russiainsider--2020-01-17--Oligarchy in America: How the 0.1% Rob Everyone Else Blind - 31 Shocking Data Points

The rich are getting richer , and everyone else is getting poorer .
There is no hiding anymore , the United States has become an oligarch owned banana republic with nukes , and with a monopoly currency which has allowed it to rig the markets for half a century .
But now we are only a couple of hours from curtain – Midnight in America .
With the stock market at all-time highs , virtually no unemployment ( or so they say ) , and brisk GDP growth ( supposedly ) in the last decade , economic analysts would declare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shape .
But , it isn ’ t .
The stock market is a central bank inflated asset bubble , and what GDP growth there has been , is an illusion brought about by the very same financial bubble and by pumping the economy up with record federal borrowings to finance the deficits that America can not afford .
Rigged statistics showing artificially low inflation serve to hold together the Trumped-up American economic narrative .
( About the rigged inflation statistics , see this report ) .
And the low unemployment figure is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statistics .
In reality , the US economy is failing – and the country with it .
At least two-thirds of the population has seen dramatic declines in living standards and half are back to levels of developing nations – without the development .
The big story covered up by all the happy macroeconomic figures repeated by rote by the US establishment – everybody from the president to cable television pundits and Trump fanboys – is the gradual impoverishment of the American worker .
That ’ s an inconvenient truth increasingly difficult to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into a nightmare for huge swathes of the population .
As the figures we present below show , the rich are really getting richer , the middle class has been decimated , and half of Americans are poor and destitute of any financial wealth .
The super-rich are gobbling up an ever-increasing slice of the American pie at the cost of all the rest who get nothing but table scraps on one side and leftover crumbs on the other , if anything .
The resulting stratification of society has brought back a medieval @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing odd jobs , cleaning houses , fetching groceries , running errands and deliveries for the feudal rich and the remaining shrinking middle class .
Thanks to the Fed ( the American oligarch owned central bank ) pushing easy money into the hands of the privileged elite , the super-rich Dismal Decimal – the top 0.1 % – have by now amassed as much wealth as they had just before the Great Depression that started with the stock market crash in 1929 .
A lesson not learned .
Back to square one .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ This article is based on an Awara Accounting study titled “ Widening Income and Wealth Gap and Stagnating Wages in America.
” Links and source references to all the facts presented here can be found in said study .
BTW all the data in this report is derived from official US government sources and American experts analyzing them .
During the last decades , the financial rewards from the rigged markets first flew exclusively into the pockets of Top 10 % , but later it was increasingly Top 1 % , which pocketed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
1 .
The income of Top 1 % has grown five times as fast as that of Bottom 90 % income since 1970 , who now earn double the amount of income than 160 million poor of the lower 50 % stratum .
The fortunes of Top 1 % and Bottom 50 % are now reversed .
2 .
Top 1 % now holds as much wealth as Bottom 50 % combined .
Income inequality obviously leads to wealth inequality , but here the figures are yet more striking in showing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Since 1989 , Top 1 % captured $ 21 trillion in wealth , while Bottom 50 % lost $ 900 billion , actually pushing them down to negative wealth , meaning they have more debt than they have assets .
On a net analysis , half of Americans own nothing of real value .
3 .
Until the creeping coup under Reagan , income equality was improving It was bad enough in 1995 when Top 1 % earned as much as Bottom 50 % , but today the richest 1 % already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bottom half with only 12 % .
As the chart shows , back in 1978 – before the neoliberal creeping coup really got going – the trends were reversed .
Below chart compares income growth since 1920 of Top 1 % to Bottom 90 % ( that is , all the rest except Top 10 % ) .
We see that right after Ronald Reagan entered the presidency with his Chicago School snake oil influenced backers , the income growth of the 1 % started its dizzying growth , which is continuing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1962 , the share of Top 1 % of America ’ s wealth at 33 % was equal to that of Bottom 90 % , but in the early 1980s the share of Bottom 90 % started a steep descent and by 2016 their share had dwindled down to 21 % .
Especially after the Federal Reserve shifted its market rigging low-interest-rate money-pumping policy into high gear from the beginning of 2000s , the superrich have experienced a massive rise in their fortunes , as illustrated by below chart .
But by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Top 0.1 % – the Dismal Decimal – who are where the music plays .
5 .
Top 0.1 % now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90 % combined .
A recent study revealed that the concentration on the top is yet much more pernicious .
It ’ s not any more a question of Top 10 % , and not even Top 1 % , as it is the Top 0.1 % – the Dismal Decimal – that has now concentrated the wealth of the nation ( and half the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Top 0.1 % now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90 % combined .
As the below chart shows , we are essentially back to the Roaring Twenties…a lesson not learned .
Actually , in the aftermath of the Great Depression , America entered an unprecedented era of four decades of prosperity with a more equal distribution of wealth as Bottom 90 % recovered strongly in distribution of wealth at the expense of Top 0.1 % parasites .
6 .
Top 0.1 % earnings grew 347 % between 1979 and 2017 , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 157 % – the rest gained nothing 7 .
The next chart takes a longer perspective – while widening the sample to Top 10 % – and shows their share of the total income since 1910 to 2010 .
The Roaring Twenties – the period before the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression – experienced the same level of glaring inequality as today ’ s America .
With Franklin D. Roosevelt ’ s reforms the egregious average income inequality was tamed and stayed relatively low until Reagan ’ s fatal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ downhill ever since – or uphill , if we look at it from the perspective of the rich .
8 .
The only economic figure that has managed to look good is the GDP , but that is so only until you bother to find out where it comes from – from the Federal Reserved fueled asset bubble and massive federal budget deficits financed by record national debts .
For an excellent exposé of how rigged and debt-ridden the US economy is , I refer to my earlier report published on the Saker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , But Russia Stronger Than Ever https : //thesaker.is/new-world-order-in-meltdown-but-russia-stronger-than-ever/ Shortly : The US economy must be seen as a giant Ponzi scheme , which will implode sooner or later .
And we are getting to that sooner part now .
Trump habitually and regularly brags about the stock market reaching another all-time high .
But that ’ s really being out of touch with the electorate .
Stock market gains exclusively flow to the rich increasing inequality and the cost of living for the rest .
Thing is that , beyond the richest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stake in the stock market .
In 2016 , the richest one percent held more than half of all outstanding stock , financial securities , and all other sorts of equity .
The remainder of those asset categories were held by the rest of Top 10 % , who owned over 93 % of all stock and mutual fund ownership .
What wealth the remaining 90 % may own is largely residential housing , the homes where they live .
According to Jonathan Tepper , the wealthiest 1 % own nearly 50 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than 81 % .
The so-called middle class owns only 8 % of all stock .
This also kills the myth that record highs on the stock market would be good for American retirement savings – with the richest few holding all the shares there ’ s nothing in it for the overwhelming majority .
A recent report also showed that only 10 % of Americans are invested in pension plans .
That is down from 60 % in 1980 .
And those who are , are traditionally more weighted towards bonds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rigged markets with the artificially low interest rates .
The pension savers are hence literally paying for the super gains flowing into the pockets of Top 1 % .
On the other hand the super low interest rates are out of grasp for the all but Top 1 % who gobble up the wealth of the nation with that largesse delivered to them by their Federal Reserve .
At the same time the common household is paying double-digit rates on their credit card debt traps .
9 .
Below Top 10 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stagnant , at best .
10 .
Average income of the bottom 50 % has stagnated at around $ 16,000 since 1980 , while the income of the top 1 % has skyrocketed by 300 % to approximately $ 1,340,000 in 2014 11 .
45 % of Americans earn annually only 18,000 or less .
A recent study found that 53 million Americans or 44 % of the working age population earn a median average annual salary of only $ 18,000 .
Basically then , at least half of the Americans are working-poor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2015 basically the same income as they had in 1979 13 .
In the two decades from 1997 to 2017 , only Top 5 % of households saw their income increase 14 .
For most American workers , real wages have barely budged in decades .
By end of 2018 , the real inflation-adjusted average wage had about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago .
15 .
As the below chart illustrates , the real average hourly wage which was $ 20.27 in 1964 had only inched up to $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real hourly worker ’ s wage was in 2019 still at 1972 levels .
16 .
For full-time employed men real wages have fallen 4.4 % since 1973 , according to economist Paul Craig Roberts .
The total average income of men at $ 51,212 in 2015 , was lower in real terms than it had been in 1974 .
17 .
As of 2014 , the average hours worked per week had fallen from around 39 hours in 1970s to under 34 hours .
Economist Mike Shedlock calculated that the actual hours @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deliver a weekly income of $ 690 , well below its $ 825 peak back in the early 1970s .
If we multiply the hypothetical weekly earnings by 50 , we get an annual figure of $ 35,497 .
That would in 2014 have translated to a 16.4 % decline from its peak in October 1972 .
18 .
All labor productivity growth since the 1970s have gone to the robber capitalists .
From 1973 to 2013 , hourly compensation of a typical ( production/nonsupervisory ) worker rose just 9 % percent while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nowhere is income inequality and the egregious worsening trend as manifest as in the case of CEO pay .
In the 1970s , CEOs made 30 times what typical workers made , but by 2017 the CEOs made 361 times the workers ’ pay .
According to the Economic Policy Institute CEO compensation has grown 940 % since 1978 , while typical worker compensation has risen only 12 % during that time .
The Fed fueled financial market orgy is the main cause for the windfall riches of CEOs as stock options and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ huge part of CEO pay packages .
This rising pay of executives was the main factor in Top 0.1 % ’ s super grab of household income 20 .
A 2017 study found that 40 % of US adults struggle to pay for basic necessities like food , healthcare , housing , and utilities .
21 .
Most Americans have depleted all their spare resources as a staggering 78 % of full-time workers are reported to live from paycheck to paycheck .
22 .
Nearly 70 % of Americans have virtually no savings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while the following 24 % – the core of the former middle class – have only $ 1,000 stashed away .
23 .
Correspondingly Bottom 70 % of Americans don ’ t own any real wealth ( beyond rapidly depreciating durables ) .
24 .
The other side of the ( non-existent ) coin is that the same 50 % of Americans would obviously struggle to come up with $ 400 for an unexpected expense .
By extension , the former middle class – those with the miserly savings of $ 1,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coping with any kind of bill for medical treatment without dipping into more debt .
Considering the above reported findings ( see the chart ) only the Top 10 % would be financially secure in a medical emergency .
25 .
According to shocking findings by the American Cancer Society , 137.1 million US residents suffered medical financial hardship in 2018 .
Americans had to resort to borrow a total of $ 88 billion in 2018 only to cover for essential medical treatment .
26 .
A third of young adults , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 34 , lived with in their parents ’ home because they can not afford a home of their own .
27 .
The income and wealth gap pictures get worse yet when we look at the age distribution of wealth .
Younger generations are earning less and own next to nothing ( that is , if you are not the golden youth of the 10 % ) .
Baby Boomers born between the end of the Second World War and 1964 currently hold wealth that is 11 times higher than that of millennials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Families in Inflation-Adjusted Dollars 28 .
The number of full-time jobs with life-sustaining wages – what economist David Stockman calls breadwinner jobs – have not been growing since 2000 , by 2014 their number was still 3.5 million or 5 % lower than it was at the peak in early 2001 .
In the same period 4 million part-time and gig jobs were created .
While the official unemployment figure is presently near historical lows – and at levels what some economists would like to call full employment – there are some big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the official unemployment statistics .
The officially touted unemployment figure ( so-called U3 unemployment ) record only those who have been looking for a job during the last 4 weeks , while discouraged long-term unemployed are cleansed from the statistics and left unrecorded as if they would not be in the workforce at all – makes stats look beautiful for the powers that shouldn ’ t be .
2 .
The labor participation rate has been falling .
3 .
New job creation has amounted to only a third of the annual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Part-time and gig jobs count as full-time employment .
Any person who takes a part-time or gig job for just a few hours a month is recorded among the employed , although they would rightly be considered unemployed merely clutching at straws .
5 .
Connected with the previous point , there is also a more general problem with the quality of jobs created .
Most jobs created in the last two decades are low-paid low-skill jobs that do not provide a life-sustaining income considering the cost of living in the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 36 % ) of U.S. workers are in the gig economy , doing part-time work or side hustles for companies like Uber , Lyft , Etsy , Amazon Mechanical Turk , Freelancer.com , Ebay or just any odd job they can get from time to time .
29 .
To make up for the shrinking earnings , the regime is pushing the American population into 21st century debt peonage .
Ensnared in the debt trap , US households had nearly $ 14 trillion in outstanding debt at the end of the third quarter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 73 % of GDP .
By end of 2019 , consumption debt alone ( not including asset acquiring mortgages ) was up by $ 2 trillion since 2014 .
Since 2004 , the weight of the student loan millstone has gone up fivefold from only $ 250 billion to today ’ s $ 1.5 trillion .
That ’ s due to the huge price inflation in higher education .
The cost of both public and private college escalated by 40 % over the general consumer price inflation between 2005 and 2015 .
30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last few decades in cost of living in the US , in Russia , you get the same standard of living for a fraction of the American cost .
A Moscow average monthly salary equal to $ 1,600 ( annual $ 19,200 ) gives the same purchasing power as a monthly salary of $ 6,000 in Chicago ( annual $ 72,000 ) .
Meaning , you live in Moscow ( at least as well for a monthly paycheck of $ 1,600 as you live in Chicago for a paycheck of $ 6,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
https : //www.awaragroup.com/blog/russia-vs-america-real-income-comparison/ ?
fbclid=IwAR0pHruMMOgILt5w70ybE3oP9EmjKzVYfQF6sB_QepGixe1aIVqlvsyZGk4 31 .
The present oligarch controlled rigged crony capitalist system has killed the American dream , the belief that anyone , regardless of parents ’ social status and incomes can attain success and wealth by hard work and ingenuity .
The gates for upward mobility have been shut for the overwhelming majority .
The monopolization of practically all sectors of the economy , the ever increasing bureaucratic restrictions on doing business , the extreme concentration of ownership , and the rigged financial markets have made it increasingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of penetrating the financial membrane protecting the elites .
A 2017 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that the probability that a household outside the top 10 % made it into the highest tier within 10 years was twice as high during 1984-1994 as it was during 2003-2013 .
The United States is an oligarchy This concentration of the income and wealth on the top , proves that the United States is an oligarchy .
A 2014 , study by Princeton University https : //www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4 demonstrated how the US is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showing the insanely widening income and wealth inequality , my aim is to show , that the country is an economic oligarchy , too .
In fact , economic super riches are the precondition for their political power , too .
In America , as always , the oligarchy has achieved their uncontested power in a hermeneutical feedback loop , where the initial wealth of the superrich has bought them increased political power , which has given them increased riches , which has bought them more political power , and so on , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the whole economy and the entire government .
Clearly the source of higher inequality has been Fed policies , which has pushed cheap money into the pockets of the already rich , who have exclusively then benefited from soaring stock and real estate prices .
Fittingly , we got end of 2019 a report revealing that the world ’ s richest people increased their wealth in the year by $ 1.2 trillion , a staggering 25 % , most of which belong to the oligarchs of the United States .
The question – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my series of Capitalism in America – is whether there has been a game plan , a long-term strategy or whether intermittent achievements have just spurred the oligarchs on to new economic and political power grabs in the course of establishing their totalitarian rule .
I tend to think , there has been a long-term plan ever since the establishment of the Federal Reserve .
The economic and political history of the United States provide so much circumstantial evidence , which supports the view that there has been a conspiracy of the Wall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this hypothesis in further installments to this series of Capitalism in America .
It is however clear – whether through a long-term plan or by a series of ad hoc interventions – the US financial elite has by now completed a creeping coup , which have delivered them absolute economic and political power .
In my investigation of the oligarchization of America – the creeping neoliberal oligarch coop , which set in full force since Reagan – I have so far completed these instalments : The first installment was a study showing how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hands of the oligarchy , titled Extreme concentration of ownership in the United States http : //blogengine.hellevig.net/post/2019/05/13/Extreme-concentration-of-ownership-in-the-United-States-.aspx The second part was a study revealing how the oligarchy has totally taken over US media , titled The Oligarch Takeover of US Media http : //blogengine.hellevig.net/post/2019/05/13/The-oligarchy-wields-totalitarian-control-over-the-media-through-just-a-few-corporations.aspx The third installment was a report published on the Saker blog titled New World Order in Meltdown , But Russia Stronger Than Ever https : //thesaker.is/new-world-order-in-meltdown-but-russia-stronger-than-ever/ The fourth installment , The Oligarch Takeover of US Pharma and Healthcare https : //thesaker.is/the-oligarch-takeover-of-us-pharma-and-healthcare-and-the-resulting-human-crisis/ was also on the Saker blog .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from point of view of political science the oligarchy has destroyed the social fabric of the US economy and deliberately enacted laws that favor the few over the people .
Of particular interest here is how the oligarchy has rigged the political system by institutionally solidifying the mendacious Janus- faced two-party system in order to remove any potential challenge to their rule .

The rich are getting richer, and everyone else is getting poorer.
There is no hiding anymore, the United States has become an oligarch owned banana republic with nukes, and with a monopoly currency which has allowed it to rig the markets for half a century. But now we are only a couple of hours from curtain – Midnight in America.
With the stock market at all-time highs, virtually no unemployment (or so they say), and brisk GDP growth (supposedly) in the last decade, economic analysts would declare that the US economy is in excellent shape. But, it isn’t. The stock market is a central bank inflated asset bubble, and what GDP growth there has been, is an illusion brought about by the very same financial bubble and by pumping the economy up with record federal borrowings to finance the deficits that America cannot afford. Rigged statistics showing artificially low inflation serve to hold together the Trumped-up American economic narrative. (About the rigged inflation statistics, see this report). And the low unemployment figure is nothing but a chimera based on misleading statistics.
In reality, the US economy is failing – and the country with it. At least two-thirds of the population has seen dramatic declines in living standards and half are back to levels of developing nations – without the development.
The big story covered up by all the happy macroeconomic figures repeated by rote by the US establishment – everybody from the president to cable television pundits and Trump fanboys – is the gradual impoverishment of the American worker. That’s an inconvenient truth increasingly difficult to hide as the American dream has turned into a nightmare for huge swathes of the population. As the figures we present below show, the rich are really getting richer, the middle class has been decimated, and half of Americans are poor and destitute of any financial wealth. The super-rich are gobbling up an ever-increasing slice of the American pie at the cost of all the rest who get nothing but table scraps on one side and leftover crumbs on the other, if anything. The resulting stratification of society has brought back a medieval servant economy, where the have-nots are doing odd jobs, cleaning houses, fetching groceries, running errands and deliveries for the feudal rich and the remaining shrinking middle class.
Thanks to the Fed (the American oligarch owned central bank) pushing easy money into the hands of the privileged elite, the super-rich Dismal Decimal – the top 0.1% – have by now amassed as much wealth as they had just before the Great Depression that started with the stock market crash in 1929. A lesson not learned. Back to square one. How will it end this time?
This article is based on an Awara Accounting study titled “Widening Income and Wealth Gap and Stagnating Wages in America.” Links and source references to all the facts presented here can be found in said study.
BTW all the data in this report is derived from official US government sources and American experts analyzing them.
During the last decades, the financial rewards from the rigged markets first flew exclusively into the pockets of Top 10%, but later it was increasingly Top 1%, which pocketed most, perfectly illustrated by below charts.
1. The income of Top 1% has grown five times as fast as that of Bottom 90% income since 1970, who now earn double the amount of income than 160 million poor of the lower 50% stratum.
The fortunes of Top 1% and Bottom 50% are now reversed.
2. Top 1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 50% combined.
Income inequality obviously leads to wealth inequality, but here the figures are yet more striking in showing the magnitudes of the grab at the top. Since 1989, Top 1% captured $21 trillion in wealth, while Bottom 50% lost $900 billion, actually pushing them down to negative wealth, meaning they have more debt than they have assets. On a net analysis, half of Americans own nothing of real value.
3. Until the creeping coup under Reagan, income equality was improving
It was bad enough in 1995 when Top 1% earned as much as Bottom 50%, but today the richest 1% already take 20% of all income leaving the bottom half with only 12%. As the chart shows, back in 1978 – before the neoliberal creeping coup really got going – the trends were reversed. Below chart compares income growth since 1920 of Top 1% to Bottom 90% (that is, all the rest except Top 10%). We see that right after Ronald Reagan entered the presidency with his Chicago School snake oil influenced backers, the income growth of the 1% started its dizzying growth, which is continuing to this date.
4. Back in 1962, the share of Top 1% of America’s wealth at 33% was equal to that of Bottom 90%, but in the early 1980s the share of Bottom 90% started a steep descent and by 2016 their share had dwindled down to 21%. Especially after the Federal Reserve shifted its market rigging low-interest-rate money-pumping policy into high gear from the beginning of 2000s, the superrich have experienced a massive rise in their fortunes, as illustrated by below chart.
But by today Top 1% are losers compared with Top 0.1% – the Dismal Decimal – who are where the music plays.
5. Top 0.1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90% combined.
A recent study revealed that the concentration on the top is yet much more pernicious. It’s not any more a question of Top 10%, and not even Top 1%, as it is the Top 0.1% – the Dismal Decimal – that has now concentrated the wealth of the nation (and half the world) in their greedy hands. Top 0.1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90% combined. As the below chart shows, we are essentially back to the Roaring Twenties…a lesson not learned. Actually, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, America entered an unprecedented era of four decades of prosperity with a more equal distribution of wealth as Bottom 90% recovered strongly in distribution of wealth at the expense of Top 0.1% parasites.
6. Top 0.1% earnings grew 347% between 1979 and 2017, while Top 1% “only” gained 157% – the rest gained nothing
7. The next chart takes a longer perspective – while widening the sample to Top 10% – and shows their share of the total income since 1910 to 2010. The Roaring Twenties – the period before the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression – experienced the same level of glaring inequality as today’s America. With Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reforms the egregious average income inequality was tamed and stayed relatively low until Reagan’s fatal presidency. And it’s been downhill ever since – or uphill, if we look at it from the perspective of the rich.
8. The only economic figure that has managed to look good is the GDP, but that is so only until you bother to find out where it comes from – from the Federal Reserved fueled asset bubble and massive federal budget deficits financed by record national debts. For an excellent exposé of how rigged and debt-ridden the US economy is, I refer to my earlier report published on the Saker blog: New World Order in Meltdown, But Russia Stronger Than Ever https://thesaker.is/new-world-order-in-meltdown-but-russia-stronger-than-ever/
Shortly: The US economy must be seen as a giant Ponzi scheme, which will implode sooner or later. And we are getting to that sooner part now.
Trump habitually and regularly brags about the stock market reaching another all-time high. But that’s really being out of touch with the electorate. Stock market gains exclusively flow to the rich increasing inequality and the cost of living for the rest. Thing is that, beyond the richest 10% very few Americans have a stake in the stock market. In 2016, the richest one percent held more than half of all outstanding stock, financial securities, and all other sorts of equity. The remainder of those asset categories were held by the rest of Top 10%, who owned over 93% of all stock and mutual fund ownership. What wealth the remaining 90% may own is largely residential housing, the homes where they live. According to Jonathan Tepper, the wealthiest 1% own nearly 50% of stock and the top 10% more than 81%. The so-called middle class owns only 8% of all stock.
This also kills the myth that record highs on the stock market would be good for American retirement savings – with the richest few holding all the shares there’s nothing in it for the overwhelming majority.
A recent report also showed that only 10% of Americans are invested in pension plans. That is down from 60% in 1980. And those who are, are traditionally more weighted towards bonds and money-market instruments, which suffer from the rigged markets with the artificially low interest rates. The pension savers are hence literally paying for the super gains flowing into the pockets of Top 1%. On the other hand the super low interest rates are out of grasp for the all but Top 1% who gobble up the wealth of the nation with that largesse delivered to them by their Federal Reserve. At the same time the common household is paying double-digit rates on their credit card debt traps.
9. Below Top 10% wages and total household income have been stagnant, at best.
10. Average income of the bottom 50% has stagnated at around $16,000 since 1980, while the income of the top 1% has skyrocketed by 300% to approximately $1,340,000 in 2014
11. 45% of Americans earn annually only 18,000 or less. A recent study found that 53 million Americans or 44% of the working age population earn a median average annual salary of only $18,000. Basically then, at least half of the Americans are working-poor.
12. Middle-class households had in 2015 basically the same income as they had in 1979
13. In the two decades from 1997 to 2017, only Top 5% of households saw their income increase
14. For most American workers, real wages have barely budged in decades. By end of 2018, the real inflation-adjusted average wage had about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago.
15. As the below chart illustrates, the real average hourly wage which was $20.27 in 1964 had only inched up to $22.27. David Stockman calculated that the real hourly worker’s wage was in 2019 still at 1972 levels.
16. For full-time employed men real wages have fallen 4.4% since 1973, according to economist Paul Craig Roberts.
The total average income of men at $51,212 in 2015, was lower in real terms than it had been in 1974.
17. As of 2014, the average hours worked per week had fallen from around 39 hours in 1970s to under 34 hours. Economist Mike Shedlock calculated that the actual hours worked and the average hourly earnings would deliver a weekly income of $690, well below its $825 peak back in the early 1970s. If we multiply the hypothetical weekly earnings by 50, we get an annual figure of $35,497. That would in 2014 have translated to a 16.4% decline from its peak in October 1972.
18. All labor productivity growth since the 1970s have gone to the robber capitalists. From 1973 to 2013, hourly compensation of a typical (production/nonsupervisory) worker rose just 9% percent while productivity increased 74%.
19. Nowhere is income inequality and the egregious worsening trend as manifest as in the case of CEO pay. In the 1970s, CEOs made 30 times what typical workers made, but by 2017 the CEOs made 361 times the workers’ pay. According to the Economic Policy Institute CEO compensation has grown 940% since 1978, while typical worker compensation has risen only 12% during that time.
The Fed fueled financial market orgy is the main cause for the windfall riches of CEOs as stock options and the accompanying share buybacks make up a huge part of CEO pay packages. This rising pay of executives was the main factor in Top 0.1%’s super grab of household income
20. A 2017 study found that 40% of US adults struggle to pay for basic necessities like food, healthcare, housing, and utilities.
21. Most Americans have depleted all their spare resources as a staggering 78% of full-time workers are reported to live from paycheck to paycheck.
22. Nearly 70% of Americans have virtually no savings. Bottom 55% have zero savings, while the following 24% – the core of the former middle class – have only $1,000 stashed away.
23. Correspondingly Bottom 70% of Americans don’t own any real wealth (beyond rapidly depreciating durables).
24. The other side of the (non-existent) coin is that the same 50% of Americans would obviously struggle to come up with $400 for an unexpected expense. By extension, the former middle class – those with the miserly savings of $1,000 – would also have real troubles in coping with any kind of bill for medical treatment without dipping into more debt. Considering the above reported findings (see the chart) only the Top 10% would be financially secure in a medical emergency.
25. According to shocking findings by the American Cancer Society, 137.1 million US residents suffered medical financial hardship in 2018. Americans had to resort to borrow a total of $88 billion in 2018 only to cover for essential medical treatment.
26. A third of young adults, or 24 million of those aged 18 to 34, lived with in their parents’ home because they cannot afford a home of their own.
27. The income and wealth gap pictures get worse yet when we look at the age distribution of wealth. Younger generations are earning less and own next to nothing (that is, if you are not the golden youth of the 10%). Baby Boomers born between the end of the Second World War and 1964 currently hold wealth that is 11 times higher than that of millennials.
Median Income for Younger and Older Families in Inflation-Adjusted Dollars
28. The number of full-time jobs with life-sustaining wages – what economist David Stockman calls breadwinner jobs – have not been growing since 2000, by 2014 their number was still 3.5 million or 5% lower than it was at the peak in early 2001. In the same period 4 million part-time and gig jobs were created.
While the official unemployment figure is presently near historical lows – and at levels what some economists would like to call full employment – there are some big problems with it. 1. Problems with the official unemployment statistics. The officially touted unemployment figure (so-called U3 unemployment) record only those who have been looking for a job during the last 4 weeks, while discouraged long-term unemployed are cleansed from the statistics and left unrecorded as if they would not be in the workforce at all – makes stats look beautiful for the powers that shouldn’t be. 2. The labor participation rate has been falling. 3. New job creation has amounted to only a third of the annual increase in working age population. 4. Part-time and gig jobs count as full-time employment. Any person who takes a part-time or gig job for just a few hours a month is recorded among the employed, although they would rightly be considered unemployed merely clutching at straws. 5. Connected with the previous point, there is also a more general problem with the quality of jobs created. Most jobs created in the last two decades are low-paid low-skill jobs that do not provide a life-sustaining income considering the cost of living in the United States.
More than one third (36%) of U.S. workers are in the gig economy, doing part-time work or side hustles for companies like Uber, Lyft, Etsy, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Freelancer.com, Ebay or just any odd job they can get from time to time.
29. To make up for the shrinking earnings, the regime is pushing the American population into 21st century debt peonage. Ensnared in the debt trap, US households had nearly $14 trillion in outstanding debt at the end of the third quarter 2019. That debt load now equals 73% of GDP. By end of 2019, consumption debt alone (not including asset acquiring mortgages) was up by $2 trillion since 2014.
Since 2004, the weight of the student loan millstone has gone up fivefold from only $250 billion to today’s $1.5 trillion.
That’s due to the huge price inflation in higher education. The cost of both public and private college escalated by 40% over the general consumer price inflation between 2005 and 2015.
30. Because of the huge rise in the last few decades in cost of living in the US, in Russia, you get the same standard of living for a fraction of the American cost. A Moscow average monthly salary equal to $1,600 (annual $19,200) gives the same purchasing power as a monthly salary of $6,000 in Chicago (annual $72,000). Meaning, you live in Moscow (at least as well for a monthly paycheck of $1,600 as you live in Chicago for a paycheck of $6,000. For details, see this report. https://www.awaragroup.com/blog/russia-vs-america-real-income-comparison/?fbclid=IwAR0pHruMMOgILt5w70ybE3oP9EmjKzVYfQF6sB_QepGixe1aIVqlvsyZGk4
31. The present oligarch controlled rigged crony capitalist system has killed the American dream, the belief that anyone, regardless of parents’ social status and incomes can attain success and wealth by hard work and ingenuity. The gates for upward mobility have been shut for the overwhelming majority. The monopolization of practically all sectors of the economy, the ever increasing bureaucratic restrictions on doing business, the extreme concentration of ownership, and the rigged financial markets have made it increasingly hard for people outside the top echelon of penetrating the financial membrane protecting the elites. A 2017 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that the probability that a household outside the top 10% made it into the highest tier within 10 years was twice as high during 1984-1994 as it was during 2003-2013.
The United States is an oligarchy
This concentration of the income and wealth on the top, proves that the United States is an oligarchy. A 2014, study by Princeton University https://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4 demonstrated how the US is a political oligarchy. With this report showing the insanely widening income and wealth inequality, my aim is to show, that the country is an economic oligarchy, too. In fact, economic super riches are the precondition for their political power, too. In America, as always, the oligarchy has achieved their uncontested power in a hermeneutical feedback loop, where the initial wealth of the superrich has bought them increased political power, which has given them increased riches, which has bought them more political power, and so on, until today, when they own practically the whole economy and the entire government. Clearly the source of higher inequality has been Fed policies, which has pushed cheap money into the pockets of the already rich, who have exclusively then benefited from soaring stock and real estate prices.
Fittingly, we got end of 2019 a report revealing that the world’s richest people increased their wealth in the year by $1.2 trillion, a staggering 25%, most of which belong to the oligarchs of the United States.
The question – which I have set to explore in my series of Capitalism in America – is whether there has been a game plan, a long-term strategy or whether intermittent achievements have just spurred the oligarchs on to new economic and political power grabs in the course of establishing their totalitarian rule. I tend to think, there has been a long-term plan ever since the establishment of the Federal Reserve. The economic and political history of the United States provide so much circumstantial evidence, which supports the view that there has been a conspiracy of the Wall Street elite. I shall return to this hypothesis in further installments to this series of Capitalism in America. It is however clear – whether through a long-term plan or by a series of ad hoc interventions – the US financial elite has by now completed a creeping coup, which have delivered them absolute economic and political power.
In my investigation of the oligarchization of America – the creeping neoliberal oligarch coop, which set in full force since Reagan – I have so far completed these instalments:
The first installment was a study showing how all corporate ownership has been concentrated in the hands of the oligarchy, titled Extreme concentration of ownership in the United States http://blogengine.hellevig.net/post/2019/05/13/Extreme-concentration-of-ownership-in-the-United-States-.aspx
The second part was a study revealing how the oligarchy has totally taken over US media, titled The Oligarch Takeover of US Media http://blogengine.hellevig.net/post/2019/05/13/The-oligarchy-wields-totalitarian-control-over-the-media-through-just-a-few-corporations.aspx
The third installment was a report published on the Saker blog titled New World Order in Meltdown, But Russia Stronger Than Ever https://thesaker.is/new-world-order-in-meltdown-but-russia-stronger-than-ever/
The fourth installment, The Oligarch Takeover of US Pharma and Healthcare https://thesaker.is/the-oligarch-takeover-of-us-pharma-and-healthcare-and-the-resulting-human-crisis/ was also on the Saker blog.
Next due is a report showing how from point of view of political science the oligarchy has destroyed the social fabric of the US economy and deliberately enacted laws that favor the few over the people. Of particular interest here is how the oligarchy has rigged the political system by institutionally solidifying the mendacious Janus- faced two-party system in order to remove any potential challenge to their rule.


russiainsider--2020-01-17--Black SPLC Official Who Led Armed Communist Paramilitary March Calls for Government Action Against F

Black SPLC Official Who Led Armed Communist Paramilitary March Calls for Government Action Against Funding of 'Hate Groups'

Last year , the Southern Poverty Law Center 's Lecia Brooks helped lead a group of heavily armed communist extremists through downtown Stone Mountain , Georgia .
According to reporting by the Springfield News Sun , out of the crowd of 150 or so Brooks marched with and then officially addressed , `` many of the protesters had handkerchiefs over their faces , and several were armed . ''
Brooks then identified herself with and lauded the hammer-and-sickle waving , assault rifle wielding mob , who held signs calling for violence : “ We turned them back at Stone Mountain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at every turn .
We just have to show up , '' she proclaimed .
Video of the rally leaves no room for plausible deniability about the nature of the militants .
None of the groups at this rally were made up of MSNBC liberals or normal Democrats .
The SPLC officials knowingly marched with people who want to impose communism and anarchism on America by the use of armed violence , and were proud to use them to terrorize their political opponents .
The display was so disturbing that the SPLC 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the supposed victory against Confederate heritage groups .
The Huffington Post , which apparently sent journalists to cover the event , wrote one small article about it and did not mention the many Soviet flags or masked , armed men sporting red armbands .
In spite of her close ties with violent left-wing extremists , Brooks found herself testifying in Congress on behalf of the SPLC today , taking credit for financial and social media deplatforming of `` hate groups '' and demanding more government action against `` hate groups . ''
None @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in attacks Brooks spoke about received any kind of organized funding for their weapons or plans , nor did they act on behalf of any specific organization , yet in her testimony she disingenuously ties them to the myriad of advocacy groups and 501 ( c ) ( 3 ) 's on the SPLC 's arbitrary `` hate group '' list .
Brooks then condemned attempts at applying the law to `` antifa '' and `` Black Identity Extremists , '' instead urging the government to use all of its resources against law-abiding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resources to exercise their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly .
According to Brooks , the SPLC has played an important role in Amazon , Paypal , and Facebook 's censoring of books , charities , ideas and opinions .
In a 2018 poll , 72 % of Americans stated that social media censorship is politically motivated , not a national security question .
51 % said that the government should step in to protect political speech .
The agenda of Silicon Valley , who today give the SPLC and Anti-Defamation League @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can not use the internet public square , is extremely unpopular .
That the House of Representatives defers to Brooks on these matters is yet another brazen failure in actually representing the public , or protecting it from the wanton political violence and harassment of private citizens anarchists and communists commit in America all the time and brag about .
Their close ties to the SPLC play a role in why the justice and legal system is applied differently to members of `` antifa . ''
Brooks is not the only person with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of its `` senior investigative reporters , '' a former BDSM writer named Michael Edison Hayden , was named by extremism researcher Dr Eoin Lenihan as a journalist with close ties with `` antifa , '' which is supported by threatening messages Hayden has sent in the past openly threatening to send his associates in `` antifa '' to their family 's home .
Hayden has made a name for himself for stalking outside the homes of wives , children and elderly relatives of people targeted by the SPLC for their political views @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Another SPLC employee , Hannah Gais , who attended the Congressional hearing with Brooks , also has significant ties to violent anarchist and communist groups .
These people do not belong anywhere near decisions made by the state or law enforcement .
If you feel your basic rights as an American are being eroded , as 92 % of Americans do , this is a big piece of the puzzle .

Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center's Lecia Brooks helped lead a group of heavily armed communist extremists through downtown Stone Mountain, Georgia.
According to reporting by the Springfield News Sun, out of the crowd of 150 or so Brooks marched with and then officially addressed, "many of the protesters had handkerchiefs over their faces, and several were armed."
Brooks then identified herself with and lauded the hammer-and-sickle waving, assault rifle wielding mob, who held signs calling for violence: “We turned them back at Stone Mountain, and we can turn them back at every turn. We just have to show up," she proclaimed.
Video of the rally leaves no room for plausible deniability about the nature of the militants. None of the groups at this rally were made up of MSNBC liberals or normal Democrats. The SPLC officials knowingly marched with people who want to impose communism and anarchism on America by the use of armed violence, and were proud to use them to terrorize their political opponents.
Lecia Brooks explaining to White people how evil they are
The display was so disturbing that the SPLC's supporters in the mass media quickly memoryholed the supposed victory against Confederate heritage groups. The Huffington Post, which apparently sent journalists to cover the event, wrote one small article about it and did not mention the many Soviet flags or masked, armed men sporting red armbands.
In spite of her close ties with violent left-wing extremists, Brooks found herself testifying in Congress on behalf of the SPLC today, taking credit for financial and social media deplatforming of "hate groups" and demanding more government action against "hate groups."
None of the "lone wolves" involved in attacks Brooks spoke about received any kind of organized funding for their weapons or plans, nor did they act on behalf of any specific organization, yet in her testimony she disingenuously ties them to the myriad of advocacy groups and 501(c)(3)'s on the SPLC's arbitrary "hate group" list.
Brooks then condemned attempts at applying the law to "antifa" and "Black Identity Extremists," instead urging the government to use all of its resources against law-abiding nationalists to prevent them from having the resources to exercise their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly.
According to Brooks, the SPLC has played an important role in Amazon, Paypal, and Facebook's censoring of books, charities, ideas and opinions. In a 2018 poll, 72% of Americans stated that social media censorship is politically motivated, not a national security question. 51% said that the government should step in to protect political speech. The agenda of Silicon Valley, who today give the SPLC and Anti-Defamation League the power to decide who can and cannot use the internet public square, is extremely unpopular.
That the House of Representatives defers to Brooks on these matters is yet another brazen failure in actually representing the public, or protecting it from the wanton political violence and harassment of private citizens anarchists and communists commit in America all the time and brag about. Their close ties to the SPLC play a role in why the justice and legal system is applied differently to members of "antifa."
Brooks is not the only person with extremist ties at the SPLC. One of its "senior investigative reporters," a former BDSM writer named Michael Edison Hayden, was named by extremism researcher Dr Eoin Lenihan as a journalist with close ties with "antifa," which is supported by threatening messages Hayden has sent in the past openly threatening to send his associates in "antifa" to their family's home. Hayden has made a name for himself for stalking outside the homes of wives, children and elderly relatives of people targeted by the SPLC for their political views, in attempts to silence them.
Another SPLC employee, Hannah Gais, who attended the Congressional hearing with Brooks, also has significant ties to violent anarchist and communist groups.
These people do not belong anywhere near decisions made by the state or law enforcement. If you feel your basic rights as an American are being eroded, as 92% of Americans do, this is a big piece of the puzzle.


russiainsider--2020-01-16--PBS 'Frontline' Cites 'Russia Insider' as Example of Kremlin Propaganda that Handed Trump Victory in

PBS 'Frontline' Cites 'Russia Insider' as Example of Kremlin Propaganda that Handed Trump Victory in 2016

PBS poses as a highbrow channel full of British 19th century dramas and thoughtful , if condescending documentaries on Country Music .
One can imagine the average viewer braying in an Eleanor Roosevelt accent , decked in pearls and sipping vintage champagne : 'Darling , look at the PROLES are with their quaint Country songs !
, how CHARMING ! '
But PBS 's politics are as evil as it gets , funded as they are by , well , rich NYC Jews , the red beating heart of Hillary-loving America .
So I 'm watching PBS 's Frontline last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they have this long documentary on what an evil guy Trump is , 'America 's Great Divide ' , and a long section of it breathlessly accounts how that nasty Vladimir Putin totally exploited America 's divisive politics in 2016 , his propaganda operations pumping out fake news ( of course ) about Hillary 's health , and what do they put on the screen as Exhibit A ?
: We were talking about the Parkinson 's angle way before RT , Infowars , or anyone else was .
Our own Rudy Panko @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Best Available Evidence : Hillary Clinton Has Parkinson 's , by Rudy Panko ( 69,000 views ) 9 days later we were the first news organization to publish a long interview with a US doctor specializing in Parkinson 's , making the case : Mounting Evidence That Hillary Has Parkinson 's , Our Interview with Dr. Ted Noel ( Video ) by Charles Bausman - ( 21,000 views ) And then a month later , 3 weeks before election day , kept at it : Hillary 's Behavior Continues to Show That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) by Charles Bausman ( 35,000 views ) In the 3-4 months leading up to Nov 11 , we published about 50 major articles hammering Hillary every which way we could , some of which were picked up by Drudge and Infowars , many of which went very viral , getting over 100K views .
I was physically present as an alternate guest ( I ended up not going on stage ) on Russia 's leading talk show , 60 Minutes , in early September 2016 , when I witnessed one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when Vladimir Zhirinovsky , one of Russia 's leading politicians , started screaming that Hillary is in fact A WITCH !
, calling her a SNAKE !
, and ridiculing her health problems and the lying around them , to a cheering Russian audience .
Realizing this was gold , I rushed home , transcribed the clip , and published it ( 39,000 views ) , where it got 50,000 views on YouTube overnight .
Alex Jones picked it up , and put it on his YouTube channel ( since deleted ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It is still one of my favorite videos of all time .
Zhirinovsky 's comic timing is brilliant , Watch : So how much did we contribute to Trump winning ?
Something , I guess .
And no PBS , it was n't the 'KREMLIN ! '
, it was just regular Americans like us , sticking it to the gang of liars rooting for Hillary .
I know that Marcel Sardo guy cited in the PBS show .
He 's just a regular guy , European actually , in Swizterland , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what he could to help out .

PBS poses as a highbrow channel full of British 19th century dramas and thoughtful, if condescending documentaries on Country Music. One can imagine the average viewer braying in an Eleanor Roosevelt accent, decked in pearls and sipping vintage champagne: 'Darling, look at the PROLES are with their quaint Country songs!, how CHARMING!'
But PBS's politics are as evil as it gets, funded as they are by, well, rich NYC Jews, the red beating heart of Hillary-loving America.
So I'm watching PBS's Frontline last night, God knows why, and they have this long documentary on what an evil guy Trump is, 'America's Great Divide', and a long section of it breathlessly accounts how that nasty Vladimir Putin totally exploited America's divisive politics in 2016, his propaganda operations pumping out fake news (of course) about Hillary's health, and what do they put on the screen as Exhibit A?:
Ha Ha Ha!!!
We were talking about the Parkinson's angle way before RT, Infowars, or anyone else was. Our own Rudy Panko broke the story September 13, 2016:
Best Available Evidence: Hillary Clinton Has Parkinson's, by Rudy Panko (69,000 views)
9 days later we were the first news organization to publish a long interview with a US doctor specializing in Parkinson's, making the case:
Mounting Evidence That Hillary Has Parkinson's, Our Interview with Dr. Ted Noel (Video) by Charles Bausman - (21,000 views)
And then a month later, 3 weeks before election day, kept at it:
Hillary's Behavior Continues to Show That She Has Parkinson's Disease (Video) by Charles Bausman (35,000 views)
In the 3-4 months leading up to Nov 11, we published about 50 major articles hammering Hillary every which way we could, some of which were picked up by Drudge and Infowars, many of which went very viral, getting over 100K views.
I was physically present as an alternate guest (I ended up not going on stage) on Russia's leading talk show, 60 Minutes, in early September 2016, when I witnessed one of the funniest attacks on Hillary there ever was, when Vladimir Zhirinovsky, one of Russia's leading politicians, started screaming that Hillary is in fact A WITCH!, calling her a SNAKE!, and ridiculing her health problems and the lying around them, to a cheering Russian audience. Realizing this was gold, I rushed home, transcribed the clip, and published it (39,000 views), where it got 50,000 views on YouTube overnight.
Alex Jones picked it up, and put it on his YouTube channel (since deleted), and it got 500,000 views overnight. It is still one of my favorite videos of all time. Zhirinovsky's comic timing is brilliant, Watch:
A screen shot from Alex Jones
So how much did we contribute to Trump winning? Something, I guess.
And no PBS, it wasn't the 'KREMLIN!', it was just regular Americans like us, sticking it to the gang of liars rooting for Hillary.
I know that Marcel Sardo guy cited in the PBS show. He's just a regular guy, European actually, in Swizterland, spending all day on Twitter, doing what he could to help out.
Talk about conspiracy theorists, PBS takes the cake!


russiainsider--2020-01-16--VIRAL: Putin, Assad Joke at Site of St. Paul's Conversion: Trump Might 'Become a Good Person' if He

VIRAL: Putin, Assad Joke at Site of St. Paul's Conversion: Trump Might 'Become a Good Person' if He Would Visit It

Leaving aside whether Trump is a 'good person ' or not , he has certainly been a failure at stopping bad people , especially Israel , from doing evil in the Middle East After a video aired on Russian television featuring dialogue between Assad and Putin during the latter 's visit to Damascus last week , The Hill reports of the now viral clip : The two leaders were standing alongside the Orthodox Christian Patriarch who presides over Syria 's some two million Christians in a famous cathedral on the 'Street called Straight ' — reputed as the biblical site @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Book of Acts — when Assad referenced the New Testament story .
Assad then in joking manner said that visiting the ancient biblical site would make Trump a better person , suggesting a Paul-like conversion experience : The rare playful dialogue caught on film between the two leaders continued , with Putin responding : `` He will change for the better ...
Invite him ! ''
according to a translation of the interaction .
`` I shall , '' Assad said .
Putin then affirms , `` I 'll pass on the invitation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laughing , with the bishop still smiling on .
Putin had actually made the high level trip unannounced on Russian Orthodox Christmas ( Jan.7 every year , Julian calendar ) .
He had attended a high level military briefing with Assad and the two countries ' defense ministers at a headquarters in the Syrian capital , and also toured parts of the city and historic sites and churches .
Even though the invitation appears to have been offered in jest , it would be interesting if it actually did gain Trump 's attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ television Rossiya-1 this week , it 's clear the Kremlin possibly packaged it as some kind of message or to suggest that Putin and Assad are legitimately open to such a meeting .
Putin 's visit to the Orthodox Christian cathedral in Damascus , seat of the Patriarch of Antioch , is infused with symbolism given Moscow has throughout the war in Syria seen itself as the 'protector ' of the region 's sizable minority of Christians .
Syria 's Christian leaders in turn have not only stuck with the Assad government , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jihadist forces which sought to overthrow him , but have been on record as seeing Russian military intervention as good thing .

Leaving aside whether Trump is a 'good person' or not, he has certainly been a failure at stopping bad people, especially Israel, from doing evil in the Middle East
After a video aired on Russian television featuring dialogue between Assad and Putin during the latter's visit to Damascus last week, The Hill reports of the now viral clip:
"In a video of the conversation between Assad and Putin at the Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Damascus, Assad mentions the Apostle Paul’s conversion to Christianity after a vision at the gate of Damascus."
The two leaders were standing alongside the Orthodox Christian Patriarch who presides over Syria's some two million Christians in a famous cathedral on the 'Street called Straight' — reputed as the biblical site of Paul's conversion mentioned in The Book of Acts — when Assad referenced the New Testament story.
Assad then in joking manner said that visiting the ancient biblical site would make Trump a better person, suggesting a Paul-like conversion experience:
"If Trump arrives along this road, he will become a good man."
Putin jokes Assad should invite Trump to visit Damascus.
The leaders were referring to the Straight Street, which leads to Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus, & to Apostle Paul whose life was transformed after a vision he had as he walked on that road. pic.twitter.com/WfTy90RO9Q — RT (@RT_com) January 13, 2020
The rare playful dialogue caught on film between the two leaders continued, with Putin responding: "He will change for the better... Invite him!" according to a translation of the interaction.
"I shall," Assad said. Putin then affirms, "I'll pass on the invitation!" — as the two continue laughing, with the bishop still smiling on.
Putin had actually made the high level trip unannounced on Russian Orthodox Christmas (Jan.7 every year, Julian calendar). He had attended a high level military briefing with Assad and the two countries' defense ministers at a headquarters in the Syrian capital, and also toured parts of the city and historic sites and churches.
Putin and Assad visited the Marian Cathedral, the oldest Cathedral in Damascus which dates back to the beginning of Christianity pic.twitter.com/OV7uSMzX9G — Ali (@CoolHuh_) January 7, 2020
Even though the invitation appears to have been offered in jest, it would be interesting if it actually did gain Trump's attention.
Given it was published on state television Rossiya-1 this week, it's clear the Kremlin possibly packaged it as some kind of message or to suggest that Putin and Assad are legitimately open to such a meeting.
Putin tells Assad to invite Trump for a visit:
"Invite him. He will come."https://t.co/5dRxuvku08 — Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) January 13, 2020
Putin's visit to the Orthodox Christian cathedral in Damascus, seat of the Patriarch of Antioch, is infused with symbolism given Moscow has throughout the war in Syria seen itself as the 'protector' of the region's sizable minority of Christians.
Syria's Christian leaders in turn have not only stuck with the Assad government, fearing extermination under the 'alternative' of jihadist forces which sought to overthrow him, but have been on record as seeing Russian military intervention as good thing.


russiainsider--2020-01-20--Trump Assassinated Soleimani Because He Was Terrified of Looking Like Jimmy Carter

Instead , he ended up looking like George W. Bush Over the course of less than two weeks , the Trump administration has marched the United States to the precipice of war with Iran .
According to news reports , military commanders briefed Trump on the situation at his resort in Mar-a-Lago and presented him with a menu of options for the U.S. response .
What made Trump choose the most extreme , most volatile option of assassinating Soleimani ?
Perhaps he made the decision based on intelligence about an imminent attack on Americans and American interests , as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials delivered this story to members of Congress in a 45-minute briefing widely criticized for its lack of content and coherence .
More likely , however , is that the decision was an emotional , knee-jerk response to a situation that looked all too familiar for the media-conscious septuagenarian sitting in the White House : the storming of the American embassy in Baghdad .
While there are many explanations for why Trump would make what a vast majority of foreign policy analysts consider to be a terrible decision to assassinate a top Iranian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the power of memory .
Like many of his generation , Trump ’ s conception of Iran is indelibly linked to the experience of the U.S.-Iran hostage crisis .
Viewed through this lens , killing Iran ’ s top general was just the medicine for a president frightened by Iran hostage crisis redux and bent on exacting revenge .
On December 31 , in response to a U.S. airstrike that killed 25 members of the Iranian backed Iraqi group , Kata ’ ib Hezbollah , a crowd of Iraqi protesters descended on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the highly fortified perimeter of the Green Zone and marched through the street to the embassy door .
Shouting “ Death to America !
” and “ Death to Israel , ” the mob broke through the outer walls .
They hammered windows , gates , and doors with makeshift battering rams .
They smashed through a main door , set a reception area on fire , and covered the embassy wall with militia flags and anti-U.S. graffiti .
For a suspenseful 24 hours , American diplomats were trapped inside the embassy compound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embassy was stormed and held by militants , this time , by Iranians in Tehran .
Trump was in his early thirties when the Iran hostage crisis upended the power distribution in the Middle East and brought an American president to his knees .
The event , referred to in Persian as تسخیر لانه جاسوسی امریکا ( literally , Conquest of the American Spy Den ) began in 1979 in the days after the popular overthrow of the U.S. backed monarch , Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , and the consolidation of power by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faction .
Emboldened by the success of the revolution and angered by the United States ’ refusal to return the Shah to Iran to face trial , a group of militant activists , Students Following the Line of the Imam , stormed the American Embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two Americans captive for 444 days .
The Iran hostage crisis left an indelible mark on America ’ s collective memory .
This is no minor feat for a nation that has trouble remembering what happened four years ago , let alone four decades @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emblazoned on the American memory , and more specifically in the mind of America ’ s 45th President ?
Why is it , as the wife of captured diplomat Bruce Laingen put it , all the “ IRage “ ?
Part of the staying power of the Iran hostage crisis has to do with the element of surprise .
It was alarming to see a major ally and top defense beneficiary turn on America so unexpectedly and absolutely .
Americans were equally surprised that a civilized nation such as Iran would so brazenly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protection of diplomats and the sovereignty of embassies .
Another factor in the crisis ’ s resonance was the sheer humiliation it brought for America on the world stage .
It was embarrassing that an American embassy could fall victim to a group of untrained , poorly armed zealots .
It was mortifying that the American government could not stop the crisis , going weeks , and then months , and ultimately over a year , without freeing the captured diplomats .
The dramatic failure of Operation Eagle Claw , the secret mission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , only sharpened this impression .
The rescue mission was aborted after a helicopter loaded with special operation forces got caught in a sand storm causing it to malfunction and veer into an accompanying transport plane .
The collision killed eight servicemen and scattered survivors and wreckage across the Iranian dessert .
In a final act of humiliation , the Iranians seemingly engineered the release of the hostages to occur on the very day — indeed , to the very hour — of Ronald Reagan ’ s inauguration [ Actually it was Reagan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hostages until then . ]
, thus denying Carter the ability to claim credit for ending the crisis under his tenure .
( His last , agonized efforts to secure the return of the hostages was dramatized in detail by ABC news ) .
As David Graham notes in the Atlantic , Trump told ABC ’ s George Stephanopoulos : There are obvious parallels in the recent siege of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and what happened in Iran in 1979 .
Both crises occurred at the end of a President ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a competitive presidential election .
In the case of Jimmy Carter , the hostage crisis cast a shadow over his presidency and doomed his reelection bid .
Trump likely saw the bane of Jimmy Carter in his intelligence brief on the situation with the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and was determined not to make the same mistakes .
A final factor that ingrained the hostage crisis in the psyche of people like Trump has to do with media exposure .
The big three American cable news stations fixated on the story and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
ABC ’ s Ted Koppel anchored a 20 minute news show dedicated to the standoff , titled “ America Held Hostage.
” Each evening of the crisis , CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite added to his famous signoff , “ and that ’ s the way it is , ” a count of the days the American diplomats remained in captivity in Iran .
According to one study , coverage of the hostage crisis comprised more than 20 percent of all television news content during the period .
The Iranians did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the headlines .
They staged holiday visitations , did interviews with the foreign press , issued missives , and paraded their American captives , bound and blindfolded , in front television news cameras for the world to see .
This combination of factors — surprise , humiliation , and intense media coverage — helped transform what was at first a diplomatic problem into a national crisis felt by every man , women , and child in America .
Donald Trump witnessed the hostage crisis and shared the rage , humiliation , and distress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ memory , and the visceral feeling of humiliation and rage it inspired , plainly colors Trump ’ s views on Iran today , and contains important indicators about the danger of the present situation .
Last week , the president raised the specter of the hostage crisis when he took to Twitter last week to warn Iran against retaliating against the U.S. for its killing of Soleimani or he would reciprocate by striking 52 Iranian sites , one for each hostage taken in 1979 .
This was not the first time Trump has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tirades .
In 2013 , he criticized the Obama administration during early negotiations on the Iran nuclear issue .
“ US froze $ 8B in Iranian assets during ’ 79 Hostage Crisis .
Now Obama is giving it back to Iran while Christian Pastor is jailed .
Don ’ t do it !
” The tweet came on the heels of a number of tweets lamenting the apprehension of an American pastor by Iranian security forces .
In 2015 , he attempted to use the hostage crisis to buttress his proposal to ban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He tweeted a link to a story by the fake news website , Front Page , which alleged that President Carter had passed an equivalent measure concerning Iranian citizens during the hostage crisis .
Trump once again tapped into the memory of the hostage crisis in 2016 , harping on the humiliation of Iran ’ s detainment of 10 American sailors in the Strait of Hormuz .
And last June , in an almost comical instance of the power of these historical memories over the present , Trump announced crippling new sanctions on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini , even though he died in 1989 .
The very aspects of the hostage crisis that gave the event such resonance , bodes ill for American interests vis-a-vis Iran under the Trump administration .
With his vision colored by the hostage crisis , Trump is making decisions based on an outdated , inaccurate conception of the country and its leaders .
The Iran of today is far from the revolutionary state of 1979 .
In fact , it i s a decidedly un-revolutionary authoritarian theocracy and a largely predictable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
While it is true that many of the revolutionaries who took part in the hostage crisis are part of the ruling establishment today , these men are far from the impulsive , idealistic activists of their youth .
Instead , they are entrenched ideologues , covetous of their power and resistant to change .
The same goes for Iran ’ s all-powerful Supreme Leader .
Especially amid the recent growing tide of discontent , he is insecure about his power and thus disposed to be highly circumspect and cautious in his policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his deft response to the Soleimani killing .
Rather than doing something radical and lethal , like taking over an American embassy , Iran responded through limited , overt offensive action , using precision guided missiles to destroy largely unoccupied U.S. military sites in Iraq and incurring no American casualties .
Another consequence of Trump ’ s actions relates to the plight of diplomacy in the region .
Soleimani was in Baghdad for negotiations with Iran ’ s arch-rival and co-equal in perpetuating war and instability in the region , Saudi Arabia .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ did , Trump showed a brazen disregard for the possibility of a diplomatically brokered peace .
In all of his actions , from the massive defunding and purging of the State Department , to the shredding of the Iran nuclear deal , and now the strike on Soleimani , Trump has sought to destroy the very thing the site of the hostage crisis , the U.S. embassy in Tehran , represented : diplomacy .
This all augurs poorly for the immediate future of U.S.-Iran relations .
As long as Trump is in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ serious confrontation with Iran will continue to grow .

Instead, he ended up looking like George W. Bush
Over the course of less than two weeks, the Trump administration has marched the United States to the precipice of war with Iran. According to news reports, military commanders briefed Trump on the situation at his resort in Mar-a-Lago and presented him with a menu of options for the U.S. response. What made Trump choose the most extreme, most volatile option of assassinating Soleimani? Perhaps he made the decision based on intelligence about an imminent attack on Americans and American interests, as the administration will have us believe. Administration officials delivered this story to members of Congress in a 45-minute briefing widely criticized for its lack of content and coherence.
More likely, however, is that the decision was an emotional, knee-jerk response to a situation that looked all too familiar for the media-conscious septuagenarian sitting in the White House: the storming of the American embassy in Baghdad. While there are many explanations for why Trump would make what a vast majority of foreign policy analysts consider to be a terrible decision to assassinate a top Iranian government official, we should not discount the power of memory. Like many of his generation, Trump’s conception of Iran is indelibly linked to the experience of the U.S.-Iran hostage crisis. Viewed through this lens, killing Iran’s top general was just the medicine for a president frightened by Iran hostage crisis redux and bent on exacting revenge.
On December 31, in response to a U.S. airstrike that killed 25 members of the Iranian backed Iraqi group, Kata’ib Hezbollah, a crowd of Iraqi protesters descended on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They penetrated the highly fortified perimeter of the Green Zone and marched through the street to the embassy door. Shouting “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel,” the mob broke through the outer walls. They hammered windows, gates, and doors with makeshift battering rams. They smashed through a main door, set a reception area on fire, and covered the embassy wall with militia flags and anti-U.S. graffiti. For a suspenseful 24 hours, American diplomats were trapped inside the embassy compound.
Forty years ago, another American embassy was stormed and held by militants, this time, by Iranians in Tehran.
Trump was in his early thirties when the Iran hostage crisis upended the power distribution in the Middle East and brought an American president to his knees. The event, referred to in Persian as تسخیر لانه جاسوسی امریکا (literally, Conquest of the American Spy Den) began in 1979 in the days after the popular overthrow of the U.S. backed monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the consolidation of power by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamic nationalist faction. Emboldened by the success of the revolution and angered by the United States’ refusal to return the Shah to Iran to face trial, a group of militant activists, Students Following the Line of the Imam, stormed the American Embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two Americans captive for 444 days.
The Iran hostage crisis left an indelible mark on America’s collective memory.
This is no minor feat for a nation that has trouble remembering what happened four years ago, let alone four decades ago. Why is the incident so emblazoned on the American memory, and more specifically in the mind of America’s 45th President? Why is it, as the wife of captured diplomat Bruce Laingen put it, all the “IRage“?
Part of the staying power of the Iran hostage crisis has to do with the element of surprise. It was alarming to see a major ally and top defense beneficiary turn on America so unexpectedly and absolutely. Americans were equally surprised that a civilized nation such as Iran would so brazenly violate international law and norms concerning the protection of diplomats and the sovereignty of embassies.
Another factor in the crisis’s resonance was the sheer humiliation it brought for America on the world stage. It was embarrassing that an American embassy could fall victim to a group of untrained, poorly armed zealots. It was mortifying that the American government could not stop the crisis, going weeks, and then months, and ultimately over a year, without freeing the captured diplomats.
The dramatic failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the secret mission President Carter deployed to rescue the hostages, only sharpened this impression. The rescue mission was aborted after a helicopter loaded with special operation forces got caught in a sand storm causing it to malfunction and veer into an accompanying transport plane. The collision killed eight servicemen and scattered survivors and wreckage across the Iranian dessert.
In a final act of humiliation, the Iranians seemingly engineered the release of the hostages to occur on the very day — indeed, to the very hour — of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration [Actually it was Reagan who asked the Iranians to hold onto the hostages until then.], thus denying Carter the ability to claim credit for ending the crisis under his tenure. (His last, agonized efforts to secure the return of the hostages was dramatized in detail by ABC news).
As David Graham notes in the Atlantic, Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos:
Support Russia Insider - Go Ad-Free! “I’ll never forget when Iran had the hostages. And Jimmy Carter was helpless. It was just sad. And Ronald Reagan came in and he said those hostages will be delivered immediately. They were let go. They were let go. It was respect. We don’t have respect from the rest of the world.”
There are obvious parallels in the recent siege of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and what happened in Iran in 1979. Both crises occurred at the end of a President’s first term and at the beginning of a competitive presidential election. In the case of Jimmy Carter, the hostage crisis cast a shadow over his presidency and doomed his reelection bid. Trump likely saw the bane of Jimmy Carter in his intelligence brief on the situation with the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and was determined not to make the same mistakes.
A final factor that ingrained the hostage crisis in the psyche of people like Trump has to do with media exposure. The big three American cable news stations fixated on the story and covered it continuously through all 444 days.
ABC’s Ted Koppel anchored a 20 minute news show dedicated to the standoff, titled “America Held Hostage.” Each evening of the crisis, CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite added to his famous signoff, “and that’s the way it is,” a count of the days the American diplomats remained in captivity in Iran. According to one study, coverage of the hostage crisis comprised more than 20 percent of all television news content during the period. The Iranians did their part to keep the story in the headlines. They staged holiday visitations, did interviews with the foreign press, issued missives, and paraded their American captives, bound and blindfolded, in front television news cameras for the world to see.
This combination of factors — surprise, humiliation, and intense media coverage — helped transform what was at first a diplomatic problem into a national crisis felt by every man, women, and child in America.
Donald Trump witnessed the hostage crisis and shared the rage, humiliation, and distress felt by so many Americans. That memory, and the visceral feeling of humiliation and rage it inspired, plainly colors Trump’s views on Iran today, and contains important indicators about the danger of the present situation.
Last week, the president raised the specter of the hostage crisis when he took to Twitter last week to warn Iran against retaliating against the U.S. for its killing of Soleimani or he would reciprocate by striking 52 Iranian sites, one for each hostage taken in 1979.
This was not the first time Trump has mentioned the hostage crisis in his Twitter tirades. In 2013, he criticized the Obama administration during early negotiations on the Iran nuclear issue. “US froze $8B in Iranian assets during ’79 Hostage Crisis. Now Obama is giving it back to Iran while Christian Pastor is jailed. Don’t do it!” The tweet came on the heels of a number of tweets lamenting the apprehension of an American pastor by Iranian security forces.
In 2015, he attempted to use the hostage crisis to buttress his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country. He tweeted a link to a story by the fake news website, Front Page, which alleged that President Carter had passed an equivalent measure concerning Iranian citizens during the hostage crisis.
Trump once again tapped into the memory of the hostage crisis in 2016, harping on the humiliation of Iran’s detainment of 10 American sailors in the Strait of Hormuz.
And last June, in an almost comical instance of the power of these historical memories over the present, Trump announced crippling new sanctions on the man responsible for the hostage crisis, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, even though he died in 1989.
The very aspects of the hostage crisis that gave the event such resonance, bodes ill for American interests vis-a-vis Iran under the Trump administration.
With his vision colored by the hostage crisis, Trump is making decisions based on an outdated, inaccurate conception of the country and its leaders. The Iran of today is far from the revolutionary state of 1979. In fact,it i
s a decidedly un-revolutionary authoritarian theocracy and a largely predictable actor on the international and regional stage.
While it is true that many of the revolutionaries who took part in the hostage crisis are part of the ruling establishment today, these men are far from the impulsive, idealistic activists of their youth. Instead, they are entrenched ideologues, covetous of their power and resistant to change. The same goes for Iran’s all-powerful Supreme Leader. Especially amid the recent growing tide of discontent, he is insecure about his power and thus disposed to be highly circumspect and cautious in his policy decisions — a fact born out in his deft response to the Soleimani killing. Rather than doing something radical and lethal, like taking over an American embassy, Iran responded through limited, overt offensive action, using precision guided missiles to destroy largely unoccupied U.S. military sites in Iraq and incurring no American casualties.
Another consequence of Trump’s actions relates to the plight of diplomacy in the region. Soleimani was in Baghdad for negotiations with Iran’s arch-rival and co-equal in perpetuating war and instability in the region, Saudi Arabia. By choosing to hit Soleimani when he did, Trump showed a brazen disregard for the possibility of a diplomatically brokered peace. In all of his actions, from the massive defunding and purging of the State Department, to the shredding of the Iran nuclear deal, and now the strike on Soleimani, Trump has sought to destroy the very thing the site of the hostage crisis, the U.S. embassy in Tehran, represented: diplomacy.
This all augurs poorly for the immediate future of U.S.-Iran relations. As long as Trump is in the White House, the danger of a serious confrontation with Iran will continue to grow.


russiainsider--2020-01-20--False Flag? Highly Respected Fmr CIA Officer Giraldi Suggests US Hacked Ukrainian Transponder to Pro

False Flag? Highly Respected Fmr CIA Officer Giraldi Suggests US Hacked Ukrainian Transponder to Provoke Iran Shootdown

Philip Giraldi , a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the CIA , penned a piece in the American Herald Tribune speculating that the U.S. launched several cyber-attacks , one on an Iranian missile defense system , and another on the transponder of the doomed Ukrainian plane .
Giraldi explains the Iranian missile operator experienced extreme `` jamming '' and Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 's transponder was switched off several minutes before the two Russian made Tor missiles were launched .
`` The shutdown of the transponder , which would have automatically signaled to the operator and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , instead automatically indicated that it was hostile .
The operator , having been particularly briefed on the possibility of incoming American cruise missiles , then fired , '' he said .
Giraldi said the Tor missile system used by Iran is vulnerable to being hacked or `` spoofed , '' and at the same moment , Flight 752 's transponder was taken offline `` to create an aviation accident that would be attributed to the Iranian government . ''
The Pentagon has reportedly developed technologies that can trick enemy radars with false @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
`` The same technology can , of course , be used to alter or even mask the transponder on a civilian airliner in such a fashion as to send false information about identity and location .
The United States has the cyber and electronic warfare capability to both jam and alter signals relating to both airliner transponders and to the Iranian air defenses .
Israel presumably has the same ability , '' Giraldi said .
Iran made the claim Wednesday that `` enemy sabotage '' can not be ruled out in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ General Ali Abdollahi suggested the U.S. hacked missile defense systems to make it appear Flight 752 was an incoming missile .
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also accused the U.S. of being responsible for the downing of the plane , saying that : The Iranian parliament also stated that `` we are in powerful confrontation with the criminal U.S. and do not allow a mistake… to pave the ground for misusing the issue by the enemies . ''
Giraldi concludes by saying electronic warfare by the U.S. to bring down a civilian jet and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ premeditated and carefully planned event '' to create a false flag for the next world war .

Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the CIA, penned a piece in the American Herald Tribune speculating that the U.S. launched several cyber-attacks, one on an Iranian missile defense system, and another on the transponder of the doomed Ukrainian plane.
Philip Giraldi
Giraldi explains the Iranian missile operator experienced extreme "jamming" and Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752's transponder was switched off several minutes before the two Russian made Tor missiles were launched.
"The shutdown of the transponder, which would have automatically signaled to the operator and Tor electronics that the plane was civilian, instead automatically indicated that it was hostile. The operator, having been particularly briefed on the possibility of incoming American cruise missiles, then fired," he said.
Giraldi said the Tor missile system used by Iran is vulnerable to being hacked or "spoofed," and at the same moment, Flight 752's transponder was taken offline "to create an aviation accident that would be attributed to the Iranian government."
The Pentagon has reportedly developed technologies that can trick enemy radars with false and deceptively moving targets, he said.
"The same technology can, of course, be used to alter or even mask the transponder on a civilian airliner in such a fashion as to send false information about identity and location. The United States has the cyber and electronic warfare capability to both jam and alter signals relating to both airliner transponders and to the Iranian air defenses. Israel presumably has the same ability," Giraldi said.
Iran made the claim Wednesday that "enemy sabotage" cannot be ruled out in the downing of the plane.
Iranian Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi suggested the U.S. hacked missile defense systems to make it appear Flight 752 was an incoming missile.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also accused the U.S. of being responsible for the downing of the plane, saying that:
Support Russia Insider - Go Ad-Free! "The root of all sorrows goes back to America... this cannot be a reason for us not to look into all the root causes."
He added that:
"One cannot believe that a passenger plane is struck near an international airport while flying in a [commercial] flight channel," after previously saying that IRGC commanders were not the only ones involved in the plane downing, noting that "There were others, too."
The Iranian parliament also stated that "we are in powerful confrontation with the criminal U.S. and do not allow a mistake… to pave the ground for misusing the issue by the enemies."
Giraldi concludes by saying electronic warfare by the U.S. to bring down a civilian jet and blame it on Iran "suggests a premeditated and carefully planned event" to create a false flag for the next world war.


russiainsider--2020-01-20--Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport Opens Yet Another, $500M International Terminal, JFK Still a 3rd World

Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport Opens Yet Another, $500M International Terminal, JFK Still a 3rd World Embarrassment

Compared to Russia 's new modern airports , popping up like mushrooms all over the vast country , JFK feels like the 3rd world .
With the opening of Terminal C , Sheremetyevo 's maximum capacity will reach 80 million passengers per year .
Moscow 's Sheremetyevo Airport opened the frst phase of its newest international terminal Friday .
Sheremetyevo is the eighth-busiest airport in Europe , with more than 49.9 million travelers using its terminals last year .
Terminal C , the airport 's fifth terminal , covers 127,000 square meters and has an annual capacity of 20 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ C , Sheremetyevo 's maximum capacity will reach 80 million passengers per year , making it the largest airport in Russia .
Russia 's national carrier Aeroflot , which accounts for 80 % of Sheremetyevo 's traffic , will be the main airline using the new terminal .
While the government provided funding for the infrastructure and the construction of a third runway , it did n't provide any funding for the terminal itself , Deputy Transport Minister Alexander Yurchik told The Moscow Times .
The new terminal 's construction cost more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , said Alexander Ponomarenko , the chairman of the airport 's board of directors .
Last year Sheremetyevo announced that construction would cost 19.9 billion rubles ( $ 320 million ) .
The second phase of Terminal C , which will serve 10 million passengers annually , is expected to be completed after 2026 .

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russiainsider--2020-01-20--The Excellent 'Checkpoint Asia' News Site Rebrands to 'Anti-Empire'

We highly recommend following this site .
It does a great job of pulling some of the best writing about geopolitics ( mostly ) , from around the internet , and presenting it in an easy-to-understand format .
The world needs more of this kind of journalism .
They are completely reader-funded , so if you find them useful , please send them a few $ every now and then .
Anti-empire.com is shorter than checkpointasia.net , is a .com domain , and probably better reflects what the site has always been about .
Except for the rebrand the site @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Opposing the criminality of the empire is one focus , but broadening our horizons and learning new things is another .
As is it has done until now , the site will continue to cover more than just the latest imperial outrage .
Equally important is to : • None debunk the propaganda that enables it , and re-humanize its chosen targets , • None understand past empire growing that got us to where we are , • None cover important developments in its main rivals that are the main checks on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its target countries where most of its biggest victims live and die , • None the current state of its hegemony , • None potential sources of weakness for it on the horizon , • None ideological currents that may become useful to it , or conversely a threat • None and sometimes also unrelated historical episodes that have something to say about the nature of imperialism and resistance .
Anything in fact which helps to reveal a more accurate picture of the reality than the one official narrative managers are selling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where the empire and the world are headed .
PS .
: The migration went fine but I still have to solve the missing comments issue .