05/15/18

President Trump and ZTE

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

There has to be an explanation for President Trump’s interest in saving jobs at ZTE.

Could it be part of a trade issue with China to ensure China continues pressure on North Korea? Could it be to keep American intellectual property protected in some obscure plot where China continues to steal intelligence to eventually control all 5G?

The 2019 NDAA includes a provision to prohibit ZTE and Huawei use in the United States.

Reuters: “I hope the administration does not move forward on this supposed deal I keep reading about,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said. Bilateral talks between the world’s two biggest economies resume in Washington this week.

The Wall Street Journal has reported Beijing would back away from threats to slap tariffs on U.S. farm goods in exchange for easing the ban on selling components to ZTE.

“They are basically conducting an all-out assault to steal what we’ve already developed and use it as the baseline for their development so they can supplant us as the leader in the most important technologies of the 21st century,” Rubio said at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Asia policy.

Trump had taken to Twitter on Sunday with a pledge to help the company, which has suspended its main operations, because the penalties had cost too many jobs in China. It was a departure for a president who often touts “America First” policies.

The Commerce Department in April found ZTE had violated a 2017 settlement created after the company violated sanctions on Iran and North Korea, and banned U.S. companies from providing exports to ZTE for seven years.

U.S. companies are estimated to provide 25 percent to 30 percent of components used in ZTE’s equipment, which includes smartphones and gear to build telecommunications networks.

The suggestion outraged members of Congress who have been pressing for more restrictions on ZTE. Some U.S. lawmakers have alleged equipment made by ZTE and other Chinese companies could pose a cyber security threat.

“Who makes unilateral concessions on the eve of talks after you’ve spent all this time trying to say, correctly in my view, that the Chinese have ripped off our technology?” Senator Ron Wyden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade policy, told Reuters.

Wyden, who is also on the Intelligence Committee, was one of 32 Senate Democrats who signed a letter on Tuesday accusing Trump of putting China’s interests ahead of U.S. jobs and national security.

The company has denied wrongdoing.

Republican Representative Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said at a Bloomberg event on Tuesday he did not expect lawmakers would seek to remove a ban on ZTE technology from a must-pass annual defense policy bill making its way through Congress.

“I confess I don’t fully understand the administration’s take on this at this point,” Thornberry said. “It is not a question to me of economics, it is a question of security.”

Consider:

Axios: President Trump’s desire to help save ZTE could set the tone for the treatment of another Chinese telecom company that’s under investigation for sanctions violations, Axios’ Erica Pandey writes.

The backdrop:

  • ZTE has been found guilty of breaking U.S. law three times, including violating sanctions by selling equipment with American parts to Iran and North Korea.
  • The Pentagon has banned the sale of ZTE and Huawei phones at retail stores on military bases, citing concerns that the companies are using their devices to spy on military personnel.
  • ZTE and Huawei are both key players in China’s race to dominate 5G and the future of mobile communication. The Chinese Communist Party is painting U.S. moves against the Chinese phone makers as efforts to knock China out of the 5G race.

Between the lines: “Ross had a color wheel of approaches [on ZTE] ranging from a handslap to breaking them as a company,” says Chris Johnson, a former CIA China analyst who’s now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

  • The Chinese might have stomached a slap on the wrist, but by banning American companies from selling parts to ZTE, Ross served up a punishment harsh enough to halt operations. China in turn made ZTE a top trade priority and used its massive leverage to potentially sway the president.

Why it matters: China could use Trump’s apparent pivot on ZTE as a stepping stone to free Huawei. Or the ZTE case could be a lesson for the U.S. in negotiating with China.

How the ZTE deal could fare:

  • “The U.S. and China are closing in on a deal that would give China’s ZTE Corp. a reprieve from potentially crippling U.S. sanctions in exchange for Beijing removing tariffs on billions of dollars of U.S. agricultural products, said people in both countries briefed on the deal,” the Wall Street Journal’s Lingling Wei and Bob Davis report.
  • Steven Mnuchin is leading the U.S. in negotiating a deal that puts the brakes on actions against ZTE in exchange for China buying down its trade surplus, reports Axios’ Jonathan Swan.
  • China’s trade negotiator, Liu He, is in DC today. Axios contributor Bill Bishop hears that Liu will arrive “with an open checkbook to buy down the deficit but that progress on anything structural will be much harder.”

The bottom line: Taking the toughest possible approach to China might not be the smartest when the Asian power is stronger than ever and prepared to fight back.

05/15/18

Trump Kim Talks Now In Jeopardy, Developing

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

The United States and South Korea do military drills often and Kim Jung Un was well aware of those planned stating the drills were a rehearsal for an invasion. Further, North Korea has canceled talks with South Korea. The Kim regime is making yet another demand stating the United States must be careful about deliberations and the summit itself due to the ‘ruckus’ over the drills.

This all comes from the conclusion of the meeting that North Korea has with China.

Meanwhile:

That nuclear test site that North Korea has declared inoperable and where media has been invited to see the dismantling of the site and tunnels may not be the only site and no one is speaking of other sites but should be. Why? Well Iran refuses to declared PMD (possible military dimension) sites that are part of the nuclear development plan. Since Iran and North Korea have long collaborated on nuclear programs, it stands to reason North Korea has other sites as well.

***

Ahead of the April 27 inter-Korean summit, NGA published a separate assessment that North Korea had started dismantling significant components and structures associated with nuclear test observation at Punggye-ri.

Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site by JamesMartinCNS on Sketchfab

The North’s decision not only came before Kim Jong-un’s first meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Panmunjom, but also before the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit meeting, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.

Satellite imagery published by 38 North on Monday, May 14, provides open source corroboration of significant changes near the northern, western, and southern portals leading into the underground tunnel network that composes the Punggye-ri test site.

North Korea watchers Jeffrey Lewis and Dave Schmerler of the Monterey Institute of International Studies have also observed the dismantling of structures around the Punggye-ri test site. Lewis and his team created a 3D model offering an impression of the horizontal tunnel network at the Punggye-ri test site.

North Korea’s work to dismantle structures at the test site comes ahead of its announced intention to invite journalists and experts from China, Russia, South Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom to observe the site’s dismantlement between May 23 and May 25.

A report published over the weekend by the country’s outward-facing state media, the Korean Central News Agency, said that the event would be to “ensure transparency of discontinuance of the nuclear test (sic).” U.S. President Donald Trump called Kim’s move a “very smart and gracious gesture” in a tweet.

The same report specified the process for the site’s disabling, which would include the collapsing of tunnels — presumably with explosives — and the removal of observation and research facilities. U.S. intelligence assessments suggest that much of the latter work will have been completed prior to the arrival of foreign observers.

The DIA and NGA assessments leave open the possibility that North Korea’s planned modifications to the test site next week could significantly extend the period of time necessary to restore Punggye-ri to a usable state.

Following Kim’s announcement that the Punggye-ri site will be shut down, international observers, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s (CTBTO) executive secretary, Lassina Zerbo, welcomed the announcement. Kim has not specified whether the CTBTO will be invited to verify the closure of the nuclear test site.

North Korea is the only country known to have conducted full-yield tests of nuclear weapons in the 21st century. Kim Jong-un has not expressed an interest in signing the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, which has yet to enter into force.

With six nuclear tests, North Korea likely has a useful set of data that it can use to continue refining its nuclear weapons designs. The U.S. intelligence community has, with consensus, determined as of mid-2017 that North Korea is capable of mounting compact nuclear weapons atop its larger ballistic missiles, including its intercontinental-range ballistic missiles that threaten the continental United States.

In the same report to the Workers’ Party of Korea’s 7th Central Committee where Kim first acknowledged that Punggye-ri’s mission had come to an end, that North Korean leader, for the first time, publicly acknowledged that North Korea had conducted sub-critical nuclear weapons testing.

North Korea has not made any concessions on its sub-critical testing program, which will likely continue at its Nuclear Weapons Institute. Continued sub-critical testing would allow North Korea to maintain its existing weapons and refine their performance.

RCD: With the location and date of the forthcoming summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong‑un now fixed, speculation has turned to what sort of agreement might be achievable. US National Security Advisor John Bolton recently suggested that the ‘Libyan model’ of nuclear disarmament—from 2003–2004—might offer a framework that could be applied to North Korea in 2018.

The suggestion received what might kindly be called a mixed reception, not least because the North Koreans believe that Muammar al-Qaddafi was a fool to abandon his nuclear program. Still, I’d like to explore the Libyan case here because it offers one of the few examples of ‘denuclearisation’ that we have.

True, the two cases are markedly dissimilar: Libya, unlike North Korea, had made relatively little progress towards nuclear weapons when its leadership took the strategic decision to abandon the program. The Libyans had no nuclear weapons. Yes, they had a small number of centrifuges—some still in their original packing—and a quantity of uranium hexafluoride (the feedstock for a centrifuge enrichment cascade).

More ominously, they had a nuclear weapon design, apparently obtained from the A.Q. Khan network—although some Libyans claimed that the design was a ‘bonus’ intended as a reward for their other purchases.

But when US officials appeared before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in early 2004 to talk about the disarmament effort, senators were at least as interested in the detailed picture of the nuclear black market that the Libyan program revealed as they were in the program itself. While a raft of fascinating material about the program had suddenly spilled forth, it was the procurement trail, stretching from Libya to Pakistan and Malaysia, that the committee chairman, Senator Richard Lugar, referred to as ‘the treasure trove’.

While North Korea’s current indigenous capabilities are far stronger than Libya’s were 15 years ago, one suspects there would be similar interest in Washington today about Pyongyang’s proliferation links.

Further, there are some aspects of the Libyan model that the current US administration might want to replicate in any deal with North Korea. Two of those aspects concern access and relocation. US and British experts were given extraordinary access to the Libyan weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. See the statements made in 2004 by Paula DeSutter, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance, to two congressional committees (here and here) and, separately, in an interview with Arms Control Today:

The Libyans said, ‘We are no longer going to have a nuclear weapons program.’ They invited the United States and the United Kingdom in. They gave the United States and the United Kingdom access to all facilities that we requested to see. They were willing to permit any tests that we wanted to conduct. They were willing to have their centrifuge program removed … They have been very forthcoming.

In the chemical weapons area, we assisted them in drafting their declaration to the OPCW [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]. They had the OPCW technical secretariat come in. On one occasion they said, ‘You know, we really hadn’t told the others that came before, but there are some other munitions we need to show you.’ They took us to a facility that we almost certainly would not have been able to identify independently and showed us the unfilled munitions there. That is transparency. That is the kind of access that we are given when a country has made a strategic commitment. They volunteer information.

Some sources suggest that the procedure was not quite as straightforward as that passage of text implies. William Tobey, for example, argues that Libyan commitment and transparency varied on a day-to-day basis, at least in the early months. (See Tobey’s five-part series in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4 and Part 5, and his 2017 assessment of intelligence and policy cooperation in the Libyan disarmament case.)

It was because of that variability that the Americans wanted to relocate key parts of the WMD program quickly. The most proliferation-sensitive parts of the program—equipment and documents—were airlifted to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The nuclear weapon design documents, revealed to the Americans on 20 January, were flown out of the country two days later.

During the night of 25–26 January 2004, an American C-17, its insignia painted over, landed at an air base near Tripoli, loaded its cargo—including advanced centrifuge rotors, five Scud‑C missile guidance sets and two tons of uranium hexafluoride—and took off again. Later, in March 2004, another 1,000 tons of materials and equipment were loaded aboard a US ship, the Industrial Challenger, its insignia again painted over, and taken to America.

Is that what President Trump is going to propose to Kim Jong‑un? Media sources say that the US has asked North Korea to ‘discard’ the data from its nuclear weapon development program and allow its nuclear scientists to emigrate. Of course, the manner—and direction—in which that data might be discarded is a non-trivial issue.

And emigration would, of course, be a humane solution to an intractable problem: that even after the weapons are gone and the data has been discarded, the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles will still exist in the minds of North Korea’s scientists. I don’t imagine, though, that Washington wants those scientists heading to the Middle East. Russia and China might be acceptable destinations. People say that Tennessee is nice this time of year.

As was the case with the Libyan deal, the US is also arguing that this is an opportunity for North Korea to abandon not merely its nuclear program, but all of its WMD. Still, nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles seem likely to be the core of any deal.

On ballistic missiles, a key US objective in 2003–2004 was to ensure that Libya’s missile program was compliant with the thresholds set out in the Missile Technology Control Regime—namely, that its missiles were limited in their range to a maximum of 300 kilometres and in their payload to a maximum of 500 kilograms.

In short, the Libyan model sets high standards in relation to the exposure of proliferation linkages; provision of access to sites, personnel and materials; relocation of key items; and acceptance of international standards on WMD. Can an agreement with Pyongyang meet those standards? Frankly, it seems unlikely.

The Libyan model, after all, had one driver that might not be equally compelling in the North Korean case: the strategic commitment by the leadership to put aside WMD. Because of that commitment, the model unfolded quickly and the verification hurdles proved surmountable.

A similar level of strategic commitment on Kim Jong‑un’s part is what the Americans are hoping to find in Singapore on 12 June. The Trump administration is certainly signallingthat this is their desired approach.

05/15/18

Though Persecuted, Christians and Patriots are Standing

By: Lloyd Marcus

I praise God for Wyoming GOP county chair Vicki Kissack having the courage to share my article, “Christians Deceived by the LGBTQ Movement” on her facebook page. https://bit.ly/2Iyymsq Folks, my article is 100% factually correct; spoken in God’s love.

As might be expected, leftists at the Casper Star-Tribune, distorted the truths in my article to brand Mrs Kissack a hater — hoping that fearful Republicans will run away from her. https://bit.ly/2wzkIjN Please pray that God gives this patriot sister courage to stand and will build a hedge of protection around her and her family. I claim this scripture for Mrs Kissack, “No weapon formed against you shall proper.” Isaiah 54:17

The immediate severe attack on Mrs Kissack for simply sharing my article https://bit.ly/2Iyymsq confirms the bullying and intolerance of LGBTQ enforcers exposed in my article.

A few years ago, I was an executive of a conservative group. LGBTQ activists launched a media assault attempting to brand me and anyone associated with me haters; to bully me into not writing obvious truths. My wonderful wife Mary and I realize God is our financial source. I must freely spread God’s truth. Therefore, I resigned from my position to protect friends and associates from LGBTQ enforcers. God is faithful.

I told my 90 year old preacher dad about the April 23rd international parents’ Sex-Ed protest. https://bit.ly/2rCJA4y Parents are outraged, unable to opt-out their children from LGBTQ lessons which include asphyxiation, BDSM, gender-bending, anal sex and rimming. https://bit.ly/2uOQloy Dad replied, “Rimming? I don’t even know what that is.” Ponder that folks. LGBTQ bullies have successfully mandated that elementary school kids be taught a dangerous sexual perversion unknown to a 90 year old.

A Texas pre-K teacher sounded-the-alarm that her principal ordered teachers to explain homosexuality to 4 year olds and teach them that “gay love is beautiful”. https://bit.ly/2Ixat4f And yet, LGBTQ activists are trying to brand us haters for seeking to protect our kids’ innocence, while they tyrannically demand that we surrender our children for LGBTQ indoctrination.

My wife alerted me regarding another Christian bridal shop in business for 22 years in Pennsylvania, driven out of business by LGBTQ enforcers. https://bit.ly/2wBUFbF Despite the owners referring a lesbian couple to another bridal shop eager for their business, that was not acceptable to LGBTQ enforcers. Clearly, LGBTQ enforcers’ mission is to force Christians to betray their faith, demanding that they kneel in worship to leftists’ false gods.

The good news is Christians and patriots are standing up for their religious liberty and freedom of speech.

Cathy Miller refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple but offered to sell them a pre-made cake. The lesbian couple, in essence, said screw you and sued Ms Miller. As I stated, this is not about acquiring a cake. LGBTQ enforcers are targeting Christian businesses to force them to affirm their agenda.

Remarkably, a California judge ruled in favor of Ms Miller. Judge Lambe said, “The State asks this court to compel Miller to use her talents to design and create cake [sic] she has not yet conceived with the knowledge that her work will be displayed in celebration of marital union her religion forbids . . . Such an order would be the stuff of tyranny.” Amen! https://bit.ly/2Ki3ERz

Demanding total subservience, LGBTQ enforcers sought to fire New Jersey high school teacher and ordained minister Jenye Knox for posting homosexuality is a sin on her personal Facebook page. Ms Knox sued the school district for violating her right to free speech and religious expression. A confidential settlement was made regarding Ms Knox’s tenure. I salute Ms Knox for courageously fighting back. https://bit.ly/2Ki3ERz

A standing room only crowd of 190 showed up at the EWC board meeting to raised their hand to oppose the implementation of transgender policies at Eastern Wyoming College. Wyoming GOP chair Frank Eathorne read his party’s 2017 resolution vs SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity). https://bit.ly/2IFKAQ4

In essence, the GOP resolution explained how SOGI laws attack our freedom rather than the other way around.

Whereas the Party of Abraham Lincoln was created to abolish slavery, recognizing the dignity and equality of every human being under the law; and this same Republican Party continued to lead the fight for the natural rights of our common humanity, against the Jim Crow laws of the southern Democrats; and still stands for the rights of all people regardless of color, culture, ideology, or religion, and

Whereas such equal protection under the law demands protection against personal injury or property loss, but cannot demand affirmation of personal ideas, choices, or behaviors without infringing upon the integrity and property rights of other persons; yet “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI) laws obliterate this foundational legal distinction, and

Whereas, laws using undefined and undefinable terms are inherently unjust, depriving persons under the law of any reasonable opportunity to know in advance how the law will be applied to them; and “gender Identity” lacks any definite legal content such that even its proponents are unable either to list every current identity, or rule out the addition of new identities in the future, and

Whereas wherever the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” have been added to anti-discrimination laws, this ill-defined language has enabled unjust prosecution and legal harassment such as…

Life has taught me to always look for the blessing in everything. Samuel Adams said, ” It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” While being persecuted, the courage of Christians and patriots standing up for our free speech and religious liberties will ignite a national movement. Therefore, all is well.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American
Help Lloyd spread the Truth: http://bit.ly/2kZqmUk
http://LloydMarcus.com

05/15/18

U.S. Applies New Iran Sanctions, Hardly Enough

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

We are still at war in the Middle East where Iran with proxies is the real and virtual enemy. The United States uses proxies as well, yet the United States’ near term and long range strategy remains fleeting.

The talks that continue between Iran and Europe on the JCPOA should include Iran’s war operation in the Middle East.

For related reading: How Iran Spreads Its Empire through Terrorist Militias, In Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere, Tehran has perfected the art of gradually conquering a country without replacing its flag.

Going forward for the United States:

Implications and Future Research

The unwillingness of the United States and its GCC partners to use their vast conventional military superiority has shifted the balance of power in the region from the conventional to the unconventional realm. Iran then relies on its willingness to assume more risk and its ability to better influence proxies than its adversaries, to achieve favorable foreign policy outcomes despite the opposition of the United States and its Arab allies. The use of proxy groups fundamentally decreases the physical cost a state incurs due to conflict. However, when the soldiers of a state die advising and assisting these proxies, it is more difficult to justify domestically, because using proxies signals that the objectives are not important enough to warrant decisive intervention. Therefore, states are most successful when they use proxies not as a cost-reduction mechanism alone but because proxies

are better able to achieve the desired end than conventional military forces. If the United States is unwilling to risk additional battle deaths or domestic political repercussions to prevent Iran from projecting power across the Middle East, then it must instead apply cost-imposing strategies.

Increasing the effectiveness of special operations forces from allied Arab states through intelligence sharing, kinetic strikes, training, and attached American advisors, while encouraging deployments of these elements to areas where Iranian advisors and IRGC units operate, would increase the human cost of Iranian activities. In addition to targeting Iran’s primary efforts in Iraq and Syria, these partnered operations should also confront peripheral Iranian efforts throughout the Gulf, including Yemen, in order to exploit the weakness of Iranian popular support for its presence therein. By working through Arab partners, the United States can apply the indigenous force necessary to confront Iranian proxies, while increasing the likelihood that Arab states achieve a confluence of shared ideology and objectives with their proxies, which eludes the United States

as a separate actor. Saudi and Emirati support to Yemeni military units recapturing the port of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait serve as good examples of the type of effort the United States should expand.

In addition to combating Iranian proxy groups directly, targeting the ground, air, and sea logistical routes that the IRGC Quds Force uses to supply its proxies would affect Iran’s ability to support its efforts in the region. As long as Iran continues to rely on a domestically based force projection model, its network is vulnerable to air strikes, raids, and sabotage. An expanded network of friendly proxies partnered with US and allied

-Arab advisors would be ideally suited to facilitating this type of targeting.

Complete text, context and summary is found here.

The author is: Maj. Alex Deep is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is a Special Forces officer with ten years of service and multiple deployments to Afghanistan in conventional and special operations task forces. He served as a rifle platoon leader and company executive officer in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team prior to completing Special Forces Assessment and Selection and subsequently the Special Forces Qualification Course. He then served as a Special Forces detachment commander and battalion assistant operations officer in 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne). He currently teaches SS307: Introduction to International Relations. Deep holds a Bachelor of Science in American Politics and Arabic from the United States Military Academy at West Point and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

05/15/18

$100,000 to Destroy the New US Embassy in Jerusalem

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Sheesh…the building has been there for years already. Further, there are several other countries that are moving their embassies as well.

About 800 guests attended the opening ceremony. The U.S. was represented by a formally designated “Presidential Delegation” led by Deputy Secretary of State, John. J. Sullivan, and including U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Presidential Advisor Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, and Jason Greenblatt, the White House’s lead negotiator. A bicameral Congressional delegation and other U.S. dignitaries were also present for the ceremony, which was also attended by top diplomats from 33 other nations.

***

The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995.

The Act recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city. Its purpose was to set aside funds for the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, by May 31, 1999. For this purpose it withheld 50% of the funds appropriated to the State Department specifically for “Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad” as allocated in fiscal year 1999 until the United States Embassy in Jerusalem had officially opened. Israel’s declared capital is Jerusalem, but this is not internationally recognized, pending final status talks in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Despite passage, the law allowed the President to invoke a six-month waiver of the application of the law, and reissue the waiver every six months on “national security” grounds. The waiver was repeatedly invoked by Presidents ClintonBush, and Obama.

Iran continues to ignore history, facts and hard tangible evidence about Jerusalem. Furthermore we were told by John Kerry and Barack Obama were to be good citizens of the world after the completion of the Iranian nuclear deal….well three things at least have surfaced since the United States withdrew.

***

  1. A hardline Iranian organization is reportedly offering a $100,000 reward to any person who bombs the newly opened U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, according to a translation of Farsi language reports.

    A group known as the Iranian Justice Seeker Student Movement is reported to have disseminated posters calling for an attack on the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, which has been opposed by Palestinian and Iranian officials as an affront to the holy city.

    “The Student Justice Movement will support anybody who destroy the illegal American embassy in Jerusalem,” the poster states in Farsi, Arabic, and English, according to an independent translation of the propaganda poster provided to the Free Beacon.

    There will be a “$100,000 dollar prize for the person who destroys the illegal American embassy in Jerusalem,” the poster states.

    The call for an attack on the new embassy is just the latest escalation by hostile Islamic states and leaders who have lashed out at the United States and President Donald Trump for making good on a campaign promise to relocate the embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s declared capital city of Jerusalem.

    News of the bomb threat was first reported by the University Student News Network, a regional Farsi-language site that aggregates relevant news briefs.

    “The Student Movement for Justice declared, ‘Whoever bombs the embassy’s building will receive a $100,000 award,’” the report states. “It is necessary to mention that the steps by Trump to transfer the US Embassy to Holy Qods [Jerusalem] has led to the anger and hatred of Muslims and liberators throughout the world.’”

    Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, told the Washington Free Beacon that terrorism of this nature is embedded in the Iranian regime’s hardline stance.

    “Unfortunately, terrorism directed toward diplomats and embassies has become a central pillar of the Islamic Republic’s culture,” Rubin said. “Terrorism is lionized in Iranian schools. This bounty is more the rule than the exception. To blame Washington or Jerusalem is to blame the victim and give terrorists a veto over U.S. policy.”

    Behnam Ben Taleblu, an research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, described the poster as repulsive and blamed the Iranian ruling regime for fostering such an attitude.

    “This is nothing short of an invitation to a heinous act of an international terror by a student group that looks up to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror—the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.

  2. TEHRAN – New freight train connections usually only have a limited potential to make global headlines, but a new service launched from China on Thursday could be different. Its cargo – 1,150 tons of sunflower seeds – may appears unremarkable, but its destination, however, is far more interesting: Tehran, the capital of Iran.

    The launch of a new rail connection between Bayannur in China ‘s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Iran was announced by the official news agency Xinhua on Thursday. Its exact path was not described in the dispatch, but travel times will apparently be shortened by at least 20 days in comparison to cargo shipping. The sunflower seeds are now expected to arrive in Tehran in about two weeks.

    While the seeds are making their steady progress across Asia, there’s a growing risk of Iran and Israel; link; breaking into open conflict in the meantime. French President Emmanuel Macron has already predicted that the U.S. decision to pull out of the Iran deal would lead to war, especially after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that the country may restart its nuclear program if U.S. sanctions are imposed. Iranian rocket attacks on Wednesday and the subsequent Israeli retaliatory attacks on Thursday indicated how quickly the situation could indeed escalate.

    While the United States is now urging foreign companies to wind down their operations in Iran , China appears to be doing the opposite. Thursday’s freight train connection launch was only the latest measure Beijing has taken to intensify trade relations with Iran and there seem to be no plans so far to give in to U.S. demands.

    China has indicated it might defy US President Donald Trump’s sanctions on Iran by doing business with it.

    During a press briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that Iran and China would “maintain normal economic ties and trade.”

    “We will continue with our normal and transparent practical cooperation with Iran on the basis of not violating our international obligations,” he said. China faces the same problem U.S. allies in Europe are currently facing <link>: Even if European governments are opposed to new sanctions on Iran , European companies would have to abide by those rules or risk severe fines by the United States.

    Even though they have expressed their outrage, some high-ranking European officials have already acknowledged that they would have few options to rein in the United States if it decided to punish European companies for continuing to trade with Iran.

    China, however, appears more defiant.

    Iran ‘s Hassan Rouhani had established a track record for bridge-building in nuclear talks with European powers

    When asked whether China would order its companies to withdraw from Iran to avoid U.S. sanctions, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman indicated that Beijing might defy the Trump administration. “I want to stress that the Chinese government is opposed to the imposition of unilateral sanctions and the so-called long-arm jurisdiction by any country in accordance with its domestic laws,” he said.

    China has to some extent managed to circumvent U.S. sanctions in the past and may be able to do the same again this time. Some analysts have even suggested that Chinese entities could act as intermediaries for European companies that want to continue trading with Iran , but fear violating U.S. sanctions. Such sanctions would be particularly damaging to European businesses operating in the United States, such as plane manufacturer Airbus.

    Speaking to CNBC, former U.S. diplomat Carlos Pascual said that oil sales from Iran via China or Russia to the rest of the world could circumvent U.S. measures.

  3. The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri has said his country seeks expansion in military cooperation with Afghanistan.

    Gen. Baqeri reportedly informed regarding his country’s intent during a meeting with the Afghan defense minister Gen. Tariq Shah Bahrami.

    “The shared backgrounds between the two countries of Iran and Afghanistan, including religion and language, have brought them together in such way that no obstacle can undermine their close relations, specially in combatting the terrorist groups,” the top Iranian General was quoted as saying by Fars News.

    He also expressed the hope that the Afghan military delegation’s visit would result in more cooperation between the two countries’ armed forces.

    The top Iranian General’s intent to expand military cooperation with Afghanistan comes as the country is accused of supporting the certain insurgent groups in Afghanistan.

    “Iran’s desire for influence in Afghanistan remains strong. Iran seeks increased influence in Afghanistan through government partnerships, bilateral trade, and cultural and religious ties,” Pentagon stated in its report regarding Afghanistan late last year.

    The report also adds that Iran provides some support to the Taliban and publicly justifies its relationship with the Taliban  as a means to combat the spread of ISIS-K in Afghanistan.

    “Iran’s support to the Taliban undermines the Afghan Government’s credibility, adds to instability in the region, and complicates strategic partnership agreements,” Pentagon had warned.

05/15/18

The “Corporate Campaign” Against Our Second Amendment

By: Thomas Wigand | New Zeal

Cross-posted from Bear Witness Central

“And there’s always a place for the angry young man with his fist in the air and his head in the sand. He’s never been able to learn from mistakes. He can’t understand why his heart always breaks. His honor is pure, and his courage as well. He’s fair and he’s true, and he’s boring as hell and he’ll go to his grave as an angry old man.” — Angry Young Man, Billy Joel

For years now union organizers have used a body of tactics to literally coerce targeted employers into submission – this body of tactics is collectively referred to as a “corporate campaign.”  As we’ll see, that “corporate campaign” methodology has recently been adopted by Progressives to (in effect) coerce our Second Amendment into a nullity, while insulating their efforts from any legal challenges asserting the unconstitutionality or violation of Constitutional rights.

Progressives Hate and Fear Our Second Amendment

Progressives aspire to herald-in a globalist secular utopia, and nation states and patriotism are roadblocks.  The United States of America, by virtue of its very existence premised upon our founding principles and governmental structure has, since WWI, stood as the global embodiment of a strong nation state and patriotic population – if the United States stands strong, the globalist Progressive vision remains an impossible dream.  So for over 100 years Progressives have been engaged in an undeclared war against our Constitution, and they well recognize that our Second Amendment rights is the rampart of liberty that must be overrun before they can secure ultimate victory.

It is with good reason that Progressives fear Americans remaining armed, and so by “whatever means necessary” intend to disarm us – for an armed population is one that is empowered to resist totalitarianism – whether the economic version imposed by Communists, or the secular dystopia that the Progressives envision for us. (They cling to delusional belief that they are on their way to realizing a global social justice utopia; that the “arc of history” is leading us there, notwithstanding the protestations of “bitter clingers.” Yet, historical experience and human nature inform those of us grounded in the real world that the opposite of a utopia will occur should the Progressives attain full power.)

The Progressives’ Plot

Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course but adjusts its flow…they have form but are formless. They are skilled in both planning and adapting and need not fear the result of a thousand battles: for they win in advance, defeating those that have already lost. – Sun Tzu

The Parkland school shooting occurred on February 14, 2018.  The then blindingly fast rise of media darling David Hogg as “leader” of a “do gun control for the children movement,” the school “walkouts” and “March for Our Lives” in Washington, D.C. (March 24, 2018) had to be planned well in advance. The logistics for the Washington march alone could not have occurred post-Parkland – permit applications, review, approvals, publicity, transportation of “children” from around the country, food, PortaPotties, and so on. Not to mention arranging the funding.

Oh, and let us not forget that there were also “demonstrations” elsewhere in the country and the logistics required for those.  Though the “children’s movement” has been portrayed in the media as grassroots and organic, when one follows the money, it is indisputable that this is classic AstroTurf; the signs all point to the Progressive gun control movement having had a plan mapped-out, and that it was just waiting for the “right” incident to execute the plan.

Accompanying this, and still rolling out after the demonstrations, is what appears to be the heart of the plan (the “children” and their “movement” being props useful for media). That is, the simultaneous demonization of the NRA and efforts to hobble the firearms industry by cutting off its sources of its and its customers’ financing; by making anyone associated with the firearms industry subject to what is called “reputational risk.”

Since Parkland we’ve witnessed banking institutions such as Delta Air Lines and Citibank and Bank of America engage in high profile disassociation with the NRA and/or firearm manufacturers, and even threats to stop processing credit card payments for retail customers who seek to purchase firearms and related products.  And we’ve seen Governor Cuomo of New York weaponize that state’s regulatory apparatus to (in effect) blackmail financial firms into divest themselves from doing business with the firearms industry (against which the NRA has recently filed suit).

While for those not familiar with labor organizing this may all appear to be new and unique to Second Amendment issues, it is nothing new, but is actually a classic Leftist tactic – one adopted first by the Marxist Left, then labor union organizers, and now being employed by the Progressive movement generally.  This strategy and the body of tactics accompanying it are called “corporate campaigns.”

“Corporate Campaigns”

Though “corporate campaigns” have generally flown below the radar (at least outside of labor circles), they have been subjected to academic study.  Circa 2000, Professor Jarol Manheim of George Washington University published a fascinating book titled “The Death of a Thousand Cuts: Corporate Campaigns and the Attack on the Corporation”.  Over the intervening years, he has testified before Congress on the subject and, in 2005, discussed “corporate campaigns” for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  [Henceforth, when quoting from these, I’ll refer to them as “Congress” or “Chamber” as shorthand to identify the source document.]

Keep in mind that Leftists carry an affinity for Marxism, which in turn means that there is within them a visceral sense that all free-market (Capitalist) enterprises are inherently exploitive and their existence illegitimate, and so if “justice” were truly served they would be stricken from the face of the earth.  This attitude gives them psychic license to pursue any and all tactics against corporate targets – legal or illegal, ethical or not – traits all of which can be ascribed to “corporate campaigns.  In the Commerce document Professor Manheim tells us that:

Corporate campaigns trace their origins to several sources. Two of the most important include the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and long-time community activist Saul Alinsky. In its defining 1962 manifesto, The Port Huron Statement, drafted by then-president Tom Hayden …

Before we proceed further, we should recall that history informs us that genocides are a repeated occurrence, particularly since the beginning of the twentieth century – and that a disarmed population is far more susceptible to massacre because, by definition, it lacks viable means to resist or defend itself.   As regards the United States, many will dismiss such talk as merely academic “since something like that could never happen here.” Ah, but it nearly did, and within living memory.

Plotting the Genocide of 25 Million Americans – For Real

The SDS, cited by Professor Manheim as a primary source of “corporate campaigns,” begat the even more radical “Weathermen” / “Weather Underground.” The Weather Underground terrorist group was established by none other than Bill Ayers, who later became the political mentor of one Barack Hussein Obama, even hosting Obama’s very first political event in his living room!  Ayers’ Weather Underground was planning for the genocide of 25 million Americans, right here in the good old US of A.  Yes you read that right; see for yourself: FBI informant – Weather Underground plan to kill 25 million Americans.

Thank God for our Second Amendment!  With it intact, if necessary, we would have been able to disrupt their plans.  Mr. Ayers is, to this day, a respected and influential figure in Progressive circles. It is plausible that it “can’t happen here” – so long as we continue to enjoy our full Second Amendment rights. But if those rights are stripped from us, that “can’t happen here” quickly becomes “pray it never happens here.”

“Corporate Campaigns,” Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton

The other origin of “corporate campaigns” mentioned by Professor Manheim – Saul Alinsky – was the author of “Rules for Radicals,” and was a friend to one Hillary Rodham (as in recent Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton); so much so that he had offered her a job with his organization, and was the subject of her college thesis.

As we see with Ayers-Obama, and Alinsky-Clinton, the radical lineage of “corporate campaigns” extends directly into current Progressive leadership.  So what are the dynamics of “corporate campaigns?” How do they work?  In the Chamber piece Professor Manheim stated that:

Corporate campaigns employ “power structure analysis” to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in the critical stakeholder relationships on which all companies depend.

Progressive in Chief: Before he was President, Barack Hussein Obama in class teaching about (drum roll please) “Power Structure Analysis.”

So what does that “stakeholder relationships” mean?   In Congress Professor Manheim elaborated as follows:

A corporate campaign is an organized assault – involving economic, political, legal, regulatory and psychological warfare – on a company that has offended a labor union or some other group. The attack usually centers around the media, where the protagonists attempt to redefine the image – and tarnish the reputation – of the target company until it yields on whatever the issue in dispute might be.

The central idea is to undermine the company’s relationships with its key stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders, bankers, insurers, regulators and the general public, among others. In effect, the goal of the campaign is to define the target company as a corporate outlaw – a pariah institution – that must be stopped before it does further damage to our society, and to make anyone who deals with the company feel a sense of personal embarrassment for having done so. I have identified and studied more than 200 such campaigns.

Hmmm, does that not sound like the reputational jihad now being waged against the NRA and the firearms industry?  And note that in his 2002 testimony Professor Manheim had already studied over 200 such campaigns; as stated above, though the reputational and financial assault against the entities affiliated with Second Amendment rights may appear to be new and unique, they’re just the latest targets of a now-classic Leftist battle plan.  Recall that we mentioned the (AstroTurf) “March for Our Lives?”  That’s straight out of the playbook too.  Again from Congress:

It is also important to understand that, in corporate campaigns, “communication” includes much more than simply issuing potentially persuasive messages. Identifying or creating events that highlight the campaign’s principal lines of attack or otherwise contribute to the general vulnerability of the target company are essential parts of the communication strategy. So in addition to carefully shaped messages, these campaigns rely heavily on litigation, legislative and regulatory activities, shareholder actions, boycotts and demonstrations, and the like.

Lawsuits (including every allegation, filing, hearing and decision), regulatory proceedings (inquiries, investigations, routine inspections or even non-actions), congressional or state legislative hearings, action requests from key legislators to regulatory agencies, policy and issue conferences, letters to corporate officials, third-party research reports – these and other “events” become the focal points of efforts by its antagonists to distract corporate management from its day-to-day responsibilities of running the company and, in the process, to generate an image of risk and uncertainty associated with the target company. Collectively, they are designed to keep the pressure on.

Some of these events are real and naturally occurring, but many of them are manufactured by or with the encouragement of those attacking the company. One early advocate of this technique, Robert Harbrant, at the time president of the AFL-CIO’s Food and Allied Service Trades Department, put it this way: “We think you can rewrite the rules of the game by creating circumstances and exploiting them.”

So what’s that “power analysis” stuff really all about?  Well, by analogy, let’s consider a military operation.  To formulate a battle plan the officers and military planners and intelligence assets are going to conduct an assessment of the adversary’s strengths, weaknesses and areas of potential vulnerability. Everything from the adversary’s reserves of troops and supplies to the logistics required for resupply, and so on. This is analyzed as a totality – to gain a complete picture of strengths, weaknesses, how they interact and how they may be exploited.  In “corporate campaigns” the Leftist – Progressive planners engage in a similar exercise.  Again, Professor Manheim from Chamber:

Power structure analysis is illustrated in Figure 1. In applying this technique, a prospective attacker locates the target company in the center of a diagram, and arrays around it all of the key stakeholder relationships upon which it depends for its success and well-being. These will vary, of course, from one company to the next, but will generally include some or all of the categories identified in the figure. Once this list is complete, the attacker then examines each relationship in detail looking for its principal strengths and vulnerabilities. The identification and assessment of these stakeholder relationships requires extensive research, and can take months or even years to accomplish.

Once the assessment of the stakeholder relationships is completed, the results—and primarily the vulnerabilities that have been identified—are set against the capabilities of the attacker. These might include supporters within the company, existing alliances with interested third parties, the availability of themes or data of particular potential value in attacking a given company, or the like. The juxtaposing of attacker capabilities with target vulnerabilities will produce a prioritized list of strategies and tactics to be deployed.

If Firearms and Ammunition Disappear from the Market, the Second Amendment is a Dead Letter

Does that not sound military-esque? Note how since Parkland the anti-Second Amendment “corporate campaign” has been simultaneously targeting (and/or encouraging desired action by) several “stakeholders” of the firearms industry and Second Amendment supporters: retailers (e.g., Dick’s Sporting Goods); financial sources (e.g., Citibank; Bank of America); political support (the NRA); and individual Second Amendment supports (e.g., Hogg calling them, in effect, accessories to murder). Right out of the playbook (again from Commerce):

When fully deployed, a corporate campaign will generate a rising crescendo of pressures on management, most of them coming from traditional allies, business partners and other supporters whose concerns cannot be ignored …attacks on the company will be designed to stigmatize those who continue to engage in business-as-usual with the target—whether that means selling it goods and services, remaining a customer or client, accepting its claims to be following extant regulations, or merely acknowledging its contributions as a corporate citizen.

In effect, the objective is to embarrass key groups into altering their behaviors with respect to the company, the operative assumption being that those behaviors in the pre-campaign period were central to the company’s success, and that changing them will prove disadvantageous to (generate pressure on) the company. If all of this works as intended, the net result will be to change the target company’s decision-making calculus …

Such as causing the management of a conglomerate to exit the firearms business completely, and thereafter concentrate on other lines of business.

Such as choking-off financing sources to companies intending to stay in the firearms industry by having banks refuse to loan them money or otherwise transact business with them – including the ability of retail customers to use those banks’ credit / debit cards to purchase firearms products.

Such as by driving up the cost of doing business, so that firearms products prices rise so fewer can afford them.

Such as by (if possible) forcing all firearms related businesses into other product lines, or out of business entirely – and so effecting a de facto “gun ban” and “ammunition ban” without the need for legislation and so, on paper, without risking a reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court for “violating” Constitutional rights.

At this point the a complimentary concept should be noted: while this piece has presented “corporate campaigns” in a more “classic” sense in that the discussion has focused on the tactics being deployed against the NRA and firearm-related commercial endeavors, it could well be said that actually what we’re seeing is the use of the “corporate campaign” strategy in an entirely new way: executed to accomplish a de facto Constitutional amendment by other means.

That is, the Second Amendment itself is the actual “target” of this “corporate campaign.” That under the Progressive “power structure analysis” the NRA and commercial entities are (in effect) “stakeholder relationships” that are being used as levers to achieve the ultimate goal (albeit they in turn are still having “corporate campaign” tactics deployed against them via their “stakeholders”).  The ultimate goal?  To deprive U.S. citizens of their Second Amendment rights by making unavailable to implements and supplies necessary for them to exercise those rights.

History has shown, over and over, that totalitarian regimes of all stripes, for self-preservation, work to disarm their populations.  Our Founding Fathers knew this, and so we are blessed that when all else fails, our Second Amendment rights are our final backstop, providing the most effective safeguard of liberty. Thus, so long as Progressivism (nee Liberalism) remains a viable political movement in our country, the battle for our Second Amendment rights, and thus our country, will remain an existential one.

The Left always targets youth, doesn’t it? Master David Hogg is just the latest in a long line of useful idiots … or perhaps we should say, “youthful idiots?”

Young Master Hogg, the foul-mouthed poster child for gun control, and the media activities seen post-Parkland, are but façades – “the children” and the public utterances are about “saving lives,” but those exist only to pave the way for accomplishing the actual goal: eliminating Second Amendment rights.

Which in turn would pave the way for “fundamentally transforming” the United States of America into something that would be unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers – something along the lines of a “Democratic Socialist” or “Socialist state” (at least initially).

To understand the “corporate campaign” currently underway is to understand what is at stake – which is a necessary prerequisite to develop our counter-strategies for protecting and preserving out Second Amendment rights.

Mr. Wigand is the author of Communiqués From the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracywhich is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.  Comments or questions for Mr. Wigand may be sent to: [email protected]— he will make every effort to personally respond to every email.

05/15/18

The Rainbow Conspiracy: Former Stanford University Maoists On The Cusp Of Choosing The Next US President, Creating A ‘One-Party-State,’ Part 1

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

FRSO/OSCL cadre at Ferguson, Missouri

This is the most important series of of posts I have ever written.

The United States of America is one bad presidential election cycle away from the establishment of a permanent socialist “one-party-state.”

On the current trajectory, if President Trump is defeated in the 2020 presidential election,  his likely Democratic successor will bring into power a clique of  “former” Maoist communists intent on permanently consolidating their control over this country. The “clique” in question has its roots in what was once America’s largest pro-China, Marxist-Leninist organization, the “League of Revolutionary Struggle” (LRS).

Founded in 1978, the LRS, at its height, had chapters in over a dozen cities with nearly 3,000 cadres and thousands of followers. Its newspaper, Unity/La Unidad, was published bi-monthly in three languages — English, Spanish and Chinese. The LRS was also unusual for communist organizations of the era in that the majority of its membership was Black, Asian or Hispanic, and women played strong leadership roles.

The LRS was a true “rainbow coalition.”

The League was very active in student politics, particularly in the Bay Area, and had strongholds at UC Berkeley, San Jose State, San Francisco State and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

In 1990, after the shock of the Chinese Communist Party’s slaughter of students in Tianmen Square and Beijing’s move away from overt Maoism, the LRS split into two factions.

The larger grouping (including most of the Asian comrades) dropped Maoism and maintained control of the Unity newspaper and re-branded itself as the Unity Organizing Committee. The other faction kept a more traditional Marxist-Leninist outlook, becoming the Socialist Organizing Network, which later merged with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

The Unity Organizing Committee disavowed Marxism-Leninism, devoting themselves to electoral politics, especially through the left wing of the Democratic Party.

Remnants of this faction, many of them Stanford alumni, have made good on their commitments. Their network is now active at the highest levels of the Democratic Party, as well as its supporting and allied organizations. Affiliates have held senior positions in the Clinton Administration, the Obama Administration and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Many supporters hold influential positions in major non-profits, organized labor and business. Several U.S. Senators are beholden to the network, as are many Congress-members, gubernatorial candidates and state legislators.

The Obama presidency was to a large degree a product of this “Rainbow Conspiracy/” Today several leading contenders are being groomed to take the Democratic nomination in 2020. If one of them is successful, they will complete the socialization of America started under Obama.

While the Unity faction has infiltrated the highest reaches of the Democratic Party, the Socialist Organizing Network (SON) is taking care of  the lower levels of the party.

When SON joined the Freedom Road Socialist Organization in 1994, it completed a union of several Maoist groupings from the 1970’s and 1980’s. SON comrades now worked alongside a former cadre of the October League, Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist), Line of March, Communist Workers Party, Revolutionary Workers Headquarters and the Proletarian Unity League. This alphabet soup of tiny Maoist sects forged itself into one of the largest, well-funded and shadowiest organizations on the U.S. left today. Still supportive of China and North Korea, today’s Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad (FRSO/OSCL) has mended fences with their former LRS/Unity Organizing Committee comrades and are working in tandem to move the Democrats permanently to the far left.

FRSO/OSCL is the driving force behind the Black Lives Matter movement.

It is also heavily involved in local electoral politics and is very active in voter registration movements, particularly in targeted Southern and Southwestern states with high Black and Latino populations.

FRSO/OSCL poster

FRSO/OSCL has also formed a strategic alliance with the 5,000 strong (pro-China) Communist Party USA, the 35,000 strong Democratic Socialists of America and the much smaller (pro-China) Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, to run hundreds of candidates in low-level, and some Congressional, Gubernatorial and Senatorial Democratic primaries across the country.

This army of around 45,000 members is intertwined with the hundreds of thousands-strong Bernie Sanders movement and receives money and guidance from its allies at the highest levels of the Democratic Party. The “Rainbow Conspiracy” has proven its worth with significant election victories in Virginia and Alabama.

This year, the coalition is trying to take back the House for the Democrats by targeting the Republican’s soft underbelly in North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Florida and Arizona.

In 2020, they will try to take back Democratic control of the Senate and install their chosen President into the White House. After 2020, the “Rainbow Conspiracy” will use racial politics, immigration (legal and illegal) and the power of the state to destroy all opposition to their complete and permanent dominance of this country.

Only President Trump, a handful of patriotic Republican politicians and a few hundred thousand grassroots activists stand in their way. God willing, that will be enough.

Look for Part 2 coming soon: “The most dangerous man in America you never heard of.”

A book entitled “The Rainbow Conspiracy” will be released in October 2018.

05/15/18

A Mixed/Quiet Day

By: Kent Engelke | Capitol Securities

Equities were mixed in thin trading. The 10-year stalled just below 3% as all assess the outlook for trade relations, tension in the Middle East and rising crude.

Some are perplexed why the averages are struggling given the increase in corporate earnings, near record levels of share repurchases and synchronized pick-up in global growth. I think the answer is relatively simple. It is about a change in monetary policy that questions valuations. Interest rates are the greatest factor of most valuation formulas.

As written a gazillion times, 50% of the volume is the result of algorithmic trading and 40% is done by ETFs/Indexing. If a major component becomes negative, prices will struggle.

I reiterate my long held thesis that monies are now gravitating back to Main Street from Wall Street, the inverse of the last 10 years. In my view, the massive exodus of funds to Wall Street is/was a major catalyst for the populist movement that has impacted all industrialized democracies.

The outcome of this transition is infinite. Economic nationalism and patriotism has been around since the formation of mankind. Multipolarity and interdependency was an idea birthed about 30 years ago and reached its apex under the Obama/Merkel/Sarkozy triumvirate.

Last night the foreign markets were mixed. London was up 0.26%, Paris was up 0.17% and Frankfurt was up 0.12%. China was up 0.91%, Japan was down 0.21% and Hang Sang was down 1.23%.

The Dow should open nominally lower as oil is up about 1% on Middle East tensions. The 10-year is off 5/32 to yield 3.03%.