The entire “liberal” media and political establishment of the Western world reveals its militarist, authoritarian soul today with the screaming and hysterical attacks on the very prospect of detente with Russia. Peace apparently is a terrible thing; a renewed arms race, with quite literally trillions of dollars pumped into the military industrial complex and hundreds of thousands dying in proxy wars, is apparently the “liberal” stance.
Political memories are short, but just 15 years after Iraq was destroyed and the chain reaction sent most of the Arab world back to the dark ages, it is now “treason” to question the word of the Western intelligence agencies, which deliberately and knowingly produced a fabric of lies on Iraqi WMD to justify that destruction.
It would be more rational for it to be treason for leaders to blindly accept the word of the intelligence services.
This is especially true on “Russia hacking the election” when, after three years of crazed accusations and millions of man hours by lawyers and CIA and FBI investigators, they are yet to produce any substantive evidence of accusations which are plainly nuts in the first place. This ridiculous circus has found a few facebook ads and indicted one Russian for every 100,000 man hours worked, for unspecified or minor actions which had no possible bearing on the election result.
There are in fact genuine acts of election rigging to investigate. In particular, the multiple actions of the DNC and Democratic Party establishment to rig the Primary against Bernie Sanders do have some very real documentary evidence to substantiate them, and that evidence is even public. Yet those real acts of election rigging are ignored and instead the huge investigation is focused on catching those who revealed Hillary’s election rigging. This gets even more absurd – the investigation then quite deliberately does not focus on catching whoever leaked Hillary’s election rigging, but instead seeks to prove that the Russians hacked Hillary’s election-rigging, which I can assure you they did not. Meanwhile, those of us who might help them with the truth if they were actually interested, are not questioned at all.
The Russophobic witch hunt has its first real life victim in 29 year old Maria Butina, whose life is to be destroyed for chatting up members of the NRA in order to increase Russian influence. With over 20 years of diplomatic experience, I can tell you that every country, including the UK and US, has bit part players of its own nationals who self-start in a country to make their way, and if they gain any traction are tapped by their national security service as potential “agents of influence”. I could name quite literally scores of such people, but have no desire to get anyone in trouble. The elevation of Butina into a huge threat and part of a gigantic plot, is to ignore the way the United States and the United Kingdom and indeed all major governments’ Embassies behave around the globe.
The war-hawks who were devastated by the loss of champion killer Hillary now see the prospect of their very worst fear coming true. Their very worst fear is the outbreak of peace and international treaties of arms control. Hence the media and political establishment today has reached peaks of hysteria never before seen. Pursuing peace is “treason” and the faux left now stand starkly exposed.
Virtual confirmation that Ruth Davidson is nothing more than an impotent branch manager of the Tories north of the border.
Some of us already knew that.
http://www.thenational.scot/thejouker/16365299.scottish-tory-mp-refuses-to-say-ruth-davidson-is-his-boss/
If this RT report is correct, Julian Assange’s days in the Ecuadorian Embassy are numbered. Without doubt he will end up in the US which will be a death sentence for him.
https://www.rt.com/news/433783-wikileaks-assange-ecuador-uk/
Yes, Robyn, I’m afraid you’re right. And this British government, with all its professed support for human rights, will stand by and do fuckall, when he’s tried for whatever in the USA.
What a shame neither the UK’s nor the USA’s leaders will ever face proceedings before the International Criminal Court. That’s reserved for black African states and former Balkan leaders.
Disgraceful that the British government are supposedly putting the block on a IMF loan to Ecuador if they don’t hand over Assange.
In my opinion whistleblowers should be given greater protection by the likes of the EU and the UN. They literally put their lives on the line to show us the machinations of our, and foreign governments, without them we’d be in the dark.
They are probably ramping the pressure up because they know if Labour get in, Assange walks and that’s that. Making a mockery of the incredible police costs over the years. There is no way a Corbyn led govt would extradite, Seumas Milne is a very close friend of Assange’s lawyer too.
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Wanna bet? The vacillating pusilanious coward Corbyn-the-Compromiser-Too-Far will cave like a badly made origami figure.
You’re talking about a man who still has, of those in in Shadow Cabinet who were MPs back in 2003, a MAJORITY of them that voted FOR the atrocity against Iraq; the Deputy Leader of the “Labour” Party, the odious Tom Watson not only voted for it but was was outspoken in favour of it – I exchanged E-Mails with him at the time, and to be frank, he’s a cunt – which I let him know in those and even worse terms at the time – as I also did David Triesman, then “Labour”‘s General Secretary – these people are SO narcissistic that even a ‘nobody’ can almost guarantee a response by vehemently denouncing their integrity in the strongest possible terms.
You’re talking about a man who allowed a free vote on bombing Syria – totally within the power of the “Labour” leader not to do so. IN addition this former co-chair of CND pissed them off more than somewhat by not putting ANYWHERE near as much effort into mobilising the new base that he had done much to create, into helping him stick to his (alleged) former anti-nuclear stance and submit to “Labour” Party policy to the wishes of the Blairite pro-nuclear bunch of War-Criminals.
The former anti-war stance of this ex-chair of the Stop-the-War-Coalition, looking a bit shaky, don’t you think? The coward has also caved on OTHER things (as dissapointingly so did the SNP) such as all the “Russia did the novichok” thing bullshit.
My prediction is that should the irreplaceable Julian Assange still be (relatively) safely ensconced in the Ecuadorian Embassy should Corbyn come to power, then the Vacillator will mumble crap about having to follow the decisions of British Courts, and obey extradition requests from any country with which there is such an agreement; allow Assange to be handed over for the fascists in Yankland to have their way with him. Corbyn will then hope that the inevitable flak would did down soon, and FOR ONCE he would have the help of the mainstream media on this.
Another thing the vast majority of “Labour” supporters will also hope that the furor will die down soon, and it probably would if looking at the mainstream media is any guide. Most of them are still the idiots who deep down at least think “My party right or wrong”.
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Pls. note, in the unlikely 😉 event that anyone clicks on the link for my name, that is to my facebook timeline, and facebook have put me in facebook prison for 24 hours apparently for posting a picture meme that a) I stole from some facebook post in the first place and b) I have since then posted DOZENS of times since. I now realise first hand how BAD facebook censorship is getting – the Deep State Moveth; time to move over permanently and get used to vk.com ?
Anyway the upshot is that until an unspecified time (fbook does NOT give a time marker for the beginning of the ‘jail’ sentence), AFAIK my page won’t be visible.
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I agree that PLP labour, at the time of the Iraq war, were probably worse than the Tories (and that is saying something), with Charles Kennedy, Alex Salmond and Robin Cook the only principled senior politicians in the house at that time. The adage “New Labour, New Danger” seemed to be true. It was always going to be a long way back from there. However, incrementally they have pulled themselves back… Brown wasn’t so bad and pulled our troops out of Iraq, Miliband stopped us being militarily involved in Syria, and Corbyn is following a similar path of non confrontation. He’d probably like to go further but he has a diverse PLP to manage against fierce media criticism. He went as far as he could regarding the Skripals, and is starting to discipline the most rabid labour MPs. Yes, if he was PM he’d support Assange, just as Gordon Brown supported Gary McKinnon.
Great post, Dennis. The Labour Party under Corbyn is the same Labour Party that destroyed Iraq. It’s a bunch of duplicitous bastards con artists who prey on the poor, the uneducated, and the thick.
When you think about Corbyn as a symbol that’s what he is designed to represent — he looks poor, is badly educated, and conveys well-meaning thickness on every issue.
And when the US Extradition Warrant hits the deck, it will be SadJav of the Home Office shovelling the shit.
Good points, Craig, except we shouldn’t even concede the supposed “proof” behind those FB add buys, and the “Russian troll farm” they have been associated with, because they are in fact the products of a CIA/MI6/US State Department contract program to fabricate and plant “evidence” to smear Russia.
“Everything what we know now about the so-called “Kremlin trolls from the Internet Research Agency paid by Putin’s favorite chef,” came from one source, a group of CIA spies that used the mascot of Shaltay-Boltay, or Humpty-Dumpty, for their collective online persona.
…“We are trying to change reality. Reality has indeed begun to change as a result of the appearance of our information in public,” wrote the representative, whose email account is named Shaltai Boltai, which is the Russian for tragic nursery rhyme hero Humpty Dumpty.”
Bazzfeed also said back in 2014, that “The leak from the Internet Research Agency is the first time specific comments under news articles can be directly traced to a Russian campaign.”
Just think about this working scheme: Shaltay-Boltay with a group of anti-government “activists” created the “Internet Research Agency,” they and some “activists” created 470 FaceBook accounts used to post comments that looked unmistakably “trollish.”
After that other, CIA affiliated entities, like the entire Western Media, claimed the “Russian interference in the US election.” Finally, the ODNI published a report lacking any evidence in it.
… if the Shaltay-Boltay group worked with people from the Soros and Khodorkovky-backed group of human rights lawyers “Team 29,” created in February 2015, then their only task, it seems, was to service the psyop of the “Internet Trolls.” It looks to me like they also coordinated the work done by those 470 FaceBook accounts while being on the territory of Russia. Considering that, it’s not a complete lie for the FB to say that those accounts were “Russia affiliated” and that they were “likely operated from Russia.”
Facebook also can claim with plausible deniability that they are ignorant of the fact that people behind the Internet Research Agency troll hoax are proved by the Russian court to be affiliated with the CIA, while people who have been acting as the “witnesses” to this Project are lawyers from Team 29, “human rights activists and also journalists from the Norwegian Bonnier AB owned Fontanka, Taiwan-based Novaya Gazeta, and the Latvia-based Meduza; these people are factually proven to be backed by Soros, a CIA financial branch, like a journalist who has received an award from Khodorkovsky.
… fake business entities known as “the Internet Research Agency,” and “the Internet Research” in the government electronic business registry were treated as real companies by the system. Because of their inactivity on all of their bank accounts and because no one ever filed required forms, they were automatically liquidated by the electronic system.
The United Business Registry database in Russia works according to the Federal laws, so after twelve months of inactivity a business is simply liquidated. The Internet Research Agency was liquidated in December 2016 by the government system after it been inactive for twelve month. It’s inactivity implied that the company had no employees, no office, and no bank transactions for at least twelve months! The Internet Research company was liquidated on September 2, 2015 by merging with TEKA company. According to the federal business Registry TEKA was a construction retailer. I wasn’t able to find any indication, like an office, phone number, names of the managers or employees, anything at all that would indicate that this company existed. Just like the Internet Research Agency and the Internet Research, TEKA existed only in the federal registry and nowhere else.” (!!!) https://thesaker.is/a-brief-history-of-the-kremlin-trolls/
Let’s bear in mind that the above mentioned non existent company – the “Internet Research Agency” – was named in the original Mueller indictment. Which explains why Mueller promptly DROPPED that indictment like a hot potato when lawyers for the smeared Russians sought discovery of the FBI’s “evidence” – AFTER Mueller first tried and failed to get a federal judge to do an unconstitutional end run around due process and deny the accused access to the falsified evidence presented against them!
:
Damned Excellent.
Then there’s VAULT 7.
Y’know William Binney talking about, I think it was Gucifer 2 said the webpacket time stamps were all damning to say the least to the “prosecution” (persecution) – as they indicated a multi-Gigabit/sec data rate that was IMPOSSIBLE from Western Europe , let alone the Soviet Union – ooops scrub that – RUSSIA (these bastards are getting to me 😉 )?
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Here’s William Binney setting out the evidence that it wasn’t a hack. Pity more people haven’t seen it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3mS-3-W0ig
https://twitter.com/NRC_Egeland
What Jan Egeland has forgotten to mention is that most of the $1.7 trillion is dedicated to fight humanitarian wars.
https://twitter.com/NRC_Egeland/status/1019504835631120385
This is the appropriate link.
The only country which could have carried out the novichoc attacks is Great Britain, given the chaos which resulted in the murder of GCHQ hacker Gareth Williams, its linguist Gudrun Loftus, and Oxford astrophysicist Steve Rawlings which were covered up by most outrageous claims, i.e., Williams committed suicide in an incredibly complicated, painful way, Loftus killed herself by falling down backwards on the stairs leading to the Senior Common Room at St. John College, Oxford at the crack of drawn, and Rawlings was killed by a Loftus collegue Dr. Sivia who apparently found her body in a dispute over its cause.
This was all an outgrowth of Williams discovering while working for the FBI that the alleged Russian spies in the Manhattan 11 case, led by Anna Chapman, were simply CIA sleepers who had been betrayed by their employer to stoke up hatred of Moscow which Putin hoped to damp down by trading real American spies, headed by GRU spy Vladimitr Skripal, for the Manhattan 11.
Need I go on?
Trowbridge H. Ford,
Yes, please go on. You may know something that the rest of us don’t. I don’t necessarily agree with the first part of your first sentence, but you could be correct. “The only country which could have carried out the novichoc attacks is Great Britain”
My view, is that almost nothing “real” happenned. I think the entire thing was set up by one or several inteliigence services, probably without the pre-knowledge of the elected British Government, who reacted to events, making themselves look increasingly stupid.
As The CIA control all our media, and have massive influence on the British Government, and the entire sequence of events was completely unbelievable, I think it highly probable, that the idea for this entire nonsense originated in Washington DC, or Langley Virginia, and The British Government, were reluctantly forced to go through with this ridiculous charade, by use of the usual CIA Mafia Gangster techniques.
But you may know something that the rest of use don’t know about.
I also think it highly unlikely that The British Government killed David Kelly.
I can think of no motive for the Russians to have done it, nor The British Government.
Tony
Trowbridge H. Ford
There were many hundreds assassinated using Novichok by the apartheid regime in South Africa.
See no serious interest here in the backrground to the British assassination attempts by novichoc or other ones, for that matter.
May’s next rabbit from the hat could be Julian Assange. To be bounced out of Knightsbridge to the fresh air of some safe house in the country will be good for him, and us, and will take the heat off Skripalgate and the Brexit bungle.
Perhaps he, Sergei, Yulia and Robert will make a four at bridge, after strawberries and cream for tea.
@ quasi_verbatim July 20, 2018 at 15:41
…Perhaps he, Sergei, Yulia and Robert will make a four at bridge, after strawberries and cream for tea.’
Or porridge!
“To be bounced out of Knightsbridge to the fresh air of some safe house in the country will be good for him,”
In your dreams, Assange will be frogmarched onto a US Gulfstream jet if he’s lucky, and flown to god knows where. He’ll then be debriefed (a polite way of saying tortured) before standing trial in the US.
Republicofscotland,
The evidence is that the last time Julian Assange was publically seen on 19th May 2017, the day the Swedish dropped the rape investigation, there was a live broadcast outside the Ecudaorian Embassy that lasted over 6 hours, before Julian Assange turned up on a hot sunny day wearing a motor-cycle jacket.
There are a few clues there..
1. Why was he wearing a motorcycle jacket? It was a hot day, and he only had about 10 steps to take.
2. Why did it take him over 6 hours to appear, after all the press and TV crews turned up
3. Was he actually in the Ecuadorian Embassy, on the day The Swedish Government announced they had dropped the rape investigation over 8 hours before he appeared? He could have been as far away as The USA.
Further..Assange has been a media star, even before most people had ever heard of him. People such as him, do not get such exposure in the media, unless powerful forces, want them to have such exposure. However, that does not mean, that various powerful forces in the USA want to capture him, and torture him. Some Americans are like that. I suspect that Craig Murray knows the truth about this, but thinks it safer for all concerned not to divulge it.
I wish Julian Assange well, regardless of what if any intelligence service he is working for. He has not committed, nor been charged with any crime. I simply don’t think he is in the Ecudaorian Embassy, though he maybe soon on his release. The British Government desperately needs a good news story.
Tony
@ Tony_0pmoc July 20, 2018 at 17:28
So when he is chucked out of the Embassy, you will be able to say, well, I never said he wasn’t confined in the Embassy (just alluded to it – with – like May and the Yanks – no ‘evidence’.
But we can all theorise, can’t we?
And don’t forget, Craig has assured us he was in the Embassy, and he assured me in person that he still was (at the last vigil a few weeks back).
I know you wouldn’t intentionally try to muddy the waters, but effectively, that’s what you are doing.
Ecuador don’t want no corpus delicti on its hands. Bounce him out walking, or it’s feet first.
How can asylum lawfully be removed if the reasons it was granted still pertain? Because someone can be stitched up is the obvious answer, and screw the law. But you would have thought his supporters could put up a good fight in the Ecuadorean courts if the government tries to remove the asylum. Was the danger of his being extradited or otherwise forcibly taken to the US cited as a reason he was given asylum?
N_
Are you being deliberately naive? These tules do not apply to masters of the universe do they?
The American public, government and politicians, and their MSM, are absolutely right to be enraged if someone has interfered in their election.But, whoaa back, only if it is alleged to come from Russia.
If it is shown to have been from internal sources, ‘Nothing to see here, folks… just move on’.
What’s the odds you’re not going to see much government, political or MSM coverage of THIS little gem?:
‘Largest Voting Machine Vendor in US Admits Its Systems Had Remote-Access Software Installed’:
https://www.activistpost.com/2018/07/largest-voting-machine-vendor-in-us-admits-its-systems-had-remote-access-software-installed.html
‘A bombshell revelation on the security of voting in the United States has just surfaced in the form of a letter from the country’s largest voting machine manufacturer. The company, Election Systems and Software (ES&S) admitted that despite denying previous allegations of its voting systems coming installed with remote-access software, their systems did, indeed, allow for remote connections.
In a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), written in April, but only released this week, the company acknowledged that it had installed software that made the systems remotely accessible from anywhere.
“Prior to the inception of the [Election Assistance Commission] testing and certification program and the subsequent requirement for hardening and at customer’s request, ES&S provided pcAnywhere remote connection software on the [Election-Management System] workstation to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006,” wrote Tom Burt, ES&S president.
According to Vice reporter, Kim Zetter, “The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold.”
None of the employees, … including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software,” the spokesperson said in February. However, this proved to be untrue.
Wyden described the decision to install remote-access software as “the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner….’
The US voting machines were designed for purpose – problem is, not for secure voting, but for rigging.
Check out Diebold machines: ‘Defcon hackers find it’s very easy to break voting machines’:
https://www.cnet.com/news/defcon-hackers-find-its-very-easy-to-break-voting-machines/
Allso useful: ‘Greg Palast – The Best Democracy Money Can Buy’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJa3MCBLWk4
And then, of course, why did not the FBI insist on taking and investigating the Hildabeast’s server/s?
If it was assessed as such a big deal, what stopped them? Why is the MSM not asking THAT question?
Oh, of course, they don’t want the truth, they want their agenda narrative to hold the field…
Er, the Greg Palast voter fraud video Link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5Uey_jekNY
Greg reveals how, in 2016, 7,200,000 names were removed from the voter list accused of the felony crime of
voting twice, 2,000,000 were removed for “spoilage.” Mostly, apparently, voters of colour, voters with Spanish names and so on. Voting in America seems to be a huge confidence trick.
@ pete July 20, 2018 at 17:25
That is a different Greg Palast video, but thanks for finding it.
‘..Voting in America seems to be a huge confidence trick.’
It doesn’t just seem like a confidence trick, it is one, no matter how they rig it.
By the by: Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief:
http://www.projectcensored.org/12-mysterious-death-of-mike-connell-kar l-roves-election-thief/
Another convenient ‘murder by plane crash’.
Election fraudster silenced – the hard way Karl Rove’s right hand man dead in a plane crash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNNHSpM-Z-w
This is an “old” story from “way back” in 2008.
‘On election day 2008, Mike Connell, the computer mastermind behind the numerous election frauds run by Karl Rove, was in court ordered to testify before a judge about what he knew about the case.
A few days later, he died in a plane crash.
Welcome to real American history
You might ask yourself…How the heck was this not a massive national scandal that led to the investigation of Karl Rove and everyone associated with him including George Bush Jr.
Here’s a hint:
Who is good at wiring planes to fail? Who had a massive financial incentive to keep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and everywhere else) going without distraction?
The military-industrial complex had the motivation and also has plenty of operatives who can do such things quite easily.
An NST is “national security threat.” When you’re on the list, it’s best not to fly your private plane or go on a hike in the woods alone because of your odds of getting home in one pieces are slim.’
USA! USA! USA! USA! – I don’t mind the cheerleaders, it’s their pathetic mouthings I can’t stand.
Re Paul at 17.25
Yes, you are right, the earlier video was about a different voter fraud, the second video seem to me even more damming, if that is possible. How can individual voters get to find out that their votes have been removed, or that some other legal trickery has been used to disenfranchise them and if they do how could they afford to fight the case through the courts given that their opponents are billionairs to whom they are insignificant?
This is just a rhetorical question, I doubt anyone has an adequate answer.
The fixing of the 2000 and 2004 elections particularly through voting machine manipulation was blatant and well-investigated by a number of dedicated people, sometimes at great risk. But discussion was successfully contained and now is just another historical curiousity for those like us.( And we all know rthe third line of that toast.)For the US bi-parisan system to be sustained, it seems some ‘surpris’, spoiler candidate, or downright tampering is normally required.The exception in 2016 was that Hillary Clinton had such a legacy of corruption andwrong-doing that only die-hard Democrats and the gulliblle really supported her.
Obviously Trump has trod on the toes of some very powerful people who seem hell-bent on his neutralization by whatever means it takes. Time’s conflation of the faces of Trump and Putin indicates that the agenda of both are not that of the’globalists’.Nikki Haley seems the zionist/globalsts’preferred pick for 2020 with Trump being left out to graze rather than chained up for musth. Meanwhile , away from Scotland, in the not so Grand Orient,Juncker and Tusk have been cavorting with Winnie the Pooh in China before the later’s trip to the UAE (and Africa). Nary a mention of UAE’s torture and bombing in Yemen , attempted take-over of Socotra or buying-up of Palestinian houses in Jerusalem. (China is truly open for/to business. )
Oops! Michael Cohen was recording and retaining his conversations with the Boss.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump-tape.html
‘RUSSIAN HYPERSONIC WEAPON FILES LEAKED TO FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE, INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED – RUSSIAN MEDIA’:
https://southfront.org/russian-hypersonic-weapon-files-leaked-to-foreign-intelligence-investigation-launched-russian-media/
Big time bad news. Perhaps the FBI will help find the leaker?
One wonders which Intelligence Service brought (leaked) this news — the US side or the Russian side.
Oh — and why.
Questions, questions.
Dismissing, for the moment, the Irish PM’s position on BDS/Israel as mere (and unrealisable and counter-productive) grandstanding, and putting matters like the woman’s freedom of choice (abortion), the availability of contraception, etc under the rubric of human rights, would it be fair to say that England, Wales, Scotland and even Northern Ireland have always been in advance of the Republic of Ireland when it comes to the granting of human rights, at least to their own citizens?
Are all of your links the word according to the Israeli Embassy and Mr Regev or are they just plain Hasbara?
Meanwhile, Israel have launched a massive air attack on Gaza.
Israeli launches massive air raid on Gaza – IDF https://www.rt.com/news/433829-israeli-launches-massive-air-raid-gaza/
Pity the poor Palestinians trapped there ike ‘drugged cockroaches in a bottle’. Ref Raphael Eitan –
.Mr Eitan was politically right-wing and opposed the handing over of land to Palestinians as part of peace talks.
He often used blunt language. He once said: “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”
Mr Eitan was also criticised by the Kahan Commission, which investigated the massacre of Palestinian refugees by an Israeli-allied Christian militia during Israel’s invasion’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4034765.stm
Sky News are copying the BBC by quoting the Israeli military continually.
http://news.sky.com/story/israeli-soldier-and-four-palestinians-killed-in-gaza-strip-clashes-11443800
@ Eitan Bemamou July 20, 2018 at 17:54
Do you agree that individuals, groups, companies and organisations, as well as countries, have the right to Boycott, Divest and Sanction I^rael? It seems, right or wrong, that the US, UK, various EU and NATO countries can sanction and divest from any other country, just as their belly guides them, by making evidence-free allegations against them.
Whereas most of the allegations against I^rael are indisputable.
(By the by, ever heard of Ephraim ‘Eppie’ Evron? Quite a big wheel in the LBJ link to the USS Liberty massacre….)
The oppressive hafrada occupying military regime that is Israel has a minimum of 45 UN resolutions against it issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Of course none were enforced as the Little Satan (Israel) is protected by the Great Satan the (US).
Oops, I’ve hit a nerve good.
Dismissing, for the moment, Isr@ell, —
Ah — let’s leave it there, it’s fine there.
Charlie Rowley has been ‘discharged’. To where not stated.
http://news.sky.com/story/novichok-poisoning-victim-charlie-rowley-released-from-hospital-11443762
On Radio 4 today a BBC interviewer asked a friend of the late Dawn Sturgess why he had chosen to organise a memorial event for her.
That came after about 5 minutes in which people who knew her described the nice things about her, how kind and likeable she had been, and what a shock and blow it has been to lose her. Then after listening to her friends speak in such a human way, the BBC c*** STILL basically asked why on earth organise a memorial event for such a prole bitch junkie piece of trash.
Why does anyone organise a memorial for anyone, you BBC moron? Don’t you understand what it is to be human?
They wouldn’t have asked that question if the dead person had been a member of the royal family! Nor if the person had been a name at Lloyd’s, a director of a FTSE100 company, the chairman of the Royal Opera House, or some gobshite celebrity of either a political or a consumerist kind whose coked-up mug appears on the TV all the time. They wouldn’t have even dreamed of asking it.
This really sums Britain up.
Dawn Sturgess was a mother, a sister, a daughter, and a valued friend. However much one takes a Tory bastard and tries to Doc Marten some sense into it shitty excuse for a personality, it will never understand that fact.
Actually, I heard a disgraceful interview in which Eddy Mair talked with the mother of a soldier killed in Blair’s Iraq adventure. She held Blair responsible, and talked about what a fine lad her son was, dedicated to his country and his comrades in arms, and so on.
He died in 2004 – “Do you still miss him?” Mair wanted to know. He was rewarded by the mother breaking down in a fit of sobbing on the line.
That has to be the most crass utterance I’ve ever heard on Radio 4.
Then again, this wasn’t a ‘celebrity’, a politician or a royal – not even notably rich – just a poor miserable soldier, who – as Hemmingway noted – will die like a dog for no good reason.
That kind of thing brings home so sharply how it’s our side that’s the side of humanity. Eddy Mair’s attitude reminds me of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “The Hero”. Mair seems to have even less humanity than the “Brother Officer” in that poem, although the same extreme class arrogance.
Do you remember who the BBC c*** was N_?
No, sorry. It was a woman. This was on Radio 4 a few hours ago.
What is Gender? | ContraPoints
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_uEXzqW43c
I think this is ok for page 8, she does some good stuff, Also Three Arrows.
Good to see more “left” or less reactionary stuff on Youtube, Stuff i’d been missing for a while.
Sr,y wrong link, this is the latest episode.
The West | ContraPoints https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyaftqCORT4
Look at this ludicrously stupid piece by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, entitled “Don’t worry, a no-deal Brexit won’t be allowed to happen”. Then he talks about what will happen if it does, saying that a no-deal Brexit would in most respects be the same as staying in the EU.
“A closed border with the EU, not least in Ireland, would be like closing the Berlin Wall after it had reopened. There would be riots. That is why crashing out would not mean hard Brexit, but rather remain in all but name.”
You wonder if this guy thinks before he types, or if his words are generated by some computer program somewhere. Did they teach him to be such an idiot when he was at Oxford? You want an analogy with the Berlin Wall? Which territory is it that corresponds to West Berlin, then? Britain or EU27? As for the Irish border, that’s patently obviously a very different situation from the English Channel and the North Sea. Where will these “riots” be that he envisages?
We shouldn’t treat his piece with intellectual respect. He’s following the herd. Mooooo! And he’s making the sounds of his tribe: “The proles are savages! They believe in Armageddon! What a bunch of subhumans!” Little does he realise the irony in the fact that he constructs no argument for what he says, and simply fires it out of his arse: “Don’t worry!” Just because he’s never had to worry about anything in his life, presumably, the dimwitted middle-class sod.
N_
I Really like most of the stuff you write, but some of the stuff you write, is even worse, than me after 10 pints of Speckled Hen, and 3 joints at a party that I staggerred home from usually supported by my wife or a big strong mate.
You often give the impression of being really inteliigent, and then you write a load of complete nonsense, that you Scottish are going to Starve, because of Brexit?
Grow your own food in Scotland. It’s not that hard. Even The Russians managed it, after The Sanctions and its a lot colder in Siberia than it is in Scotland.
By all means have your own Independence. Us English do not want to control you, and I am sure you will still exchange some of your very nice whisky (which I can only buy outside of the UK for a reasonable price) for some of our English cows milk.
Don’t you have cows in Scotland? You did the last time I was there, when I got married.
It was very nice.
Tony
“By all means have your own Independence. Us English do not want to control you,”
What the English people want is neither here nor there.
Nor what Scottish people want, for that matter.
No. It’s an elite debate, and it’ll be an elite conclusion.
That was a weird piece, I wondered if I had missed something. The headline “Don’t worry, a no-deal Brexit won’t be allowed to happen” is reasonable but the article descends into lala land. Implying that if we did have a no deal brexit, everyone would ignore it and things would carry on as normal. No custom checks, free trade with the EU would continue etc, because otherwise it would be horrible. If only the World worked that way.
I still can’t work out what the UK government are up to in their brexit “negotiations”, always asking for the same mix of things the EU have said won’t happen. If they expect a hard Brexit shouldn’t they be building a customs system, upgrading ports and making south Kent into a car park right now?
I’m currently considering that their plan is to mess up the negotiations so a no deal brexit is inevitable. May quits and another election happens, bringing in Labour. They have to deal with a humongous mess while the media criticise their every turn. That way the Tories can get a no deal brexit but blame the economic hardship on the bad management of Labour.
Or maybe they have the optimism of Jenkins and think it will all blow over, allowing them huge power to rewrite massive amounts of legislature to remove environmental, consumer and worker protections. Making the UK the preferred place for China to manufacture goods and crime to launder money.
This news hasn’t made the Daily Telegraph yet.. Another Grenfell? Too embarrassing for the Tories?
“Around 60 firefighters battling Sutton fire in Chaucer House”
Cheap Cladding – Designed to Burn?
http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/news/16367521.around-60-firefighters-battling-sutton-fire-in-chaucer-house/
I take my hat off to The Firemen. I know some of them.
Tony
Ryuichi Sakamoto – Forbidden Colours (Original)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf0HYeQp760
A pointing finger.
Ishmael.
Listening to that calming Japanese music, reminded me of the Mongols attempts to invade Japan. Their shipbuilding skills were very limited, and the rough seas and prevailing winds meant that they were doomed to fail.
The Japanese saw the winds as divine (Kamikaze) after the Mongol failure. Passed down through the generations, the story led the Japanese to assume that they were invincible.
I find it infused with pathos.
Yes the superman thing, didn’t some guy from china declare himself “ruler” of the world at one time also…
“everybody wants to- “, … Fucking idiots.
“Our so-called leaders speak
With words they try to jail you
They subjugate the meek
But it’s the rhetoric of failure”
The occupying oppressive regime, has new state of the art toy. To combat teenagers throwing rocks.
“The tank will include a battle computer that will process data received from sensors mounted on it, give the soldiers a real-time picture of the situation and even propose a plan of action for dealing with it. The computer will also identify enemy forces and aim the tank gun automatically.”
“Tank commanders will have a special helmet, made by the Israeli company Elbit, that will enable them to see what’s happening throughout the tank and also receive all the data processed by the tank’s computer. The helmet is similar to one already in use among pilots.”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-unveils-new-tank-complete-with-battle-computer-smart-helmets-1.6293087
It’s probably funded by suckers, or as they are better known, the US taxpayers.
I always wondered about how the Daleks evolved. Time-travel( forward or backward) to the Eternal Capital to view the completion of “The Great Work” of the transformation of the human
Well, they can produce stuff of their own, like this lightweight drone:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/israeli-defense-firm-demos-kamikaze-drone-bomb-that-can-be-called-off/
Immigration is a complex and contentious issue in the UK.
Some people are against mass immigration for a variety of reasons – not that those reasons are ever explored when they can just be shouted down as racist morons.
Some people are in favor of more immigration. Mostly these people seem to think that either there is some kind of obligation to help immigrants and/or that the UK economy relies on constant injections of more workers.
It could be that these latter people are simply lying bastards. Because oh look slavery levels in the UK are now estimated at 136,000 current slaves – this is ten times the previous estimates for slaves. Way to go – let me help you out by selling you into slavery. Look how big my economy is – powered by slaves.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/991587/modern-slavery-uk-figures-statistics-home-office-2018
Meanwhile “educated” people are obsessing about renaming the Colston Hall in Bristol because Colston was a slave trader.
Not surprisingly none of this is headline news – It is not news because despite their hysterical protests to the contrary no-one cares, not the people that decide what is news and not the people that consume the news. Slaves and slavery are just not interesting subjects.
I really think you’d do well to get some help for that beauty of a hang up you have.
Not really a hang up. It is more that I despise without reservation people that not only profit from slavery but are either to cowardly or to stupid to admit what they are up to.
No doubt in the brave new world of Derrida inspired social deconstruction people that have a problem with slavery will be instantly identified as fascists.
I have just received a text message, that my wife sent 27 hours ago. Strangely enough, her mobile phone is now, repeatedly making bleeping noises with regards to various messages, sent from lots of different people from over 2 days ago.
We got much better reception in some of the remotest parts of Cornwall and Derbyshire.
Some of these messages and attempted telephone conversations, could have been important.
Normal service resumed now, but with no apology. Some of these mobile phone companies are nearly as bad as The Trains.
just imagine, you are running a company, or even a friend is trying to contact you. They send you a message, and you don’t respond. The reason you didn’t respond, is because you never got the message, but they assume all kinds of other reasons..till you eventually get the message and phone them back on your landline (when its working).
Tony
This is from the new occupant of the chair in King Charles Street, successor to the blond nutter, on Julian Assange- –
‘Serious charges have been laid against him and we want him to face justice for those charges but we are a country of due process.’
Hunt, whose most recent remit has been to preside over the demise of OUR NHS, faced some ‘serious charges’ of his own recently, of omission and deceit in regard to his purchase of seven luxury flats in a Southampton marina. He later apologized. It was a ‘mistake’ – that word again – so that’s alright.
Jeremy Hunt referred to MPs’ standards watchdog over luxury flats error
Minister says sorry for failing to declare purchase of seven properties in Southampton
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/13/jeremy-hunt-referred-to-parliamentary-standards-over-luxury-flats-error
This is how Sir Kevin Barron referred to him yesterday in a debate in the HoC on MPs’ standards.
‘The proposal goes beyond the independent complaints and grievance policy and is not essential to it. We do not believe that the publication of whether a Member is under investigation will cause irreparable damage to that Member’s reputation. I could cite the example of the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), who was recently under investigation by the commissioner following a complaint. It was in the national press and on national television, but it does not seem to have done his career any harm whatsoever because he was appointed Foreign Secretary last week.’.
Ouch!
What “serious charges” ? Jumping bail for a case that’s no longer running?
I fail to see this as in any way serious, AT ALL.
This is what you call running on empty. Blatant bullshit.
The UK has a massive debt – the admitted part of that debt sums to £1.78 trillion. Therefore the NHS does not belong to you – it belongs to the people that have lent you all the money.
You have already identified that the actual owners want a radically different model – no doubt one that will be more economically rewarding to them. If you don’t like this situation then tough – you should have thought about this sometime before you allowed Germany to dismantle your economy and force you to assume the role of Blanche DuBois – she who “relied on the kindness of strangers”
The strangers that you have sold out to are not so kind and now you must pay.
You are absolutely full of ….it.
I’m not even going to bother. Take your playbook full of facist like undifferentiated simplifications & find a place where the sun can never get to it.
Yeah full of the truth – and it is like sunlight to a vampire.
Yeah I want free health care, but I have neither the ability nor the intention to pay for it, so what I will do is keep the show on the road for a few minutes longer by importing slaves.
Luckily I can rely on most people to be too polite to mention the slave business, and those that that do I will just scweam and scweam and scweam racist and fascist at. All looking good Derrida would be so proud of you.
?
Goodbye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YzLDSNw2zw
Still at it Habby but most people (IMHO) don’t believe you anymore.
I didn’t know he had morphed!
I find it quite difficult to work out what he’s on about most of the time.
Don’t see any coherent political philosophy behind his positions.
Just a confusion of, often competing, right-wing talking points.
I wonder how an advanced economy with wall to wall surveillance such as the UK can be home to an estimated 137,000 slaves?
My best theory is that no-one cares. Except it is even worse than that as people (perhaps people like you) instantly resort to puerile ad hominem attacks when they are told something they just don’t want to hear.
Ask yourself why.
Loony
” an advanced economy with wall to wall surveillance ”
Avery large portion of that economy is surveillance/ spying. All those people who are in the surveillance loop are by definition enslavers of all those people they illegally and amorally survey/spy on.
What kind of packaged turd sets up the American President in a honey trap, records him communicating with a prostitute so that the swamp of Muslim bashing retard neo-cons can resume their wall to wall carpet bombing of the Muslims?
Using a Microspectrophotometer the people inside the enslaving circle have amplified their own dicks in order to more effectively wave them at the rest of society. A small wart becomes an enourmous carbuncle. A single follicle on the bollickle is now an enourmous pot-hole.
Needless to say the self-importance magnifiers are not recording the honey-traps they themselves are falling in. Just because 90% of us are still decent enough to respect other people’s privacy, doesn’t mean that we should roll over and have our privates sniffed when would-be managers try to corner us doing something human.
I hope they lock up they bastard who recorded Trump flashing his money. If you have money, why not flash it? Spying is a reprehensible sin, totally condemned in Islam because it is totally counter-productive. The more the megalomaniacs want to ensnare us the more we give them to excite their criminal voyeurism.
Enslavement is about control. Spying is about control. Therefore I conclude that they are the same group of people doing both. That’s why 137000 slaves don’t get released by them.
@ Loony July 20, 2018 at 21:32
The ‘strangers’ aren’t really ‘strangers’, and the ‘people’ (if you can call them that) who have sold out have been either bribed or blackmailed, or both. I wonder who ended up with Sir Edward Heath’s nice new yacht?
And are the ‘strangers’ now hell-bent on stopping a genuine man of the people, an anti-Fascist and anti-racist, from becoming our PM? And ‘can’t pay, won’t pay’ is also an option; the ‘strangers’ puppet ‘enforced’ a huge debt on pliable Tory creeps and their Ultra-Right wing ‘New Labour’ creeps, with the ‘suggestion’ (Al Capone used to give people ‘suggestions’) they needed to buy Trident.
Personally, I believe the public would prefer the NHS to Trident – care for a referendum?
Real nice and simple choice. And I’m sure Russia and China would give copper-clad assurances they would never attack the UK, unless the UK attacked them.
Howzat?
If we could just escape the debt and protection rackets we’d be off to a start.
These are Mob methods.
We’re ruled by the Mob.
Loony you appear to not know how government debt works, people buy government bonds which pays them money. They are not literally buying up the country. Anyway over 70% of that debt is owned by UK companies and people.
It is entirely possible that you are correct as on this issue my opinion coincides with that of Mark Carney – which is always a worry.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-economy-current-account-deficit-increased-gdp-ons-latest-brexit-mark-carney-a7973376.html
Foreigners are literally buying up the country. Think of the CEGB which in 1989 was broken up and privatized. For a while National Power operated as the worlds largest investor owned utility. Today it is a division of RWE. Much of the rest of what was the CEGB is in foreign ownership. From memory JP Morgan owns the distribution business in North West England and Macquarie owns the distribution business in South West England. This means that if you live in one of these ares then every time you turn on your lights a fraction of a cent is being expatriated to either the US or Australia.
Thames Water is owned by a number of investment companies. Over 50% of Thames Water is owned by sovereign wealth funds.
Perhaps you remember a company called Cadbury.
Take a look at British Rail. Here the model was slightly different. British Rail Engineering (the part that made and maintained the trains) was literally bulldozed. You cannot even re-nationalize BREL, because it does not exist. However the British still need trains, and now they have no alternative but to buy them from overseas.
These are not trivial examples – they are massive swathes of infrastructure,
Even if UK government debt is 70% owned by UK companies and UK people then you need to examine corporate and personal debt profiles. UK household debt is £1.57 trillion and non financial corporate debt is around 20% of GDP.
Can you see a problem here?
The sale of our national assets at knockdown prices was a deliberate ideological decision taken by Thatcher in order to weaken the unions, and to transfer public ownership to private organisations. So we cut our nose to spite our face. The job was accomplished in record time, Britain no longer a manufacturing nation and we rely on service and finance industries. The triumph of ideology over common sense is shown by the recent deal to build a power plant by a Chinese French effort both owned by state corporations. We have nuclear capability but no energy security.
Incidentally this is also why we cannot leave Europe and survive let alone prosper.
Craig erroneously stated that the set-up of Maria Butina started a new round of russophobia when it started with the set-up of the Manhattan 11, especially leader Ann Chapman. and with all the fallout it provoked, and you have nothing to say but your usual twaddle!
Evidence? Not yet . Trump administration has effectively tried to put the investigations to a halt using all kinds of dirty tricks.
No one likes russophoebia. But to ignore the actions by the russians is even worse.
Take Syria. Russian bombers throwing phosphor bombs on cities with no effective airdefense. Hospitals, schools etc. Are hit! I don’t hear you screaming ” imperialists”, ” warmongers”, etc.
The totally illegal occupation of Crimea? Should that just go unremarked? Not even a protest? Just silence?
I don’t Think so…
@ Jester Lund July 20, 2018 at 22:18
‘Reminder: Liberal hero Robert Mueller lied about Iraq’s non-existent WMDs (VIDEO)’:
https://www.rt.com/usa/421838-mueller-iraq-wmd-trump/
WTF evidence has been produced? Sweet FA (just like May & Co. with Salisbury/Skripals/Amesbury, and also, perforce, with the total BS re Syria and the West’s proxy mercenary headchoppers and thei PR agents, the White Helmets’ (the Great Satan’s ‘Brown Hatters’).
Glad to have you aboard – shows Craig’s blog is getting up the PTB’s nostrils.
Paul
‘Jester’, was that a Freudian slip or a genuine mistake?
“No one likes russophoebia”
I for one can’t wait to meet Russophoebia. She’s a redhead is she?
Pursuing peace is “treason”
Insecurity is security.
You’d think people would start to notice (and I think a lot more people understand than some think) that they don’t give shit about 99% of the population.
Yet somehow anger is directed at
…Europe?
Actually I don’t blame a lot of people for being racist (expect those who are) But ignorance.
And though it gets to me nowadays that many are ignorant (I mean of details, given we have the net) All the anti Europe stuff that’s peddled by these blaggers & con men (who simply capitalise of nationalism) All the money & mainstream coverage they get, it’s hardly a shock and difficult to blame some.
As to the UK, it’s like,….What do we expect with cretins like this in charge.
And they say “well we can always change the government in the UK” Well why don’t we, because it’s them who cause most the crap. Not Europe or immigrants.
Anarchy in the UK.
Great record, great album, great plan.
UK government is strong and stable!
Lobbyists rejoice as US sells more arms in 6 months than in whole of 2017
20 Jul 2018
Despite the tariff standoff with the EU, the US has sold more weapons to its foreign allies in the first six months of the year than in the whole of 2017 much to the delight of military industrial complex lobbying groups.
The figures from the last fiscal year, which stood at $41.9 billion, have already been surpassed by $5 billion and were reached in just the first two quarters of 2018, Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), told Defense News at the Farnborough International Airshow in the UK.’
[..]
‘Defense News also pointed out that this year’s high arms sales weren’t entirely due to the current administration, as a significant part of the sum came from deals that were signed under Obama, but were closed in 2018. The publication also said that defense total figures have a tendency to fluctuate year by year, saying that they stood at $47 billion in the fiscal year 2015 but then dropped to $33.6 billion a year later.
Also on Friday, America’s largest business lobby, the US Chamber of Commerce Defense and Aerospace Export Council (DAEC), voiced its satisfaction over the planned implementation of CAT.’
https://www.rt.com/usa/433843-us-arm-sales-farnborough/
Says it all. How many to Israel?
Climate change is a game changer. We are going to have to face it.
Some people wan’t to go and play shop? Ok, Go and play shop. Let adults & serious people think abut how we need to organise society (that should have been done a while ago) to better fit humans interests.
The “free market” nonsense has always been nonsense, and it’s 99% vanity.
There’s some consolation (call it amor fati) in the fact that –contrary to popular belief– we’re not killing nature, nature is killing us.
By very definition, nature will continue to live –that’s its nature– only it will do so without us.
Yes… That’s also the basis of Lovelock’s Gaia theory. It is common sense. Yet the ptb seem to think they are masters of the universe (lol!), and that must mean they are more powerful than mere “nature”. As Bob Marley said… “Many more will have to suffer, many more will have to die, don’t ask me why.”
?
We are nature.
Sry, I know a lot of people (particularly in the west) can’t stay still for 30 seconds, and as i said “live” in their heads (Or don’t really “live” or feel life as a result anymore) Don’t feel inexorably part of every bit of it.
But this is a misconception born of a lack of stillness. & understandable given the total abandonment of spirituality & the analysis fetish & ….”materialism” (that is helping drive us to catastrophe…..whatever material actual “is”, unproved )
Obviously what you SEE is individual humans, types of individual trees and animals etc. But that’s a superficial illusionary idea. It’s like a crazy attempt to separate “self” to try and understand it (or be a big somebody to others) …What is there to understand ? Nothing more than you can feel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V_xRb0x9aw
Yes, we are, and if you anything about climate history, you will know that the challenge we will face will be global cooling.
Regular as clockwork, the 100,000 year cycle of 90,000 years of cold followed by 10,000 years of warmth.
We are at the end of a warm cycle.
Adults ask how on earth we pathetic human can overcome natural forces so much more powerful than us turn some hydrocarbons into carbon dioxide, water and a few other things.
Children think the CIA control the media but scientists tell climate truth.
Adults know that media coverage of climate is as controlled as media coverage of war and ask whether the HAARP weather weapons are now functional weapons of genocide through target destruction of agriculture. They do not claim that they are without evidence, but they examine the hypothesis that they might be with diligence.
Why? Because national sovereignty is finished if such weaponry can destroy farmers at will.
“the challenge we will face will be global cooling”
…cry…
Sry mr armchair scientist, I regard peer reviewed science. So that’s as far I’m going with your post.
….sigh…, its like this in real life also, I always attract nut jobs.
This by Kit of Off-Guardian is Brilliant. You won’t read it in The CIA controlled Guardian.
““Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons from history that will destroy your trust in the CIA”
https://off-guardian.org/2018/07/20/democratic-institutions-10-lessons-from-history-that-will-destroy-your-trust-in-the-cia/
Tony
a very good read – i estimate that amereeka has been at war with someone for every day of its existence
Who arms Al Nusra in Syria ?
Interesting real investigative journalism by Robert Fisk
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/20/how-weapons-made-in-bosnia-fueled-syrias-bleak-civil-war/
‘Surrey’s chief fire officer has been removed from his post after resisting further budget cuts to the service, claims the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).
Russell Pearson was honoured for his “dedicated” service to the emergency services and the public in the New Year Honours this year.
However, just seven months later the FBU says he has been “ousted” from his position as a punishment for his warnings that a further reduction in funding would leave Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) unable to protect the public.
His apparent departure follows repeated concerns raised by the service and its firefighters, who fear further budget cuts could “decimate” frontline response and ultimately put lives at risk.’
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/chief-fire-officer-surrey-ousted-14934739
Surrey County Council is a Tory stronghold. The majority of their 80, yes 80, councillors are Tory. Remember the sweetheart deal earlier this yearfrom Hammond so that the Council tax rise was minimal? All of Surrey’s 11 MPs are Tory. Nearly all are Secretaries of State or ministers. The Mafia is alive and well in Surrey.
Loony and others:
There were some posts above about national debt. This is a topic I find difficulty in understanding.
We know we have QE in the form of the buy back and so called sterilization of bonds. Why can’t we just buy back and sterilize the whole damn lot? Is it a question of perception or economic theory or what?
When Central Banks buy back bonds they drive the price of the bonds higher. As bond prices rise then the interest rate paid by the bonds falls.
A lot of pension funds are required to invest in bonds. Owning bonds that effectively pay no interest serves to destroy the value of pensions. Globally pension deficits have increased by $100 trillion since 2008. This is a lot of money and will have a lot of consequences.
QE also drives up asset prices – principally stocks and property. People with stocks and property benefit, people without these assets (the majority) do not benefit and are locked out of participation.
The more QE you have the more these problems are exacerbated. In addition to the quantitative problems you also get a lot of qualitative problems. Look at people writing on here bemoaning the failure of public services be it the NHS or the Surrey Fire Brigade. These problems are inexorably linked with monetary policy. This is not understood and so blame is placed on “fascists” “racists” and “capitalists” All this does is further exacerbate the social divisions created by policy.
There is not way of this. If the perceived largesse of QE was to be distributed more “fairly” then you will trigger hyperinflation. So the choice seems to be increasing social and economic inequality or complete destruction of the currency.
As I keep saying, Britain is a fascist state. Mr Pearson, a man committed to his public service, spoke out and has been wasted.
Meanwhile the coterie of spivs, speculators and crooks attached to this corrupt government, prosper and add to their existing massive wealth and possessions.
@Loony, money creation via govt spending only becomes inflationary if it exceeds the capacity of the real economy (labour, materials, land, energy…) to absorb that spending.
The UK economy is very far from overheating at this point: on the contrary, higher govt spending and larger deficits are urgently needed.
What you are really talking about is the Phillips Curve that is so admired by conventional economists. Guess what it does not work anymore – the relationships presumed to exist no longer exists. There is no shortage of evidence to support this contention.
You already have plenty of inflation in the UK – it is just that things rising in price have been removed from inflation indices. What exactly do you think is happening to residential property prices if they are not being inflated. Look at agricultural land prices and the effect this is having on the viability of farming. Look at commercial property prices – maybe you have noticed the failure of a number of low end (and not so low end) retailers. Could this possibly be connected to rising rents.
Look at the prices for all types of art .
Then look at real wages. Ask why they are falling. The fact is they cannot fall fast enough – that is why you need 137,000 slaves in order to further compress aggregate real wages. Next year you will need more slaves. The slave business is one of the few growth industries in the UK. Don’t it make you feel ashamed…? Apparently not so carry on, on the road to total oblivion.
The issuance of Gilts in the UK is a favour to the savers in the private sector; pension funds, corporate savings, banks’ Tier 1 capital, and foreign exporters who prefer not to exchange their Sterling earnings for their own or other currencies, or purchase UK made goods or services.
Ex-EU, the UK could revert to the mothballed Ways and Means Account at the BoE, which, as it’s owned by the UK Govt via the office of the Treasury Solicitor, is effectively offering an overdraft facility to itself, the cost of which which nets to zero when considering the Whole of Govt Accounts.
The entire UK national debt (or private savings account, as it should really be known as) could be bought by the BoE via QE, although all that would mean is that a liability at the Treasury (Gilts) would be swapped for a liability at the BoE (Bank’s reserves).
If the holders of Gilts had preferred to hold cash (at just 0.5% interest pa, and with only an £85K govt guarantee) instead of Gilts (at 2.0%pa, and guaranteed by the UK Govt) then they would not have bought those Gilts in the first place!
If the govt decided to QE away the national debt, pretty soon banks and institutions would be begging it to issue new Gilts, because there is no safer place to save Sterling.
Amazingly, an outbreak of common-sense.
Detente GOOD, Cold War BAD
http://m.yna.co.kr/mob2/en/contents_en.jsp?cid=AEN20180720001252315
SEOUL, July 20 (Yonhap) — President Moon Jae-in on Friday pledged to guarantee the independence of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and help the agency stay free from politics…the president called for painstaking efforts to conduct sweeping reform of the agency, which has been under fire for being involved in political affairs in previous governments.
Under previous governments, the NIS was said to make daily reports to the president and top presidential secretaries. But Moon ordered the discontinuation of the practice shortly after coming into office, noting the spy agency had often been used by Cheong Wa Dae to meddle in local politics.
The NIS is accused of having influenced public opinions in the past by posting and manipulating comments on Internet news stories.
As part of efforts to prevent political meddling, the Moon Jae-in government decided to entirely remove the NIS’ local anti-espionage activities from its list of missions.
And as part of the matrix of wayward intelligence agencies, the former abusers in Korea have had their prison terms increased, eh Tony?
https://www.dw.com/en/south-koreas-park-geun-hye-given-more-jail-time-over-spy-funds/a-44757713
And to round-off this weekend’s trip to Asian corruption, how about a ‘routine’ request to the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America to interfere in a foreign, sovereign-state’s, election? They do this often??, like dial-a-pizza???
http://www.atimes.com/article/malaysias-najib-sought-cia-support-before-election-defeat/