Arms Race 2.0? US, China Ramp Up Fleets

Since US President Donald Trump took office in January, both China and the US have kicked off a massive naval buildup, and both cite fears of the other’s increasing maritime military power as the reason. Are we to see another arms race between the rival powers?

According to media reports, China is about to secure a massive funding increase for its Navy, as it seeks to balance the US threat on sea (in South China Sea, mostly, of course). This is exactly what the US Navy under Trump is about do with its plan to achieve a goal of amassing 350 ships to counter China's maritime renovation.

"It's opportunity in crisis," a diplomat from an unnamed Asian country told The Wire in Beijing. "China fears Trump will turn on them eventually, as he's so unpredictable, and it's getting ready."

While it is almost impossible to get reliable figures on how much China actually spends on its fleet, the official figure of overall military expenses of $139 billion is widely believed to be an understatement.


Credit to Sputnik

Le Pen Boosts Victory Chances in 1st Round

French voter support for National Front party leader Marine Le Pen has grown since January, but the right-wing candidate is still likely to lag behind in the second round of the upcoming presidential elections, the latest poll showed on Sunday.

The share of voters looking to back for Le Pen in the first round has increased by two percentage points up to 27 percent, a Kantar-Sofres-Onepoint poll, carried out for Le Figaro newspaper, the LCI channel and the RTL radio station, showed.

Le Pen is then likely to come behind her rivals in the second round, with respective margins of 42 to 58 percent and 45 to 55 percent.

French presidential elections are due to take place in two rounds on April 23 and May 7.


Credit to Sputnik

Swedes Are Suppressed By A Religious-Cult-Like Political Correctness

Last week (18.2.2017), President Trump made the following comment:

“You look at what’s happening,” he told his supporters. “We have got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany; you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?”

Immediately after, he was mocked by Carl Bildt, the former Swedish Prime Minister:

Others responded with ignorance, demonstrating Stockholm Syndrome, blatantly trying to cover up the underlying arguments that are almost 20 years old.

Nevertheless, President Trump was, once again, vindicated. He only got the timing wrong but the not the underlying facts. Days later riots broke out in Rinkeby, one of Stockholm’s Northwest suburbs. Even a Left Wing Journalist from one of Sweden’s leading papers was attacked. Ignorantly, Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, linked those attacks to Trump’s statement. He was completely ignorant to the fact that no-go zones existed long before Trump’s Presidency.

President Trump actually did some good, speaking for the Swedes, unable to speak for themselves, suppressed by a religious cult-like political correctness, impressed by a secretive establishment. 

The Video that the President watched the night before.

When I lived in Stockholm in 1999-2000, Rinkeby already had a reputation as a dangerous place, especially at night for young girls. I worked for Ericsson and I resided in Huseby (now a “no go zone”), close to Akalla and Rinkeby. My Indian ethnic origin gifted me with a chameleon-like a superpower, helping conceal my inner American. My appearance, depending on hairstyle and exposure, helps me blend in among Latinos, Arabs, Persians and even Africans when I shaved my head and spent some time in the sun. (You should see me in a beard! I can practically walk through tribal lands in Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria, virtually unnoticed.)

When I first arrived in Sweden, taking a software engineering position, I was so happy with what I saw: an efficient and balanced society that put a high value on health and well-being. So much so, I had a Swedish flag sewn on my backpack, displaying my new “nationality” proudly. I quickly found out American pride and a sense of belonging for newcomers does not translate to other societies.

• One Swede of Turkish origin told me that I would never be Swedish. He furthered that he was born in Sweden, went to the army, carried a Swedish passport, and worked as a subway driver, paying taxes for the past 20 years, and still was not Swedish.
• A more traditional looking Swede, sitting next to me on the metro, told me that he could never put a Swedish flag on his backpack. It would be considered racist. He told me that a brown person brandishing a Swedish flag would be considered confused, in need of a doctor, and not a patriot.
• Just about everyone I met at parties, after a lot of drinking and removed inhibitions, told me that I was not really American, even if I was born there.

Another irony I witnessed in Huseby, a mostly Iranian suburb, was that the young people, born in Sweden, could neither speak Farsi nor Swedish that well. Instead, they spoke a hybrid language only understood in the Stockholm suburbs. Many of those, which I befriended, told me they did not belong in either Iran or Sweden.

I reached a conclusion that Swedes are happy to bring people in, offering a place to live and a stipend. However, that is where it stops, failing to integrate and succeeding at stagnation. The phenomenon may further explain why you see so many ethnic doctors and scientists driving taxis. It almost felt like foreigners who could not stand yourself up and, moreover, did not want to, were more accepted than dark-skinned skilled immigrants with a strong work ethic, drive, and determination. The latter, we concluded among friends, were not a threat to establishment whereas we could be perceived as threating someone’s position. That goes to perhaps the core difference between American and European values. We always believed in abundance: plenty for everyone and the frontier. In Europe, the resources and frontiers are exhausted, making people think that in order for one to win, another must lose.

Therefore, Nordic society, to function properly, requires that “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” be disregarded. That is the only way “to keep everyone in place,” maintaining the status quo and balance.

That is how racism happens in Sweden: immigrants are just supposed to be happy. But not everyone can be happy with “lagom” (Swedish for just enough). It is looked down upon socially (but not banned), harboring aspirations to improve yourself: getting an education, finding a steady job and climbing the corporate ladder. In short, the Jantelagen (the philosophical basis of the social democracy) dictates something quite the opposite of the American dream: STFU and stay put!

Nevertheless, when reasonably intelligent people without a job and formal education start stirring for 12+ waking hours per day, nothing good usually happens. The one in four-hundred, possessing the IQ of a doctor, engineer, military leader or investment banker, but lacking in formal education and worldly experience, start to cook up schemes. More often than not, they exploit their own people.

Hence, the government and media instituted self-loathing on the native population, using white guilt as a premise, combined with the immigrant’s lack of identity, drives Sweden’s societal breakdown, not Donald Trump.

Sweden’s Suppression of Free Speech When Police Officer Peter Springare accurately stated the facts about perpetrators in a Facebook post, citing that they were mostly immigrants, the Government and mainstream media immediately branded him as a racist. Without even considering the facts, which the police veteran who served 47-years conveyed, could have been a cry for help, the Swedish Government assigned a special prosecutor.

While living in Huseby, I witnessed a fair amount of domestic violence and bar room brawls among the foreigners. Putting correctness over righteousness is having serious consequences. The Liberal Swedish government, in essence, are ignoring the people they are trying to protect.

Springare summarizes that thought: “If you cannot discuss the problem of crime among immigrants without somebody attributing it to racist propaganda, we are in deep trouble,” “The problem is that nobody wants to talk about this.”

Conclusions: Sweden’s once incredible wealth came from the fact they were untouched during World War II. Having all their industry intact, they were the winners in the rebuilding of Europe. SAAB, SKF, ABB, Volvo, Skanska and many other industrial companies were either born or grew substantially during reconstruction. Later this firms evolved into formidable global players. With the newfound wealth, they built a social welfare state to take care of their own people as well as other from abroad, fleeing war and oppression. Somewhere along the line, a perplexing culture evolved.

Life here is counterintuitive. Nordic countries, considered the most democratic, makes one think that they are ready to hear all points of view. It is far from the truth. People became uneasy and stressed very easily when talking about difficult topics, especially in a direct manner.

When one lives and works in Sweden, there is an obvious and unspoken tension beneath the polite surface. The prevailing social etiquette does not allow anyone to talk about obvious problems. A friend, who is also a female police officer, once told me that Swedish national identity depends on naivety and aloofness.

Source: StrangePolitics.com

Economies are an extension of the individual people’s drive, ambition, soul, and spirit. Until the culture, built on sticking one’s head in the sand and listening to their own bluster, changes, it is all downhill.  Let’s hope that President Trump calls more attention to these “elephants in the living room.”

Credit to Zero Hedge

BREAKING: "FIJI Island Mega Quake 6.9" Earth Is Shaken!!

The Three Trump Administrations

Submitted by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Foreign and national defense ministries around the world, as well as embassies in Washington, DC, are struggling to ascertain who is actually in charge of the U.S. government one month after Donald Trump was sworn in as president of the United States. It is a fair question, considering the conflicting statements issuing forth from the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon.

Suffice to say, there are, essentially, three Trump administrations, all with varying degrees of power. 

The first administration and the most visibly powerful is Trump’s inner circle. At the present time, this consists of Trump, chief strategist Stephen Bannon, Trump daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, special assistant to the president Stephen Miller, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Although Bannon came to Trump from the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz, the former Breitbart News publisher has become a virtual «Svengali», influencing Trump on foreign and domestic policies.

The second administration represents the establishment Republicans who endorsed Trump after he secured the Republican presidential nomination. This circle includes White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, and Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary who had the same job at the Republican National Committee under Priebus. Trump’s counselor and former presidential campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who, like Bannon, came from the Cruz campaign, funds herself often on the outside of the Trump inner circle and more in the company of establishment Republicans Priebus and Spicer. Priebus and Conway, and, to a lesser extent, Spicer, are the eyes and ears of congressional Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan in the White House.

The third administration represents the longtime «deep state» interests and is a combination of George W. Bush/Ronald Reagan administration neoconservative activists and powerful Wall Street and Houston/Dallas oil business moguls traditionally linked to Republican politics. While the neocons and business interests do not agree on much, they are taking advantage of the disorganization of the Trump administration to secure their own power centers. Recently, officials of this «third» administration were seen vying for influence and stature at the 2017 Munich Security Conference.

It is clear that the third Trump administration is the one that hopes to take the reins of power if either Trump is forced out of the presidency as a result of impeachment and conviction or ill-health. Representing the international status quo, the third Trump administration, represented chiefly by Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary James Mattis, was very active in promoting NATO, the European Union, and continued sanctions on Russia at Munich. The statements by Pence and Mattis ran counter to the opinions previously aired by Trump. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, opting not to attend the Munich conference, attended a G20 foreign ministers’ summit in Bonn held before the gathering in Munich. This leg of the Trump triad is the one with which the global elites feel most comfortable.

Tillerson, a Texas native and friend of the Bush family and former Secretary of State James Baker, showed that the neocons continue to have clout inside the Trump administration when he dared propose Elliott Abrams, an Iran-contra felon from the Reagan administration, to be his deputy Secretary of State. Abrams’s campaign rhetoric, in which he criticized Trump, resulted in the president vetoing Abrams for the State Department’s number two position. But that did not stop another arch-neocon, the never-confirmed former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton, from being considered for number two at State and, more recently, as Trump’s national security adviser.

Tillerson’s ambassador to the United Nations, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, has publicly condemned Russia over the Ukraine situation, even though Trump has indicated he wants a rapprochement with Russia. The third Trump administration is full of similar contradictions, with paleo-conservatives like Tillerson willing to hire on neocons like Abrams. Other deep state players within this third leg of the Trump triad include Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo, who wasted no time traveling to Turkey and Saudi Arabia to pay homage to the vested political interests of both nations, and Director of National Intelligence director-designate, former Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, a longtime friend of Pence.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired three-star general, was never a member of the Trump inner circle. In fact, Flynn was closer to the neocons worming their way into the Trump administration. Flynn was the co-author of the book titled «The Field of Flight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies», with one of the most dangerous neocons around, Michael Ledeen, an Iran-contra co-conspirator of Abrams and another neocon vying for influence in the Trump White House, Frank Gaffney.

Ensconced with Pence and Mattis in Munich were the two most hawkish Republican senators who would have Trump adopt even more drastic sanctions against Russia: Senators John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and fellow committee member Lindsey Graham. McCain used Munich to not only bash Russia but also Trump, while his close friend Graham promised that 2017 would be «the year of kicking Russia in the ass.» The mere fact that McCain and Graham were permitted to represent at Munich a hawkish policy at loggerheads with that of Trump, while Pence remained silent and Mattis championed America’s commitments to NATO and the EU, shows the world that the United States government now speaks through different voices. Joining McCain and Graham to reinforce U.S. defense and financial commitments was Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker and former NATO commander and proposed Trump national security adviser General David Petraeus, previously disgraced by a sex scandal.

Munich provided the third Trump administration with a platform from which to reinforce the «world order» that Trump campaigned against. Governments that had donated handsomely to the Clinton Foundation and made no secret of their abhorrence of Trump as a candidate, were on hand in Munich to warmly embrace Pence and Mattis. Among those in attendance were Saudi Arabia’s wily anti-Iranian foreign minister and former ambassador in Washington Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s more slyer former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz, Qatari foreign minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and defense minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, Bahraini foreign minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Khalifa, Kuwaiti deputy prime minister Shaikh Khaled al Jarrah al-Sabah, and Moroccan royal cabinet minister Youssef Amrani and the Moroccan king’s counselor André Azoulay. Undoubtedly, these Arab potentates will soon bestow their largesse upon members and corporate contrivances of the Trump family.

Pence and Mattis also rubbed shoulders at Munich with such influential anti-Trump personages as Bono, the U-2 rock band celebrity; former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; Ohio Governor John Kasich; former Defense Secretary William Cohen; Microsoft founder Bill Gates; Woodrow Wilson Center director Jane Harman; Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution and his wife and chief architect of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup Victoria Nuland; former Senator Joseph Lieberman; International Rescue Committee director David Miliband; Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse; ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff; and Frank Wisner, Jr., a longtime U.S. diplomat with deep state ties and the son of Frank Wisner, Sr., the CIA’s original crafter of «fake news», CIA propaganda disguised as actual news.

And if Trump’s avid anti-globalist supporters believe that their president is «draining the swamp» of their bitterest of foes, they might be surprised that Pence and Mattis were in the company in Munich of Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Trilateral Commission deputy chairman Michael Fuchs, and global political troublemaker George Soros.

The third Trump administration of Pence, Mattis, and Tillerson signaled the world that the actual Trump administration, the one representing America’s «deep state», will continue to run the U.S. government. This is the part of the Trump administration that will continue to conspire with the world’s elite at places like Bilderberg, Davos, Bohemian Grove, Cernobbio, APEC, and G-7. Trump has not «drained the swamp» as he promised. He has merely joined the reptiles already in it. In fact, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., who now head up the Trump Organization, recently opened a luxurious Trump golf course in Dubai. That set the ground for a very amiable meeting at the G20 meeting in Bonn between Tillerson and his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates. The French have a saying for Trump’s «revolution» – «plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose» or «the more things change, the more they stay the same».

Credit to Zero Hedge

Nuclear North Korea Regime Nearing Collapse???

Le Pen: Finish with bureaucratic monster, artificial construction called the EU