SchwartzReport: USG Held in Low Esteem

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

No government, particularly no democracy, can long endure when it is held in contempt by the people whose interests it is supposed to represent. Yet month after month, and now year after year that is exactly what is happening, as this Gallup study makes clear.  And yet the subject is hardly mentioned by media or campaigners.

Confidence in U.S. Branches of Government Remains Low

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans' confidence in each of the three branches of the U.S. government remains low, with confidence in Congress and the Supreme Court near their all-time lows reached last year. Currently, 33% of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency, 32% are this confident in the Supreme Court, and Congress is still well behind, at 8%.

Mini-Me: NSA Gutting of US Communications and Computing Likely to Cost US Tech Companies Way More Than $35 Billion

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency
Who?  Mini-Me?
Who? Mini-Me?

NSA Surveillance May Cost U.S. Tech Companies More than $35 Billion

Two years ago, when Edward Snowden exposed the NSA’s massive surveillance machine it didn’t just make Americans distrust the U.S. government—it also impelled foreigners to shy away from U.S.-made technologies. The result appears to be costly. In fact, a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C., think tank, says the agency’s pervasive digital surveillance will likely cost U.S. companies more than $35 billion in foreign business by 2016.

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CounterPunch: War Between US and China

02 China, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military

counterpunch good The Skirmish in the Spratlys: Beating Uncle Sam at His Own Game

by MIKE WHITNEY

EXTRACT

What happens next, should be fairly obvious to anyone who has followed US meddling in recent years. The US is now at war with China, which means that it will use all of its resources and capabilities, except it’s military assets, to defeat the enemy. The United States will not militarily engage an enemy that can fight back or inflict pain on the US. That’s the cardinal rule of US military policy. While that precludes a nuclear conflagration, it does not exclude a hyperbolic propaganda campaign demonizing China and its leaders in the media (Sadly, the comparisons to Hitler and the Kaiser have already started), asymmetrical attacks on Chinese markets and currency, excruciating economic sanctions, US-NGO funding for Chinese dissidents, foreign agents and fifth columnists, intrusions into China’s territorial waters and airspace, strategic denial of critical energy supplies, (80 percent of China’s oil supplies are delivered via the Malacca Strait to the South China Sea) and, finally, covert support for “moderate” jihadis who are committed to toppling the Chinese government and replacing it with an Islamic Caliphate. All of these means and proxies will be employed to defeat Beijing, to derail its ambitious Silk Roads strategy, to curtail its explosive growth, and to sabotage its plan to be the preeminent power in Asia.

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Berto Jongman: Modernizing Analytical Training + Robert Steele & RECAP

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Modernizing Analytical Training for the 21st Century

Senior US intelligence leaders are starting to doubt whether ‘experts’ are the best forecasters of emerging risks. Regina Joseph, however, has other culprits in mind. Familiar cultural and bureaucratic obstacles may be more to blame for the foresight training and analysis problems intelligence agencies face today.

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SchwartzReport: World Changes Scare USG

Corruption, Design, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

Here is the latest on the great geopolitical shift that is occurring in the world, as power shifts away from national states to virtual nongeographical corporate states and trans-national ideological movements. I was very glad to find this piece because almost no one in media is talking about this. I have previously seen this sort of material only in academic journals.

The quiet global crisis that scares the State Department

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Robert Parry: The Day After Damascus Falls

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
Robert Parry
Robert Parry

The Day After Damascus Falls

Exclusive: The Saudi-Israeli alliance has gone on the offensive, ramping up a “regime change” war in Syria and, in effect, promoting a military victory for Al-Qaeda or its spinoff, the Islamic State. But the consequences of that victory could toll the final bell for the American Republic, writes Robert Parry.

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