Month: June 2017

Liberty Links 6/17/17

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If you appreciate our work, and want to contribute to genuine, independent media, consider visiting our Support Page. Must Reads The Big Collusion Narrative Keeps Melting Down (The National Review) This is How to End Islamic State Terror – and Stop British Foreign Policy Blowback (Excellent, Middle East Eye) Brain-Computer Interfaces Are Coming: ‘Consensual Telepathy,’ Anyone? (Beyond creepy, The … Read more

Even Google Employees Can No Longer Afford Housing in San Francisco

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You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the new Google modular home

Every now and then a story appears in the national media that causes a lightbulb to start flashing incessantly in my head. For me, such a story came to my attention today and relates to how Google is manufacturing housing for some of its employees due to the ridiculous cost of housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Here’s a summary from The Verge:

Google’s employees can’t find affordable housing in Silicon Valley, so the company is investing in modular homes that’ll serve as short-term housing for them. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has ordered 300 units from a startup called Factory OS, which specializes in modular homes. The deal reportedly costs between $25 and $30 million.

Modular homes are completely built in a factory and assembled like puzzle pieces onsite. This method of construction can reduce the cost of construction by 20 to 50 percent, the Journal reports. These apartments can also be put up more quickly to address dire housing needs. In one case the Journal cites, tenants saved $700 a month because of reduced construction costs.

Earlier this year, CNBC published a piece that detailed the difficulty tech companies have in trying to convince possible employees to move to San Francisco, especially when they live abroad. In response, some startups are establishing offices in other cities, like Chicago and Seattle. The other option is to out-tech the housing crisis, as Google appears to be doing with its modular home investment.

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The Corporate Media Continues to Torch Its Reputation. Good.

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Last December, I noted the following in the post, ‘Then We Will Fight in the Shade’ – A Guide to Winning the Media Wars:

It is when you get desperate, scared and panicky that you make the biggest mistakes, and the legacy media is currently desperate, scared and panicky.  As Napoleon Bonaparte allegedly said:

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

Whether or not he actually said them, those words still ring true. We mustn’t get in the way of the legacy media’s inevitable self-destruction. Part of this means that we do not self-destruct in the process. We need to recognize that there’s a reason independent, alternative media is winning the battle of ideas in the first place. For all the warts, mistakes and bad actors, the emergence of the internet is indeed the historical equivalent of the invention of the printing press on steroids.

Only a clueless self-important elitist actually believes that the smartest, most informed people in America are the pundits on tv and the journalists employed by the mainstream media. With a handful of companies and a few oligarchs in charge, you’d have to be the most naive fool on earth to not understand that legacy media is driven by well defined narratives, and that these narratives are not in your best interest. The rest of us understand that the Internet has served as a much needed countervailing force, and has been an incredible blessing to human knowledge, connectivity and the marketplace of ideas. Just because some people can’t distinguish truth from fiction, doesn’t negate the incredible progress that decentralized information dissemination provides. It is only those who do not wish to engage in public debate on the issues themselves who want to censor stuff. The rest of us are more than happy to have an open discussion.

In a pathetic attempt to reinflate the discredited and failed neoliberal/neocon status quo political bubble it supports, corporate media has been relentless in its attacks on anyone or anything that offers an alternative vision. These attacks more often than not focus on Donald Trump, but it’s important to note that contempt for Bernie Sanders and his supporters is not far behind. It doesn’t matter what the alternative vision is, if it falls outside the neoliberal/neocon status quo, it must be demonized and destroyed by the likes of billionaire-owned media properties such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.

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Jeff Sessions Continues to Represent a Massive Liability for Donald Trump

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Ever since it became obvious that the Democratic Party had no interest in pivoting to addressing the very real economic insecurities faced by tens of millions of Americans following Hillary Clinton’s embarrassing loss in the 2016 election, I knew that Trump was being gifted a very real opportunity for a second term. That’s how corrupt and stupid Democratic leadership is.

Meanwhile, the entire “Trump colluded with Russia to influence the election” conspiracy theory is rapidly unravelling and Democrats still can’t let go. As such, if the party’s leadership is stupid enough to nominate another Wall Street-coddling neoliberal warmonger in 2020, Trump has a very strong chance of winning. The only thing that can really hurt his odds at this point is if he continues to alienate his base.

Here’s something I wrote on the topic in the post, The Consensus Echo Chamber Take on Trump Firing Comey is All Wrong:

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Lee Camp Explains How The New York Times Manufactures “Hit Piece Propaganda”

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Comedian Lee Camp has hosted a show on RT called Redacted Tonight since 2014. While I certainly don’t always agree with his conclusions, he’s clearly a passionate, genuine and highly intelligent American who cares deeply about the country and the people living in it. He believes (rightly), that our fellow citizens are are suffering unnecessarily due to our demonstrably parasitic, corrupt, imperial, oligarchic, corporate-state. Because he possesses such attributes, The New York Times found it necessary to dispatch one of its minions to write an embarrassing, unprofessional and downright shady piece of propaganda about him.

His response is lengthy, but it’s also extremely important for everyone to read in full. It provides further evidence that those who peddle in fake news and shoddy, deep state propagandist drivel should not throw stones. The New York Times needs to get its own house in order before whining about how everyone else is so deficient.

Below are some of the more outrageous excerpts from his excellent rebuttal. You can read it in full at Naked Capitalism:

This past Thursday the New York Times vomited up a hit piece on little ol’ me – a guy who has been doing stand-up comedy for nearly 20 years and thought maybe that comedy could be used to inform and inspire audiences, rather than just make fun of the differences between men and women.

At first when you’re the center of a smear job, you’re annoyed and frustrated. But as I read further through the piece, I realized it was a master class in how to write propaganda for one of the most “respected” news outlets in our country. I’m actually grateful it was written about me because now I can see with my own eyes exactly how the glorious chicanery is done. I count no less than 15 lies, manipulations, and false implications in this short article, a score that even our fearless prevaricator-in-chief Donald Trump would envy.

So here now is a “How To” for writing propaganda for the New York Times – using the smear piece against me as an example.

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Another Red Flag Emerges in the Auto Securitization Market

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Irresponsible and dangerous lending practices in the U.S. automobile market have been flagged by many people for a long time, but nobody knows exactly when it will all come to a head and create real problems. Today, I want to flag the latest warning sign.

Bloomberg reports:

Subprime auto bonds issued in 2015 are by one key measure on track to become the worst performing in the history of car-loan securitizations, according to Fitch Ratings.

This group of securities is experiencing cumulative net losses at a rate projected to reach 15 percent, which is higher even than for bonds in the 2007, Fitch analysts Hylton Heard and John Bella Jr. wrote in a report Thursday.

“The 2015 vintage has been prone to high loss severity from a weaker wholesale market and little-to-no equity in loan contracts at default due to extended-term lending, a trend which was not as apparent in the recessionary vintages,” said the analysts, referring to lenders’ stretching out repayment terms on subprime loans, sometimes to over six years, to lower borrowers’ monthly payment. That becomes riskier in the tail end of the loan, after the car has mostly depreciated and borrowers may be left owing large balances.

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Should U.S. Taxpayers Be Funding the Brookings Institution?

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Today’s post highlights an interesting audit on the Brookings Institution by Open the Books, which reveals considerable tax payer funding for the so-called “think tank.” The question is how much thinking is really being done, and are taxpayers getting their money’s worth?

Here’s some of what Open the Books’ Adam Andrzejewski had to say on the matter in a recent Forbes article, Brookings Institution — The Progressive Jukebox Funded By U.S. Taxpayers:

Washington, D.C. is known for its monuments, but it is also known for its “ivory tower” think tanks. These institutions can serve a valuable role in providing dispassionate and empirical analysis in divided times. One of the pre-eminent D.C. think tanks is the Brookings Institution, which has nearly half-a-billion dollars in assets and deep ties to political leaders on the left.

According to Brookings, its mission is to “conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level.” Brookings says it values the independence of its scholars and prides itself on “open-minded” inquiry.

Yet, public spending records captured by our organization at OpenTheBooks.com tell a somewhat different story. Rather than focusing on “open-minded” inquiry, Brookings seems swayed by “open-wallet” inquiry. In many cases, Brookings doesn’t resemble a think tank, but a jukebox – add a little coin and Brookings will play your tune, if the price is right.

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Liberty Links 6/10/17

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If you appreciate our work, and want to contribute to genuine, independent media, consider visiting our Support Page. Must Reads Sorry Dems, Comey’s Words Too Weak to Impeach Trump (I completely agree with this analysis, The Hill) How The Intercept Outed Reality Winner (Errata Security) Max Blumenthal Grills Progressive Rep. Jamie Raskin about Russia Allegations (Must watch, Congress is … Read more

Retired FBI Special Agent Blows the Whistle on the Real Robert Mueller

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Shortly after former FBI Director Robert Mueller was announced as the special counsel for the Russia investigation, the screeching hordes of America’s “always wrong about everything” punditry class cheered in near unison, lauding the man as some sort of second coming. This sort of thing should always be seen as a red flag, and thanks to an excellent article written by retired FBI special agent Coleen Rowley, everyone can now know exactly why.

But first, who is Coleen Rowley?

Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition to launching the Iraq War is archived in full text on the NYT and her 2013 op-ed entitled “Questions for the FBI Nominee” was published on the day of James Comey’s confirmation hearing.

It’s important to be aware of that background as you read the following excerpts from the excellent post published at CounterPunch titled, Comey and Mueller: Russiagate’s Mythical Heroes:

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The Comey Testimony is Great for Trump, Terrible For Democrats

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The unanimous very smart person take on Trump’s firing of James Comey is that it’s a political disaster which will lead to total ruin and possibly his impeachment. I disagree.

The key factor that will determine how this ultimately turns out hinges largely on whether or not there was actual coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to sway the election through hacking or other nefarious means. Personally, I don’t think there was, which is why I don’t expect Donald Trump to be removed from office. The consensus view right now is that Trump’s firing of Comey offers further circumstantial evidence that he’s trying to cover up coordination with Russia in order to end the ongoing investigation. This is certainly a possibility to consider, but it’s definitely not the only possibility, nor is it the most likely explanation.

– From last month’s post: The Consensus Echo Chamber Take on Trump Firing Comey is All Wrong

I’ve been warning incessantly for months that the Democratic Party is on the verge of blowing itself up in a mushroom cloud of Russia conspiracy theorizing. Many high profile Democrats, corporate media hacks and partisans of all shapes and sizes have spent Donald Trump’s first six months screeching about how the President is a Russian agent who conspired with Putin to rig the election against Hillary Clinton. Of course, if there is any truth to this claim Trump should justifiably be tossed from office. The problem is we haven’t seen any proof, most likely because none exists.

You can already see Democrats trying to pivot to, “but Trump tried to obstruct justice.” Sorry, but based on what I’ve seen so far, this just ain’t gonna fly. The public’s expectations have been far too intentionally and incessantly inflated by Democratic politicians and corporate media pundits. Anything less than proof of collusion between Trump and Russia to influence the 2016 Presidential election will likely be seen as a win for Trump. This is what happens when you’re really stupid strategically and decide to put all your eggs in the Russia conspiracy theory basket.

As such, despite there being all sorts of investigations going on, I don’t expect anything to emerge that will lead to an impeachment of Donald Trump. Considering what we know about how domestic spy agencies operate, I strongly believe we’d have leaked proof by now if Trump colluded with Russia to influence the election.

That said, the Democrats will never let this go because it would force them to talk about real issues like Wall Street, oligarchy and imperial foreign policy, but they don’t want to do that. That’s the dirty little secret. Since the Democrats largely agree with Trump on many of his most heinous policy stances, they have to come up with an overseas bogeyman to obsess about. That’s what this has been about since day one. As such, there continues to be no functioning opposition party in American at this time. Unfortunate, but true.

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