Saturday, July 29, 2017

In my previous blog, Paul Craig Roberts presents two columns with very differing conclusions. In his first one, he decides that “Trump Is Being Moved Aside So That Conflict with Russia Can Proceed.” And he further states that the U.S. Congress is doing two bad things: One is serving the military/security complex in order to be tougher with Russia. And this threat may cause poor Americans to lose their health care. PCR also noted that Europeans have finally realized that U.S. sanctions have been damaging Europe more than Russia. Moreover, France's recent election was actually stolen in favor of Macron. Don’t believe it? Well, scroll down in my blog to the 7th one below (if you lose your place, make sure it is the one with a copy of the famous oil painting depicting the French Revolution at the top). Then read the supersiding (6th) one. You will be shocked. It’s bad enough that American elections are rigged (not by Russians) but it was Le Pen who would have been the winner by a long shot, but lost due to many thousands of deliberately torn ballots. So now Macron is hard at work cutting the pay of French workers. It’s time for another French Revolution…



Collateral Damage: U.S. Sanctions Aimed at Russia Strike Western European Allies

Do they know what they are doing?  When the U.S. Congress adopts draconian sanctions aimed mainly at disempowering President Trump and ruling out any move to improve relations with Russia, do they realize that the measures amount to a declaration of economic war against their dear European “friends”?

Whether they know or not, they obviously don’t care.  U.S. politicians view the rest of the world as America’s hinterland, to be exploited, abused and ignored with impunity.

The Bill H.R. 3364 “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” was adopted on July 25 by all but three members of the House of Representatives.  An earlier version was adopted by all but two Senators. Final passage at veto-overturning proportions is a certainty.

This congressional temper tantrum flails in all directions. The main casualties are likely to be America’s dear beloved European allies, notably Germany and France.  Who also sometimes happen to be competitors, but such crass considerations don’t matter in the sacred halls of the U.S. Congress, totally devoted to upholding universal morality.

Economic “Soft Power” Hits Hard

Under U.S. sanctions, any EU nation doing business with Russia may find itself in deep trouble.  In particular, the latest bill targets companies involved in financing Nord Stream 2, a pipeline designed to provide Germany with much needed natural gas from Russia.

By the way, just to help out, American companies will gladly sell their own fracked natural gas to their German friends, at much higher prices.

That is only one way in which the bill would subject European banks and enterprises to crippling restrictions, lawsuits and gigantic fines.

While the U.S. preaches “free competition”, it constantly takes measures to prevent free competition at the international level.

Following the July 2015 deal ensuring that Iran could not develop nuclear weapons, international sanctions were lifted, but the United States retained its own previous ones. Since then, any foreign bank or enterprise contemplating trade with Iran is apt to receive a letter from a New York group calling itself “United Against Nuclear Iran” which warns that “there remain serious legal, political, financial and reputational risks associated with doing business in Iran, particularly in sectors of the Iranian economy such as oil and gas”.  The risks cited include billions of dollars of (U.S.) fines, surveillance by “a myriad of regulatory agencies”, personal danger, deficiency of insurance coverage, cyber insecurity, loss of more lucrative business, harm to corporate reputation and a drop in shareholder value.

The United States gets away with this gangster behavior because over the years it has developed a vast, obscure legalistic maze, able to impose its will on the “free world” economy thanks to the omnipresence of the dollar, unrivaled intelligence gathering and just plain intimidation.

European leaders reacted indignantly to the latest sanctions.  The German foreign ministry said it was “unacceptable for the United States to use possible sanctions as an instrument to serve the interest of U.S. industry”.  The French foreign ministry denounced the “extraterritoriality” of the U.S. legislation as unlawful, and announced that “To protect ourselves against the extraterritorial effects of US legislation, we will have to work on adjusting our French and European laws”.

In fact, bitter resentment of arrogant U.S. imposition of its own laws on others has been growing in France, and was the object of a serious parliamentary report delivered to the French National Assembly foreign affairs and finance committees last October 5, on the subject of “the extraterritoriality of American legislation”.

Extraterritoriality

The chairman of the commission of enquiry, long-time Paris representative Pierre Lellouche, summed up the situation as follows:

“The facts are very simple.  We are confronted with an extremely dense wall of American legislation whose precise intention is to use the law to serve the purposes of the economic and political imperium with the idea of gaining economic and strategic advantages. As always in the United States, that imperium, that normative bulldozer operates in the name of the best intentions in the world since the United States considers itself a ‘benevolent power’, that is a country that can only do good.”
Always in the name of “the fight against corruption” or “the fight against terrorism”, the United States righteously pursues anything legally called a “U.S. person”, which under strange American law can refer to any entity doing business in the land of the free, whether by having an American subsidiary, or being listed on the New York stock exchange, or using a U.S.-based server, or even by simply trading in dollars, which is something that no large international enterprise can avoid.

In 2014, France’s leading bank, BNP-Paribas, agreed to pay a whopping fine of nearly nine billion dollars, basically for having used dollar transfers in deals with countries under U.S. sanctions.  The transactions were perfectly legal under French law.  But because they dealt in dollars, payments transited by way of the United States, where diligent computer experts could find the needle in the haystack.  European banks are faced with the choice between prosecution, which entails all sorts of restrictions and punishments before a verdict is reached, or else, counseled by expensive U.S. corporate lawyers, and entering into the obscure “plea bargain” culture of the U.S. judicial system, unfamiliar to Europeans.  Just like the poor wretch accused of robbing a convenience store, the lawyers urge the huge European enterprises to plea guilty in order to escape much worse consequences.

Alstom, a major multinational corporation whose railroad section produces France’s high speed trains, is a jewel of French industry.  In 2014, under pressure from U.S. accusations of corruption (probably bribes to officials in a few developing countries), Alstom sold off its electricity branch to General Electric.

The underlying accusation is that such alleged “corruption” by foreign firms causes U.S. firms to lose markets.  That is possible, but there is no practical reciprocity here.  A whole range of U.S. intelligence agencies, able to spy on everyone’s private communications, are engaged in commercial espionage around the world.  As an example, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, devoted to this task, operates with 200 employees on an annual budget of over $30 million. The comparable office in Paris employs five people.

This was the situation as of last October.  The latest round of sanctions can only expose European banks and enterprises to even more severe consequences, especially concerning investments in the vital Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.

This bill is just the latest in a series of U.S. legislative measures tending to break down national legal sovereignty and create a globalized jurisdiction in which anyone can sue anyone else for anything, with ultimate investigative capacity and enforcement power held by the United States.

Wrecking the European Economy

Over a dozen European Banks (British, German, French, Dutch, Swiss) have run afoul of U.S. judicial moralizing, compared to only one U.S. bank: JP Morgan Chase.

The U.S. targets the European core countries, while its overwhelming influence in the northern rim – Poland, the Baltic States and Sweden – prevents the European Union from taking any measures (necessarily unanimous) contrary to U.S. interests.

By far the biggest catch in Uncle Sam’s financial fishing expedition is Deutsche Bank.  As Pierre Lellouche warned during the final hearing of the extraterritorial hearings last October, U.S. pursuits against Deutsche Bank risk bringing down the whole European banking system.  Although it had already paid hundreds of millions of dollars to the State of New York, Deutsche Bank was faced with a “fine of 14 billion dollars whereas it is worth only five and a half. … In other words, if this is carried out, we risk a domino effect, a major financial crisis in Europe.”

In short, U.S. sanctions amount to a sword of Damocles threatening the economies of the country’s main trading partners.  This could be a Pyrrhic victory, or more simply, the blow that kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.  But hurrah, America would be the winner in a field of ruins.

Former justice minister Elisabeth Guigou called the situation shocking, and noted that France had told the U.S. Embassy that the situation is “insupportable” and insisted that “we must be firm”.

Jacques Myard said that “American law is being used to gain markets and eliminate competitors.  We should not be naïve and wake up to what is happening.”

This enquiry marked a step ahead in French awareness and resistance to a new form of “taxation without representation” exercised by the United States against its European satellites. They committee members all agreed that something must be done.

That was last October.  In June, France held parliamentary elections.  The commission chairman, Pierre Lellouche (Republican), the rapporteur Karine Berger (Socialist), Elisabeth Guigou (a leading Socialist) and Jacques Myard (Republican) all lost their seats to inexperienced newcomers recruited into President Emmanuel Macron’s République en marche party.  The newcomers are having a hard time finding their way in parliamentary life and have no political memory, for instance of the Rapport on Extraterritoriality.

As for Macron, as minister of economics, in 2014 he went against earlier government rulings by approving the GE purchase of Alstom.  He does not appear eager to do anything to anger the United States.

However, there are some things that are so blatantly unfair that they cannot go on forever.



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Friday, July 28, 2017

Here, Paul Craig Roberts presents two columns with very differing conclusions. In his first, he decides that “Trump Is Being Moved Aside So That Conflict with Russia Can Proceed.” Further on he states that Congress is doing two bad things. One is that Congress is serving their campaign contributors in the military/security complex by being tougher with Russia, thus keeping alive the threat that Americans denied health care may no longer get it, with the massive military/security budget sopping up all the money that might otherwise might have gone to health care. If Trump vetos this encroachment on presidential power, Congress and the presstitute media will present the veto as absolute proof that Trump is a Russian agent and is protecting Russia with his veto. If he doesn’t veto the bill, Trump will have thrown in his hand and accepted that he cannot reduce the dangerous tensions with Russia. Two days ago, PCR heard a staged “interview” between two women on NPR’s “All Things Considered” (which PCR terms “all things are never considered”). It was a propaganda show focused on Trump’s expression of disappointment in Jeff Sessions, whom Trump mistakenly appointed Attorney General. Now jumping to PCR's second column of the same date, “A Ray of Hope.” It is built around the immense damage caused to Europe by American sanctions. Here below are some of the European’s response to the latest sanctions: Confronted with a new round of sanctions against Russia, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission told Washington that the time has passed when Washington can put its interests first and Europe’s last. The new sanctions have devastating economic and political consequences for Europe. Juncker said that if Europe’s “concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days.” The German and French foreign ministries added their support to Juncker. The German foreign ministry said: “It is not in the Americans’ right to judge or stipulate which way European companies may engage in cooperation with any third parties – particularly, with Russian energy companies.”














Trump Is Being Moved Aside So That Conflict with Russia Can Proceed


July 26, 2017 | Categories: Articles & Columns |

Trump Is Being Moved Aside So That Conflict with Russia Can Proceed

Paul Craig Roberts


What is the Congress up to with their stupid bill that imposes more sanctions and removes the power of President Trump to rescind the sanctions that President Obama imposed? 

Congress is doing two things. One is that Congress is serving their campaign contributors in the military/security complex by being tougher with Russia, thus keeping the orchestrated threat alive so that Americans denied health care don’t start looking at the massive military/security budget as a place to find money for health care.

The other is to put President Trump in a box. If Trump vetos this encroachment on presidential power, Congress and the presstitute media will present the veto as absolute proof that Trump is a Russian agent and is protecting Russia with his veto. If Trump does not veto the bill, Trump will have thrown in his hand and accepted that he cannot reduce the dangerous tensions with Russia.

In other words, the bill is a lose-lose for Trump. Yet Republicans are supporting the bill, thus undermining their president.

Yesterday I heard an orchestrated, staged “interview” between two women on NPR’s “All Things Considered” (on NPR all things are never considered). It was a propaganda show focused on Trump’s expression of disappointment in Jeff Sessions, whom Trump mistakenly appointed Attorney General.

When Trump nominated Sessions, the Democrats and the presstitutes went berserk. Sessions was “unqualified,” a “racist,” blah-blah. But now Sessions is the hero of the presstitutes and Democrats. They love him, because he has sold out Trump on the question of the justification for an investigation of Trump as a suspect “Russian agent” by an independent prosecutor who happens to be a member of the anti-Trump ruling establishment.

In other words, Sessions, who has been beat up previously by the establishment, is too afraid to do his job.

In other words, Trump had, as I predicted, no idea what he was doing when he chose his government.

So now he suffers for his ignorance.

What was the point of the staged NPR interview between the two women? The point was that Sessions, unlike Trump, respects the rule of law whereas Trump wants to bend the law in order to cover up for himself. The interview was staged so that without the two women having to say it, Trump’s anger at Session was proof that Trump was guillty of some illigitimate “Russian connection.”

In other words, it was carefully constructed innuendo. Who constructed the innuendo? NPR’s women were just reading from a script.

As far as I can tell, there is no one in Trump’s government who is loyal to Trump or who is willing to back Trump’s effort to stop provoking the Russians and to cease serving as Israel’s military force in the Middle East. As far as I can tell not only the Democratic Party but also the Republican Party supports the left-wing’s view that Trump’s election was illegitimate, because he was elected by the votes of illegitimate people—“the deplorables” to use Hillary’s term.

Who are “the deplorables?” They are the remnants of the American working class. They are the people whose jobs were sent overseas to Asia by the global US corporations in order to enrich their shareholders and executives via higher profits from lower labor costs. They are the people who in order to stay afloat had to rely on debt in place of the missing income and whose debt is now so high that they have no disposable income. A huge proportion of the American population is incapable of raising a measly $400 without having to sell personal possessions.

In other words, they are refugees from a destroyed American middle class.
Trump stood up for them against the rich who ruined them, and now the rich are going to ruin Trump.

It will teach a lesson. Henceforth in the United States no one will dare to stick up for the American people. America is not for Americans any more than the world is for the peoples of the world. America and the world are for the One Percent. No one else. Russia, China, and Iran are in the way, and, thus, they are on Washington’s hit list.

It is heartbreaking to watch the Russians continue to believe, lesson after lesson to the contrary, that they can reach a deal with Washington. This unrealistic hope will destroy Russia. The Russian government will continue to grasp at straws and be put off guard.

It is utterly amazing that the Russian government can believe after its extensive history of being left hanging in the wind by its agreements with Washington that any agreement with Washington is worth anything.

Perhaps Russia is aware of the evil that they face in Washington. Perhaps the Russian emphasis on diplomacy is just a way of gaining time to get prepared for the war that Washington intends to bring to them.

There is little doubt that the great and wonderful beacon of light that is Democracy in Washington, also known as the government of the “exceptional” people and the “indispensable” country, is lost in hubris and arrogance and will destroy life on earth.

                                                              ⧫ 














A Ray of Hope — Paul Craig Roberts


July 26, 2017 | Categories: Articles & Columns |

A Ray of Hope

Paul Craig Roberts

America has been a discouraging landscape ever since the neoconservatives took over US foreign policy during the Clinton regime and started the two decades of war crimes that define 21st century America and ever since US corporations betrayed the US work force by moving American jobs to Asia.

The outlook became darker when the Obama regime resurrected the Russian Threat and elevated the prospect of military conflict between the nuclear powers.

As Europe is caught in the middle, in normal circumstances European countries would have insisted that Washington cease the gratuitous provocations of Russia. But normal circumstances have not existed. Since the end of WW2, European countries have been vassals without independent economic and foreign policies. Europe hosts US military bases that threaten Russia. 

Europe has backed Washington’s wars of aggression against Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Washington’s air attacks on provinces of Pakistan, and Washington’s use of Saudi Arabia to fight its proxie war against Yemen. 

Europe has backed Washington’s gratuitous economic sanctions against Iran and Russia, sanctions that have cost Europe much and Washington little. Accustomed to having its way with Europe, Washington commits Europe without even consulting the vassal governments. 

Now it seems Washington’s extraordinary arrogance and hubris has resulted in overreach. Confronted with a new round of sanctions against Russia, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission told Washington that the time has passed when Washington can put its interests first and Europe’s last.

The new sanctions have devastating economic and political consequences for Europe. Juncker said that if Europe’s “concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days.” 

The German and French foreign ministries added their support to Juncker. The German foreign ministry said: “It is not in the Americans’ right to judge or stipulate which way European companies may engage in cooperation with any third parties – particularly, with Russian energy companies.” 

The French foreign ministry said: the sanctions “contradict international law” due to their “extraterritorial reach.”

Europe views the sanctions as a tool of US industrial policy that elevates US business interests over Europe’s business interests. 


Let’s hope that Washington’s arrogance will not permit Washington to back down and that Europe will give Washington the finger and disengage from the American Empire. Without Europe to host its military bases and to parrot its propaganda, Washington’s ability to threaten Russia would significantly decline. Indeed, a continuation of the hostile threatening attitude toward Russia would leave Washington isolated in the world. No country wants the risk of experiencing nuclear war merely for the sake of Washington’s unilateralism.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

The encounter of Trump with Vladimir Putin came nearly seven months after Trump was inaugurated in the White House. Over that period, large sections of the US media ran an unrelenting campaign accusing Trump of being a Russian stooge and alleging that Putin ordered an interference operation in last year’s US election to benefit Trump. As a member of the Election Defense Alliance I have been exposed to a lot of voting hacking …all of them carried out by individuals in charge of U.S. voting places. Although I am not presently active, my friends in Tucson have dedicated their lives to fight election hacking. Want to learn more? Find the small book “Looser Take All – Election Fraud and the subversion of democracy 2000-2008 edited by Mark Crispin Miller (my chapter begins on p. 116). As being both an election-integrity person – and a physicist – I cannot imagine how someone sitting in Moscow could hack American elections better than the crooked individuals in charge of the U.S. voting places. However, the despicable U.S. mainstream media were providing fake news created by the military/industrial/security mafia, who intend dominate the whole world or die in a holocaust of nuclear fireballs. Of course, that would mean that our children and grandchildren would never get to grow up. That hurts me the most. The article below is the best ever on this subject, exposing the reason why all U.S. TV News reported the same claim i.e., that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies have reported that the U.S. election was hacked by Russians. Finally, the New York Times was forced to correct an article by one of their announcers, thus confessing that the intelligence “assessment was made by just four intelligence agencies, not 17: i.e., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency.” And later it was discovered that those four agencies hadn’t even enough data to come to a conclusion; rather those people who fed the news were “hand picked”. And yet many TV announcers continue to using 17 number, for fear of offending their military/industrial/security masters.




MSM, Still Living in Propaganda-ville


Monday, July 03, 2017

Paul Craig Roberts tells it like is. We are all enslaved. How lucky we are to be so beloved by our Great Democratic Government. Indeed, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has issued an all points bulletin urging its members to wake up and to urge their US Senators “to oppose the American Health Care Act passed by the House. This harmful bill gives billions of dollars to special interests while sticking ordinary Americans with huge premium hikes. It includes an age tax that would force older Americans to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance. it weakens Medicare and removes protections for people with pre-existing conditions." Therfore it is urged that you represent your own interests—not those of the drug and insurance companies.



Once Only Blacks Were Enslaved, Now We All Are


Once Only Blacks Were Enslaved, Now We All Are

Paul Craig Roberts

The 4th of July is upon us. We will hear all sorts of patriotic BS about how wonderful we are and how thankful we are to our brave military which defends our liberty.

Not a word will be said about the destruction by the Bush and Obama regimes of the US Constitution, which once protected our liberty far better than any military action.

Not a word will be said about Washington’s 16 years of purely gratuitous war in the Middle East and North Africa that has destroyed in whole or part seven countries, sending millions of war refugees to overrun the Western World and change the quality of life for Western peoples.

Not a word will be said about Washington’s ongoing insane provocations of Russia and China and Iran and Syria and North Korea that are likely to end in nuclear Armageddon.

Speeches will celebrate “the exceptional, indispensable USA,” and fireworks will go off, preludes to the onrushing nuclear Armageddon.

While we listen to speeches of our wonderful fairy tale life, how lucky we are to be so beloved by our Great Democratic Government, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has issued an all points bulletin urging its members to wake up and to urge their US Senators “to oppose the American Health Care Act passed by the House. This harmful bill gives billions of dollars to special interests while sticking ordinary Americans with huge premium hikes. It includes an age tax that would force older Americans to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance. it weakens Medicare and removes protections for people with pre-existing conditions. I urge you to represent my interests—not those of the drug and insurance companies.”

The last sentence astounded me. How is it possible that a lobby group for retired people can possibly believe that the House and Senate have any interest in serving the American people?

The House and Senate serve the people who have money, and those people are not the elderly. Thanks to the Federal Reserve, the elderly have not had any interest income on their savings for a decade.

Moreover, thanks to jobs offshoring, the middle class is shrinking, and grandparents are having to support out of their savings both children and grandchildren. Savings are being drawn down and used up. Retired Americans simply do not have the resources to compete in Washington with the pharmaceutical and insurance corporations who are determined to pillage the elderly.

In the USA money resides in the hands of the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby (US taxpayers give the money to them), Wall Street and the Banks Too Big To Fail, real estate and insurance, and environmental polluters such as energy, mining, electricity production, and agribusiness. No one else has any money. Therefore, these interest groups determine US domestic and foreign policy.

The policy of the US government is easy to sum up. It consists of driving the American population into the ground and fomenting war abroad. This is what serves the money interests that control the government.

Democracy does not exist in America. All the bombast you will hear on the 4th is designed to keep you locked in The Matrix.

The talk about “taking back your government” is nonsense. The government doesn’t belong to you. You can’t take it back.

Chris Hedges says that your only alternatives are to overthrow the criminal class in Washington or to accept your slavery.