A tanker for a tanker

I don’t see what Great Britain has to complain about, considering that they quite literally started it.

TWO British oil tankers with dozens of crew on board were seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards less than an hour apart today in the Gulf.

The Government’s Cobra committee is holding an emergency meeting in Whitehall tonight after the Stena Impero and Mesdar were halted by troops in speedboats and helicopters and diverted to Iran.

The raids came exactly two weeks after Royal Marines boarded a supertanker off Gibraltar suspected of carrying Iranian crude oil to Syria – prompting Tehran to threaten “retaliation”.

British-flagged Stena Impero was sailing to the Saudi port of Jubail today but ship tracking data shows it veered off course with a sharp turn north at around 4.17pm UK time. Iran’s state news agency IRNA said it had been “impounded” and claimed the tanker had turned off its tracker, ignored warnings from the Revolutionary Guards and was sailing in the wrong direction in a shipping lane.

The Impero was surrounded by four vessels and a helicopter. State-controlled TV claimed the ship was seized because it was “violating international maritime rules”. Less than an hour later at around 5pm the Mesdar – Liberian-flagged but operated by the UK firm Norbulk Shipping UK – also turned sharply north towards Iran’s coast having been surrounded by ten speedboats after passing westward through the Strait on its way to Ras Tanura.

It looks like the neoclowns couldn’t get President Trump to bite, so they’ve got Theresa May doing their bidding in the hopes of enmeshing the US military that way. I suspect they’re desperate to start a war in the Gulf in the hopes of creating a distraction from the coming Epstein-related arrests. And I very much doubt that either the President or the U.S. Navy is going to fall for the neoclown antics.

One article on the Daily Mail finally gets around to admitting that the Iranian response was both provoked and measured by the initial British action.

Fears were raised that the Iranian authorities were trying to seize a UK ship in retaliation for the detention of the Grace 1 tanker. The Iranian ship was detained off the coast of Gibraltar on July 4 after it was suspected of violating EU sanctions by carrying a cargo of crude oil destined for Syria. The ship’s captain, chief officer and two second officers were arrested and bailed and an investigation is ongoing.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the tanker’s seizure an act of ‘piracy’ on Tuesday and warned the UK to expect a response.

Of course they knew Iran would do something like this. However, I expect they were looking for a more violent escalation. It’s a little hard to bang the war drums when the other side is obviously just responding in kind to your own actions.

Epstein – NXIVM – Mega

The Epstein connections range from the Clinton Foundation and the Deep State to the sex cults of NXIVM and FLDS to Hollywood to the world of international high finance, according to Neon Revolt:

“The megabucks call themselves ‘Mega group.’ This name appeared in the media a couple of years ago, as a name for the secret Israeli mole in the upper reaches of the U.S. establishment. It came up in an overheard phone conversation, later denied by the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. The newshounds and spook watchers got it wrong. ‘Mega’ was not an agent, Mega was the boss.”

With some bitterness, Shamir wrote, “Megabucks influence us, even more than they influence the U.S. Our politicians are as weak and corrupt as America’s and they are easier to swing. Even relative small-timers can cause eruption and bloodshed, like the California bingo-parlor owner [Irving] Moskowitz, who pushed our ex-prime minister Netanyahu to open the tunnel under the Haram al Sharif…. The Megabucks can buy Israel with their spare change. If they wish, we would have peace in Palestine today. But they are not interested in Israel per se…. Megabucks care for themselves, and they need Israel in order to keep the American Jews together, supporting them. That is why they do not mind bloodshed in Palestine, and even a bloody regional war does not scare them.”

Shamir concluded: “In my opinion, Megabucks, rather than forces of Caballa, move the events in the Middle East. It is not magic, just money—but a lot of money. They do not rule America or Israel, but they exercise a lot of influence. Fifty multibillionaires united in one framework present a very real force in the world.”

Steinberg concludes:

Of course, Shamir does not have the picture precisely right. The Bronfman-centered Mega Group is but one component of an insane and desperate element within the transatlantic financial establishment that is now pressing for a “Clash of Civilizations,” as a means of responding to the collapse of their global financial empire, and the threat of a new set of Eurasia-centered cooperative arrangements among nations supplanting their power. But, as far as the Mega puzzle is concerned, Shamir has solved the mystery.

No wonder Mossad boss Yatom scolded his Washington-based underling with the warning, “This is not something we use Mega for.”

And what are the odds that a group of Jewish billionaires with ties to Israeli intelligence would now all be caught up in sex abuse scandals?

We’re familiar with the scandals surrounding Wexner (and his protege, Epstein), Spielberg, and the Bronfmans (Edgar was involved alongside Charles, and it’s Edgar’s daughters who got involved with NXIVM), but what about Steinhardt?

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Steinhardt just happens to be embroiled in a sex scandal of his own right now!

What a remarkable coincidence! All FOUR of these founding families have sexual scandal surrounding them, and they all seem attached to the Israeli deep state, in some way or another!

And remember all those unsealed indictments? R. Kelly’s was one of them….

China guards the US border

Yeah, so that’s working out about as well as you’d assume it would:

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection watch commander at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has admitted to running an illegal gun operation, authorities said. Wei Xu, 56, of Santa Fe Springs was arrested Feb. 5 after an investigation involving undercover officers to whom Xu sold three guns out of the trunk of his car, including an “off-roster” pistol not certified for sale in California, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

He has been on unpaid administrative leave since his arrest and will be fired, said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.

In court Wednesday, Xu pleaded guilty to illegally selling guns on the internet, some of which he obtained by using his power as a law enforcement official, and to creating a fake company to avoid paying taxes, prosecutors said. He also pleaded guilty to illegally possessing unregistered firearms and making false statements to a federal agency about his involvement with a Chinese company to get a secret-level security clearance.

You can warble on about human equality all you like, if you wish. But sooner or later, reality, history, and the observable patterns of human behavior are going to slap you in the face.

UNFORGETTABLE on Unauthorized

Unauthorized.TV is very pleased to announce its second documentary available for viewing on the channel, Unforgettable: The Korean War. This powerful and sobering documentary is comprised of veterans of the Korean War telling of their experiences fighting what has been described as “the forgotten war” on the Korean Peninsula. The documentary is available for all Unauthorized subscribers; non-subscribers can also purchase the documentary or viewing access to it there. If, after watching it, you would like to support the filmmakers as well as the channel, please note that all sales proceeds will be split between them and Unauthorized.

On a related note, subscribers may be interested to know that Unauthorized is filming its first original documentary this weekend. We anticipate releasing it in September.

Convergence is the corporate cancer

An Australian company intentionally devalues performance:

Atlassian says it will no longer tolerate “brilliant jerks” who deliver results for the company but make life hell for their co-workers as part of a complete overhaul of how the tech firm conducts performance reviews.

The $47 billion Australian software company, which was founded in Sydney in 2002 and floated on the US stock market in 2015, says two-thirds of every performance review will now have nothing to do with job skills.

Instead, equal weighting will be given to how each of its 3000 employees impacts others on their team, and to how they live the company values. Atlassian says the change will “more fairly measure people on how they bring their whole self to work”.

While it’s true that teamwork is an important element of success in any organization, establishing feelings as the basis for evaluating performance is assuring rule by the most sensitive. Which in this case means that gamma males and women will soon rule the company and the ability to actually get anything done will become irrelevant.

One need only to look at Apple in the post-Jobs era to see what difference the loss of just one “brilliant jerk” can make to even the most successful corporation. Then contemplate the consequences of eliminating all of them from an organization.

Not going anywhere

Sex trafficker to the stars Jeffrey Epstein is denied bail:

Multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was denied bail Thursday pending trial on child sex-trafficking charges.

“Starting with my conclusions, the government’s application for continued remand is hereby granted and the defense’s application for pretrial release is respectfully hereby denied,” Manhattan federal Judge Richard Berman said at the start of a hotly anticipated hearing.

“The government has established danger to others and to the community by clear and convincing evidence, and the government has established a risk of flight by a preponderance of evidence.”

It’s a sign that they might actually be serious. We won’t know, of course, until more arrests of the rich and famous start taking place. Which may be coming sooner than anyone thinks, if Vanity Fair has it right:

“There were other business associates of Mr. Epstein’s who engaged in improper sexual misconduct at one or more of his homes. We do know that,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Courtney Wild, one of the Epstein accusers who gave emotional testimony at Epstein’s bail hearing. “In due time the names are going to start coming out.” (Attorneys for Epstein did not respond to a request for comment.)

Likely within days, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will release almost 2,000 pages of documents that could reveal sexual abuse by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders,” according to the three-judge panel’s ruling. The documents were filed during a civil defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former Mar-a-Lago locker-room attendant, against Epstein’s former girlfriend and alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell. “Nobody who was around Epstein a lot is going to have an easy time now. It’s all going to come out,” said Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies. Another person involved with litigation against Epstein told me: “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names. It’s going to be contagion numbers.”

Shine the light on them. All of them.

The Gatekeeper’s Ball

The Z-man infiltrates the neoclowns’ attempt to rebrand themselves as “National Conservatives”:

The final speaker of the morning session was Yoram Hazony. It was an interesting performance to behold. He started out criticizing neoconservatives, making the absurd claim that the current crop of neocons are not the real neocons. They have strayed from the original into imperialism. Then he let it be known that one of the sponsors for this show was The public Interest, a neocon quarterly founded by Irving Kristol. The fact that he said this without laughing was quite remarkable.

He then moved onto libertarianism. It’s interesting to hear these guys criticize libertarianism, because they don’t really know why they oppose it. They just associate it with the cultural decline, so they assume it is the cause. There’s also a reactionary vibe to their fight with the libertarians. These new nationalists don’t like the libertarians, because libertarians oppose nationalism. For their purposes, maybe that’s enough to dismiss the economic arguments against their brand of nationalism.

The third part of his speech was a trade about white nationalism. He fumbled around trying to say something about biological reality, but that made him sound like a nut from the flat earth society. Then he warned about the threat of white nationalism, especially among young people. Then he made the claim that there is no such thing as tribal loyalty, which is an odd thing, given that he claims a nation is a collection of tribes. As in his book, it’s clear he terrifies himself when he follows his logic to its conclusion….

The funny thing about this event is not a single person has bothered to mention that conservatism, whether neocon or Buckley, managed to conserve nothing.

They managed to derail the Tea Party, but I very much doubt they’ll be successful in jumping in front of the nationalist parade. I addressed this very topic in last night’s Darkstream.

Gladstone on free trade

A reader sends an informative quote from the great 19th-century British advocate of free trade, Prime Minister William Gladstone:

Advocacy of Free Trade goes back to the United Kingdom of 1846-1860.  However, what William Gladstone actually said as a defense of free trade is “It is a mistake to suppose that the best way of giving benefit to the labouring classes is simply to operate on the articles consumed by them. If you want to do them the maximum of good, you should rather operate on the articles which give them a maximum of employment.”

However, in 1846-1860 English manufacturing was the best in the world, though America had surpassed them in some fields. Free trade meant far larger markets abroad for English goods, and cheaper foodstuffs at home, meaning that the English labouring classes had more money to spend on their own manufactures.

For precisely the same reason, the French have rigorous protections of their somewhat inefficient agriculture, namely it creates a maximum of employment.

For the United States of 2019, our labor is relatively expensive, so in many areas our industries are not competitive with places where labor costs little. Gladstone’s rationale for free trade thus indicates for us that protectionism, not free trade, is to our advantage.

Translation: it is a fundamental mistake for economists to focus on providing the US population with access to cheap imported goods instead of jobs that permit them to pay for more expensive domestic goods.

Impeachment attempt fails

And it wasn’t even close, because “racist, racist” isn’t working any better than “Russia, Russia” did:

The House voted on Wednesday to table a resolution from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, to impeach President Donald Trump over racist comments he made about four Democratic congresswomen of color, effectively killing the measure.

The vote — 332 to 95, with one lawmaker voting “present” — marked the first time the Democratic-controlled chamber had weighed in on impeachment, an issue that has created a widening schism within the party. Progressive newcomers and several 2020 candidates have pushed for impeachment proceedings, but the House leadership, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been resistant.

All Republicans joined with 137 Democrats and the lone independent, Justin Amash, to table the resolution.

Meanwhile, Americans are chanting “send her back” about the Somali woman squatting in the US Congress who allegedly married her own brother:

President Donald Trump slammed Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the members of ‘squad’ at his campaign rally Wednesday night with supporters responding with shouts of ‘send her back, send her back.’

While the president raged against all four lawmakers who make up the squad individually – and railed against several of the Democratic presidential contenders – it was Omar, who is a frequent target of his ire, who bore the brunt of his criticism.

Trump accused Omar of blaming terrorists attacks on our country just hours after igniting a debate over rumors she was married to her brother.

‘She smeared U.S. Service members involved in Black Hawk Down,’ he said referring to the failed 1993 raid in Mogadishu by the U.S. military. ‘In other words, she slandered the brave Americans were trying to keep peace in Somalia. Omar minimized the September 11th attacks on our homeland saying some people did something,’ he added.

Outside the White House earlier that day he had said, ‘I hear that she was married to her brother,’ repeating claims which have swirled around Omar since her 2016 campaign.

A Somali blog first accused her of marrying her brother and of being a bigamist. It prompted her to issue statements which have not helped in disproving the claims.

That sound you’re hearing is the Overton Window shattering again. And I do so enjoy the delicate phrasing of the term “prompted her to issue statements which have not helped in disproving the claims” which is considerably more accurate than the false US narrative of the claims being “baseless”.