Top Nuclear Official Agrees With Senator Who Says Obama Admin "Misled" On Uranium One Deal

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Kristine Svinicki responded to questions raised by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) regarding a key aspect of the Uranium One deal, agreeing that the Obama Administration had not "fully depicted" the complexity of the transaction which ultimately gave the Kremlin control over 20% of US uranium. 

“I would note that, as your letter makes clear, the responses you have received have not fully depicted the complexity of this issue” -Kristine Svinicki, NRC Chair

Svinicki"s response fell short of agreeing with Barrasso that he had been "misled" over the deal to export yellowcake uranium from the Senator"s home state of Wyoming out of the country.

Barrasso says he was given "misleading" answers on whether or not Russian mined US uranium would be allowed to leave the country, based on revelations from The Hill which revealed the Obama administration allowed the uranium to leave the country by "piggy-backing" onto an export license held by shipping company, RSB Logistic Services Inc. 

Rep. John Barrasso (R-WY)

In a Monday letter to the NRC and the Energy Department, Barrasso wrote:

Prior to the approval of the sale [of Uranium One], I wrote to then-President Barack Obama registering my strong concerns regarding Russian control over American uranium production facilities and Russia"s ability to ship U.S. uranium overseas. I also requested immediate notification should ARMZ file for a license to export U.S. uranium. Based on information that has recently come to light, I now believe the response I received, and the process by which I received it, were both misleading.

 

On March 21, 2011, former NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko responded to my letter on behalf of then-President Obama stating:

 ‘At this time, neither Uranium One Inc. nor ARMZ holds a specific NRC export license. In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One, Inc. or 

ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the export of uranium for use in reactor fuel’

 

The NRC staff made a similar statement in their recommendation to approve the transfer control of Uranium One to ARMZ, stating: 

 

 "before the licensee may export uranium to a foreign country, they must first comply with the NRC"s regulations and seek a specific license for such purpose."

 

Recent reporting by The Hill uncovered that Uranium One was able to export uranium without obtaining a specific export license. Beginning in 2012, Uranium One exported U.S. uranium by ‘piggy-backing’ as a supplier on an export license held by the shipping company, RSB Logistic Services Inc.

Barrasso originally wrote to the Obama administration in 2010 with concerns over Russia"s ability to export uranium overseas. In 2011, Obama-appointed NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko off the letter, noting the company would need an export license.

Barrasso says this was misleading during a Wednesday Senate hearing, stating “I specifically raised concerns about future exports of U.S. uranium by Uranium One,” adding “I believe the Obama administration’s response to my letter was at best misleading.”

Following Barrasso"s comments, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works requested that the NRC and the Energy Department produce documents related to the Obama administration"s response to the 2010 letter. Barrasso says he has evidence that the Energy Department misled him on their role in approving the uranium exports, and pointed out the enormous loophole which allowed Uranium One to export without a license. 

“Uranium One did not need a specific NRC license to export U.S. uranium,” said Barrasso, adding “Instead, Uranium One only needed to be, and later was, listed as a supplier on a transport company’s NRC export license.”

The New York Times covered the Uranium One story in 2015, detailing donations which poured into the Clinton Foundation from individuals associated with the deal - which was later found to be upwards of $140 million. Meanwhile, a series of follow-up reports from The Hill have filled in the gaps with several bombshells, including: 

• The FBI had a mole deep within the Russian uranium industry who gathered evidence of millions of dollars routed to  the Clinton Foundation by Russian nuclear officials. 


• The mole says there is a video showing Russians stuffing a briefcase full of bribe money, joking about Americans.


• Bill Clinton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his Moscow estate right before the Uranium One deal was approved, which was the same day he collected a $500,000 check for a speech to a Russian investment bank which issued a favorable rating to Uranium One stock. 

As he prepared to collect a $500,000 payday in Moscow in 2010, Bill Clinton sought clearance from the State Department to meet with a key board director of the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom — which at the time needed the Obama administration’s approval for a controversial uranium deal, government records show.

 

Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, was listed on a May 14, 2010, email as one of 15 Russians the former president wanted to meet during a late June 2010 trip, the documents show.

 

“In the context of a possible trip to Russia at the end of June, WJC is being asked to see the business/government folks below. Would State have concerns about WJC seeing any of these folks,” Clinton Foundation foreign policy adviser Amitabh Desai wrote the State Department on May 14, 2010, using the former president’s initials and forwarding the list of names to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team. -The Hill

• There was an internal scramble at the FBI to preserve records from all of the agencies which approved the Uranium One deal, as uncovered by Twitter user "Katica" after pouring through emails obtained via FOIA request. 

The agencies which received the request included the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Dept. of Treasury, the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI James Clapper), The National Counter Terrorism Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

 

Five days after the initial request, the same FBI agent sent another round of notifications to the same agencies, adding the National Security Agency (NSA) and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS).

The next day, September 3rd, 2015, three more agencies were added to the preservation request: The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of Defense (DOD)

 

At this point, every single member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which signed off on the Uranium One deal was served with a notice to preserve records. 

There is so much more to the deal involving players like Tony Podesta, Paul Manafort, and various members of the Obama administration - one wonders if, and when, the dam will ever break under the overwhelming weight of malfeasance - sending waves of corrupt politicians and lobbyists down the drain. 

The U.S. Is Crushing Its Clean Energy Forecasts

Paris, schmarish...

In a February 2007 report, the United States Department of Energy made thirty-year predictions for the country"s energy usage and production. As Statista"s infographic below shows, using data from the non-profit international environmental pressure group Natural Resources Defense Council, these forecasts have so far been smashed.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Martin Armstrong details that actual CO2 emissions in 2016 have undercut the 2006 predictions by 24 percent.

In terms of the energy mix, power generated from coal was 45 percent beneath the forecast while clean(er) alternatives natural gas and wind/solar power saw overshoots of 79 and 383 percent, respectively.

Renewable energy infrastructure is also expanding at a much faster rate than was thought ten years ago. 2006"s prediction for installed solar was a massive 4,813 percent shy of the 2016 reality. The U.S now also has installed wind capacity of 82 gigawatts, 361 percent more than had been hoped for.

In fact, energy consumption in total was also 17 percent lower than expected... which is odd and perhaps a better indication of the recovery-less recovery"s reality?

Dying Malls Increasingly Rely On Taxpayer Handouts For Survival

America"s dying malls have been a frequent topic of discussion of late as these relics of the 80"s have been forced to convert once valuable high-end retail square footage into grocery stores, libraries and doctor offices just to keep the lights on.  Here"s just a small sampling of the recent carnage:

• A Third Of All Shopping Malls Are Projected To Close As "Space Available" Signs Go Up All Over America


• America"s Desperate Mall Owners Turn To Grocers, Doctors & High Schools To Fill Empty Space


• Failing Malls Turn Empty Parking Lots Into Carnivals To Generate Cash

But, as Bloomberg points out today, one other funding source is increasingly emerging as a key financial sponsor in the efforts of commercial REITs to re-purpose their failing assets: taxpayers.

In Brookfield, Wisconsin, for example, the city is using tax-increment financing (TIF), a common tool for municipalities to subsidize development by putting property taxes from new projects into a fund that pays for building cost, to help rebuild the Brookfield Square Mall. Meanwhile, as if that weren"t enough, the city has also agreed to pay for remediation costs related an old Sears auto repair shop and to build a new convention center and hotel where the Sears once stood.

In this depressing landscape, there is at least one player still willing to take the risk: local governments hungry for tax revenues. Developers incorporating additions such as housing and parks in their plans are turning to public partners to help rehabilitate the aging retail meccas that dot the U.S. Public subsidies have been part of retail development for decades, but with landlords pouring billions of dollars into renovation to battle a wave of store closures, public-private partnerships are more urgent, and more fraught, than ever.

 

At the Brookfield Square mall in Wisconsin, the landlord, CBL & Associates Properties Inc., needed a new occupant for a fading Sears. CBL had been tinkering with the mix for the past few years. Earlier, in 2008, it completed a 20,000-square-foot expansion, adding grocery stores and restaurants and renovating the interior.

 

In the end, it found its tenant: the city of Brookfield.

 

The local government plans to step in to build a conference center and hotel. By creating a hub for small and medium-size conventions on 9 of the 29 acres currently occupied by Sears, the city hopes to boost CBL’s efforts to reinvent the property, the largest taxpayer in Waukesha County. The idea is a greater focus on entertainment, recreation and business, according to Daniel Ertl, director of community development for the city of about 38,000.

 

“The Sears store is really a shadow of what it used to be,” Ertl said. “We encourage CBL to continue to reinvent themselves. God knows where retail is going to be in 20 years.”

As Bayer Properties CFO, Jami Wadkins, who just secured all sorts of taxpayer-funded handouts to rebuild a failed mall in Alabama, points out, public funding is becoming an "important element of the capital stack of every developer."

These expansive developments often secure additional public financing through various forms of tax arrangements and incentives, as well as infrastructure spending for things like parking garages. Such funding has become an important element of the capital stack for every developer, according to Jami Wadkins, chief financial officer of Bayer Properties, a real estate company that develops and manages retail real estate.

 

In Birmingham, Alabama, Bayer worked with the city government to transform the site of the Pizitz, a historic department store that closed in 1987. The Pizitz, which Bayer bought as a vacant building in 2000, was in a rundown neighborhood that lagged behind the revival occurring in other areas of downtown.

 

Numerous plans ended up on the scrap heap before federal and state aid was secured to build a mixed-use community, which opened in 2016. The development houses 143 residential units -- now 90 percent occupied -- a co-working space, a food hall and retailers, including Alabama’s first Warby Parker.

 

The project cost was $70 million, including public and private funds. Bayer was able to obtain a low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as tax credits from the state. The city paid to refurbish the landscaping in the area, including the sidewalks and street lamps, according to Wadkins.

 

“If you can put a plan together for a city that doesn’t put the city at great risk, then they will invest with you,” Wadkins said. 

To conclude, perhaps no one summarized this lunacy better than Ronald Reagan who succinctly described the Government"s approach to economic affairs as follows:

"Government"s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

Malls are clearly now in the "subsidize it" phase of the Government"s economic plan.

Can Trump Drive A Wedge Between Saudi-Russian Alliance?

Authored by Zainab Calcuttawala via OilPrice.com,

Together, Russia and Saudi Arabia produce a fourth of the world’s oil. The laws of competitive international commodity trading have pit the two petrostates on opposite poles of the U.S.-Russia geopolitical rivalry. But a new era of American oil exports and ailing national budgets is pulling Moscow and Riyadh together in trying financial times.

President Barack Obama’s administration maintained a cold distance from Saudi Arabia in its final years. As the United States and its European allies began a war against the Islamic State in 2014, Saudi Arabia focused its military might on Yemen—a country on the Arabian Peninsula facing the brutal consequences of an extended Arab Spring. Iranian arms and funding reached the pockets of the Shiite Houthi rebels, who hoped to build a new regime in Yemen, to the chagrin of Wahabbi Saudi Arabia. 

President Donald Trump’s White House has extended an olive branch towards Riyadh as the new State Department lays out its foreign policy agenda.

But this new diplomatic program runs contrary to the KSA’s economic goals. American oil exports, reinstated back in December 2015, counter the effects of OPEC’s landmark agreement to lower bloc-wide output by 1.2 million barrels per day in an effort to alleviate an international supply glut.

As a major oil exporter, Russia was invited to participate in the agreement when it was being discussed back in 2016. American exports were still limited to specific destinations back then, and U.S.-based companies had only just begun to secure supply contracts in Asian and European markets. Any threat to the success of the deal from the other side of the Atlantic seemed far-fetched just a year ago. 

But the tables have turned.

Washington doesn’t rely on oil profits to run its nation. Moscow and Riyadh do—and heavily so. A boost in active rigs in the Permian basin, as well as other areas in the north of the country, has put shale oil and gas in the center of Russo-American geopolitics. As Moscow approves an extension of its 300,000-bpd output drop commitment with OPEC, the U.S. department of energy eyes new markets for American fossil fuels. Energy Secretary Rick Perry made his rounds to Japan in May to open the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) consumer’s doors to U.S.-drilled supplies. The carbon-light fuel is considered a gateway energy source for developed countries as grid systems shift to renewable and alternative power options.

In Europe, American infringement of Russian dominance in gas markets is even clearer. The European Union has faced off against Moscow regarding the Crimea annexation and the Syrian revolution in recent years, but Russian control over Europe’s energy supplies undermined the continent’s geopolitical leverage. 

This new landscape puts Saudi Arabian interests in line with those of Russia. Both mega producers need to contain the growth of the outbound American fossil fuel industry, but the Iran issue remains a key point of contention between Riyadh and Moscow. The KSA is neck-deep in a showdown against Qatar for its involvement with Tehran on the South Pars gas field. New Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s assertive stance locks the country in an irreconcilable rivalry with Iran. In contrast, Moscow stood by Iran through the latter’s experience as an international global pariah.

So far, President Trump has announced Iran’s official decertification from the nuclear deal, which doesn’t dismantle the deal completely, but provides the Republican Congress a route to sanctions it didn’t have before. The White House also approved new sanctions against the country’s Revolutionary Guard last week. These new developments are bound to bring back the Tehran and Moscow alliance in full force, potentially alienating the KSA in its anti-Iran stride.

The exact dynamics of the Moscow-Riyadh axis are still being forged in OPEC meetings around the world. Time will tell whether Saudi wants this new ally badly enough to reduce its belligerence against Iran, if that’s what the future of the relationship comes to.

Despite Opposition, Scotland Announces Fracking Ban - Calls For US To Do The Same

Authored by Julia Conley via TheAntiMedia.org,

“We have so much wind and wave power that it is retrograde in the extreme to lend any support to the fracking industry.”

Environmental groups from around the world applauded Scotland on Tuesday for its decision to ban fracking, following an overwhelming public outcry against the practice - and called for the United States and the rest of the United Kingdom to follow suit.

The Scottish government held a public comment period in recent months on fracking, attracting about 65,000 responses - the majority of which came from people in communities where the natural gas extraction would take place. An overwhelming 99 percent of Scots who participated were opposed to the practice.

"Fracking will lead to an increase in pollution and the decimation of parts of the Scottish landscape and environment,” wrote one respondent.

“People will feel even more devalued as a result of having been ignored, communities wll be damaged by fracking wells and health will suffer as a result of noise, ground water contamination and probably indirect air pollution. Scotland can’t afford to damage the health of its residents any more.”

In addition to environmental concerns, many Scots said they weren’t convinced of the potential economic benefits of fracking; the auditing firm KPMG found that it was likely to only increase the GDP by 0.1 percent. Others said relying on the risky method of energy production would signify a lack of innovation in the country.

“We should be moving to renewables. This is a backwards step,” said a commenter.

In a four-month public comment period, 99 percent of the 65,000 Scots who responded expressed opposition to fracking. (Photo: Friends of the Earth Scotland/Flickr/cc)

Another added that the practice was “likely to be entirely detrimental as Scotland’s international reputation as an innovator in design and engineering projects is undermined by our agreement to proceed with fracking…We have so much wind and wave power that it is retrograde in the extreme to lend any support to the fracking industry.”

Food and Water Watch gave credit to the Scottish people for standing up to corporate entities that supported fracking. “Giant energy company Ineos, which invested heavily in its Scottish facility at Grangemouth, fought hard against this ban, even threatening to explore legal action against the government if it passed,” said executive director Wenonah Hauter in a statement. “But people power prevailed, and it will continue to prevail. We can’t let companies like ExxonMobil and Ineos stop the inevitable march towards clean energy. Bold and swift policy change is our only hope for addressing our climate goals. We applaud the Scottish government for doing what’s right for people and the planet.”

Scotland’s decision leaves its neighbors, England and Wales, alone in their embrace of fracking.

“With all our nearest neighbours having banned or halted fracking, our government is increasingly out on a limb in pursuing it in England,” said Rose Dickinson of Friends of the Earth.

Hauter also called on the U.K. as well as the U.S. to follow in Scotland’s footsteps.

“Banning fracking is a necessary step towards beating the worst effects of climate chaos, and the U.K. and the U.S. should follow Scotland’s example,” she said.

“In the U.S., we already have the means to start moving off of fracking swiftly - the Off Fossil Fuels For a Better Future Act, which would mandate a just transition to 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2035, starting with 80 percent within the next 10 years.”

As in Scotland, public opinion in the UK and the US is not in fracking’s favor, despite officials’ insistence that the practice creates jobs and revenue. A poll by England’s Business and Energy Department this summer found that only 16 percent of citizens support fracking, down from 21 percent last year.

In the U.S., opinions are more evenly split, but a 2016 Gallup poll found that 51 percent of Americans oppose fracking, while 36 percent support it.

What's Next For Oil: Interview With Former DOE Chief Of Staff

In this week"s MacroVoices podcast, Erik Townsend and Joe McMonigle, former chief of staff at the US Department of Energy, discuss the state of the global energy market, and OPEC’s rapidly diminishing ability to control oil prices. McMonigle believes investors will be hearing more jawboning from the Saudis, OPEC"s de-facto leader, over the next two weeks as they try to marshal support for extending the cartel"s production-cut agreement past a March 2018 deadline.

Of course, anyone who’s been paying attention knows the cuts have done little to alleviate supply imbalances that have weighed on oil prices for years. In a report published by the International Energy Agency earlier this month, the organization notes that non-compliance among OPEC members, and non-members who also agreed to the cuts those non-members who also agreed to cut oil production, increased again in July. According to the IEA data, non-compliance among the cartel’s members rose to 25 percent in July, the highest level since the agreement was signed in January. Meanwhile, noncompliance for non-members rose to 33%.

Given that oil prices have fallen since OPEC members and non-members first agreed on the cuts last November, the Saudi"s might have difficulty convincing their peers that the cuts are having an impact, other than allowing US shale producers to flourish.

OPEC will meet Nov. 30 in Vienna.

Erik: Joining me now as this week’s featured interview guest is former US Department of Energy Chief of Staff Joe McMonigle, who now heads up the energy research team at Hedgeye. Joe, I think everybody understands that the key question in today’s oil market is whether the rebalancing that OPEC production cuts were supposed to achieve is really happening or if the supply glut is actually still continuing. So let’s start with your high-level view first. Is OPEC effectively managing supply or are they really just managing market sentiment?

Joe: I think, to date, they have been managing sentiment and, of course, engaging in verbal intervention in the market. Yes, they did do this production cut deal a year ago—well, actually last November. They’re eight months into that deal now, and it’s really had not that much of an impact on the market. I think, originally, when the deal was announced, I think oil bulls really liked the idea and prices were boosted as a result. But many people, a lot of very savvy oil analysts and forecasters at banks, predicted big inventory draws in the spring that just never materialized. And, of course, the return of higher prices has incurred shale to rise—which, of course, we can get into later because It’s sort of a different phenomenon. But, just to really judge the effectiveness of the production cut deal, last Friday oil ended at—or settled at—47 and some change. It was actually a penny lower than it was a year ago.

So, just to judge—obviously, prices in the last couple days have fluctuated a little bit—but, really, if you’re looking at where prices were a year ago versus where they are today, I don’t think you can really say that the production cut deal has had a lot of influence or has been very effective. And I think as a result the markets started out really impressed, and I think they’ve been pretty disappointed as we’re into month eight now, almost nine months of the deal.”

In the coming works, McMonigle said he expects "two competing narratives" to emerge in the oil market. The first, advanced by the Saudis, will be news of large export cuts, particularly to the US. The other will be the story of rising shale production.

“Erik: OPEC has another meeting coming up on November 30th. And, as we all know, they’re in the habit of using the periods leading up to these meetings to jawbone the market with their various propaganda announcements. So, there’s been talk about the production cuts maybe being extended, or even increased, at this meeting. There’ve also been rumors about maybe taking exempt countries that didn’t participate in the cuts and making them not exempt next time around.

So, what do you see actually happening on November 30th? And how do you think the propaganda campaign is going to play out between now and then?

Joe: I think you’re totally right; jawboning is really part of the OPEC playbook. And I think you’re going to see it in the next two weeks now—even before August is over—I think two competing narratives. One, you’re going to start seeing from the Saudis announcements or leaks about big cuts in crude exports, particularly to the US. And they sort of signaled that they were going to do that in July. I certainly expect them to have done it. Of course, a lot of it has to do with lower demand from China as well. But they will show some big cuts, I think, in crude exports. And then juxtapose that with, I think, what you’re going to see from the US—which we’ve seen really, I think, throughout the summer—and that’s really rising US production—and a lot of other forecasts from banks and other oil analysts about rising US production. And I think Barclay’s came out with a forecast report earlier this week or late last week that had oil going to ten-and- a-half million barrels a day by the end of 2018.

So, I think you’re going to start seeing more of that, and I think that’s really making it difficult for OPEC to regain the narrative about the production cut deal. And I think they badly want to try to get that back. In terms of the next meeting, already, yesterday, you had the Kuwait oil minister say that they’re going to make a decision to consider whether to extend the production cut deal or to basically end it. Unfortunately, neither of those scenarios is really what the market wants to hear. I think the market wants to hear that there’s going to be deeper cuts, and that’s really not been on the table. I think there was some potential anticipation of that, potentially at the last OPEC meeting. We thought there really Wasn’t a chance of that happening. We wrote a note for clients that basically said—“longer not deeper” was the title of our note.

I think at the very least you’re looking at another extension. Even though it’s extended into the end of first quarter 2018, I think they will probably want to signal at that November meeting that they will extend. I think that’s at a minimum. However, I would not preclude, potentially, more drastic action at that meeting. But I think it’s too early to tell. I think we have to really see where the market is in late October and early November.

And I think the main reason for that is really the Aramco IPO coming up. And I think it’s just—we’re going to talk about that later I think—but I think that’s really, it’s a central focus of the Saudi Arabian government, of their economic reforms, so they have a lot riding on it. And, therefore, I think there’s the potential that there could be some unilateral Saudi action of deeper cuts.

So that’s something I now put in the realm of possibility as I look at the different options coming up at the November 30th meeting.”

While inventories data released in recent weeks have shown large drawdowns in the US, McMonigle said any declines have been more than offset by climbing shale production.

"Erik: I want to come back to the Aramco IPO in a few minutes, but let’s start with touching on the official US data that comes from your former employer, the Department of Energy.

It used to be pretty easy to read these reports, but lately we’re kind of getting conflicting data. There were quite a few much bigger than expected drawdowns in crude oil inventory in recent weeks, although this week it appears to be much more in line with inventory, around a 3 million barrel drawdown, which is for this time of year pretty normal.

Those big drawdowns would have been very bullish. But then we also see that there’s been steadily increasing domestic production in these Wednesday reports. That would be a bearish sign. But then on Fridays we get the rig count, which looks like it’s finally starting to level off a little bit. So that would tend to go the other way.

When you net all these things together, what do you see in the data? Are we looking at a bona fide rebalancing of the market that’s actually occurring? Or is there still a production glut?

Joe: I guess I side on the production glut side. I think—certainly there’s been some drawdowns, and I think that’s positive news. It’s hard—it’s impossible to say it’s not positive news, although I think most observers thought the drawdowns would occur sooner and they’d be even greater than they are. But a sustained several weeks now of drawdowns, I think has been positive. As you point out, the signals, however, about rising US production to really record levels, and the resiliency of US shale, I think is really a big counterweight to these inventory draws.

Now we’re also entering a phase here where the end of summer, the high demand season, is going to be switching over. And there’s going to be refinery maintenance, and—so I think a lot of the contributing factors, in terms of gasoline and other product inventories, are probably going to start stalling out. And so I think you’re going to see the market struggle here in the fall, even with further draws.

And, of course, crude exports from the US, which now are allowed as a result of lifting the crude export ban in 2016—I think, first of all, no one really thought, until prices really recovered to big levels, that there would be significant exports. But, again, the market has really been surprised, I think, about very strong crude exports. And of course that’s affecting the drawdown numbers as well.

So I think it’s a much more complicated data array to consider now, as we go into the fall. And I think—definitely you put your finger on it—the US production number, I think, is the big complicating factor in what would otherwise be very bullish news."

The former DoE chief also had this interesting detour into the petrodollar system:

Erik: A lot of people think the reason that the US dollar has remained the world"s reserve currency, 45 years after the Bretton Woods system collapsed in 1971, is the so-called petrodollar system in which Middle East oil producers price their oil in US dollars regardless of who it"s being sold to. And many of those nations also reinvest their profits in US Treasury Bonds.  But recently we"re seeing pressure from Russia and China to stop transacting in dollars. Iran, in particular, seems to have come to favor Euros over dollars for its oil exports. So do you think the petrodollar system—or even the US dollar"s hegemony as the global reserve currency—is at risk in the longer term in light of these developments? And what do these changes mean for the price of oil as you look ahead?  

Joe: First of all, I don"t profess to be an expert on currencies and its impact on oil prices. But certainly, historically, there"s been an inverse relationship between the dollar and oil prices. I do think the supply glut has kind of interfered a bit with that relationship. And it hasn"t necessarily worked as clockwork as it has in the past. I"m not sure the moves by China and Russia are really going to have that much of an impact, or any impact at all. So I do think the dollar really remains the preferred currency, not just in oil but in commodities in general. 

I will tell you an interesting story from my time at DOE. When oil prices really surged to $100 levels, the Saudis—and in particular Minister Al-Naimi, at the time the oil minister of Saudi Arabia—really talked out loud about potentially changing the currency for oil prices from dollars to Euros, just so that they could lower those skyrocketing prices they felt were impacting demand and having a greater impact on markets than it probably should. So, certainly I think market participants are looking more at currencies right now. But I don"t really put much stock in the moves—or the noise, I guess I would characterize it—from Russia and China.

This is just a modest selection of of the items discussed on the interview which also includes:

• Is the oil supply glut rebalancing?


• Is OPEC just jawboning the market?


• Import data impacting oil inventories


• Outlook for U.S. oil production


• Update on Venezuelan geopolitics


• What can go wrong with Iran?


• Is the Petrodollar system at risk?


• Is the Saudi Aramco IPO going to happen?


• Is the term structure signaling bullish prices

Listen to the rest of the interview below:

 

Fusion: Will Humanity Ever Harness Star Power?

Fusion is the epitome of “high risk, high reward” scientific research.

If we were to ever successfully harness the forces that power the stars, mankind could have access to power that is almost literally too cheap to meter. However, as Visual Capitalist"s Nick Routley notes, reaching that goal will be a very expensive, long-term commitment – and it’s also very possible that we may never achieve a commercially viable method of fusion power generation.

Today’s video, by the talented team at Kurzgesagt, explains how fusion works, what experiments are ongoing, and the pros and cons of pursuing fusion power generation.

HOW FUSION WORKS

Fusion involves heating nuclei of atoms – usually isotopes of hydrogen – to temperatures in the millions of degrees. At extreme temperatures, atoms are stripped of their electrons and nuclei move so quickly that they overcome their “mutual repulsion”, joining together to form a heavier nucleus. This process gives off massive amounts of energy that investors and researchers hope will propel mankind into an era of cheap and abundant electricity, but without the downsides of many other forms of energy.

I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.

– Stephen Hawking, award-winning theoretical physicist

Stars are so large that fusion occurs naturally in their cores – but here on Earth, we’re trying a number of complex methods in the hopes of replicating that process to achieve positive net energy.

The Cost of Bottling a Star

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), an experimental reactor currently being built in the south of France, will house the world’s largest ever tokamak – a doughnut-shaped reactor that uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma. Construction of the facility began in 2013 and is expected to cost €20 billion upon completion in 2021.

Source: Visual Capitalist

Research organizations see ITER as a crucial step in realizing fusion. Though the facility is not designed to generate electricity, it would pave the way for functional reactors.

Competition is Heating Up

There are some who claim that the bureaucracy of government-funded labs is hampering the process. As a result, there is a pack of private companies, fueled by high-profile investors, looking to make commercially-viable fusion into a reality.

Tri Alpha, a company in southern California, is hoping their method of spinning magnetized plasma inside a containment vessel will be a lower-cost method of power generation than ITER. In 2015, they held super-heated hydrogen plasma in a stable state for 5 milliseconds, which is a huge deal in the world of fusion research. The company has attracted over $500 million in investment in the past 20 years, and has the backing of Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen.

Helion Energy, located in Redmond, Washington, believes they are only a few years away from creating nuclear fusion that can be used as a source for electricity. Their reaction is created by colliding two plasma balls made of hydrogen atom cores at one million miles per hour. Helion Energy’s ongoing research is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program, which the Trump administration slated for elimination. Thankfully, Helion still counts Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital and Y Combinator as supporters.

General Fusion, located in Burnaby, B.C., is taking a different approach. Their piston-based reactor is designed to create energy bursts lasting thousandths of seconds, rather than a sustained plasma reaction. Heat recovered bursts would be used to generate electricity much like nuclear power plants, minus the long-term radioactive waste. General Fusion has attracted millions of dollars in funding, including investment from Bezos Expeditions and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

Time Horizon

Though commercially viable fusion is still a long way off, each new technological breakthrough brings us one step closer. With such a massive payoff for success, research will likely only increase as we get closer to bottling a star here on Earth.

Source: Visual Capitalist

New York Times Forced To Retract Longstanding '17 Intel Agencies' Lie About Russian Hacking

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

“Seventeen intelligence agencies”? - ?if you’ve been following the maniacal #TrumpRussia coverage to any extent, you’ve heard this phrase used uncritically, time and again, regardless of your ideological loyalties. Pundits, papers and rank-and-file establishment loyalists have been unquestioningly regurgitating the nonsensical line that 17 intelligence agencies confirmed Russian interference in the US elections ever since Hillary Clinton made that baseless assertion in a debate back in October.

Clinton"s "17 US intelligence agencies" may be the biggest, most immediately disprovable wopper ever intentionally made during a debate.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 20, 2016

Hillary Clinton"s "17 US intelligence agencies" include:

*Coast Guard
*DEA
*Navel Intelligence
*Department of Energy
*Air Force recon

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 20, 2016

The innate absurdity of the claim was immediately attacked by WikiLeaks and anti-establishment outlets who pointed out that this would necessarily need to involve full investigations from agencies like the Coast Guard, the DEA and the Energy Department in order to be true. Nevertheless, many high-profile pro-establishment outlets like Politifact and USA Today found Clinton’s claims to be 100 percent true on the grounds that James Clapper, then-Director of National Intelligence and notorious Russophobic racist, “speaks on behalf of” all 17 intelligence agencies. To this day Politifact stands by its false claim on the basis of that same spurious assertion.

3490 fake news stories that reported that "17 intelligence agencies" made US election hacking report when only 3 did https://t.co/QGaG47rzBL

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 8, 2017

New Cracks in Russia-gate ‘Assessment’ https://t.co/pEb9Nsdobq Can you say WMD"s in Iraq? Does this look like "17 intelligence agencies? pic.twitter.com/ZJkqTZtMmb

— Laughing Lefty (@laughingliberal) May 23, 2017

It turns out, however, that in addition to Clapper’s office there were only three intelligence agencies involved in that assessment, not 17, and that the conclusions were drawn not by the actual agencies in full, but by a mere two dozen loyalists from those agencies hand-selected by Russophobic eugenicist Clapper himself. The great Robert Parry notes in his Consortium News article about this point, “as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you ‘hand-pick’ the analysts, you are really hand-picking the conclusion. For instance, if the analysts were known to be hard-liners on Russia or supporters of Hillary Clinton, they could be expected to deliver the one-sided report that they did.”

As reported by Parry, we have known about these facts since they emerged from Clapper’s racist face hole on May 8, and they were confirmed by former CIA Director John Brennan on May 23. And yet at a California technology conference on May 31, Hillary Clinton repeated the same lie she’s been spouting since October:

“Seventeen agencies, all in agreement, which I know from my experience as a Senator and Secretary of State, is hard to get. They concluded with high confidence that the Russians ran an extensive information war campaign against my campaign, to influence voters in the election. They did it through paid advertising we think; they did it through false news sites; they did it through these thousand agents; they did it through machine learning, which you know, kept spewing out this stuff over and over again. The algorithms that they developed. So that was the conclusion.”

The “17 intelligence agencies” lie had been completely, thoroughly debunked for weeks, and yet not a soul called Clinton out on her brazen lie within the establishment press. Indeed, establishment pundits like Megyn Kelly continued to repeat the lie, and have continued to do so throughout the month of June.

NYT issues a correction repudiating the "17 intelligence agencies" canard that continues to get endlessly repeated https://t.co/lXDrPTPsHe pic.twitter.com/2gCuqjRBNM

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 29, 2017

All this changed when CNN was sent reeling by a 1–2–3-punch combination ensuing from its horrendously propagandistic Russia coverage, which has seen three of its journalists lose their jobs and sent the network into international disgrace. All of a sudden we are seeing establishment outlets getting a lot more conscientious about what they choose to publish about the Russian Federation, and today we saw none other than the New York Times posting the very first retraction of this long-debunked lie that we have seen in establishment media.

Correction: June 29, 2017

A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election.

The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

You just know how that went down, too; the retraction tells a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. The article’s author repeated the “17 intelligence agencies” lie without so much as a second thought, because it’s something they’ve been saying for months and getting away with?—?hey, it’s only Russia, right? They’re the Official Bad Guys so we can print whatever we want about them. The Washington Post has been getting away with telling brazen lie after brazen lie about Russia and suffering no consequences for it whatsoever, so we’ve got plenty of wiggle room here. The article passed by the editors for the same reason, but then someone up top received a complaint about the false claim in the article and immediately pulled the author into his office, yelling, “You fool! What’s the matter with you? Are you trying to get us CNNed???”

As I never get tired of reminding the brainwashed consumers of mainstream media, Russiagate is bullshit, and we fucking told you so. The entire thing was sparked off by two dozen agents hand-selected by a racist man with a racist agenda, and only persists because the US deep state wants regime change in Moscow and Damascus. This moronic conspiracy theory has been permitted to march on for far too long, and in the meantime we’ve been goose stepped to the brink of World War 3 as a result of this administration’s idiotic behavior in Syria. That’s where a real resistance needs to happen; not a McResistance to imaginary threats fed to the masses by the lying corporate media, but a real resistance to a very real and tangible threat from actions by the Trump administration and the unelected power establishment with which he is unquestionably aligned in a nation that the United States has no business involving itself in whatsoever.

Come on, America. I know you can snap out of the trance they’ve got you in. I know you’ve got it in you. Slam the brakes on the course they’ve got you on. Protest US involvement in Syria. Don’t let them Iraq you again.

US Oil Rig Count Drops For First Time In 24 Weeks As Trump Unveils US-Mexico Petroleum Pipeline

Last week saw US crude production decline by the most since Aug 2016 (perhaps affected by "Cindy") and given the lagged response to WTI prices, many expected the oil rig count to drop this week. As WTI heads for its 7th up-day in a row - the longest streak in 6 months - it is supported as the US oil rig count dropped 2 to 756, the first drop in almost 6 months.

“Is it possible we’d have our first negative number in 24 reports? Unlikely but it’s possible” when you see production down 3 of the past 7 weeks,  Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA in New York, says by telephone

• *U.S. GAS RIG COUNT UP 1 TO 184 , BAKER HUGHES SAYS :BHI US


• *U.S. OIL RIG COUNT DOWN 2 TO 756 , BAKER HUGHES SAYS :BHI US

WTI lifted modestly on the print holding earlier gains...

Lower 48 Production fell 55k b/d last week - the biggest drop since Aug 2016...

Total U.S. crude output dropped 100k b/d to 9.25m b/d last week, biggest drop in almost a year and 3rd decrease in the last 7 weeks, according to EIA report Wednesday

We suspect the drop is related to shut-ins from tropical depression Cindy and will recover quickly. It appears President Trump is confident that the Lower 48 will keep pumping as OilPrice.com"s Tsvetana Paraskova reports, to boost American energy exports, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has approved the construction of a new petroleum pipeline from the U.S. to Mexico that “will go right under the wall,” President Trump said on Thursday.

As part of the ‘energy week’, which promotes U.S. global leadership and dominance in energy, President Trump announced six initiatives “to propel this new era of American energy dominance,” he said.

The first initiative is the U.S. to start reviving and expanding its nuclear energy sector. Next, the Department of the Treasury will address barriers to the financing of highly efficient, overseas coal energy plants, President Trump said, mentioning Ukraine as one of the countries that need coal. The third initiative is the petroleum pipeline to Mexico. The fourth step to growing American relevance in global energy is U.S. Sempra Energy signing a deal to start negotiating sales of more American natural gas to South Korea.

The U.S. also approved two long-term applications to export additional natural gas from the Lake Charles LNG terminal in Louisiana, President Trump said, pointing out the fifth initiative. As a sixth initiative, the U.S. is “creating a new offshore oil and gas leasing program” to open up more areas for offshore development, President Trump said.

“We will be dominant. We will export American energy all over the world, all around the globe. These energy exports will create countless jobs for our people, and provide true energy security to our friends, partners, and allies all across the globe,” President Trump said in his speech.

The U.S. Department of State issued on Thursday three pipeline presidential permits for U.S.-Mexico pipelines. The permit for the New Burgos Pipeline authorizes construction, connection, operation, and maintenance of a new pipeline that has the capacity to deliver up to 108,000 bpd of certain refined petroleum products. The pipeline will cross the U.S.-Mexico border near Peñitas, Texas.

“New permits for the existing Dos Laredos and existing Burgos pipelines, which cross the border in Texas near Laredo and Peñitas, respectively, reflect a change in the name of the permit holder and authorize transport of a broader range of petroleum products than under the previous Presidential permits,” the Department of State said.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Thursday the approval of the two long-term applications to export additional LNG from the Lake Charles LNG Liquefaction Project in Lake Charles, LA.

More Solar Jobs Is A Curse, Not A Blessing

Authored by Paul Driessen via The Mises Institute,

Citing U.S. Department of Energy data, the New York Times recently reported that the solar industry employs far more Americans than wind or coal: 374,000 in solar versus 100,000 in wind and 160,000 in coal mining and coal-fired power generation. Only the natural gas sector employs more people: 398,000 workers in gas production, electricity generation, home heating and petrochemicals.

This is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Times. It shows how important solar power has become in taking people out of unemployment lines and giving them productive jobs, the paper suggests.

Indeed, the article notes, California had the highest rate of solar power jobs per capita in 2016, thanks to its “robust renewable energy standards and installation incentives” (ie, mandates and subsidies).

In reality, it’s not a good thing at all, and certainly not a positive trend. In fact, as Climate Depot and the Washington Examiner point out — citing an American Enterprise Institute study — the job numbers actually underscore how wasteful, inefficient and unproductive solar power actually is.

That is glaringly obvious when you look at the amounts of energy produced per sector. (This tally does not include electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power plants.)

• 398,000 natural gas workers = 33.8% of all electricity generated in the United States in 2016


• 160,000 coal employees = 30.4 % of total electricity


• 100,000 wind employees = 5.6% of total electricity


• 374,000 solar workers = 0.9% of total electricity

It’s even more glaring when you look at the amount of electricity generated per worker. Coal generated an incredible 7,745 megawatt-hours of electricity per worker; natural gas 3,812 MWH per worker; wind a measly 836 MWH for every employee; and solar an abysmal 98 MWH per worker.

In other words, producing the same amount of electricity requires one coal worker, two natural gas workers — 12 wind industry employees or 79 solar workers.

Even worse, whereas coal and gas electricity is cheap, affordable, and available virtually 100% of the time — wind and solar are expensive, intermittent, unreliable, and available only 15–30% of the time, on an annual basis. Wind and solar electricity is there when it’s there, not necessarily when you need it.

In truth, about the only thing solar and wind companies do well is collect billions of dollars in subsidies from taxpayers and billions of dollars in much higher electricity rates from consumers. And when you look at the overall picture, solar and wind power generation is far worse than this.

Land. Wind and solar require vastly more acreage. Modern coal or gas-fired power plants use roughly 300 acres to generate 600 megawatts nearly 100% of the time. The 600-MW Fowler Ridge wind farm in Indiana covers 50,000 acres and generates electricity about 20% of the year. Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base solar panels generate a trivial 14 MW 22% of the time from 140 acres; getting 600 MW 22% of the time from such panels would require 6,000 acres.

Backup power. Because wind and solar power generation is random and intermittent, it must be backed up by reliable coal or gas power plants that actually do 80% of the work. So we must build both renewable systems and fossil fuel systems.

Transmission lines. Coal, gas and nuclear plants can be located just a few miles from cities. Wind and solar facilities are often 100–200 miles from cities, and thus require ultra-long transmission lines.

Raw materials. All those wind turbines, solar panels, backup power plants and transmission lines require huge amounts of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass, rare earth metals and other resources. Ores must be dug out of the ground, processed into usable raw materials, and turned into finished components.

If we relied just on coal and gas power, we wouldn’t need all the land and raw materials (and energy to process them) required for hundreds of wind turbines and thousands of solar panels.

Environmental and human rights impacts. The United States has essentially banned mining for rare earth and other metals, so we import them from other countries. Rare earth metals for wind turbines and solar panels come from the Baotou region of China/Mongolia, where environmental and worker health and safety standards and conditions are horrendous — leaving sick workers and ecological degradation.

High electricity costs. Even with all the hidden taxpayer subsidies, electricity from wind and solar is typically twice as expensive as from conventional sources. That affects family and business budgets. Energy-intensive hospitals and factories face soaring energy cost increases that result in layoffs and plant closures. Studies in Britain, Germany and Spain found that every wind and solar job created resulted in two to four jobs lost in other sectors of the economy that must buy expensive wind or solar electricity.

Wildlife and habitats. Solar panels blanket vast acreage, preventing plants from growing under them and reducing wildlife habitats and populations. Wind turbines are notorious for killing eagles, hawks, other birds and bats — though the actual death tolls are hidden by wind companies and government agencies, which also exempt Big Wind companies from endangered species and other wildlife protection laws.

Climate change. Once we factor in the redundant energy systems, long transmission lines, raw materials required to build all of them, and energy required for mining, processing, manufacturing, transportation, construction and maintenance, wind and solar bring no reductions in carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, even if these gases now drive climate change (which they don’t), wind and solar bring no climate benefits. They are all pain, for no gain.

Even with all of this special treatment, Suniva just became the latest solar company to file for bankruptcy. And now it says it and other U.S. solar companies will totally disappear unless the government immediately imposes tariffs on all solar cells and modules imported from anywhere outside the USA.

Wind and solar are simply a bad deal for consumers, workers and the environment.

...And Now For The Bad News

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In the late 1760s and early 1770s, the government of France was in a deep panic.

They had recently suffered a disastrous and costly defeat in the Seven Years War, and the national budget was a complete mess.

France had spent most of the previous century as the world’s dominant superpower, and the government budget reflected that status.

From public hospitals to shiny monuments and museums, social programs and public works projects, overseas colonies and a huge military, France had created an enormous cost structure for itself.

Eventually the costs of maintaining the empire vastly exceeded their tax revenue.

And by the late 1760s, France hadn’t had a balanced budget in decades.

Debt was ballooning, interest payments were rising, and the government of Louis XV was desperate to do something about it.

There’s a famous story in which the Comptroller-General of Finances summoned all the government ministers to make deep budget cuts.

But no one could come up with anything substantial.

The overseas colonies were too important to cut.

And they couldn’t cut public hospitals… because too many people were now relying on them. Similarly they couldn’t cut veteran pensions either.

At the end of the session they could hardly find anything to cut that would make a meaningful difference.

All of their fancy programs and benefits had become too ingrained in society at that point; and any cut would have proven politically disastrous.

I thought of this story earlier this week when the US government released a sweeping budget proposal that aims to cut the deficit over the next ten years.

In fairness I’m always happy to see any government cutting spending.

But before uncorking the champagne bottles it’s important to understand some basic realities:

The budget slashes $3.6 trillion in spending through 2028 while proposing zero cuts to Defense, Social Security, and Medicare.

And that’s the entire point: just between those three programs, plus paying interest on the debt, the US government already spends MORE than it collects in tax revenue.

In 2016, for example, the government spent $2.87 trillion on Defense, Social Security, and Medicare, plus an additional $433 billion paying interest on the debt.

That totals over $3.3 trillion, which is more than they collected in tax revenue.

In other words, they could cut EVERYTHING ELSE in government: Homeland Security, national parks, funding for the arts, the Department of Energy. Everything.

And there would still be a budget deficit.

This is the most important thing to understand about US federal government spending: the built-in costs are so extreme that they can’t possibly make ends meet.

And the problem becomes worse each year.

Every single day, thousands of Baby Boomers join the ranks of Social Security and Medicare, which only adds to those programs’ costs.

This isn’t some black magic prediction; the Social Security office has precise data on how many people were born in 1952, 1953, 1954, etc.

So they know with a high degree of certainty how many people will be receiving benefits this year, next year, and the year after that.

The numbers just keep going up.

Point is, if they don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, nothing else in the budget really matters.

All of the cuts they’re proposing are financially trivial… it’s like showing up to the hospital with stage 3 prostate cancer and asking to get a cavity filled.

The more they delay the difficult choices, the greater the destruction becomes.

Spending will continue to exceed tax revenue, which means the debt will continue to rise (and interest payments continue to increase).

This cycle never ends.

The big, giant hope right now is that they’ll be able to engineer gravity-defying economic growth, which should theoretically increase tax revenue.

Again, this is a nice idea.

But their projections are extremely unlikely.

Looking back over the last 30-years, the average annual increase in real GDP per capita is just 1.5%.

The government’s new proposal is based on the US consistently achieving 3% growth year after year after year.

Even during the roaring 90s there were only three times in which that figure was over 3%.

So this is extremely unlikely.

But even if by some miracle the economy grows consistently by 3%, it still doesn’t address the government’s $46+ trillion problem with Social Security and Medicare.

Right now based on their own calculations, both programs are going to run out of money in a little more than a decade.

And they estimate the long-term costs of the program exceed revenue by more than $46 trillion.

(To see for yourself, refer to page 61 from the government’s own financial statements, available here. Note how the estimates get worse each year.)

Look, it’s nice to be optimistic and hope for the best. And any attempt to cut the deficit is certainly better than adding to it.

But it’s dangerous (and foolish) to presume that everything is going to work out OK just because some rosy projection says so.

The best-case scenario is that they buy themselves a little bit of time.

But the most likely result is still the same: default.

The US government has $20+ trillion in obligations to its creditors, and tens of trillions more in obligations to its citizens.

Simply put, the government has too many obligations. And their only way out is to walk away from some of them.

This means default.

Given that the US dollar and US government debt underpin the global financial system, defaulting on their creditors would likely cause a worldwide panic that would make the 2008 crisis look like an afternoon picnic.

Meanwhile, defaulting on their obligations to citizens entails deep cuts to… you guessed it… Social Security and Medicare. The younger you are, the more you can forget about counting on these programs as you grow older.

Paul Craig Roberts Warns "Truth Has Become Un-American"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

Those of us who have exited The Matrix are concerned that there are no checks on Washington’s use of nuclear weapons in the interest of US hegemony over the world.

Washington and Israel are the threats to peace. Washington demands world hegemony, and Israel demands hegemony in the Middle East.

There are two countries that stand in the way of Washington’s world hegemony—Russia and China. Consequently, Washington has plans for preemptive nuclear strikes against both countries. It is difficult to imagine a more serious threat to mankind, and there is no awareness or acknowledgment of this threat among the Congress, the presstitute media, and the general public in the United States and Washington’s European vassal populations.

Two countries and a part of a third stand in the way of Greater Israel. Israel wants the water resources of southern Lebanon, but cannot get them, despite twice sending in the Israeli Army, because of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is supplied by Syria and Iran. This is why Syria and Iran are on Washington’s hit list. Washington serves the military/security complex, Wall Street and the over-sized US banks, and Israel.

It is unclear if the Russians and Chinese understand that Washington’s hostility toward them is not just some sort of misunderstanding that diplomacy can work out.

Clearly, Russia hasn’t interfered in the US presidential election or invaded Ukraine, and does not intend to invade Poland or the Baltics. Russia let go the Soviet empire and is glad to see it gone, as the empire was expensive and of little benefit. The Soviet Eastern European empire comprised Stalin’s buffer against another Western invasion. The Warsaw Pact had no offensive meaning. It was not the beginning, as misrepresented in Washington, of Soviet world domination.

I see a lack of clarity about the threat that Russia faces in Russian media reports and articles posted on Russian English language websites. I see a lack of clarity in Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s continued efforts to work out an accommodation with Washington. How can Lavrov work out an accommodation with Washington when Washington intends to dominate or isolate Russia?

Lavrov and Russian media organizations do not always show awareness that it is not Washington’s intention to accommodate other national interests.

It cannot be otherwise for these three reasons:

1. The budget for the US military/security complex is the largest in the world. It is larger than the Gross Domestic Product of many countries. It includes not only the Pentagon’s budget but also the budgets of 16 US intelligence agencies and the Department of Energy, which is the location of the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant and 16 other national laboratories. When all the elements are added together, the military/security complex has annually the power and profit from $1,000 billion. An empire of this sort just doesn’t give up and go away because some president or some part of the electorate want peace. The “Russian Threat” is essential to the power and profit of the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned Americans 56 years ago. Just imagine how entrenched this power is now.


2. The neoconservatives, who control both US foreign policy and the Western media’s explanation of it, believe that the collapse of Soviet communism means that History has chosen the United States as the socio-politico-economic system, and that the US government has the responsibility to assert the hegemony of America over the earth. Just read the neocon documents. They assert this over and over. This is what it means that America is the exceptional and indispensable nation. If you are the indispensable nation, every other nation is dispensable. If you are exceptional, everyone else is unexceptional. The claim that the neoconservatives make for the US is similar to the claim that Hitler made for Germany.


3. As Israel controls US Middle East policy, Israel uses its control to have Washington eliminate obstacles to Israel’s expansion. So far Israel has achieved the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s government and chaos in Iraq, Washington’s war on Syria, and Washington’s demonization of Iran in the hope that sufficient demonization will justify war.

For the Russian Foreign Minister to believe that it is possible to reach an accommodation with Washington, other than a Russian surrender, is nonsense. Perhaps this is Lavrov’s use of diplomacy to delay the US attack while Russia prepares. Or perhaps Lavrov is just a diplomat who sticks to his last, despite the facts.

Much of the Russian media, both in Russian and foreign language broadcasts and websites, thinks that the Western misrepresentation of Russia is just a mistake and that that facts, once they are established, can rectify the mistake. These Russian journalists don’t understand that Washington could not care less about facts. Washington desperately needs an enemy, and Russia is the enemy of choice.

The Chinese government seems to think that Wall Street and US corporations are too dependent on the cheap Chinese manufacturing labor, which keeps the US system fueled with profits, to jeopardize these profits by going to war.

By underplaying the risk of war, Russia and China fail to mobilize world opposition to Washington’s recklessness and, thereby, enable Washington’s move toward war.

The presstitutes serving the National Security State continue to drive toward conflict. Consider Newsweek’s May 26, 2017, cover story with Putin on the cover and the caption: “The Plot Against America: Inside Putin’s Campaign to Destroy Democracy in the U.S.”

It is difficult to imagine such ignorant nonsense from a mainstream news magazine. Democracy in America has been destroyed by special interest groups, by a US Supreme Court decision that gave the reins of power to special interest groups, and by a hoax war on terror that has destroyed the US Constitution. And here we have the presstitutes saying that Putin is destroying American democracy. Clearly, there is no extant intelligence anywhere in the Western media. The Western presstitutes are either corrupt beyond belief or ignorant beyond belief. Nothing else can be said for them.

Consider Time magazine’s cover. It depicts Trump turning the White House into the foundation for the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral, which rise above the White House, symbolizing America’s subservience to Russia under President Trump. This extraordinary propaganda seems to be readily accepted by the bulk of the Western populations, peoples who will die as a result of their insouciance.

Even writers critical of Washington, such as Paul Street’s recent article on CounterPunch and the English language Russian website, Strategic Culture Foundation, cannot bring themselves to state the truth that the US military/security complex needs a major enemy, has elected Russia for that role, and intends to defend this orchestration to the end of humanity on earth.

Street writes about “How Russia Became ‘Our Adversary’ Again.” According to Street, Russia became the enemy of choice because Russia protected part of the world’s population and resources from being exploited by global capital. Russia became the number one enemy of the US also because Putin stopped the American exploitation of Russia economically. Putin is in the way of Washington’s exploitation of the world.

Much of what Street says is correct, but he is hesitant to state it in a straightforward manner. He has to dilute his message by repeating the obligatory propaganda. Street calls Trump, who originally wanted normal relations with Russia, an “orange-haired brute . . . [who admires] Putin’s authoritarian manliness.”

Trump’s problems originated in his goal of normalizing relations with Russia. Hillary is the brute who intended to worsen the relations.

Putin is a democrat, not an authoritarian. The authoritarians are in Washington. Surely Paul Street and CounterPunch know this. But Street has to protect himself from speaking some politically incorrect truths about the US and Russia by throwing in some anti-Putin propaganda and denigrating President Trump.

That peace with Russia and China would undermine the justification of the $1,000 billion military/security budget, and that the military/security complex is the American government, is too much truth for most writers to state.

Truth is the most rare element in the Western world, and we will not be permitted to have much of it much longer. Increasingly, truth is difficult to find. Soak it up while it is still available.

"Everybody's Freaked" - Washington Nuclear Facility Admits Second Radiation Leak, Workers Contaminated

Just under two weeks since the emergency at the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state (following a tunnel collapse), NBC"s local affiliate King5 reports Hanford’s owner, The U.S. Department of Energy, is scrambling to deal with a second emergency - signs have emerged that a massive underground double shell nuclear waste holding tank may be leaking.

The tank is known as AZ 101 and was put into service in 1976. The tank’s life was expected to be 20 years. Now it has been holding hot, boiling radioactive and chemically contaminated waste for 41 years.

This 2013 @ENERGY graph shows expected life of AZ tanks holding hot, liquid nuclear waste. Now 21 years past expected use. @SecretaryPerry pic.twitter.com/aQSqYywIyh

— Susannah Frame (@SFrameK5) May 19, 2017

As King5 reports, a seven-person crew was undertaking a routine job around 7 p.m. Thursday night. They had deployed a remote controlled devise into the safety space of what is known as a double shell tank. The device is used to evaluate structural integrity of the aging tanks. Normally, equipment lowered in this two-foot wide outer shell of the tank comes up clean. But not this time. A radiation specialist on the crew detected higher than expected readings.

“Radiological monitoring showed contamination on the unit that was three times the planned limit. Workers immediately stopped working and exited the area according to procedure,” said Rob Roxburgh, deputy manager of WRPS Communications & Public Relations, the government contractor in charge of all 177 underground storage tanks at the nuclear site.

“Everybody was freaked, shocked, surprised,” said a veteran worker, who is in direct contact with crew members. “(The contamination) was not expected. They’re not supposed to find contamination in the annulus (safety perimeter) of the double shell tanks.”

"We are of course concerned it might be a leak," a Washington state Department of Ecology spokesperson said.

The AZ 101 contamination event comes just 10 days after a tunnel collapse at Hanford that caused a site wide emergency. On May 9, workers found a 20 by 20 foot cave in of a tunnel used to store highly radioactive and chemically contaminated equipment from the Cold War-era.

Worse still, as The Wall Street Journal reports, a worker’s clothing was exposed to radioactive contamination at the site late Thursday, in what Gov. Jay Inslee called an “alarming incident” that should prompt federal officials to expedite their cleanup of the decommissioned facility. Detection equipment was then used to check for contamination that might have become airborne and adhered to the workers.

They found radioactive material on one worker in three spots: on one shoe, on his shirt, and on his pants in the knee area. According to workers in the field, the contaminated items were removed, bagged and appropriately disposed of.

Governor Jay Inslee called on the federal government to investigate after the contamination was discovered."This comes on the heels of last week"s tunnel collapse. It is another urgent reminder that Congress needs to act, and they need to act quickly."

“The May 9th incident should serve as an urgent reminder of the challenges in cleaning up the Hanford site that require a rededication of attention and resources in order to ensure progress continues moving forward,” the governors said in their letter to the Republican president.

“The longer it takes to clean up the facilities and structures that store mixed chemical and radioactive waste, the farther and farther they get past their useful lives - causing degradation and more risk of failing.”