Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Donald and the Dollar, by Antonius Aquinas

Great nations don’t generally have weak currencies. From Antonius Aquinas on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

John Connally, President Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury, once remarked to the consternation of Europe’s financial elites over America’s inflationary monetary policy, that the dollar “is our currency, but your problem.” Times have certainly changed and it now appears that the dollar has become an American problem.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the soon to be 45th President of the United States believes that the greenback’s strength – up some 25% against a broad basket of currencies since 2014 – is now “too strong,” “killing us,” and has hurt companies trying to compete overseas.* A top Trump economics advisor, Anthony Scaramucci, reinforced his boss’ sentiment adding that “we must be careful of a rising dollar.”

Apparently, making America great again does not include the nation’s monetary standard. Trump’s belief that the dollar is too strong also shows a distinct lack of historical understanding. Every great nation and empire (which Trump promises to restore America to) had a sound monetary system. It is no coincidence that the pound sterling was the world’s “reserve currency” at the time when the British Empire was at its height. Debasement of it to finance Britain’s insane decision to enter World War I led, in large part, to the eventual loss of its empire. If Trump truly seeks to restore American greatness at home and its prestige throughout the world, devaluating the currency is not the way to go.

To continue reading: Donald and the Dollar

Trump the Disruptor, but Justin Raimondo

European powers that be are just as pissed off at Donald Trump as American powers that be. From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

If the New York Times is to be believed – a problematic proposition – then it looks as if Trump Derangement Syndrome has gone international. In a front page article headlined “As Trump Era Dawns, A Sense of Uncertainty Grips the World,” we are told:

“The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed.”

Oh heavens-to-Betsy, whatever shall we do?

So what’s the source of this latest Trumpanic? It’s an interview with Tory mandarin Michael Gove and Kai Diekmann, a former editor of the German newspaper Bild, in which the President-elect reiterates what he’s been saying to the American people for the past year, and on the basis of which he won the election: US foreign policy is going to change, and in a big way.

However, to Times reporter Steve Erlanger, this all comes as a big revelation, evidence that “Trump has again focused his penchant for disruption on the rest of the world.” Oh, the poor babies! Perhaps they need to find a safe space in which to park themselves for the next four-to-eight years.

This being the Times, there’s the requisite Russia-baiting:

“No one knows where exactly he is headed – except that the one country he is not criticizing is Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin. For now. And that he is an enthusiastic cheerleader of Brexit and an unaffiliated Britain. For now.”

If this reads like a paragraph torn out of one of the Hillary Clinton campaign’s strategy memos, well then consider the source. And speaking of the source, what exactly did Trump say in this supposedly “disruptive” interview that has the Powers That Be in such a tizzy?

To continue reading: Trump the Disruptor

Does a Rogue Deep State Have Trump’s Back? by Charles Hugh Smith

Charles Hugh Smith has previously suggested that there may be elements within the Deep State who oppose the interventionism of the neoconservatives and support Trump. These elements are within the military itself. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

Rather than being the bad guys, as per the usual Liberal world-view, the Armed Forces may well play a key role in reducing the utterly toxic influence of neocon-neoliberals within the Deep State.

Suddenly everybody is referring to the Deep State, typically without offering much of a definition.

The general definition is the unelected government that continues making and implementing policy regardless of who is in elected office.

I have been writing about this structure for 10 years and studying it from the outside for 40 years. Back in 2007, I called it the Elite Maintaining and Extending Global Dominance, which is a more concise description of the structure than Deep State. Going to War with the Political Elite You Have (May 14, 2007).

I’ve used this simplified chart to explain the basic structure of the Deep State, which is the complex network of state-funded and/or controlled institutions, agencies, foundations, university research projects, media ties, etc.

The key point here is you can’t separate these network nodes: you cannot separate DARPA, the national labs (nukes, energy, etc.), the National Science Foundation, DoD (Department of Defense), the National Security State (alphabet soup of intelligence/black budget agencies: CIA, NSA, DIA, etc.), Silicon Valley and the research universities: they are all tied together by funding, information flows, personnel and a thousand other connections.

To continue reading: Does a Rogue Deep State Have Trump’s Back?

Ex-Spook and Top Trump Antagonist Michael Morell is a Very Sleazy Character, by Michael Krieger

Michael Morell might have been CIA Director if Hillary had been elected president, and he’s evidently a real dirtbag. From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

Michael Morell first came to my attention in a meaningful way last summer when he wrote an editorial in The New York Times calling Donald Trump “an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” The article was widely seen as an audition for CIA director under the seemingly inevitable Clinton administration. I covered the episode in the post, New York Times Fails to Disclose Op-Ed Writer’s Ties to Hillary Clinton’s ‘Principal Gatekeeper’:

While that opportunistic hit-job certainly caught my attention, I had no idea of the horrifying professional history of the man until today. Apparently he’s had an extremely successful career being promoted for screwing up over and over again.

As The National Interest explains in a must read piece, Who Is Michael Morell?

“No doubt Putin is playing Trump!” Yes, former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell is indeed at it again. During the presidential campaign he repeatedly attacked Donald Trump as an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” In the same vein, anonymous CIA officials have supposedly provided evidence of our new president’s nefarious dealings with the Kremlin and its agents.

Didn’t Trump’s own lawyer, Michael Cohen, meet in Prague with a Kremlin agent in August 2016? And isn’t this final proof of the ongoing secret liaisons between the tycoon and the tyrant? ‘Fraid not. But it is déjà vu. Fifteen years ago, Morell vetted and took to the White House, a preliminary report that 9/11 hijacker, Mohamed Atta, met with an Iraqi intelligence officer, Ahmad Samir, Al-Ani at the Iraqi embassy in Prague on April 9, 2001. Both reports have turned out to be bogus.

To continue reading: Ex-Spook and Top Trump Antagonist Michael Morell is a Very Sleazy Character

Putin Warns Of “Maidan-Style” Attempt To Delegitimize Trump; Doesn’t Believe Trump Used Hookers In Moscow, by Tyler Durden

Putin probably spots similarities between the “Maiden” revolution in Ukraine and the attempted ouster of Trump because they were masterminded by the same people: the US intelligence community. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Warning that a “soft coup” is being waged against Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he sees attempts in the United States to “delegitimize” US President-elect Donald Trump using “Maidan-style” methods previously used in Ukraine, where readers will recall president Yanukovich was ousted in 2014 following a violent coup, which many suspect was conducted under the auspices of the US State Department and assorted US intelligence operations.

“I have an impression they practiced in Kiev and are ready to organize a Maidan in Washington, just to not let Trump take office,” Putin said, apparently referring to anti-government protests in the Ukrainian capital in 2014, which resulted in the leadership being ousted. The campaign to discredit the president-elect shows that certain “political elites in the West, including in the US,” have “significantly” worsened, the Russian president added.

Putin said he doesn’t believe that Donald Trump met with prostitutes in Russia, calling the accusations part of a campaign to undermine the election result, and said reports spread in the Western media accusing Trump of frolicking with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel, the Russian president said he doubted that a man who had been organizing beauty pageants for years and had met “some of the most beautiful women of the world” would hire call girls in the Russian capital.

The Russian leader also called the allegations that Moscow might have blackmail material on the US president-elect “evidently fake.”

“When Trump visited Moscow several years ago, he wasn’t a political figure. We didn’t even know about his political ambitions, he was just a businessman, one of America’s richest people. So does someone think that our intelligence services go after each American billionaire? Of course not, it’s complete rubbish,” Putin said.

To continue reading: Putin Warns Of “Maidan-Style” Attempt To Delegitimize Trump; Doesn’t Believe Trump Used Hookers In Moscow

Trump as Lightning Rod–Not Just for Disaffected Progressives, But For Panicked Insiders, by Charles Hugh Smith

Donald Trump threatens to upend a lot of lucrative and powerful Insider apple carts, and the Insiders don’t like it one bit. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

The Eastern Establishment fears and loathes Outsiders, and seeks to destroy them, usually via the mainstream media.

Political agnostics who are skeptical about Big Government “solutions,” left or right, view the current hullabaloo about the Trump presidency with some detachment. What’s remarkable to us is the extremism, not just of those bitter about Clinton’s loss, but by insiders who are threatened by the possibility Trump may upset their insider skims and scams.

As an opening observation, I don’t recall bitter Nixon supporters issuing death threats to performers at John Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961–and the 1960 election was extremely close.

I also don’t recall bitter Gore supporters issuing death threats to performers at G.W. Bush’s inauguration in 2001–even though the 2000 election came down to a few hundred votes in Florida.

Trump is a lightning rod for a spectrum of people and organizations. Let’s see if we can separate the spectrum into socio-political groups.

In times of turmoil, identifying a bogeyman/woman as the cause of the turmoil is a classic mechanism for shirking responsibility and agency. This is the psychological source of witch-hunts (it’s all the witches’ fault!), scapegoating, show trials, and so on: it isn’t our fault things are falling apart, or the fault of our institutions–it’s the bogeyman/woman’s fault.

This transference/projection concentrates the blame and responsibility on The Other–a scapegoated group, or even better, one individual or a small group. Those making the accusation reckon pointing the finger at some target lets them off the hook: I am blameless, it’s all his/her fault.

To continue reading: Trump as Lightning Rod–Not Just for Disaffected Progressives, But For Panicked Insiders

Germany Slams Trump Criticism: Urges US To “Build Better Cars”, Accuses Washington Of Causing Refugee Crisis, by Tyler Durden

Hard to argue that America makes better cars than Germany, and impossible not to acknowledge that America’s disastrous forays into the Middle East and Northern Africa aren’t at least partially responsible for the European refugee crisis. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

An angry Berlin has responded with a staunch defense of its policies after President-elect Donald Trump criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel in two separate Sunday interviews, one with Germany’s Bild and one with the Sunday Times, for her stance during the refugee crisis while threatening a 35% tariff on BMW cars imported into the US.

Germany’s deputy chancellor and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel, said on Monday morning that a tax on German imports would lead to a “bad awakening” among US carmakers since they were reliant on transatlantic supply chains. “I believe BMW’s biggest factory is already in the US, in Spartanburg [South Carolina],” Gabriel, leader of the centre-left Social Democratic party, told the Bild newspaper in a video interview.

“The US car industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that aren’t being built in the US were to suddenly come with a 35% tariff. I believe it would make the US car industry weaker, worse and above all more expensive.” Playing Trump’s threat off Congress, Gabriel added that he “would wait and see what the Congress has to say about that, which is mostly full of people who want the opposite of Trump” as quoted by The Guardian.

In his interviews with Bild and the Times, the US president-elect had indicated that he would aim to realign the “out of balance” car trade between Germany and the US. “If you go down Fifth Avenue everyone has a Mercedes Benz in front of his house, isn’t that the case?” he said. “How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not very many, maybe none at all … it’s a one-way street.”

So, when asked what Trump could do to make sure German customers bought more American cars, Gabriel had a simple suggestion: “Build better cars.”

To continue reading: Germany Slams Trump Criticism: Urges US To “Build Better Cars”, Accuses Washington Of Causing Refugee Crisis

Neither Intelligent nor Wise, but Definitely Dangerous, by Robert Gore

The one adjective that best describes the Deep State is “soulless.”

If you stay up with current events and read widely enough, especially non-mainstream media, you can often detect the Deep State and its works. Precise delineation is impossible, but the Deep State is the top ranks of the intelligence agencies, military, Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense, Treasury, and Justice, the Federal Reserve, a myriad of banks, corporations, law firms, foundations, universities, and powerful behind-the-scenes string-pullers. When SLL talks about the Deep State, it is from the same vantage point as the blindfolded Indians describing the elephant: an admittedly limited and ignorant view of an amorphous entity that does its best to obscure itself to outsiders. Deep Staters often hide what they’re doing even from other Deep Staters.

The Deep State may have had its genesis in the late 1800s, when powerful business, financial, and political figures came together to push passage of the income tax amendment and the Federal Reserve Act, essentials for their desire to dramatically expand the power of the federal government. By the end of the second world war, it had coalesced around two unwavering convictions: the Deep State should run the United States government, and the United States government should run the world. These were not the whispers and murmurs of a super-secret cabal, they were openly discussed by policy makers, the media, and academia in the United States and Great Britain, the junior member of a world-dominating Anglo-American axis.

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For over four decades, the Deep State depicted the Soviet Union as an existential threat, justifying their consolidation of power, US government global intervention, and repression at home. It gave itself a moral Get Out of Jail Free card: dastardly Soviet tactics had to be fought with dastardly American tactics. Despite ritualistic expressions of regret: “It’s a damn shame we have to do this, but such is the nature of our enemy,” many in the military and intelligence services relished that aspect of their jobs. Few were called to account for their reprehensible deeds, many of which will remain forever unexposed.

While it was Republican Dwight Eisenhower who warned of the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address, most of what little public opposition that complex and the intelligence agencies have received since then has come from Democrats. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy fired CIA chief Allen Dulles, reportedly vowing to shatter the agency into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. The debate rages as to whether his vow had anything to do with his assassination, but the possibility cannot be dismissed. (Oddly, Dulles was on the Warren Commission and by most accounts stage-managed its investigation.)

Democratic senator Frank Church led a Senate select committee investigation on intelligence in 1975. His investigation gave most Americans their first glimpse into the CIA’s dirty laundry, notably assassinations and attempted assassinations of various foreign leaders. (The practice was supposedly outlawed by an executive order issued by President Gerald Ford, which was replaced by one issued by President Ronald Reagan. That order didn’t prevent US acquiescence to and complicity in the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. “We came, we saw, he died!”) Also revealed was the CIA and FBI’s interception, opening, and photographing of domestic mail. Senator Church publicly expressed grave misgivings about the government’s nascent electronic surveillance capabilities. He must be rolling in his grave over what it does now.

It was also the “Democratic” press, primarily the New York Times and The Washington Post, that took the lead in exposing scandals with intelligence angles and opposing some of America’s military interventions, notably Vietnam. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks the Democratic-dominated mainstream media climbed into bed with the Republican administration. The weapons of mass destruction and the Saddam Hussein-al Qaeda stories, based on doctored and phony intelligence, were sold to the American people as the justifications for the regime-change invasion of Iraq. There were almost no editorial objections to that or subsequent regime-change operations, the Patriot Act’s assault on the Bill of Rights, or to the muddled, impossible to define or limit concept of a global, preemptive war on terror. Although that war has been a predictable failure, the mainstream press will not even acknowledge its two most obvious consequences: the further spread of terrorism and the refugee flows from Middle Eastern and Northern African war zones.

The problem at the heart of intelligence agencies and their oversight is the information they collect. It invariably includes dirt that can be used against those who might question or oppose them. There is not a person on the planet who doesn’t have some aspect of his or her life he or she wants to remain private. It’s no mystery why a former KGB agent runs Russia, why all the retirement rules were waived so J. Edgar Hoover could stay on as head of the FBI until his death, how a former head of the CIA and then his son acquired the power base that got them both elected president (and they were trying for number three). Threatened or actual blackmail is a powerful weapon, except for that .000000001 percent who lead unblemished, exemplary lives. That weapon renders a secret intelligence function incompatible with civil liberties and popular control of the government.

The recent election was a revolt by the electorate against their incompetent, corrupt rulers. Hillary’s Clinton’s nomination was the exclamation point on the Democratic party’s moral bankruptcy, a final repudiation of the party and its aligned media’s attempts, however incomplete and compromised, to check the Deep State. Given that abdication, its embrace of the intelligence agencies’ perpetration of fake news, support of an increasingly confrontational stance with Russia in hopes of provoking a war, and tacit endorsement of violence during Donald Trump’s inauguration come as no surprise. Grasping for the power they’ve been denied, they’ll try anything.

There has been much talk of a Deep State “coup” during its battle against Donald Trump, but how can those who control the government stage a coup? What they are doing is taking action against an opponent who has ripped away the facade of popular control and may pose a threat to their power and position. Deep State rule has been neither intelligent nor wise. However, it would be unintelligent and unwise to therefore conclude it’s not dangerous. That it would try to deny the duly elected choice of the American people the presidency bespeaks arrogance completely disconnected from morality. That it would try to provoke violence from nuclear-armed Russia and inauguration “demonstrators” in American cities bespeaks a disregard of extreme risks and potentially catastrophic consequences, not just to the citizenry they despise, but to themselves as well.

They must be opposed, stopped, and scattered to the winds (which would, in a perfect world, blow some of them into prison). Donald Trump may be the last, best hope. The intelligent and wise will be on full alert, prepared for the risks and dangers…should he fail or succeed.

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How Trump Could Unwittingly Gut Boeing’s Global Business, by Wolf Richter

When a country throws up trade barriers, other nations retaliate. Wolf Richter is being too kind using the word “unwittingly.” Donald Trump is a smart man, he certainly knows about the risks of retaliation. From Richter at wolfstreet.com:

Other US companies are equally vulnerable.

Boeing’s airliner business is in a slump. Serial large-scale layoffs of engineers and production workers have been percolating through its operations since early 2016, with another big wave announced a week ago, as net orders have collapsed 53% from 2014, to a seven-year low. The last thing Boeing needs is help from President Elect Trump to speed up the process.

But that’s what might happen next if the trade and investment policies proffered by Trump become reality after his inauguration.

In an interview published on Monday in the German tabloid Bild, Trump threatened BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen with a 35% tax on imported vehicles, which would make them very expensive for US consumers. The automakers and their dealers would respond by cutting their margins, but it might not be enough to stem a large sales decline.

The three companies already have assembly plants, research & development offices, and logistics operations in the US, including:

• BMW has a manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina; with the $1 billion expansion announced in 2014, the plant would become BMW’s largest in the world.

• Daimler has bought into the US heavy truck business (Detroit Diesel, Freightliner, Thomas Built Buses, etc.) and has those manufacturing plants in the US. Plus it has a passenger vehicle assembly plant near Vance, Alabama.

• Volkswagen has a manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

As global manufacturers, they all have plants scattered around the world. So Trump:

“If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35% tax,” he said, which Bild translated into German, which Reuters translated into English.

To continue reading: How Trump Could Unwittingly Gut Boeing’s Global Business

Will Trump Continue the Bush-Obama Legacy? by Ron Paul

Trump does not appear set to cut spending. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:
This week, Congress passed a budget calling for increasing federal spending and adding $1.7 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years. Most so-called “fiscal conservatives” voted for this big-spending budget because it allows Congress to repeal some parts of Obamacare via “reconciliation.” As important as it is to repeal Obamacare, it does not justify increasing spending and debt.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the Obamacare repeal would be used to justify increasing spending. Despite sequestration’s minor (and largely phony) spending cuts, federal spending has increased every year since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. Some will attribute this to the fact that the Republican House had to negotiate with a big-spending Democratic president — even though federal spending actually increased by a greater percentage the last time Republicans controlled the White House and Congress than it did under President Obama.

The history of massive spending increases under unified Republican control of government is likely to repeat itself. During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump came out against reducing spending on “entitlements.” He also called for a variety of spending increases, including spending one trillion dollars on infrastructure.

One positive part of the infrastructure proposals is their use of tax credits to encourage private sector investments. Hopefully this will be the first step toward returning responsibility for building and maintaining our nation’s infrastructure to the private sector.

Unfortunately, the administration appears likely to support increased federal spending on “shovel-ready” jobs. Claims that federal spending helps grow the economy rely on the fallacy of that which is not seen. While everyone sees the jobs and economic growth created by government infrastructure projects, no one sees the greater number of jobs that could have been created had the government not taken the resources out of the hands of private businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs. Despite what some conservatives seem to think, this fallacy applies equally to Republican and Democrat spending.

To continue reading: Will Trump Continue the Bush-Obama Legacy?