Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday, 15 March 2016

The European Union Times


Posted: 15 Mar 2016 07:38 AM PDT

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) is reporting today that the Obama regime has been left “in a state of shock” after President Putin, yesterday, ordered Aerospace Forces to cease combat operations and leave the Syrian region of the Levant War Zone after a peace agreement was reached with anti-government forces fighting the government of that embattled Middle Eastern nation—and which just two hours ago the first Federation Su-24 bombers returned home.
According to this report, President Putin, on 30 September 2015, and for the first time in 24 years, issued an order authorizing combat operations to begin outside of Federation territory to defend the Syrian government against an array of American and Saudi Arabian supported terrorists groups seeking to overthrow it by force.
After 6 months of continuous Aerospace Forces bombardments, this report continues, the remaining US-Saudi supported terrorist elements operating against the Syrian government, centered mainly in the Hama Province, negotiated a peace agreement thus enabling Federation forces to withdrawal and claim victory.
Though not exactly stated in this report, but its strongly eluding towards, is that the Syrian and Iraqi governments have agreed to a de facto division (partition) of their countries, with the Kurdish peoples being allowed to establish a “homeland” zone next to the Turkish border (which in the future will be merged with its Iraqi counterpart), and the Sunni controlled eastern regions, now controlled by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh), becoming a protectorate of the US and its coalition, and a Shiite homeland established in the eastern portion of present day Iraq.
In order to “firmly establish” the integrity of the Syrian government from future attempts of violent overthrow by the Obama regime, this report says, President Putin has further ordered that the feared S-400 air defense system will remain there to protect that nations airspace, and that additional Federation forces stationed at the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia Province, and the base at the Port of Tartus, will remain there too.
So with the Federation now being victorious in their 6-month war to protect the Syrian government and its peoples, this report concludes, it remains left to the Obama regime and its coalition to defeat the Islamic State terrorists they created—and to which one top general in this report plainly states: “They created them, it’s their mess to clean up, not ours.”
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Posted: 15 Mar 2016 04:54 AM PDT

Exit polls and preliminary results in German regional elections show significant success for the right-wing AfD party, which will probably enter three state legislatures. Chancellor Merkel’s conservative CDU party suffered losses in two out of three states.
The AfD (Alternative for Germany) party secured 24.2 percent in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, making it the second-largest party after the ruling CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany), which won 30 percent, according to exit polls and early counting.
Official results from Baden-Württemberg show AfD managed to win 15.1 percent of the ballots to come in third, after the state’s ruling Green Party with the most votes, and CDU, which took second place.
Results for Rhineland Palatinate also put AfD in the third place, while CDU lost its majority to Social-Democrats, securing only 32 percent against their 36.
Voting booths in all three states closed at 6 pm (17:00 GMT) on Sunday. Over 12 million Germans were eligible to vote in the regional parliamentary elections.
The results amounted to a resounding success for right-wing AfD, a party which didn’t even exist some three years ago, created in 2013 as an anti-euro movement, while Chancellor Merkel’s conservatives lost in two out of three regional state elections.
“We have fundamental problems in Germany that led to this election result. In the months to come we’ll show that the AfD needs to be here, that Germany needs a new alternative – and that’s us,” said AfD chief Frauke Petry, whose party is now to enter all three regional parliaments.
She also said that her party does not focus merely on migration policies, explaining “We push forward a number of ideas: for family policies, for energy policies, for example. Also, to make our tax system more transparent, which has been tried several times by the CDU, but never happened. But in terms of currency policies, we think that a referendum about the euro is more than necessary. And yes, we should also talk about migration policy, because that is something that is capable to change the country on the whole, and people in Germany haven’t had a chance to discuss this on a broad public level.”
The party’s Berlin chairman, Georg Pazderski, spoke of the tasks ahead. “The results come with responsibility. There is a lot to do for us. There is a deep feeling in the German population that something is going wrong. It’s not only because of the migration crisis, it’s also because of the euro crisis and other things. People see that politics in Germany is going the wrong way and this is the main reason why we have such good results today,” he said.
Alexander Gauland, Deputy Head of the AfD, also commented on the election results, saying, “We are the opposition, which is being driven away by everyone. We have a quite clear stance regarding the migration policy: we do not want any more refugees. People who have chosen us are against [the current] migration policy.”
AfD was created in 2013 to oppose German federal policies concerning the eurozone crisis. Originally considered a right-wing fringe group, the party has been gaining in popularity since the migrant crisis hit the EU a year ago. As of 2015, the AfD had gained representation in five German state parliaments. Its core constituents today are voters disillusioned with the stance of Chancellor Merkel’s government on refugees. AfD’s leader, Frauke Petry, has been taken to task for her harsh stance on migration since she suggested earlier this year that police should fire at refugees to prevent them from entering the country “as a last resort.”
AfD’s co-chairman, Katja Kipping, stated, “Current election results are the expression of [German] society turning to the right and separation within the society itself. The ‘grand coalition’ [Merkel’s party] is responsible for it, having strengthened the feeling of social insecurity with its policy.”

Meanwhile, despite the party’s success in elections, protests were held late on Sunday in Cologne and Stuttgart, with activists denouncing the anti-refugee AfD with banners calling the party “arsonists” and reading “you are no alternative.”
In a dig at Chancellor Merkel’s open-door migration policy, the AfD campaigned under slogans like “Secure the borders” and “Stop the asylum chaos” on their way to winning representation in five of Germany’s 16 regional parliaments.
The mass assaults in the German city of Cologne on New Year’s Eve, when groups of men reportedly of North African and Middle East origin sexually harassed and robbed about 1,000 women, resulted in a wave of criticism across the country directed at Merkel’s government, with people demanding not only punishment for assailants, but also stricter border controls.
According to a survey conducted in early February, 81 percent of Germans feel that the migrant crisis is “out of control” under Merkel’s rule, and the majority wants more restrictive measures for asylum seekers.
Today’s election was widely seen as the biggest electoral challenge for Chancellor Merkel ahead of next year’s general election and a test of support for her open door migrant policy.
Her party’s poor results in the regional polls could come as a setback for the Chancellor as she tries to muster all of her political clout to seal a much-debated EU deal to send migrants back to Turkey in exchange for more funding and visa-free travel.
This year’s turnout in all three states greatly exceeded that for the previous elections in 2011, being up by over 5 percent in Baden-Wuerttemberg, 9.7 percent in Rhineland-Palatinate, and 11.8 percent in Saxony-Anhalt.
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Posted: 15 Mar 2016 04:34 AM PDT

On Friday the Republican National Committee Standing Rules Committee told its membership convention delegates are not bound to the will of Americans who voted in the primary.
Curly Haugland of the Republican National Committeeman for North Dakota said in a letter sent out on March 11 delegates may “vote according to their personal choice in all matters to come before the Republican National Convention, including the vote to nominate the Republican Candidate for President” and disregard voters.
Haugland dismisses primaries as “nearly worthless ‘beauty contests’” and believes delegates “have been bound only once in the history of the Republican Party.”
In 1976, the Ford campaign, afraid of losing “pledged” delegates to Reagan forces and having the strength of delegate numbers needed, forced the adoption of the “Justice Resolution” which amended the convention rules to bind the delegates to cast their convention votes according to the results of binding primaries.
According to Haugland instead of “pledged” delegates—pledged to the wish of the American voter—delegates should be free to “vote their conscience.”
He continues: “Every delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention is a completely free agent, free to vote for the candidate of their choice on every ballot at the convention in Cleveland in July. Every delegate is a Superdelegate!”
If not for Donald Trump, this would not be an issue—establishment candidates invariably go on to claim the nomination and fight it out in the general election with a Democrat, similarly chosen by delegates beholden to the party and the establishment.
Democrat Party Rigs the Process with Superdelegates
“Superdelegates were created in part to give Democratic party elites the opportunity to put their finger on the scale and prevent nominations like those of George McGovern in 1972 or Jimmy Carter in 1976, which displeased party insiders,” writes Nate Silver.
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz made this perfectly clear in February when she admitted the system is rigged (for the sake of “diversity,” of course):
Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grass-roots activists. We are, as a Democratic Party, really highlight and emphasize inclusiveness and diversity at our convention, and so we want to give every opportunity to grass-roots activists and diverse committed Democrats to be able to participate, attend and be a delegate at the convention. And so we separate out those unpledged delegates to make sure that there isn’t competition between them.
In order to make this palatable to PC sensitive Democrats, Wasserman Schultz added:
We separate those so that we don’t have elected officials and party leaders running against the activists, but want to make sure are helping to diversify our convention. That is something we take great pride in. A Native-American cancer survivor. Those people should have an opportunity to be delegates, too. And they shouldn’t have to deal with very well-known officials and party leaders. And that’s why we separate them.
This is not only absurd, it is insulting—the DNC does not care about Native American cancer survivors, it is only concerned with making sure an establishment vetted candidate makes it into the presidential election.
Lambert Strether comments:
Wasserman Schultz is stunning in her effrontery, both for her fabrication—does anybody really believe that the superdelegate system was set up so that Native-American cancer survivors could run?—and for her paternalism: Does she really think that “Native-American cancer survivors” want to sit at the kid’s table, and don’t want to “deal with” “very well-known officials and party leaders”? Personally, I’d like to deal with them very much, and even have some ideas about how to go about doing it.
A chart included in Strether’s post reveals the corporate allegiance of super delegates during the Obama presidential run: they worked for Goldman Sachs, Verizon, JPMorgan, Pfizer, News Corp., and various SuperPACs controlled by corporate clients.
Grafting the Superdelegate Scam on the GOP
Haugland’s letter announced establishment Republicans have more or less adopted the Democrat super delegate process in an effort to make sure Donald Trump does not emerge from the convention a winner.
“If the Republican nomination were contested under Democratic delegate rules instead, Trump would find it almost impossible to get a majority of delegates, and a floor fight in Cleveland would already be all but inevitable,” writes Silver.
It is not clear if the Republican strategy will work. However, it does signal that the GOP is busy attempting to fix the race and steal the nomination for one of the candidates who will likely remain in the race despite dismal numbers.
Earlier this month it was reported previous presidential loser Mitt Romney was brought out of the closet to stump Trump.
“Mitt Romney has instructed his closest advisers to explore the possibility of stopping Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention, a source close to Romney’s inner circle says,” CNN reported. “Romney is focused on suppressing Trump’s delegate count to prevent him from accumulating the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination.”
Mitt is has a condition, however. “But implicit in Romney’s request to his team to explore the possibility of a convention fight is his willingness to step in and carry the party’s banner into the fall general election as the Republican nominee. Another name these sources mentioned was House Speaker Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate in 2012.”
Romney and Ryan did not run in the 2016 primary and are not the choice of primary voters, but this does not matter. The only thing that matters in 2016 is saving the party and the establishment from the dangerous and resented outsider Donald Trump.
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Posted: 15 Mar 2016 04:16 AM PDT

On March 13 Americans will, in their tolerant nature, acquiesce once again to a government initiated (and hardly popular) loss of one hour, and the setting of clocks out of sync with our planet’s celestial rhythm.
After an earlier (unpopular) 1918 trial of Daylight Saving Time and its later repeal in 1919, it was re-enacted nationwide under Nixon under the “Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973.” It’s now a relic of inappropriate interventions of the early seventies that included wage-price controls and the 55 mph speed limit. It represents what we don’t need. Consider some of the reasons for repeal:
Nature: It unbalances what is naturally harmonious. High noon should be when the sun reaches its apex, or as near as this can be, given the use of time zones.
Sleep Cycles: The (circadian) sleep cycle need not be disrupted twice a year, even if accomplished by a show of hands. In truth, the legislative process should be called out for its shortsighted habit of running roughshod over established peaceable social order. Here it smacks of social engineering with a disregard for workers, not to speak of an insensitivity to children losing sleep in the adjustment.
As reported at telegram.com “The Fatal Accident Reporting System found a 17 percent increase in traffic fatalities on the Monday after the shift.” This article cited findings in a University of Colorado at Boulder study of an increase in fatal motor vehicle accidents the first six days after the clocks spring ahead. This study suggests that the time change may even increase the risk of stroke.
Freedom: If those in a workplace agree to change their hours of work they are free to do so. Such “emergency” legislation imposed by the Federal government, on the other hand — however minor they seem — mandate conformity at the expense of basic freedoms.
Efficiency: Moreover, with the advent of LED-lights, the old cost-of-lighting argument has faded, especially because the start of the day has already been advanced about one hour as mentioned above. In fact, with more air-conditioning, the bias is for increased use of electric power under the time-shift, as people come home earlier in the hot season and turn up their air-conditioning.
Inconvenience: One has the annoyance of twice a year resetting clocks. This may take only 10 minutes, but over a 60-year span it’s 20 hours.
We all know what it feels like to arrive at work on time to find that everyone else had dutifully changed their clocks, so that we turn out to be one hour late.
There are real-world effects on major industries as well. Train and transport schedules cannot be easily adjusted. Amtrak, for instance, idles trains (and passengers) for one hour to keep on schedule in the fall and then tries to make up an hour in the spring by hurrying. More hourly work schedules need adjustment now that more businesses are open 24-7.
Affrontery: Perhaps worst of all is the fact is that there is no gain whatsoever in the number of minutes of sunlight in a day. It is hence presumptuous to maintain that the culture and habits of the people, as expressed by their arrangements and choices, were in error before the change. The benefit of the doubt should logically rest with conventional time.
Principle: Resetting clocks and watches not once but twice a year, is less a compromise of effort than of principle. It contributes to the habituation of interference by the state. We already prostrate ourselves filling out 1040 forms that tax the sale of our labor, including a required signature in disregard of the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. If we ever want to undo such an affront to freedom, annoying impositions such as time-shifting are a good place to start.
Sunset Old Laws: Thomas Jefferson suggested an automatic sunset provision for legislation: “… every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years.” In an April 2016 Reason article by Veronique de Rugy: “What Government Can Learn from Moore’s Law,” is suggested a sunset provision (that could be retroactive) in all Federal statutes and regulations to require an updated renewal within two years. Even better, might be a required supermajority for renewal. In Jefferson’s day, by the way, clocks were known as “regulators,” but such regulation stemmed not from legislation, but from social convention that produced efficient governing without the state.
As with a plethora of interventions some may be minor inconveniences, but like time-shifting, they share in a disrespect for the principle of simply leaving people alone. Mandated time shifting affects everyone while standard time imposes on no one.
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Posted: 15 Mar 2016 04:02 AM PDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to start the withdrawal of forces from Syria starting Tuesday. Russia will however keep a military presence at the port of Tartus and at the Khmeimim airbase to observe ceasefire agreements.
“I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow,” Putin said on Monday during a meeting with Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“In a short period of time Russia has created a small but very effective military group [in Syria]… the effective work of our military allowed the peace process to begin,” Putin said, adding that with the assistance of the Russian Air Force “Syrian government troops and patriotic forces have changed the situation in the fight with international terrorism and have ceased the initiative.”
To control the observation of ceasefire agreements in the region, Moscow will keep its Khmeimim airbase in Latakia province and a base at the port of Tartus, Putin said.
The bases “must be effectively secured from onshore, offshore and from the air,” Putin said, adding that Russia has had this military group in Syria for many years.
At Moscow’s initiative, a phone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Syria’s President Bashar Assad was held on Monday evening, the Kremlin reported.
The two leaders agreed that the actions of Russia’s Air Force in Syria have allowed them to “profoundly reverse the situation” in connection to fighting terrorists in the region, having “disorganized militants’ infrastructure and inflicted fundamental damage upon them.”
Bashar Assad has recognized the “professionalism, courage and heroism” of Russian Army soldiers and officers, who have taken part in the military action, thanking Russia not only for extensive help in the fight against terrorism, but also for providing humanitarian aid and assistance to the Syrian civilian population.
The Syrian leader also stressed its readiness to engage in the political process in Syria as soon as possible, the Kremlin said.
Russia’s president also addressed his foreign minister. He had tasked Lavrov with intensifying Russia’s participation in the peace process to solve the Syrian crisis, the Kremlin reported.
“I hope that today’s decision will be a good signal for all sides of the conflict [and that] it will significantly increase the level of trust for all participants of the peace process in Syria and provide for peaceful means to solve the Syrian issue,” Putin concluded.
Moscow launched its anti-terror campaign in Syria on September 30 last year. Russia’s participation in the operation, according to a previous statement by Putin, has its basis in international law and has been conducted “in accordance with an official request from the president of the Syrian Arab Republic [Bashar Assad].”
The Russian Air Force has been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other terrorist targets in the region, eliminating military equipment, communication centers, vehicles, arms and fuel depots.
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Posted: 15 Mar 2016 03:22 AM PDT

CNN interviewed the guy who attempted to jump Donald Trump in Dayton, Ohio last week – giving him a platform to throw insults at the GOP frontrunner, despite the fact that he admitted he wanted to kill Trump.
Thomas Dimassimo, the guy who jumped the security fence and got close to Trump before being apprehended, had declared on Twitter that he wanted to “be a martyr” and posted an emoji of gun.
Appearing on CNN, Dimassimo, an admitted Bernie Sanders supporter, said he rushed the stage because “Donald Trump is a bully.”
He was then given a platform on national TV to spew vitriol at Trump:

“I was thinking that I could get up on stage and take his podium away from him and take his mic away from him and send a message to all people out in the country who wouldn’t consider themselves racist, who wouldn’t consider themselves approving of what type of violence Donald Trump is allowing in his rallies, and send them a message that we can be strong, that we can find our strength and we can stand up against Donald Trump and against this new wave he’s ushering in of truly just violent white supremacist ideas,” DiMassimo frothed.
“I was thinking that Donald Trump is a bully, and he is nothing more than that,” DiMassimo said. “He is somebody who is just saying a lot of bold things, he’s making bold claims. But I can see right through that and I can see that he’s truly just a coward. And he’s opportunistic and he’s willing to destroy this country for power for himself.”
When asked whether it was his intention to attack Trump, Dimassimo denied that was ever his plan.
“Donald Trump is 6 foot 3. I’m 5 foot 9, maybe. He’s a giant man surrounded by thousands of followers, 12 Secret Service and a former Ohio State offensive lineman. That would have accomplished nothing.”
“It was more important for me to show that there are people out there who aren’t afraid of Donald Trump. He says scary things. He lets his people do scary things. He’s threatened Mexico, Islam, you name it, and yet I’m unafraid.” Dimassimo claimed.
While denouncing violence at Trump rallies, CNN interviewed Dimassimo. The hypocrisy did not go unnoticed with dozens of people criticizing CNN for their hypocrisy.
DiMassimo, a Wright State University student, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic. He is scheduled in court this Wednesday, March 16th.
Trump has received a deluge of death threats in recent months. His close friend Roger Stone recently revealed that Trump wears a bullet proof vest at all public appearances.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 23:41