So the Donald’s latest burst of impetuosity--agreeing with Sen. Schumer to permanently abolish the public debt ceiling--has descended on the beltway like manna from heaven. Not Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter or even the Great Texas Porker, Lyndon Johnson, dared to utter the thought of it -- at least not in polite company. -David Stockman
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-12/stockman-exposes-americas-fiscal-doomsday-machine
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9-11-17 A joint investigation by the news website Animal Politico and the NGO Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity has revealed that, amidst all the budget cuts, the Peña Nieto Government has been using a complex web of shell companies to make hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds, originally intended for public causes such as combating poverty or financing public education, completely vanish.
In other words, much of the money that was meant to alleviate the crippling poverty affecting Mexico is now sitting in offshore private bank accounts.
Unsurprisingly, one of the biggest conduits of the illicit funds was Mexico’s erstwhile sugar daddy, Pemex, which, as we reported last week, has been financially bled to the verge of collapse by its swollen ranks of senior managers and administrators, corrupt politicians, shady contractors, and the untouchable, unsackable leaders of the oil workers’ union.
But the corruption at Pemex is apparently even worse than we originally thought. A fresh scandal has erupted that implicates a number of senior political figures in the systematic theft of oil from the pipelines that crisscross the country’s landscape, which is now the second most profitable source of funds for Mexico’s criminal gangs, behind the trafficking of drugs. The pilfered oil is sold at half the price (or less) of what drivers would have to pay at a Pemex gas station. https://wolfstreet.com/2017/09/11/where-does-the-money-go-that-mexico-borrows/
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July 2017 Trump: "Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us - but we had to give it a try!"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-china-north-korea-nuclear-20170706-story.html
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8-11-17 North Korea's most important ally and trading partner said it would prevent any attempt to overthrow Kim Jong-un’s regime after Donald Trump warned the dictator should be “very, very nervous” if he threatened the United States.
China’s state-run Global Times said: "If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so."
The newspaper added: "It needs to make clear its stance to all sides and make them understand that when their actions jeopardise China's interests, China will respond with a firm hand." http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/839712/china-north-korea-us-stop-missile-attack-strike-war-donald-trump-south-sea-guam
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a Friday report on NBC, according to which Trump is readying a package of diplomatic and military moves against North Korea, including cyberattacks and increased surveillance and intelligence operations, after the nation's sixth and largest nuclear test.
Trump's top national security advisers walked him through a range of options over lunch in the White House on Sunday, just hours after North Korea's latest test, officials said.
According to NBC, Trump is also seriously considering adopting diplomatically risky sanctions on Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang and upgrading missile defense systems in the region, administration officials said. In addition, the administration is not ruling out moving tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea should Seoul request them, a White House official said, though many consider such a move a nonstarter. It would break with nearly three decades of U.S. policy of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
U.S. officials have also made the case to China that if Beijing doesn't take stronger steps against North Korea, such as cutting off oil exports, South Korea and Japan are likely to pursue their own nuclear weapons programs and the U.S. won't stop them, the official said. "It's more a message for China than North Korea," the official said. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-09/china-warns-trump-we-will-back-north-korea-if-us-strikes-first
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9-12-17 DER SPIEGEL: So, it's all about cracking encryption now?
Snowden: Not cracking encryption -- the agencies are trying to bypass the encryption. They are looking for weak points on the device you use to see what you are writing before you encrypt your message. What they actually do is take over a website, infect it with a malicious software, and when you visit that website because, for example, you received a link, you get hacked. Then they own your computer or your phone. You paid for it, but they use it. I think this is far better than mass surveillance.
DER SPIEGEL: Why?
Snowden: Mass surveillance was incredibly cheap. It operates sort of freely, invisibly, constantly -- and there was no real defense other than using encryption schemes. Attacking these browsers, phones and computers is very much an expensive proposition.
DER SPIEGEL: But you just said yourself that a lack of money isn't the main problem for intelligence services.
Snowden: But even they can't use this to spy on everyone in the world all the time. The new approach makes life harder for the intelligence agencies in a good way. It creates a natural discipline that forces them to decide: Is this person I want to spy on really worth the cost? http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/edward-snowden-interview-there-is-still-hope-a-1166752.html
DER SPIEGEL: Is there a way to be absolutely certain who is hacking a system? It seems to be quite easy to manipulate a time stamp, use certain servers and stage a false flag operation.
Snowden: The false flag stuff is true -- I know how this works. I dealt with this in China's case. They used to be the usual suspects, nobody was talking about the Russians at that time. China didn't really care about covering their tracks that well. They would break the window, grab everything they could and then run off laughing. But even they never attacked directly from China. They would bounce off a server in Italy, Africa or South America. But you can follow the trail back -- it's not magic....
Snowden: Fear. Why do you think all these terrorism laws are passed without any meaningful debate? Why do we have an indefinite state of emergency, even in liberal places like France? I think you can also see reflections of this dynamic in Germany, which I think has a much lesser love for the intelligence services and spying in general given its history. But the inquiry into the NSA files didn't look so deeply into mass surveillance....
Snowden: My life is technology work. I'm an engineer, not a politician. So, public speeches or this stuff here, as nice as you guys are, this is hard for me. This is outside my comfort zone.
DER SPIEGEL: Are you afraid of the moment when the global public attention toward you begins to wane?
Snowden: No! I will love it!
DER SPIEGEL: Attention can be like a drug.
Snowden: Yeah, for certain personality types. But for me? You have to understand that my life literally is defined by a love for privacy. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/edward-snowden-interview-there-is-still-hope-a-1166752-2.html
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