Economy

China is developing markets to lessen dependency on US trade. That's bad for us. Trump's tariffs hurt Americans worse than China.

Economy

These people don't have to work at Apple's supply chain if they don't want, so don't tell me about "human cost."

Economy

Debt explosion in China in attempt to keep artificial growth numbers high.

Environment

China is building hundreds of coal power plants.

Police State

China blocks access to VPNs so people can't browse in privacy.

Foreign Policy

European rulers denounce new sanctions against Russia proposed by the US as self-serving. You don't say.

The pressure on Qatar is a result of the US and its allies not liking al Jazeera because it tells the truth.

The growing alliance between China and Russia is the most important foreign policy event in the world.

Israel and the US are behind the sudden rise of the Muslim threat.

Police State

It's funny how when China does something, it's presented as negative, but when the US does the exact same thing, it's presented positive.

"China's government is using facial-recognition technology to help promote good behavior and catch lawbreakers, reports the WSJ."

Hello.

War

From arming and funding Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to using cyber-weapons and much more, the US government is the root cause of much terrorism.

"Even as the U.S. government confronts rival powers over widespread Internet espionage, it has become the biggest buyer in a burgeoning gray market where hackers and security firms sell tools for breaking into computers. The strategy is spurring concern in the technology industry and intelligence community that Washington is in effect encouraging hacking and failing to disclose to software companies and customers the vulnerabilities exploited by the purchased hacks. That’s because U.S. intelligence and military agencies aren’t buying the tools primarily to fend off attacks. Rather, they are using the tools to infiltrate computer networks overseas, leaving behind spy programs and cyber-weapons that can disrupt data or damage systems."

Just as one would expect.

"This has become the shadow government’s modus operandi regardless of which party controls the White House: the government creates a menace—knowing full well the ramifications such a danger might pose to the public—then without ever owning up to the part it played in unleashing that particular menace on an unsuspecting populace, it demands additional powers in order to protect “we the people” from the threat.
Yet the powers-that-be don’t really want us to feel safe.
They want us cowering and afraid and willing to relinquish every last one of our freedoms in exchange for their phantom promises of security.
As a result, it’s the American people who pay the price for the government’s insatiable greed and quest for power.
We’re the ones to suffer the blowback." 

Exactly.

The US wastes hundreds of billions on weapons while the Chinese develop economic power.

Foreign Policy

China has been imprisoning and killing CIA informants.

Foreign Policy

Fake North Korean crisis.

"The “Iranian threat” was an orchestration that was used as cover to put US anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia’s borders. An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is intended to intercept and destroy nuclear-armed ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and prevent them from reaching their targets.
Washington claimed that the anti-ABM bases were not directed at Russia, but were for the protection of Europe against Iran’s nuclear ICBMs. Insouciant Americans might have believed this, but the Russians surely did not as Iran has neither ICBMs nor nuclear weapons. The Russian government has made it clear that Russia understands the US bases are directed at preventing a Russian retaliation against a Washington first strike.
The Chinese government also is not stupid. The Chinese leadership understands that the reason for the N. Korean “crisis” is to provide cover for Washington to put anti-ballistic missile sites near China’s border.
In other words, Washington is creating a shield against nuclear retaliation from both Russia and China from a US nuclear strike against both countries."

Makes sense.

War

Contradictory North Korea narratives.

"North Korea is either highly armed and dangerous or is weak, crumbling and filled with fake and broken weapons. It cannot be both."

Either way, the US should not have troops there.

Claim the US is preparing a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia and China. I'm skeptical.

War

Another analysis contradicts claims Assad gassed the rebels with Sarin.

History of why North Korea wants nuclear weapons. They're the best deterrent in the world. The US has repeated threatened to nuke North Korea. Here's the updated link to the original article identifying six times the US overtly threatened NK with weapons.

More history about who started the Korean war.

David Stockman on North Korea.

"Instead, Deng not only rescued Mao’s calamity by turning from firing squads to a hyperactive printing press, but spawned the greatest Ponzi scheme of borrowing, building, speculation and malinvestment in human history. It is surely a false and unsustainable prosperity, but for the moment it rings out a great irony. Rather than a threat to America’s security, Mr. Deng’s great Red Ponzi is considered by Wall Street to be the very engine of “growth” in the modern world and the suzerains of Beijing the very model of unfailing prosperity management and economic “stimulus” if, as and when needed."

Back to China.

"The fact is, the seven decade confrontation on the 38th parallel is an artifact of empire, not a necessity of homeland security. It is the handiwork of a Warfare State served by a permanent political class that derives its power, purpose and resources from the faithful pursuit and stewardship of an American Imperium." 

Well said.

"So how is it that a nation that has been growing by leaps and bounds for a half-century cannot defend itself from a two-bit industrial backwater run by a certifiable lunatic? Why is it that no one in Washington has bothered to notice that since 2002 South Korea’s economy has grown every four months by more than the entire current GDP of North Korea.
The argument for the huge US presence in South Korea, of course, is that it provides a trip-wire deterrent that puts the North Korean ruler on notice that an attack on South Korea is an attack on Washington. But with respect to a potential conventional attack, that’s just plain malarkey.
If South Korea with 81X the economy, twice the population and infinitely more industrial base and technological sophistication can’t or won’t defend itself from the “potemkin” economy and military north of its border, why should the American taxpayers and soldiers be called into the breach?"

No kidding.

War

Our Korea policy is stupid.

"Why, 64 years after the Korean War, a quarter-century after the Cold War, are we still obliged to go to war to defend South Korea from a North with one-half the South’s population and 3 percent of its gross domestic product?
Why are we, on the far side of the Pacific, still responsible for containing North Korea when two of its neighbors — Russia and China — are nuclear powers and South Korea and Japan could field nuclear and conventional forces far superior to Kim’s?
How long into the future will containing militarist dictators in Pyongyang with nuclear missiles be America’s primary responsibility?"

We should trade with North Korea.

Claim aggression against North Korea is really a prelude to war with China. This article explains why I'm skeptical.

Regulation

How come China gets a secure version of Windows 10 but not Americans. F*** Microsoft.

Politics

A timely reminder that China helped get Bill Clinton elected in return for missile technology, people were arrested, but there was no investigation of Clinton.

Bogus request by leftist billionaires for New York to raise taxes on them.

Contrary to claims, nationalists win more seats in Netherlands.

"The Dutch elections on Wednesday have provided a whole bunch of Orwellian narratives. PM Mark Rutte’s right wing VVD party, actually the ‘business’ -or should we say ‘rent-seekers’ in 2017- party, who lost some 20% of the seats they had obtained in the previous parliamentary election in November 2012, down from 41 to 33 seats, is declared the big winner. While Geert Wilders’ very right wing party, PVV, won 25% more seats -it went from 16 to 20- and is the big loser." 

"What Rutte’s going to do next is form a new coalition, this time not with the left but with the center-right, and no-one will be able to tell the difference. If Dutch, and European, and global, politics have one main problem, it’s that. Left is right and right is left and winners are losers. If a guy like Dijsselbloem can squeeze Greek society dry in his capacity as Eurogroup head, while he runs as a leftist candidate in his own country, and loses hugely, anything goes."

Upside-down world.

Circumstances make it appear Obama did spy on Trump regardless of what rulers claim.

"How could DNI Director Clapper and CIA Director Morell say that no connection had been established between Trump’s campaign and the Russians, without there having been an investigation? And how could such an investigation be conclusive in exonerating Trump’s associates — without some use of electronic surveillance?
Did the FBI fly to Moscow and question Putin’s cyber warfare team?
More questions arise. If, in its investigation of the Russian hacking and a Trump connection, the FBI did receive the fruits of some electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign, were Attorney General Loretta Lynch, White House aides or President Obama made aware of any such surveillance? Did any give the go-ahead to surveil the Trump associates? Comey would neither confirm nor deny that they did.
So, if Obama were aware of an investigation into the Trump campaign, using intel sources and methods, Trump would not be entirely wrong in his claims, and Obama would have some ‘splainin’ to do."

We'll see.

David Rockefeller, possible the world's most powerful rulers, died at age 101.

Foreign Policy

China concerned over CIA hacking. No kidding.

War

US rulers used to want to defeat enemies, but the Obama doctrine is to exterminate them. It's backfiring, but Trump has followed suit.

Trump increases drone strikes.

"In Syria: “A drone attack in northern Syria, part of a series of recent strikes by the United States in and around the province of Idlib, killed a top al-Qaida leader who had participated in the planning for the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.”"

They still hadn't gotten all those guys?

Trump to expand war on terror which has backfired spectacularly. This doesn't bode well for the peace plan brokered by Russia and Turkey.

Pentagon plans escalation in Syria.

Report exposes US attack on Syrian troops was intentional.

Suspected chemical attack in Mosul.

Copying the US, ISIS drops bombs with drones in Iraq.

Ukraine's rulers violate peace agreement and attack separatists, hoping to draw Russia into war to force Trump's hand.

A reminder that Chelsea Manning is a hero.

SEAL team 6 is not above committing war crimes.

For training rounds, US seeks biodegradable bullets that sprout plants.

Chinese troops killed in battle upset Chinese people.

US called greatest threat to world peace.

"
The U.S. military. The author’s sobering conclusion:

• Since WW2, Earth has had 248 armed conflicts. The US started 201 of them.
• These US-started armed attacks have killed ~30 million and counting; 90% of these deaths are innocent children, the elderly and ordinary working civilian women and men.
• The US has war-murdered more than Hitler’s Nazis.

"

Ouch.

The latest undeclared US war is in Yemen.

Economy

Inflation rises, but the economy stagnates.

The official inflation rate has reached the Fed's 2 percent target while the real rate is closer to 10 percent.

A freight train route from China to the UK will revolutionize trade to the consternation of US rulers but it will benefit Americans.

Don't start a trade war with China.

Foreign Policy

China seizes US submarine drone. More.

Tax and Spend

NASA claims Ceres has underground ocean that could harbor life. It says that about every rocky body to make more money.

China's stock of Treasuries falls below Japan's as it continues selloff.

Four richest counties in US are suburbs of Washington DC.