the averages. State polling averages are adjusted based on national trends, which means candidates’ averages can shift even in the absence of fresh state polls. With four weeks left until the November 3 election, ... according to state and federal officials. ... Maybe you believe that a 16% chance for Trump is too high, but if you want to criticise Silver, the betting markets deserve even more criticism. They currently have Biden favoured by 65-35, meaning Trump has a 35% chance to win.
London West Debate - Canadian Federal Elections 2015 - The Local Campaign, Rogers TV
For full election coverage and analysis, head to http://7NEWS.com.au. Join 7NEWS anchor Michael Usher and political editor Mark Riley for comprehensive cover... Canada's 42nd federal election is coming up on October 19, 2015! Here are some basic facts to help you understand what is going on. Photo of campaign propaga... Streamed live on Oct 19, 2015 Regardez la soirée électorale de Radio-Canada et consultez les résultats en direct, circonscription par circonscription, avec notre tableau de bord interactif ... Federal Election 2015: Justin Trudeau's full acceptance speech following towering win - Duration: 23:15. Global News 135,697 views. 23:15. What drove Canada’s Liberal Party election upset - ... Federal Election 2015: 30 new MPs to be welcomed into the House of Commons this election - Duration: 1:42. Global News 2,087 views. 1:42. Federal Election 2015: Political panel discusses Trudeau ...
