Of the 10 worst metro areas in US for unemployment, 8 are in the once Golden State of California per Nov. 2018 BLS. Congratulations to the entire US political class-though it took almost no effort. If you have no opposition and are willing to wait a generation, you can destroy anything

“Based on November’s [2018] numbers, 8 California MSAs are in the 10 Worst Unemployment Rates Nationally. #CALeg #CAJobs #CAEconomy”
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Added: California has achieved an “upstairs-downstairs” economy. Most of the vast underclass will remain “downstairs” permanently:

“In California, two-Tier Economy Persists—Central Valley Unemployment More than Twice as High as Bay Area”
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Added: From November 2018 Jobs Report, and California Business Roundtable, California Center for Jobs and the Economy

Four Industries Still below 2007 Pre-Recession Job Levels nationally:

Construction, Mining and Logging, Finance and Insurance, and Manufacturing:



“Source: California Employment Development Department, not seasonally adjusted; wages are running 4 quarter average from QCEW wage data.”

“The highest gain industries were led by lower wage Food Services, Health Care (with a relatively higher mix of lower and higher wage occupations), lower wage Social Assistance, and higher wage Professional, Scientific and Technical Services. Of the lagging industries, three—Manufacturing, Mining and Logging, and Construction—are blue collar middle class wage industries. While slowing, Construction was still higher than in recent years but still remains 55,600 below the 2007 level, and 102,100 (10.0%) below the previous high in 2006.”




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US has 800 military bases around the world-Politico, July/August 2015…(But US itself has no southern border, thus isn’t a country and has no justification for having a military)

Above, This so-called “border fence” is on the US Mexico border: “I assumed this fence near Los Indios, Texas, wasn’t finished when I photographed it [in 2015], but two years later nothing had changed. Today it functions more like a sculpture than a barrier.” 9/2017

July/August 2015, “Where in the World Is the U.S. Military?” Politico Magazine, David V

“Despite recently [as of 2015] closing hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined.By my calculation, maintaining bases and troops overseas cost $85 to $100 billion in fiscal year 2014; the total with bases and troops in warzones is $160 to $200 billion.

These costs have heightened debate over whether the United States needs so many bases abroad: What effect do they have around the world, and are they really making us safer.

The first step is looking at where U.S. bases are, and where they’re most prevalent. For my forthcoming book,  Base Nation, I compiled a near-comprehensive list of overseas U.S. bases, including smaller cooperative security locations (“lily pads”) and suspected but unconfirmed sites (“unconfirmed lily pads”).
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Mapped all together, this data, which comes from the Pentagon’s annual Base Structure Report and additional government, news or academic sources, helps to show just how far America’s reach is.

Graphic by 5W Infographics.

Italy

Hundreds of bases in Europe have closed since the 1990s, but the base and troop ( 11,500) presence in Italy has been relatively constant. Recently, the military has built new bases and expanded Africa-focused operations in Sicily. [US military expansion in Africa was formalized by George W. Bush who created Africom.]

Japan

During the Cold War, U.S. forces occupied hundreds of bases in Japan and the Pacific to surround China and the Soviet Union. Since 1995, anti-base protests have escalated in Okinawa, where there are still more than 30 bases.

Honduras

A “temporary” base has existed since 1982, allowing officials to claim there’s no U.S. base in Honduras while circumventing the Honduran constitution’s prohibition against a permanent foreign troop presence. Some suspect the base’s involvement in a 2009 military coup.

Burkina Faso

A “cooperative security location” in Ouagadougou reflects a new generation of small, clandestine “lily pad” bases appearing in countries with little previous U.S. military presence. At least 11 such bases in Africa host special operations forces, drones and surveillance flights.

Iraq

There were 505 bases at the U.S. occupation’s height, but the Iraqi parliament rejected the Pentagon’s wish to keep 58 “enduring” bases after the 2011 withdrawal. U.S. forces have occupied at least five bases since 2014 and are considering more installations.

Thailand

The Pentagon rents space at U-Tapao Naval Air Base from a contractor, allowing U.S. and Thai officials to insist there’s no U.S. “base” and no inter-governmental basing agreement. The base was a major logistics hub for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Philippines

The Philippines evicted U.S. forces from massive bases in the 1990s. Since 2002, at least 600 U.S. troops have deployed to help Filipino forces combat insurgents from some seven lily pads; 6,000 U.S. troops have operated temporarily under the cover of military exercises.”

“David Vine, associate professor of sociology at American University, is author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.”
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Added: Linked above, US interference in Honduras 2009 “regime change” and continuing support of an even more corrupt and violent government delivers an endless supply of non-English speaking Hondurans to US taxpayers who are required to provide them a free life:

2/12/2013, “The Latin America mistake,“ LA Times, Dana Frank

“Memo to Secretary Kerry: Stop funding the bad guys in Honduras.“

“The United States is expanding its military presence in Honduras on a spectacular scale. The Associated Press reported this month in an investigative article that Washington in 2011 authorized $1.3 billion for U.S. military electronics in Honduras. This is happening while the post-coup regime of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo is more out of control than ever, especially since the Honduran Congress staged a “technical coup” in December [2012].

But as the Obama administration deepens its partnership with Honduras, ostensibly to fight the drug war, Democrats in Congress are increasingly rebelling. Here’s a message, then, for new Secretary of State John Kerry: Recast U.S. policy in Honduras and the murderous drug war that justifies it.

In the last few years, the U.S. has been ramping up its military operations throughout Latin America in what the Associated Press called “the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War.” The buildup has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $20 billion since 2002, for troops, ships, clandestine bases, radar, military and police training and other expenses.

U.S. military expenditures for Honduras in particular have gone up every year since 2009, when a military coup deposed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. At $67.4 million, 2012 Defense Department contracts for Honduras are triple those of 10 years ago. The U.S. spent $25 million last year [2012] to make the U.S. barracks at the Soto Cano air base permanent, and $89 million to keep 600 U.S. troops based there. U.S. direct aid to the Honduran military and police continues to climb as well.
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But the Obama administration’s escalating military commitment in Honduras only deepens its support for the corrupt and repressive Lobo government. State security forces still enjoy near-complete impunity for thousands of alleged human rights abuses and even murders since the 2009 coup. The government hasn’t paid many of its teachers for at least six months, and the country is close to bankrupt.

On Dec. 13, [2012] in a clash of two equally corrupt groups of competing elites, the Honduran Congress illegally deposed four members of the Supreme Court, swearing in new justices within hours. Since then, the congress has run roughshod over the constitution, rapidly repassing a series of laws that had been overruled by the court, including a much-criticized mining law and a notorious law authorizing so-called model cities in which the constitution itself doesn’t apply.

These actions blatantly disregard the rule of law. Yet the U.S. State Department looked the other way at this “technical coup.”

In pouring U.S. military resources into the corrupt Honduran government, Washington argues that it is helping fight drug trafficking, which is indeed rampant, murderous and growing. But the Honduran government and the elites who control it are widely alleged to be implicated in the drug trafficking.

The drug war, though, does provide cover for a new wave of U.S. aggression in Latin America. Honduras, with the only large U.S. Air Force base between the United States and South America, has long been important as a linchpin of U.S. military domination of the region, including, most famously, U.S. involvement in the 1954 coup in Guatemala and the 1980s Contra war against the Nicaraguan government. Today, the expanding U.S. role poses an enormous threat to the whole region, and to Honduras’ sovereignty.

Moreover, as the media have reported, the Obama administration’s drug war in Honduras has been a disaster. In May 2012, agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration participated in an operation in which four Afro-indigenous villagers were killed and several others injured in the Mosquitia region of Honduras. The DEA acknowledges that it killed two alleged drug traffickers in separate incidents in June and July. In July, after the Honduran military shot down two supposed drug planes in violation of international protocol, the U.S. suspended radar cooperation for drug flights. In January, in the first joint operation after cooperation resumed, the Honduran coast guard killed an alleged drug trafficker utilizing intelligence provided by DEA agents.

Many Democrats in Congress have had enough. On Jan. 30, 58 members of the House, led by Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Kerry and Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. demanding that the May 2012 incident involving the DEA be investigated, calling attention to state-sponsored repression of Afro-indigenous Hondurans and questioning the drug war. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt. ) has on hold about $30 million in U.S. aid to Honduran security forces, pending answers to questions about abuses of civilians and corruption. 

That’s a start, but Kerry and the administration need to reverse U.S. policy in Honduras altogether. End the bloody drug war and focus on job creation and social justice instead. Stop treating the current Honduran government like a friendly partner; instead, forthrightly denounce its human rights abuses and corruption of the rule of law. Help guarantee a free presidential election in November by condemning the assassinations of at least five opposition party activists and candidates in the last year, and demand adequate protection for the hundreds of Hondurans in the opposition who have received death threats.

In other words, stop arming Honduran thugs and allow those in the opposition the space to define their own future, free of U.S. interference.”

“Dana Frank is a professor of history at UC Santa Cruz whose work focuses on modern Honduras.”

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Comment: If Candidate Trump had once said he believed The Wall would need to be approved by Congress, Mrs. Clinton would be president today. Voters are well aware the entire US political class is adamantly open borders.

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Note to my Google babysitters: I see you're not on vacation this week. And apparently Santa didn't give you a life for Christmas--so you still lack one. It's extremely interesting that you've been so obsessed about this very small blog for so many years. I really couldn't care less what you think about anything. But you're not like that. Silencing us is the only thing that matters to you.

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UAE reopens embassy in Syrian capitol closed in 2011-AP

12/27/18, “UAE reopens embassy in Syrian capitol closed in 2011,” AP, Beirut

“The United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Syria’s capital on Thursday for the first time in seven years, a reflection of improved relations between President Bashar Assad and some of his Arab foes as the war winds down.

On Thursday afternoon, UAE’s charge d’affaires Abdul-Hakim Naimi visited the embassy and witnessed his country’s flag being raised again on the compound in central Damascus.

The move provides a major boost to Assad, whose forces have won a series of military victories in recent years with the help of Russia and Iran. Sudan’s President Omar Bashir visited Damascus earlier this month, becoming the first Arab head of state to visit Syria since the start of the war.

UAE’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “the step confirms that the UAE government is keen to restore relations between the two brotherly countries back to normal.” It added that the move is “to activate the Arab role in supporting Syria’s independence, sovereignty, unity and safety and prevent the dangers of regional intervention in Syria’s Arab affairs.”

“The opening of our embassy is a first step for the return of other Arab embassies,” Naimi told reporters outside the compound.

The United Arab Emirates was a supporter of the Syrian opposition, which is now largely confined to the northern Idlib province after losing its strongholds elsewhere. Some opposition fighters have joined Turkey for an expected assault on Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria. The UAE and other Gulf Arab supporters of the Syrian opposition view Turkey with suspicion because of its embrace of regional Islamists.

In October, Assad told a little-known Kuwaiti newspaper that Syria had reached a “major understanding” with Arab states after years of hostility. He did not name the Arab countries in the interview, which was his first with a Gulf paper since the war erupted, but said Arab and Western delegations had begun visiting Syria to prepare for the reopening of diplomatic and other missions.

The interview came on the heels of a surprisingly warm meeting between the Syrian foreign minister and his Bahraini counterpart on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September. The meeting turned heads because it featured hugs between the two ministers.

The encounter raised questions about whether the Gulf countries, most of them sworn enemies of Assad ally Iran, are reconsidering their relations with Syria.

Anwar Gargash, who is No. 2 at UAE’s Foreign Ministry, tweeted that an Arab role in Syria is necessary now to face Iran and Turkey’s intervention. He added that UAE through its presence in Damascus is trying to activate the Arab role in what would “contribute to ending war and strengthening opportunities for peace and stability for the Syrian people.”

The UAE recalled its ambassador from Syria in 2011 after the start of the popular uprising against Assad. The Syrian Embassy in the UAE remained open. There are also direct flights on Syria’s national carrier to Dubai and between the port city of Latakia and the emirate of Sharjah.

Oman, with its policy of quiet diplomacy, is the only Gulf Arab country to have kept its embassy in Damascus open throughout the civil war. In March, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem visited Oman on a rare trip by a Syrian official to the Arabian Peninsula.

Syria was expelled from the 22-member Arab League in 2011. Arab countries have sanctioned Damascus and condemned its use of military force against the opposition.

Also on Thursday, pro-government news outlets in Syria reported the first flight in years between Damascus and Tunisia’s capital by Syria’s private Sham Wings.”



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Per Pew Poll and Washington Post, Putin enjoys continuing confidence of Russian people which was cemented in 2014 after Crimea rejoined Russia-Washington Post 3/6/2016, Pew Poll, 2018

Washington Post

March 6, 2016, “How to understand Putin’s jawdroppingly high approval ratings," Washington Post, Michael Birnbaum, Brussels Bureau Chief covering Europe 

“Analysts said that after the Crimean annexation, Putin became untouchable to a large slice of the population….

It is a development that has flummoxed Western nations and frustrated Russia’s motley band of oppositionists. Some of them say that Russians are too scared to speak their minds to pollsters. Others claim that the poll numbers are manipulated, although most Western polling firms arrive at similar figures. [2015 Pew Poll]

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Additional source: 2018 Pew Poll: “Confidence in Putin has been especially high, and intense, since 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea."

Poll dates: May 22-June 23, 2018, 1000 Russian respondents, face to face interviews.

8/21/18, “Russians Say Their Government Did Not Try to Influence U.S. Presidential Election," Pew Research, by Jacob Poushter

“Most say Russia is playing an increasingly important role in world affairs”

page 3: “These are among the findings of a Pew Research Center survey conducted among 1,000 respondents in Russia from May 22 to June 23, 2018.”

page 10: “Results for the survey are based on face-to-face interviews.”

page 6: 81% of Russian people are confident in Putin’s handling of international affairs

“Lots of confidence in Putin, but economic worries linger

“President Putin remains a popular figure in Russia. Roughly eight-in-ten Russians (81%) have at least some confidence in his ability to handle international affairs, with 58% expressing “a lot of confidence.” Confidence in Putin has been especially high, and intense, since 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Putin retains high levels of confidence among all age groups and education and income levels, as well as both men and women....Those who have a favorable view of his political party, United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya), are almost unanimous in their confidence in his international leadership (94%).”

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Yeltsin 'reached for cup of tea to show Russians he was not drunk' during his televised announcement dissolving parliament 9/21/1993. US never said Yeltsin was Hitler, instead praised his 'democracy efforts.' On 10/5/1993, Yeltsin attacked parliament with tanks resulting in scores dead and hundreds injured. Bill Clinton said Yeltsin 'had no alternative'-BBC, CBS News, ABC News video

Yeltsin dissolved parliament on 9/21/1993. Of his televised appearance announcing dissolution of parliament, English speaking announcer says @:02, “Yeltsin reached for a cup of tea to show Russians he was not drunk." Video clips include BBC, CBS News and ABC News. You Tube video, “Russian Constitutional Crisis- Day 1: Yeltsin declares himself dictator.” :47, “All the powers of the Russian Federation have been annulled,” announcer quotes Yeltsin. Subsequent female interpreter is identified in on-screen graphic as “Lynn Visson.” Ms. Visson is a former UN interpreter. You Tube page text: “Yeltsin issues decree dissolving Parliament. He is impeached and replaced by Alexander Rutskoi.” English speaking announcer says @7:00 Yeltsin has recently visited crucial internal military units which are “on standby to seize control of parliament if ordered to do so.” @7:30, “Significantly, a few days ago he [Yeltsin] gave them [the military] their second pay rise in 6 months.

CBS News Roger Mudd @5:40 says that Bill Clinton downplayed “the crisis,” and later phoned Yeltsin to express his support. VP Al Gore @5:55 says US supports Yeltsin and his efforts at democracy and a “free market economy….We feel Boris Yeltsin is the best hope for democracy in Russia.”

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Added: In Oct. 1993 Yeltsin sent tanks to attack parliament. Scores were killed, hundreds wounded, US still didn't say Yeltsin is Hitler. Bill Clinton said, "President Yeltsin had no other alternative but to try to restore order."

10/5/1993, “Yeltsin crushes revolt,“ UK Guardian, Jonathan Steele and David Hearst in Moscow

· Parliament taken in tank battle · Opposition parties and newspapers banned

“President Boris Yeltsin moved swiftly last night to stamp his absolute power on Russia by suspending a range of political movements and closing opposition newspapers after the surrender of his main parliamentary opponents in the wake of the assault on the Russian White House.Under a decree following the state of emergency that Mr Yeltsin imposed on Sunday, the National Salvation Front, the Russian Communist Party, the United Front of Workers and the Union of Officers were banned, while Pravda, the former organ of the Soviet Communist Party, and a number of other papers were told to cease publication. An overnight curfew was also imposed throughout Moscow.

The ministry of justice justified the clampdown on the grounds that the groups banned had supported the armed uprising launched by hardliners on Sunday afternoon.

With elections promised in December for a new bicameral parliament, the bans will severely limit the options for Russians who oppose Mr Yeltsin. They will also remove the risk that those unhappy with the government’s tough economic reforms will vote for communists on the model of Poland.

The bans, which were formally signed into effect by Yuri Kalmykov, the justice minister, also hit opponents of Mr Yeltsin in the army.

Beside the Union of Officers, a radical movement called Shield was also outlawed. Mr Yeltsin clearly wanted to send a powerful signal to the army that political activity was forbidden.

There is no doubt that the leaders of the groups banned were among the defenders of the White House.

As if to underscore this, arrest warrants were issued last night for Ilya Konstantinov, co-leader of the National Salvation Front and another prominent hardliner, Viktor Anpilov.

But Mr Yeltsin ‘s ban echoed his action two years ago in banning the Russian Communist Party. The Constitutional Court later ruled that he had no right to ban an entire organisation because of the actions of its leading bodies.

With the collapse of the parliamentary opposition, most of its key figures were under arrest last night, including the former vice-president, Alexander Rutskoi, and Ruslan Khasbulatov, parliament’s speaker.

But it emerged that on Sunday night police had detained two deputies of the Moscow City Council, Boris Kagarlitsky and Vladimir Kondratiev, who had no connection with the rebellion. The men were reportedly released last night.

After a grisly 10-hour gun battle in which tanks punched holes in the front of the White House,all but an unknown number of last-ditch snipers surrendered.

The indiscriminate exchanges of fire left hundreds injured and an unknown number dead. The assault set fire to the riverside front of the building and reduced whole floors to rubble.

At 4.50pm local time 300 people, many of them deputies, came out with their hands over their heads, and walked in single file down the steps to waiting buses. Gunfire still crackled overhead.
Earlier in the day, a brief but fierce exchange took place about 200 yards along the embankment, and tank artillery was blamed for starting a fire at the Mezhdunarodnaya hotel.

Two hours after the assault began, Mr Yeltsin appeared on television and laid the blame firmly on Mr Rutskoi’s and Mr Khasbulatov’s shoulders.

Mr Yeltsin said: “We have not been preparing to make war. We were thinking it was possible to make a deal and preserve peace in the capital. Those who began to fire against this city and unleashed this bloodshed are criminals.

“All that was and still is going on in Moscow was an armed revolt planned in advance,” he said. “It was organised by Communists seeking revenge, by fascist leaders and some of the former lawmakers. There can be no forgiveness, because they lifted their hand against peaceful people.”

After parliamentary supporters were seen to fire the first shots on Sunday, breaking through police lines and launching a bloody attack on the Ostankino television centre, which left 69 dead, Mr. Yeltsin wanted to justify his use of heavy armour to crush the rebellion.

Mr Rutskoi and Mr Khasbulatov were among the last to surrender after the European Community, to whom they turned with a request to guarantee their safe passage, was assured by Mr Yeltsin ‘s office that no harm would come to the two men.

Mr Khasbulatov denied minutes before his arrest that the uprising’s leaders had ordered Sunday’s attack on Moscow’s main television centre.

“We never ordered the television attack. This was pure provocation,” Mr Khasbulatov told a French television crew. ‘I only heard about [the attack] on my way to the parliamentary session. All this was organised in order to discourage our sympathisers.’

The Russian prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, said the two men had earlier rejected opportunities to surrender.

Other rebel leaders, including General Albert Makashov and Vyacheslav Achalov, the parliament’s “defence minister”, were seized earlier in the assault.

Last night, the Itar-Tass news agency reported that hardline gunmen might still be inside parliament, and there was sporadic shooting. The agency itself came under fire, and troops killed one of the attackers and arrested eight others.

It was impossible to determine the final death toll, although the authorities quoted medical officials as saying that 62 people were confirmed killed, and 400 wounded, in Sunday’s assault on the television centre.

Western leaders, warned in advance of the assault, promptly declared support, but urged a speedy return to constitutionality amid fears that the Russian leader could become a political hostage to the armed forces.

“It is clear that the opposition forces started the conflict, and President Yeltsin had no other alternative but to try to restore order,’ the US president, Bill Clinton, said. 

“The US supported Yeltsin because he is Russia’s democratically-elected leader,” he said. “I have no reason to doubt the personal commitment that President Yeltsin made to let the Russian people decide their own future in elections.’ 

In Blackpool, the Prime Minister, John Major, said: “What is now necessary is that normal order is restored and that the Russians move forward to the elections they planned in December.”

In Brussels, the European Commission announced emergency medical aid of 300,000 ecus (around £235,000) for those wounded in the fighting.

China was the only major power not to back Mr Yeltsin. “We are deeply concerned about the recent bloodshed in Moscow,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.

“As a friendly neighbour, we hope to see an end to the conflict and a proper solution to the current situation in the interest of the stability, unity and economic recovery.'”

Last night, special forces barred around 1,000 demonstrators opposed to Mr Yeltsin from entering the television studios of St Petersburg.”
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Added: Dec. 1993: “U.S. backing remained constant after the disastrous election results in which Yeltsin’s party received only 15 percent of the vote and the Constitution barely passed the referendum.”....This after US gave Yeltsin $12 million US tax dollars to help his Nov. 1993 election and provided election experts on the ground in Russia.

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Nov. 27, 1993, “Yeltsin Threatens to Pull Opponents’ TV Time : Russia: In a sign of how much the president values his constitution, he forbids campaigning against it on the air.” LA Times, Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writer, Moscow

“Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin warned Friday that political parties campaigning on television against his proposed constitution will lose their right to broadcast free pre-election advertising. 

“The free time will be taken back from you if you deviate from your subject, and your subject is your platform,” he told leaders of 13 parties summoned to the Kremlin. “I ask you not to touch on the constitution.”

Except for a ban on six extremist movements and the newspapers that back them, Yeltsin’s statement was his firmest step to limit free debate before the Dec. 12 elections, in which voters will choose a new two-chamber Parliament and vote on a new constitution.

The warning was a sign that Yeltsin is far more concerned about the fate of the proposed charter, which would usher in a post-Soviet legal order and vastly strengthen presidential power,than the makeup of Parliament itself. 

A majority vote for the constitution would allow Yeltsin to advance his [so-called] free-market reforms whether or not his alliesdominate the 450-seat Duma and 178-seat Federation Council. Drafted in secret without public debate, the new charter would give the president the power to dissolve Parliament and call new elections, for example, if it rejects his nominees for prime minister three times in a row.

Four parties favoring Yeltsin’s reforms are in the race. But they are not assured of winning a majority of seats and, even if they do, might not work together on all issues.

Communist and nationalist parties, which led the Soviet-era Congress of People’s Deputies that Yeltsin dissolved this fall, are waging strong campaigns.

Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov is running for the Duma and also campaigning for a “no” vote on the proposed charter, calling it a Napoleonic code for one-man dictatorship.  

All parties have criticized the draft, but most favor its adoption by voters, to be followed by amendments by the new Parliament.

“I don’t see why it cannot be openly and publicly discussed, as is the practice in any country about to adopt a constitution,” Zyuganov said Friday after attending the Kremlin meeting and rejecting the effort to limit the pre-election debate.

“Yeltsin’s constitution would destroy the separation of powers, allow free trading of land,” he said. “We are not going to discard our views in the next steps of our campaign.”

Stanislav S. Govorukhin, a popular film director who is running for Parliament from the Democratic Party of Russia, apparently provoked the president’s warning by declaring on television Wednesday night that the draft constitution was stained by the blood spilled Oct. 4, the day Yeltsin sent army tanks to crush the old Parliament.

“Even before its birth, this constitution has committed an evil deed,” Govorukhin said. “On a moral scale, it has thrown our society back into the times of totalitarianism.”

Yeltsin’s threatened restrictions apparently apply only to the one hour of free television time given each party to use in segments between this week and the election. That time is crucial because of television’s reach across Russia’s 11 time zonesand the cost–$700 per minute–of paid political advertising.

But Anatoly Sliva, deputy head of the president’s State Legal Department, suggested that the ban on criticism of the constitution was broader. 

In a statement read on television, Sliva argued that because the Duma and Federation Council are new legislative bodies enshrined in Yeltsin’s constitutional draft, then any party or candidate opposing that draft in any form automatically rules itself off the ballot.

That logic underscores the biggest uncertainty of the campaign: What happens if voters reject the constitution? Many candidates assume that the new Parliament would convene anyway, as a constitutional convention, and write a basic law from scratch, but that is not clearly spelled out.

Worried by such a scenario, presidential Chief of Staff Sergei A. Filatov told regional leaders in the Kremlin last week that Yeltsin’s entire 1994 program would be ruined. “We will be in big trouble if we do not approve this constitution,” he warned.”

“Sergei Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.”
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Based on lies and hate, Der Spiegel, CNN, and multiple media awards defined global discourse against a particular group of people. Der Spiegel now fears its former star reporter and editor stole from a Syrian orphans fund-CBS News, CNN, Washington Examiner

Hired by Der Spiegel in 2011, Relotius wrote fake stories for 7 years, was a top reporter who 18 months ago was promoted to editor. Below, Der Spiegel cover, 2/4/2017. Trump had just been inaugurated, but Der Spiegel was already selling violent anti-American hate and division. No suggestion on the cover that 63 million Americans saw Trump as their only chance to stop the mass murdering, US taxpayer funded Endless Unwinnable War Industry. If Der Spiegel is curious about that they could ask us.



12/24/18, “Disgraced [anti-Trump Der Spiegel] German reporter [lauded by CNN] may have embezzled donations intended for Syrian orphans," CBSNews.com

“A German [Der Spiegel] journalist who who resigned in disgrace for making up information for numerous articles is suspected of embezzling donations he collected on behalf of children orphaned by the war in Syria. Influential German news weekly Der Spiegel said Sunday that its award-winning former reporter, Claas Relotius, had asked readers by email from his private account for donations to be transferred to his personal bank account. 

Der Spiegel said it’s not clear how many people donated money, how much Relotius, 33, collected or what happened to the money. 

 

But the magazine said it will press charges and will work with prosecutors to find out the details.“Der Spiegel will give all the information it collects to public prosecutors as part of a criminal complaint,” it said on its website. The Hamburg-based magazine announced Wednesday that Relotius, who reportedly resigned, had fabricated interviews and facts in at least 14 articles in the magazine’s print and online editions. 

 
Spiegel said concerned readers had in recent days reported Relotius’s call for donations purportedly for orphaned Syrian children living on the streets of Turkey.

 
It said it had been unaware of the campaign and that it was not immediately clear how much money was raised from the appeal, apparently made by email to readers who contacted him about the story.

Spiegel published the article by Relotius in July 2016 but a Turkish photographer who worked with him on the piece has since noted significant inaccuracies.

 
The magazine said it now believes Relotius may have simply made up one of the main protagonists, whom the article described as young siblings.

 
Relotius described his attempts to help the children in a subsequent collection of articles, including a months-long effort to bring the children to Germany to be adopted by a family. Spiegel said this also appeared to be a lie.

 
In its most recent edition, the magazine said the scam was the “worst thing that can happen to an editorial team.”

Acknowledging the damage to faith in its own work and the media in general, it apologized promised to “do everything to boost our credibility again.”
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Added: Washington Examiner article: Invented Der Spiegel story sought to show that voters in rural America were mentally defective idiots “who pray for Trump on Sundays:"

 
12/20/18, “Journalist who mocked Trump supporters in fabricated story admits: ‘I’m sick’," Washington Examiner, Caitlin Yilek

“German magazine Der Spiegel has fired one of its top journalists after it discovered he had fabricated more than a dozen stories in recent years, including an article about Trump supporters in a small Minnesota town.

 

“I’m sick and I need to get help,” Claas Relotius, who was CNN International’s Journalist of the Year, told Der Spiegel. The fabrications were discovered after a colleague working with Relotius on a story about the U.S.-Mexico border raised suspicions about his reporting.

One of the made up stories, “In a small town,” was billed as “a month with the people who pray for Trump on Sundays” and described Fergus Falls, Minnesota, as a typical rural town that helped propel President Trump to the White House in 2016 – though he just fell short in Minnesota.

Relotius reported false information about several of the town’s residents — or completely made up people — including that the city administrator did not want a female president and was a virgin, that a restaurant waitress with kidney disease was struggling to afford treatment under Obamacare, and that local students visiting New York visited Trump Tower instead of the Statue of Liberty.

Two residents of Fergus Falls, Michele Anderson, who notes she’s a “die-hard liberal,” and Jake Krohn, pushed back on 11 of the fabrications in a blog post Wednesday [“Der Spiegel journalist messed with the wrong small town"]

“There are only two things those writers seem to have concluded or are able to pitch to their editors — we are either backwards, living in the past and have our heads up our asses, or we’re like dumb, endearing animals that just need a little attention in order to keep us from eating the rest of the world alive,” they wrote about journalists who have made sweeping generalizations about people who live in rural parts of the country.

Der Spiegel listed other fabrications made in the article, such a welcome sign for the town that said, “Mexicans Keep Out,” that never existed.

“He invented grotesque lies and reported, for example, that the students at the John F. Kennedy high school drew their role models for the American dream as follows: ‘They did not draw a single picture of a woman,’ Relotius wrote. ‘One class drew Barack Obama, two drew John D. Rockefeller. Most of them drew Donald Trump.’ All of this is pure fiction. Every single bit is concocted bunk,” the magazine said.

Other fabrications included easily verifiable assertions, including that the film “American Sniper,” two years old at the time of Relotius’ reporting, was still running at the town’s theater to sold-out crowds and a description of the view from a downtown cafe, an establishment that lacks windows.

Relotius, who was hired by Der Speigel in 2011, received several awards from CNN for his work. The company said it is stripping Relotius of those awards. He wrote about 60 articles for the magazine and website before he was fired this week.”
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Added: CNN Business article: “Other news organizations could be affected” in addition to Der Spiegel. A Relotius article for Swiss magazine Reportagen “received two CNN Journalist Awards in 2014, including Journalist of the Year.”

Dec. 21, 2018, “Germany’s Der Spiegel says star reporter Claas Relotius wrote fake stories ‘on a grand scale’,” CNN Business, Sherisse Pham, Hong Kong

“A top European news magazine has fired one of its star journalists after discovering that he had fabricated facts and sources in more than a dozen articles over a seven-year period.”

“Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, falsified his articles on a grand scale and even invented characters, deceiving both readers and his colleagues,” Germany’s Der Spiegel said in an article published online Wednesday. 

The startling revelation is a heavy blow to Der Spiegel, a 71-year-old publication that’s renowned for its quality journalism and read by hundreds of thousands of people in print and by millions online. 

“I’m so angry, horrified, shocked, stunned,” the magazine’s deputy foreign editor Mathieu von Rohr tweeted. “Claas Relotius faked, he cheated all of us.” 

After a colleague working with Relotius on a story in the United States flagged suspicions about his reporting, Der Spiegel says it carried out an internal investigation. Relotius confessed last week that he invented entire passages for that article, and also falsified information in other stories, according to the magazine.

Relotius, who resigned Monday at the magazine’s request, said he was sick and needed help, a Der Spiegel spokesman told CNN.

CNN hasn’t been able to reach Relotius for comment.

Award-winning stories

His work had received awards from CNN, but a CNN spokesperson said, “Relotius was not associated with CNN, he never worked for the company and never had anything published on CNN platforms.” 

Relotius first joined Der Spiegel in 2011 as a freelancer, and was hired as an editor a year and half ago. 

Der Spiegel said the 33-year-old admitted to partial fabrications in at least 14 of nearly 60 articles he wrote for its magazine and website. That included making up dialogue and quotes and creating composite characters. The magazine warned that the number could be higher, and that other news organizations could be affected. 

Relotius has published stories in other leading German-language publications, including Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, the Financial Times Deutschland, Die Welt and Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, according to Der Spiegel. 

He also penned a feature for Swiss magazine Reportagen, for which he received two CNN Journalist Awards in 2014, including Journalist of the Year. The CNN Journalist Awards were for German-language journalism and decided by an independent jury. The last awards were given in 2015.

A spokesman for CNN said Thursday that the 2014 awards jury held a meeting after Der Spiegel went public with its investigation, and voted unanimously to strip Relotius of both awards.

Forbes identified Relotius as a top reporter last year, including him on a “30 Under 30” list for European media.

Several major features Relotius wrote for Der Spiegel that were also nominated for or won journalism awards are now under scrutiny, according to the magazine.

Among them, “The Last Witness,” about an American who allegedly travels to an execution as a witness, “Lion Children,” about two Iraqi children who have been kidnapped and reeducated by the Islamic State, and “Number 440,” a feature about alleged prisoners at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Investigation continues

Der Spiegel said it is still combing through the allegations against Relotius and will set up a commission made up of people from both inside and outside the company to investigate his work. 

For now, Relotius’ stories will be left unaltered online, but with a notification telling readers that his reporting is under suspicion of extensive forgery and manipulation.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said Thursday that it was reviewing the stories by Relotius it had published. It said that no evidence of forgery had yet been found. 

Der Spiegel is the latest prominent news organization to be rocked by revelations of a high-flying reporter falsifying information. 

In 2003, The New York Times discovered that one of its rising stars, Jayson Blair, had invented parts of his stories and stolen material from other news outlets. The scandal resulted in the resignations of Blair and the newspaper’s top two editors. 

At The New Republic, Stephen Glass was considered a brilliant 25-year-old magazine writer, until he was unmasked as a serial fabricator and fired in 1998.”

“Nadine Schmidt and Jethro Mullen contributed to this report.”

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Added: "None of this is about Trump, or about whether you like him or not, or even if he’s a shady character or not. Instead, it’s about the influence the media have on how our opinions and ideas about people and events are being shaped on a daily basis....

It has nothing to do with journalism, though, or news. It’s smear and dirt, the business model of the National Enquirer. That’s how far our once truthful media have fallen."

12/25/2018, "Dumping on The Donald," by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth, via zero hedge

"None of this is about Trump, or about whether you like him or not, or even if he’s a shady character or not. Instead, it’s about the influence the media have on how our opinions and ideas about people and events are being shaped on a daily basis.

And once you acknowledge that your opinions of Trump, Putin et al, even without any proof of a connection between them, are actively being molded by the press you expect to inform you about the truth behind what goes on, you will have to acknowledge, too, that you are a captive of forces that use your gullibility to make a profit off you.

If our media need to make up things all the time about who’s guilty of what, because our justice systems are incapable of that, then we have a problem so enormous we may not be able to overcome it in our present settings.

Alternatively, if we trust our justice systems to deliver true justice, we don’t need a hundred articles a day to tell us how Trump or Putin are such terrible threats to our world. Our judges will tell us, not our journalists or media who are only in it for a profit.

I can say: “let’s start off 2019 trying to leave prejudice behind”, and as much as that is needed and you may agree with me, it’s no use if you don’t realize to what extent your views of the world have been shaped by prejudice.

I see people reacting to the star writer at Der Spiegel who wrote a lot about Trump, being exposed as a fraud. I also see people trying to defend Julian Assange from the Guardian article about his alleged meetings with Paul Manafort, that was an obvious big fat lie (the truth is Manafort talked to Ecuador to help them ‘sell’ Assange to the US).

But reacting to the very obvious stuff is not enough. The echo chamber distorts the truth about Trump every single day, and at least six times on Sunday, as this essay of mine shows. It’s just that after two years of this going on 24/7, it is perceived as the normal.

Everyone makes money dumping on the Donald, it’s a proven success formula, so why would the Guardian and Der Spiegel stay behind? They’d only hurt their own bottom line.

It has nothing to do with journalism, though, or news. It’s smear and dirt, the business model of the National Enquirer. That’s how far our once truthful media have fallen."



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Everyone knows US political class considers its constituents to be all non-English-speaking, homeless persons south of the border who know US taxpayers have to give them a free life. Examples of existing “border fences” make this clear-photos from National Geographic, Sept. 2017

Sept. 2017, “Surreal photos show walls dividing U.S. and Mexico," National Geographic, Story and Photographs by Richard Misrach 

“In 2009 I became aware of an increase in the building of walls and surveillance towers and other government activities along the 1,954-mile-long U.S. border with Mexico.”…



Above, “A steel wall slices through farmland in Brownsville, Texas, north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Built inland of the actual border—the Rio Grande—it comes to an abrupt end, making it easy to circumvent on foot.”



Above, “I assumed this fence near Los Indios, Texas, wasn’t finished when I photographed it, but two years later nothing had changed. Today it functions more like a sculpture than a barrier.”



Above, “In the Tijuana Estuary south of San Diego, California, a border wall plunges into the Pacific Ocean. That makes it relatively easy for a boat or a Jet Ski—or even a decent swimmer—to bypass."



Above, “In remote areas—like this stretch near Ocotillo, California—vehicle deterrents are made of railroad ties. They’re often called Normandy barriers because they look like some of the blockades used during World War II. Border walls that are meant to keep out pedestrians are designed differently—solid or thinly slatted, standing 12 to 16 feet tall.”








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