In what officials caution is now a dangerous and even deadly crime wave, Phoenix, Arizona has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City and over 370 cases last year alone. In fact, kidnappings and other crimes connected to the Mexican drug cartels are quickly spreading across the border, from Texas to California. The majority of the victims are either illegal aliens or connected to the drug trade. ED STRAKER
A sweep by immigration enforcement agents in Northern California led to the arrest of 232 illegal aliens, including several who had been charged or convicted of violent crimes.
The sweep occurred despite a public warning issued prior to the enforcement action by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. Acting ICE Director Tom Homan said that they had planned to arrest 800 illegals, but Schaff's warning obstructed their efforts.
"What she did is no better than a gang lookout yelling 'police' when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood, except she did it to a whole community. This is beyond the pale," he said.
An ICE spokesperson gave Fox News a list of the types of crimes for which those arrested in the rad had been convicted. They cover a range of bad behavior: aggravated assault, murder, hit-run, lewd acts with a minor, burglary, cruelty toward a child, indecent exposure, domestic violence, drug trafficking, battery, sex offenses and false imprisonment.
ICE pointed, in particular, to the case of Armando Nunez-Salgado, a Mexican gang member who had been deported four times and had convictions including assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, hit-and-run causing injury and evasion of a police officer.
The fact that some illegal alien criminals were arrested despite the clear warning from the mayor just proves how stupid criminals can be.
Another deportee was a Mexican gang member with convictions for, among other things, possession of a dangerous weapon, spousal abuse, burglary and battery on a police officer.
Officials were furious with the Oakland mayor's actions to diminish the effectiveness of the raid.
In a statement, ICE also said that recent legislation has hurt the agency’s ability to enforce immigration laws.
“Recent legislation has negatively impacted ICE operations in California by nearly eliminating all cooperation and communication with our law enforcement partners in the state by prohibiting local law enforcement from contracting with the federal government to house detainees,” the statement.
“Ultimately, efforts by local politicians have shielded removable criminal aliens from immigration enforcement and created another magnet for more illegal immigration, all at the expense of the safety and security of the very people it purports to protect,” it said.
And that's the bottom line. Do the people of Oakland and surrounding communmities realize the consequences of the mayor's outrageous actions? How many more criminals were able to escape because of Schaff's warning? How many of those illegal alien criminals will go on to committ more acts of violence and mayhem?
Every single crime from here on out committed by an illegal alien in Oakland should be laid at the feet of this mayor. She has failed to carry out the number one responsibility of her office; protect the people. In a just world, her political career would be over. Instead, she has become a celebrity.
The Justice Department is looking into the question of obstruction, but she appears to be on pretty solid legal ground. She gave a general warning of a raid and did not specify the time or location. That may get her off the hook legally.
But not morally.
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
UP YOUR LA RAZA ASS BECERRA!
THE GRUESOME VIOLENCE OF THE MEXICAN… over, under and in our open borders.
Federal law enforcement officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have arrested 232 people since Sunday in the San Francisco Bay Area after a sweep for illegal aliens.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is now reportedly investigating Democratic Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who tipped the public off about the raids in what ICE claims “created another magnet for more illegal immigration.”
Oakland, like many cities in California, has declared itself a sanctuary city and a hub for illegal immigrants. Those arrested were reportedly suspected of violating immigration laws.
Fox News noted that the four-day raid, which ended on Wednesday, was “the second in California since a statewide sanctuary law took effect in January. Agents arrested more than 200 people last month in the Los Angeles area.”
The Los Angeles Timesnoted, “Of those [arrested], 115 had prior convictions for “serious or violent” crimes or “significant or multiple” misdemeanors. The offenses include sex crimes against children, weapons violations, and assault, the agency said.”
On Tuesday, ICE’s acting director, Thomas D. Homan, told Fox & Friends that Mayor Schaaf’s warning helped an estimated 800 “criminal aliens” avoid capture. He reportedlyadded that federal authorities were examining her actions and compared her alert to “a gang lookout yelling ‘police.'”
Homan also said in a statement Tuesday, “The Oakland mayor’s decision to publicize her suspicions about ICE operations further increased that risk for my officers and alerted criminal aliens — making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda with the very federal laws that ICE is sworn to uphold.”
During her Thursday press briefing at the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders reportedly said, “I think it’s outrageous that a mayor would circumvent federal authorities and certainly put them in danger by making a move such as that.”
For her part, Mayor Schaaf is proud of her actions. “I consider myself a law-abiding citizen. I consider myself a believer in an American democracy that moves towards a more just society. And I definitely consider myself part of the resistance,” she toldthe Washington Post.
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Professor Robert Weisberg of Stanford Law School suggested Schaaf will not likely face obstruction of justice charges.
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa….. Members of the racist, violent, fascist M.E.Ch.A. separatist movement.
“Many wonder why Xavier Becerra was chosen by Brown. But all anyone has to do is peek into the radical California Legislature, and fanatical Gov. Jerry Brown, to see the trend of militant Marxist, Socialist, Jesuit, Liberation Theology, Latino activism on the increase.”
"If the racist "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next and final
steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the
states within Aztlan."
XAVIER BECERRA IS A LA RAZA “The Race” SUPREMACIST FASCIST AND MEMBER OF THE MEX SEPARTIST MOVEMENT OF M.E.Ch.A.
MEChA Supports "Reconquering" California For Mexico And "Urges All Latinos To Resist Assimilation With White Americans"
"Xavier Becerra As Fox News pointed out in a 2003 interview on the Sean Hannitty Show, Becerra has a devout relationship with MEChA, as well as The Fabian Society. But don’t go looking for the clip; it is apparent Becerra’s people have been busy at work cleaning up his online reputation and record."Katy Grimes and Megan Barth
“Many wonder why Xavier Becerra was chosen by Brown. But all anyone has to do is peek into the radical California Legislature, and fanatical Gov. Jerry Brown, to see the trend of militant Marxist, Socialist, Jesuit, Liberation Theology, Latino activism on the increase.”
Not only were the formalities skewed to China's favor, but U.S. leadership steadfastly turned a blind eye to copyright and patent infringements and blatant theft by China of American technology and trade secrets. Bully of Asia cites our own FBI's accounting of these thefts to be worth $600 billion per year.
Is China a colossus, and will the 21st century belong to the Chinese, as many think? Or is China a paper dragon? Let's see.
The impressive economic growth China has experienced in the last 40 years started in 1972 with President Nixon's rapprochement meeting with Chairman Mao.
From that point, China's growth went into warp drive when President Bill Clinton signed a China Trade Bill in 2001, which gave China a permanent most favored trade status. Also under Bill Clinton, the U.S. approved China's entry as a member into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.
The thought behind granting China these trade privileges – and they are privileges – was that the totalitarian communist regime would mellow and move toward a more open, liberal type of democracy. That did not prove to be the case. As Steven Mosher, Asian expert and author of Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream is a Threat to World Order, says, instead, the U.S. "created a monster" in building up China. To quote him: "I think allowing China into the World Trade Organization must rank as one of the greatest strategic blunders by any great power in human history." This may be an overstatement, but not by much.
Looking at these events in retrospect, the Wall Street Journal called them a "transformational moment in the global economy – the beginning of a new era in globalization."
And indeed it was, for no sooner was the ink dry on these moves than companies began relocating factories (i.e., jobs) and capital to China. What Bill Clinton considered the last greatest legislative victory of his presidency was in fact the beginning of the hollowing out of much of America's industrial base and an explosion in U.S. trade deficits.
That's the history. Today, China is the second largest economy in the world behind the U.S. Some polls show that even Americans think China is already number one. On top of that, China is building a modern military and seems anxious to replace the U.S. as the country that sets the norms for international trade.
As formidable as China may appear, some see it as a paper dragon. Each step in China's rise was aided and abetted, and in some cases actually engineered, by the United States. This happened by several means. First, China's trade with the U.S., which was key to its growth, has been asymmetric from the start. China got far more from the agreements than it ever gave. Not only were the formalities skewed to China's favor, but U.S. leadership steadfastly turned a blind eye to copyright and patent infringements and blatant theft by China of American technology and trade secrets. Bully of Asia cites our own FBI's accounting of these thefts to be worth $600 billion per year.
It is undeniable that for their own reasons, the U.S. financial, political, and foreign affairs elite each wanted China to succeed by means fair and foul, even if it was at America's expense.
America also contributed to China's rise in other ways. As Peter Zeihan points out in The Accidental Superpower, the China we see on maps today is an anomaly. Geographically and historically, China is divided into three distinct regions – the north of the militaristic Han, the central part of the traders, and the southern area of secessionists. These parts do not naturally hold together. The different regions want different things and access to the world on different terms.
In addition to the wealth that came with trade, there were other American factors that have allowed these regions to coalesce into a coherent whole. It was America's victory in the Pacific in WWII that eliminated the main threat to China, which was Japan. Prior to the war, Japan took whatever in wanted in China and left the hinterland scraps to the Chinese. China gained true sovereignty only with Japan's unconditional surrender in 1945. And it was not only the Japanese navy that historically hamstrung China, but also European ones as well. These too were eliminated from the Pacific, directly by the Japanese in the war and indirectly by U.S. actions in Europe afterward.
As Zeihan puts it, America "crafted the best of all worlds for the Chinese. It eliminated the only significant military and economic rivals in East Asia. It all but banned European influence east of India. And it provided both the strategic freedom and economic means to attempt true Chinese unification."
But that's all water under the bridge. What about today? The unvarnished fact is that China is still greatly dependent on America for its economic stability and even cohesion. In the Brenton Woods world, which America implemented, the Chinese, like others, took advantage and designed their economy to be export-driven, basically aiming at the open U.S. markets. The result: Ten to 15 percent of China's GDP depends on exports to the U.S. And because much of this trade is unfair, China enjoyed a continual trade surplus with America – some $275 billion in 2017 alone. Should the U.S. decide to play hardball on trade or just merely demand that cross country-trade be fair, China's internal stability would be shaken. And the Chinese know it.
Also, to feed its massive export machine, China has become the world's largest importer of a wide variety of basic materials like high-tech components, plastics, wood, food, etc., with oil being the most prominent. The problem here is that China is hemmed in. Its maritime routes run beside countries like Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore. If any one of these countries should become hostile, China's shipping could be disrupted. What prevents this from happening is not the Chinese navy, not now or in the foreseeable future. It's the U.S. Navy and the willingness of America to keep the sea lanes open for all.
The thing is this. America does not have to do anything directly to harm China. All that has to happen to shake China is for the U.S. not to become isolationist, but just to 1) adopt a diminished, a more traditional, interest in the world and 2) insist on fair trade.
Some fear that if the U.S. demanded fair trade with China and an end to its technology theft, this would start a trade war. But as President Trump recently said, when America is constantly running trade deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars each year, a trade war is "good and easy to win." Although the globalists and Chinese apologists will dispute that point, the president's logic is hard to refute.
And even if for some reason the U.S. continues to accommodate China indefinitely, the Chinese still face a combination of nearly insurmountable problems, ranging from China's enormous debt to its inherent corruption and polluted environment to its unsolvable upside-down demographics. Given all this, it is disputable that China will still exist as a recognizable entity in 30 years.
China is much more fragile than commonly believed. It may indeed be a paper dragon.
How Trump’s stance on foreign trade goes back decades
On most policy issues, when President Trump states his position, you can tell that he’s blurting out an unformed idea that is always subject to change. No one is really surprised when, a day or an hour later, he says the exact opposite, because when it comes to policy, generally speaking, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care.
There is one exception, however: trade.
In January, Trump imposed tariffs on imports of washing machines and solar panels. Then yesterday, he announced he would be imposing tariffs of 25 percent of imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum. To those who say that this could touch off a trade war, the president offered this as an answer today:
When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with
virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to
win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get
cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!
You could survey a hundred economists — both liberal and conservative — and not one would tell you that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
Nevertheless, we may well be heading toward one. Even if we can avert an outright war, we have a good idea of what the results will be. The immediate beneficiaries will be the American steel and aluminum industries, while the victims will be . . . well, anyone who buys anything that’s made with steel or aluminum, which is pretty much everyone.
But the president’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, has an answer for that too:
Wilbur Ross on @CNBC
now: "There’s about 1 ton of steel in a car. The price of a ton of steel
is $700 or so, so 25% on that would be one half of 1% price increase on the
typical $35000 car. So it’s no big deal."
I’m not sure if Ross’ numbers are right, but 25 percent of $700 is $175. That may not seem like a big price increase when you’re buying a car, but given that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was stoked about folks getting $1.50 a week from the Republican tax cut, it seems like quite a bit — not to mention that it isn’t exactly the message you want to be sending to the public.
This is the dynamic that makes trade a tricky issue: Free trade has widely distributed benefits and concentrated costs, while a tariff like this one that is meant to help a particular industry has concentrated benefits and widely distributed costs. Some steel jobs may be saved, but it will cost consumers more, and perhaps cost jobs elsewhere. That you could buy a 12-pack of tube socks for $6.99 at Walmart or another retailer because they were made in Vietnam is good for your family and millions of others. But if you were one of the people who lost his job sewing tube socks — since it’s impossible to make them as cheaply here in the United States — it’s very bad. In political terms, people aren’t motivated to vote and act based on getting cheaper consumer goods, but they might well be so motivated if the plant that sustained their town shut down because of foreign competition.
That’s why there are some Democrats, particularly in the industrial Midwest, who support Trump’s decision. “This welcome action is long overdue for shuttered steel plants across Ohio and steelworkers who live in fear that their jobs will be the next victims of Chinese cheating,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio.) The AFL-CIO released a statement saying, “We applaud the administration’s efforts today to fix this problem. Effective enforcement of trade laws . . . is critical to leveling the playing field and ensuring that U.S. steel producers and their employees have a fair shot in the global economy.” But on the whole, Trump’s decision is being panned by his own party and all of our trading partners.
The thing about this policy change, though, is that Trump doesn’t need anyone’s cooperation or approval. He can impose them all by himself. And he really, really wants to.
1:30
Steel tariffs explained using Reddi-wip whipped cream
For as long as he has been a public figure, long before he became a politician, Trump has complained about America’s trade policies and those of the rest of the world. There have always been two core ideas underlying his beliefs on trade. The first is that trade is a zero-sum contest in which the only goal is exporting goods. If we import something from another country, even if comparative advantage makes it perfectly reasonable for us to do so, then the other country has “won” and the United States has “lost.”
Trump’s second idea about trade is that it represents a kind of contest of pride, even manhood. When he talks about trade he nearly always says that other countries, particularly China, are “laughing at us.” When we, say, buy cheap consumer goods from abroad, it means we’re the sucker, the sap, the patsy.
Yet oddly enough, despite his long objection to American trade policies he shows not the least understanding of how trade even works, beyond the idea that we should impose lots of tariffs. He has long complained that the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, for instance, is “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.” Yet you’ve never heard Trump say exactly which provisions of NAFTA he dislikes or what he would change, probably because he doesn’t know himself. He just thinks that trade wars are good, and easy to win.
His aides don’t seem to be able to persuade him otherwise. According to CNBC, Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser, tried to argue to him that increased tariffs would hurt the economy by raising prices on goods that contain steel and aluminum, to which Trump replied that it’s “a small price to pay.” Since he sees this issue to be about not just jobs but even more importantly about pride and dignity, that won’t persuade him.
From where Trump stands, imposing the tariffs is an end in itself. It shows those foreigners that we won’t be taken advantage of, that we’re big and strong, that nobody’s going to laugh at us and get away with it. It’s “winning.” Even if we wind up losing.
The ceaseless barrage of news — both real and fake — from the Trump administration can be numbing, so it’s important to step back every once in a while and look at the big picture: Never have we seen such utter chaos and blatant corruption.
None of what’s happening is normal, and none of it should be acceptable. Life is imitating art: What we have is less a presidency than a cheesy reality show, set in a great stately house, with made-for-television histrionics, constant backstabbing and major characters periodically getting booted out.
Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, decided Wednesday to self-eject. Was it because she had spent the previous day testifying on Capitol Hill and was forced to admit having told “white lies” for President Trump? Was it because the man she had been dating, Rob Porter, lost his important White House position when the Daily Mail revealed he faced multiple allegations of wife-beating? Or was Hicks simply exhausted?
The story must be told.
Your subscription supports journalism that matters.
Porter’s job involved controlling the flow of paperwork, some of it classified and extremely sensitive, to the president. Because of those abuse allegations, however, he couldn’t get a permanent top-secret security clearance. That was bad enough, but later we learned that dozens of White House officials, perhaps 100 or more, were working with only interim clearances, not permanent ones. Their access to secret information was cut off by Chief of Staff John F. Kelly — but only after all of this had become public.
Among those now with limited access is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose heavily indebted real estate empire and grudging disclosure of his many foreign contacts worried FBI investigators. Kushner is a senior adviser to the president whose many assignments include forging peace in the Middle East — but who now is not cleared for documents or meetings that discuss what’s really happening in the Middle East or anywhere else. So why is he still there?
2:44
Opinion | Jared Kushner makes it hard for the U.S. to be an example of democracy
Why was he there in the first place? Because of Trump’s appalling nepotism.
Trump also brought his daughter Ivanka into the White House as an adviser. What does she do? What qualifies her to do it? In a real administration, conservative or liberal, Kushner’s office and Ivanka Trump’s office would be occupied by experienced professionals who actually know something about diplomacy or administration or some government function.
According to the New York Times, Kushner set up White House meetings for two business executives whose private equity firm and bank later made loans to the Kushner Companies real estate firm totaling more than $500 million. Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” was a cruel joke. He has expanded it into a vast protected wetland, to be enjoyed by friends and family.
Never before have we had a president openly at war with his own attorney general. The Post reported Wednesday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating whether Trump’s attempts to force Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of his job last summer were part of a pattern of attempted obstruction of justice. According to The Post, Trump’s private name for Sessions is “Mr. Magoo,” a baby-boomer reference that younger readers will have to Google.
Trump began his day Wednesday by tweeting that a decision Sessions recently made was “DISGRACEFUL!” Sessions responded by issuing a statement strongly rebutting Trump’s criticism. And that evening, Sessions was photographed at a posh Washington restaurant dining with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein — who oversees the Mueller investigation — and Solicitor General Noel Francisco. If it wasn’t a deliberate display of unity at the Justice Department, it sure looked like one.
Also on Wednesday, Trump convened a televised negotiating session with members of Congress on the subject of gun violence. To the escalating horror of Republicans present, he heartily endorsed several Democratic gun control proposals — and then went much further, saying that in the case of individuals who are mentally unstable, authorities should “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
If President Barack Obama had ever said such a thing, we’d be in the middle of Civil War II.
Any other president who displayed such cavalier disregard for previous policy positions and total ignorance of basic facts would have provoked an uproar. Trump barely gets a shrug. Nobody expects him to be consistent. Nobody expects him to know anything about anything. He is defining the presidency down in a way that we must not tolerate.
I spent years as a foreign correspondent in Latin America. To say we are being governed like a banana republic is an insult to banana republics. It’s that bad, and no one should pretend otherwise.
no one has served red china more than feinstein... she's
pocketed millions from the back room deals her husband,
richard blum huckstered and voted in the senate for any and
all that would benefit red china and richard blum,
america's war profiteers!
ThePost reported Tuesday that at least four countries, identified as Mexico, Israel, Qatar and China, had discussed using Kushner’s business activities as leverage with the Trump White House.
Ruling class conflicts in the US target inner circle of Trump White House
3 March 2018
The past week has seen an unprecedented escalation of the conflicts within the American ruling class, with the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NBC and other leading corporate media outlets acting as the spearhead for a campaign to cripple the Trump White House.
Trump’s inner circle—his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his daughter Ivanka, his close personal assistant and communications director Hope Hicks—have been the principal targets of leaked reports from the FBI and other intelligence agencies. These led Tuesday to the downgrading of Kushner’s security clearance, the resignation of Hicks Wednesday, and the revelation Thursday that the FBI’s counterintelligence unit had opened an investigation into Ivanka Trump’s overseas business activities.
Press reports throughout the week have focused on Kushner, heir to a billion-dollar real estate fortune. The Post reported Tuesday that at least four countries, identified as Mexico, Israel, Qatar and China, had discussed using Kushner’s business activities as leverage with the Trump White House. The Times published a report Thursday on how two financial institutions made large loans to Kushner real estate operations in 2017 shortly after their CEOs met with Jared Kushner at the White House over financial and tax issues.
The New York Times published Wednesday and Thursday an extraordinary, two-part, 3,000-word statement by its editorial board denouncing the White House role of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, focused on the nepotism of the Trump White House.
It has, of course, not been difficult to implicate the Trump administration in various corrupt and nepotistic themes. However, from the Times, and the sections of the ruling class for which it speaks, such criticisms are thoroughly hypocritical. Trump is a product of the American ruling class; his own personal and financial history exemplifies the financial oligarchy, for which corruption, insider-dealing and nepotism are standard business operations.
NBC News reported Thursday that the Mueller investigation into alleged Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election had begun to scrutinize whether Kushner’s “business discussions with foreigners during the presidential transition” shaped White House policy. The network cited claims by witnesses that Mueller investigators had asked about Kushner’s business contacts with investors from Turkey and Qatar, among other countries, contacts which could have no direct relation to the question of the alleged Russian hacking or other efforts to assist Trump during the 2016 elections.
Finally, the Washington Post carried a report on its web site Thursday night headlined, “‘Jared has faded’: Inside the 28 days of tumult that left Kushner badly diminished.” The article described an atmosphere of mutual suspicion driven particularly by the Mueller investigation. “Some of his administration colleagues are just more reluctant to have conversations with him or in his company because they’re not sure if he’s a witness or a target of the Mueller investigation,” one unnamed official told the Post.
The targeting of those closest personally to Trump indicates that the political warfare in Washington has reached an unprecedented level of intensity. It is necessary to cut through the personalized and sensationalized elements in the factional warfare in Washington to grasp the real underlying driving forces of this conflict.
As a result of his ever-expanding investigation into the White House, Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the first twelve years of the “war on terror,” has become the most powerful man in America. Mueller exemplifies the vast and sweeping powers that the state intelligence agencies are assuming in conjunction with the Democratic Party’s conspiratorial drive to undermine or remove Trump.
As previously explained, the Mueller investigation originated in the opposition of sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, backed by the Democratic Party, to any softening of the anti-Russian national security offensive undertaken in the second term of the Obama administration, particularly in relation to US intervention to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s main Mideast ally, and the US backing for the fascist-led coup that overthrew a pro-Russian government in Ukraine.
The conflict has broadened, however, to a considerable range of foreign policy issues, including this week’s widespread backlash, both internationally and in Wall Street circles, over Trump’s declaration Thursday that he intends to impose tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum, followed by tweets celebrating “trade war” as a positive good.
There is not the slightest progressive or democratic content to the campaign by the Democrats, the media and the intelligence agencies to cripple the Trump White House and, if possible, create the conditions to force Trump to leave office. They have not objected to Trump’s ferocious attacks on democratic rights, his removal of criminal illegals, his attack on social programs like food stamps and Medicaid, or his militaristic threats against North Korea, Iran and China.
On much of the Trump agenda, particularly the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, the slashing of health, safety and environmental regulations on business, and the record levels of military spending, there is bipartisan agreement in the ruling elite.
But there is mounting concern that Trump is too erratic a figure to be relied on as the “commander-in-chief” of American imperialism, particularly under conditions of a growing movement from below, from the American working class, to oppose the policies of big business and both the political parties that represent and defend corporate America.
It is no accident that the media frenzy against Trump has accelerated during the week that the class struggle in America has exploded to the surface in the state of West Virginia, with the powerful statewide strike by 30,000 teachers and school workers, in defiance not only of the Republican governor and state legislature, but state Democratic politicians and the union leaders allied to them.
Trump only became president thanks to the electoral votes of states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, where deindustrialization and the destruction of jobs and living standards discredited the Obama administration and the Democratic Party’s pretense to defend the interests of working people.
The conspiratorial methods of the palace coup being used to settle scores within the ruling elite are contrasting ever more directly with the working class’s turn to class struggle. It is the fear of such an independent movement spreading and taking on a mass, nationwide character that impels sections of the ruling elite to seek a reorganization or restructuring in Washington, to bring in an administration that will be stronger, more competent and even more ruthless in its attacks on both the foreign and domestic opposition to American imperialism.
Patrick Martin
Steven Mosher on Trade Deficit: China ‘Might as Well Have Carpet Bombed the American Heartland’
Richard Nixon had “created a monster” by opening America and the West to China, said bestselling author and Asia expert Steven Mosher in a Wednesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour.
“I think allowing China into the World Trade Organization must rank as one of the greatest strategic blunders made by any great power in human history,” said Mosher, framing the 37th president’s policy towards China as sowing the seeds of a rival state’s geopolitical ascendance.
“[China] had no intention of playing by the rules,” said Mosher. “The Chinese communist party thinks that rules are for fools and that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. It’s basically a matter of our power politics. They pretended to be a weak developing country in order to get favorable terms in the World Trade Organization, and when they joined, they broke all the rules and have been behaving in a predatory fashion ever since.”
Chinese theft of intellectual property amounts to $600 billion per year in value, said Mosher: “Everyone is getting sick of the fact that China cheats, that China signs agreements only to violate them, that China steals $600 billion — according to the FBI — in intellectual property every year.”
Decades of trade with China have decimated America’s manufacturing base, said Mosher.
“China’s been committing economic hate crimes against the American people for a long time,” said Mosher. “By stealing technology and so forth, they might as well have carpet bombed the industrial heartland of America into rubble. The end result has been the same. You need a defense industrial base. You need hard industry. There are only four countries that really make things, in any number and that is the united States, Japan, Germany, and China. We need to make things. Manufacturing is still the basis of a strong economy. How would we be able to be the arsenal of democracy if we allow our steel factories to be shuttered by Chinese steel dumping on our markets?”
“We’ve not only lost our jobs to them and built a middle class in China while we decimated our own, we have also lost all sorts of technological know-how,” said Mansour. “We no longer manufacture, here. It’s horrifying how we have crippled ourselves to this.”
The Chinese government seeks to displace America as the world’s primary superpower through economic designs across Eurasia, said Mosher.
“China is already becoming the dominant power in East Asia, and now it’s reaching with its One Belt One Road [project] across the Eurasian continent,” said Mosher. “Its purpose is quite clear. It wants to draw the economy of all Asian and European countries into China’s orbit. It wants to reorient the world’s economy around China, and with that economic dominance will come strategic dominance.”
“If they come to dominate Eurasia with four billion people and sixty percent of the world’s economy, I think it’s game over,” warned Mosher.
Following the Cold War, China became America’s primary adversary, said Mosher.
“China declared war on us in 1991, and has been at war with us in cyberspace, stealing intellectual property, on trade by devaluing its currency, on espionage of all kinds, and by making great territorial claims in the South China Sea,” said Mosher.
America’s “generous American spirit” is taken advantage of by bad faith negotiations on China’s part, with the latter deploying realpolitik.
“If your enemy says you’re at war, you’re probably are war whether you want to be or not,” said Mosher.
China’s political ascendance will expand illiberalism, as the authoritarian state seeks to “replicate” its system abroad, said Mosher.
“I have seen China’s growing economic and military might, and I know they’re going to use it not for good purposes, not to promote democracy and freedom, they’re going to use it for illiberal purposes, to destroy democracy, to destroy freedom around the world, to replicate themselves and of course what they are is a one-party dictatorship dominated now by the new red emperor Xi Jinping,” said Mosher.
“As China grows more powerful, it will seek to replicate itself,” he continued. “But the countries that replicate themselves after China will come to resemble Cambodia, Zimbabwe, and North Korea, because China will move in, will give them low interest rate loans, will extract their resources, will corrupt their governments, and will leave strong men in place over a countries whose economies have been gutted. So you’re not going to see the rise of China contribute to the rise of other countries, you’re going to see it contribute to the colonization of other countries, the extraction of their resources, the devastation of their political systems, and disrespect for human rights. They will spread their mistakes around the world.”
“Gary Cohn is not interested in putting tariffs on China or in any way curbing China’s appetites when it comes to trade,” said Mosher of President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser.
Peter Navarro, the president’s assistant on matters of trade an industrial policy, shares Trump’s desire to “get tough on trade with China,” said Mosher.
Mosher is the president of the Population Research Institute and an internationally acclaimed expert on China. In 1979, he was the first American social scientist to visit and conduct research in mainland China, where he he witnessed firsthand the communist regime’s human rights violations vis-Ã -vis the forced abortions under their “one-child policy.” His latest book is Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order.
Breitbart News Tonight airs Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com
Feb 28, 2006 - Dianne Feinstein and her husband are also making tons of money off the ... It's a disgusting display of war profiteering, and just like Cheney, the ...
Apr 22, 2003 - URS Corp., a San Francisco planning and engineering firm partially owned by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed an Army ...
Apr 27, 2003 - When it comes to scoring mega-military-related contracts, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's multimillionaire husband, Richard Blum, is right in the thick ...
A war profiteer is any person or organization that profits from warfare or by selling weapons and .... The Center for Public Integrity has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, and her husband, ...
Apr 28, 2010 - Dianne Feinstein—the ninth wealthiest member of congress—has been ... With Blum's financial backing, Klein, a war contractor, operates a ...
Dianne Feinstein: War profiteer and war criminal. by Gerry Bello. July 5, 2013. Somewhere in northwest Pakistan Tuesday a sound was heard. Hellfire missiles ...
Sep 25, 2015 - But none of that seems to matter to Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband, Richard Blum. Not only is Blum demanding adoption of ...
Mar 28, 2007 - Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her responsibilities with the Senate Military Construction Appropriations ...
Apr 5, 2007 - Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California silently resigned from her post on the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee ...
A war profiteer is any person or organization that profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term can have strong, negative connotations. General profiteering may also occur in peace time. An example of war profiteers were the "shoddy" millionaires who allegedly sold recycled wool and cardboard shoes to soldiers during the American Civil War. The ten highest war profiteers are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company EADS, Finmeccanica, L-3 Communications, and United Technologies.[1] These corporations are all directly connected with production of weapons, machinery, vehicles, aircraft, electronics and artillery(including missiles) and as such have significant political influence given their lobbying efforts and campaign contributions to members of the United States Congress in the promotion of war efforts. In 2010, the defense industry spent $144 million on lobbying and donated over $22.6 million to congressional candidates.[2]
Indicted defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes was reported to be ecstatic when hearing that the United States was going to go to war with Iraq. "He and some of his top executives were really gung-ho about the war," said a former employee. "Brent said this would create new opportunities for the company. He was really excited about doing business in the Middle East."[28]
The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 intended to create criminal penalties for war profiteers and others who exploit taxpayer-funded efforts in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.[29] This act was introduced first on April 25, 2007, but was never enacted into law.[30] War profiteering cases are often brought under the Civil False Claims Act, which was enacted in 1863 to combat war profiteering during the Civil War.[31]
Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, criticized war profiteering of US companies during World War I in War Is a Racket. He wrote about how some companies and corporations increase their earnings and profits by up to 1,700 percent and how many companies willingly sold equipment and supplies to the US that had no relevant use in the war effort. In the book, Butler stated that "It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits."[32]
In the American Civil War, concerns about war profiteering were not limited to the activities of a few "shoddy" millionaires in the North. In the Confederacy, where supplies were severely limited, and hardships common, the mere suggestion of profiteering was considered a scurrilous charge. Georgia Quartermaster General Ira Roe Foster attempted to increase the supply of material to the troops by urging the women of his state to knit 50,000 pairs of socks. Foster's sock campaign stimulated the supply of the much needed item, but it also met with a certain amount of suspicion and backlash. Either the result of a Union disinformation campaign, or the work of suspicious minds, rumors, which Foster denied as a "malicious falsehood!",[33] began to spread that Foster and others were profiteering from the socks.[33] It was alleged that contributed socks were being sold, rather than given freely to the troops. The charge was not without precedent. The historian Jeanie Attie notes that in 1861, an "especially damaging rumor" (later found to be true) had circulated in the North, alleging that the Union Army had purchased 5,000 pairs of socks which had been donated, and intended for the troops, from a private relief agency, the United States Sanitary Commission.[34] As the Sanitary Commission had done in the North, Foster undertook a propaganda campaign in Georgia newspapers to combat the damaging rumors and to encourage the continued contribution of socks.[35] He offered $1,000.00 to any "citizen or soldier who will come forward and prove that he ever bought a sock from this Department that was either knit by the ladies or purchased for issue to said troops."[33]
Unacceptable! Senator Profits from War and Post Office
Shortly after San Francisco's then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein married private equity financier Richard C. Blum in 1980, those who knew them called theirs "a marriage of the public and private sectors."
Although Feinstein lost a gubernatorial bid to Republican Pete Wilson, she soon took his seat in the U.S. Senate. Working across the aisle, her power rapidly grew along with her husband's diversified investments and their mutual wealth.1
• As Chair and ranking member of the Military Construction and Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Feinstein appears to have steered contracts to companies controlled by her husband.2 Blum has profited handsomely from military contracts.3
• In 2009, Senator Feinstein introduced legislation to provide $25 billion in taxpayer money to the FDIC after it gave Blum's CBRE real estate company a contract to sell foreclosed properties at unusually high rates.4
• As a Regent of the University of California, Blum appears to have profited from contracts with the UC-run nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos.5
• In the summer of 2012, the U.S. Postal Service awarded Blum's CBRE company the exclusive contract to sell its portfolio of public properties. Feinstein's office denies any influence in the awarding of the contract.6
Ask your Senators to request an Ethics Committee investigation of Senator Dianne Feinstein now.
