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If Silicon Valley gets their way, privacy is the last thing you'll be worried about

Ned Ryun
Fox News
Mon, 28 Jan 2019 10:19 UTC
artificial intelligence
With unending revelations of privacy-related data abuses by Silicon Valley's largest and farthest reaching companies - even Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling for reform - we must acknowledge there is far more at stake than simply individual privacy and data. Big Tech's immoral and unethical behavior regarding your privacy will be a mere annoyance when compared to their ungoverned and reckless forays into artificial intelligence.

The troubling reality is that there is a deeply disconcerting lack of transparency and accountability as extremely wealthy, powerful, self-interested people - looking no further than adding many more billions of dollars to their personal balance sheets - are making decisions that will affect a great many of us. More disturbing still is the fact that in many cases they are envisioning a future that most Americans do not desire and for which we remain woefully unprepared.

Here is only one example: A 2016 Obama White House report estimated that 83 percent of all jobs that pay under $20 an hour can be, and likely will be, automated. A 2013 study by the University of Oxford showed that nearly 50 percent of all U.S. employment is automatable.

Why, then, are so many on the left hell-bent on pushing for an increase in minimum wages to $15? Because make no mistake: this is a push to accelerate the replacement of low-skilled workers with automation. Period. By making low-skilled tasks more expensive for a human to complete, they are directly accelerating the movement of those jobs to automation - permanently.

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

'Most important drills in our history!' Venezuela's Maduro rallies troops following US meddling and talks of 'intervention'


RT
Mon, 28 Jan 2019 03:12 UTC
maduro troops drill venezuela
© Miraflores Palace / Handout via Reuters
Ahead of the grand military drills, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro visited several bases to demonstrate that his legitimacy is backed by the army, which is ready to defend the nation from potential foreign interventions.

After the US pledged full support for the self-proclaimed "interim president" of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, not ruling out a 'humanitarian' military intervention if need be, Maduro said the National Armed Forces must be prepared to defend Venezuela "in any scenario" and announced massive exercises between February 10 and 15.

"We are preparing for the most important military exercises in our history," Maduro reiterated on Sunday while inspecting preparations for the exercises.

Comment: Contrary to Western propaganda, Maduro enjoys a majority support from most areas of Venezuelan society, including the military, and these drills reflect that:

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X

Kremlin spokesman refutes allegations about Russia's help in ensuring Maduro's protection


TASS
Sun, 27 Jan 2019 09:53 UTC
Dmitry Peskov
© Mikhail Mentsel/TASS
Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov
Russian president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov has refuted media allegations that Russian nationals were sent to guarantee protection to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

"No, of course, not," he said when asked to comment on corresponding reports. "Fear has magnifying eyes."

On January 23, Venezuelan parliament speaker and opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president at a rally in the country's capital of Caracas. Several countries, including the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay, have recognized him. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in turn, blasted the move as a coup staged by Washington and said he was severing diplomatic ties with the US.

Russia, Bolivia, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Turkey voiced support for Maduro, while China and Belarus called for resolving all differences peacefully and warned against foreign interference. The United Nations secretary general, in turn, called for dialogue to resolve the crisis.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, French President Emmanuel Macron, German government spokeswoman Martina Fitz, UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt and Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said on Saturday that their countries will recognize Guaido as Venezuela's interim president in case Maduro doesn't announce elections within eight days.

Comment: The allegations, according to Reuters:
Private military contractors who do secret missions for Russia flew into Venezuela in the past few days to beef up security for President Nicolas Maduro in the face of U.S.-backed opposition protests, according to two people close to them.

[...]

Yevgeny Shabayev, leader of a local chapter of a paramilitary group of Cossacks with ties to Russian military contractors, said he had heard the number of Russian contractors in Venezuela may be about 400.

But the other sources spoke of small groups.

Russia's Defence Ministry and Venezuela's Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment about the contractors. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "We have no such information."

[...]

The contractors' task in Venezuela was to protect Maduro from any attempt by opposition sympathizers in his own security forces to detain him, Shabayev said.

"Our people are there directly for his protection," he said.
See also: Russia briefly deployed to Venezuela - White House got the message

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Propaganda

The Gray Lady goes low: New York Times smears the president

David Stockman
LewRockwell.com
Sun, 27 Jan 2019 20:01 UTC
New York Times propaganda
The Donald has been on a red hot twitter rampage, and he's completely justified. Actually, we didn't think the Russian Collusion Hoax could get any stupider until we saw the New York Times' Friday evening bushwhack.

The trio of authors, apparently self-tortured victims of the Trump Derangement Syndrome, actually had the gall to print a story in the once and former Gray Lady of journalistic rectitude which was nothing more than an ugly smear on the sitting President of the United States-one that would have done Joe McCarthy proud:
In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence.
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Bullseye

A coincidence? Venezuela green lights Russia to mine gold, in a matter of days US attempts overthrow

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Maduro Guaido
© THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT.com
Just like in Libya, the current conflict in Venezuela is far bigger than some humanitarian crisis as they are sitting on mountains of gold and oil.

The decades-long US infatuation with Venezuela came to a head on Wednesday as the United States, Canada, Brazil, and others all declared a man who never even ran for the office of presidency, much less got elected to the office, as the president of Venezuela.

On Wednesday, Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez took a public oath of office and swore himself in as the President of Venezuela. He assumed this office with zero democratic process - essentially making himself a dictator - and was immediately declared legitimate by Washington.

This move by Washington to recognize Guaidó as the official president is a page out of the book they've used over the last two decades to invade and destroy countries like Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The exact same rhetoric from the bipartisan warmongers in DC is being put out once more as shills like Marco Rubio threaten all out war. All of the sudden, Trump's haters are coming together in solidarity, seething with their warmongering mucus over the potential for a Venezuelan conflict.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

The IRS will take at least a year to recover from govt shutdown, watchdog tells Congress

Jeff Stein
The Washington Post
Sat, 26 Jan 2019 11:02 UTC
IRS bldg
© Susan Walsh
The Internal Revenue Service has told lawmakers it would return from the government shutdown buried in millions of unanswered taxpayer letters, weeks behind schedule on training for workers and needing to hire thousands of new employees for this tax filing season, according to two House aides.

The National Taxpayer Advocate, a government watchdog group that oversees the collection agency, has also told House staffers it is likely to take at least a year for the IRS to return to normal operations, according to the two House aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the numbers. The watchdog group told House staffers that the recovery would take 12 to 18 months, one House aide said. These numbers assume the government does not shut down again in three weeks.

The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration ordered more than 30,000 employees back to work without pay to prepare for tax filing season, which is set to begin next week. But about 8,000 workers have claimed a hardship exemption not to return to work, while an additional 5,700 workers could not be reached, the House aide said.

Comment: A lesson in ramifications of stubborn positions and ineffectual government relations. The bill for extended IRS financial issues should be passed on to Congress. Not only has it prevented the security of the border, it has compounded expenses in other areas as exhibited by the IRS. Locked polarization is not a viable policy tactic.

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Attention

Venezuelan opposition threatened to lynch American journalist Abby Martin and 'Empire Files' Mike Prysner

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
Abby Martin interviews protesters
© Facebook
Abby Martin interviews Venezuelan opposition protesters.
The right-wing opposition of Venezuela has been caught endorsing and committing violent acts multiple times, despite claiming to be "peaceful." Their latest targets include two U.S. journalists who have been threatened with lynching for their reporting on the ongoing chaos in Venezuela.

The U.S.-backed right-wing opposition in Venezuela is consistently described as "peaceful," protesting non-violently against the leftist regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who mainstream media throughout the Americas and the world consider an autocrat, or dictator who is hell-bent on accumulating more power.

However, the Venezuelan opposition has proven themselves to be anything but peaceful, especially in recent weeks. Late last month, a mob of around 40 opposition protesters were caught on video beating 21-year-old Orlando José Figuera, then dousing him with gasoline and lighting him on fire after he was accused of being a "Chavista infiltrator."

While the young man suffered first- and second-degree burns on more than half of his body and survived more than six knife wounds to the stomach, the U.S. and its allies in Latin America have remained silent.


Comment: The dangerous and deadly objective to destabilize Venezuela has been gearing up for years, directed and supported by the US government and its 'well oiled' coup machine. US taxpayer dollars at work.

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Footprints

Taliban sources draft deal: Foreign troops to leave Afghanistan in 18 months

Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Jibran Ahmad, Rupam Jain
Reuters
Sat, 26 Jan 2019 07:39 UTC
Afghan security forces
© AFP
Afghan security forces
Taliban officials said U.S. negotiators on Saturday agreed on a draft peace pact setting out the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan within 18 months, potentially ending the United States' longest war.

The details of the draft were given to Reuters by Taliban sources at the end of six days of talks with U.S. special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Qatar aimed at ending the war, more than 17 years since American-led forces invaded Afghanistan.

It stipulates that troops would leave within 18 months of the agreement being signed.

While no joint statement was issued, Khalilzad tweeted later that the talks had made "significant progress" and would resume shortly, adding that he planned to travel to Afghanistan to meet government officials.

"Meetings here (in Qatar) were more productive than they have been in the past. We have made significant progress on vital issues," he wrote, adding that numerous issues still needed work.

"Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and everything must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire," he wrote in the tweets.

Comment: Count on nothing until it happens - but it does sound like incremental progress has begun. Eighteen months is a long time and for the US, excuses are 'a dime a dozen'.

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Snakes in Suits

Vultures of Caracas

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Sat, 26 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
rich guaido supporters
We are frequently told that people in Venezuela have no food, clothing or toilet paper, and that popular discontent with the left wing government is driven by real hunger. There are elements of truth in this story, though the causes of economic dislocation are far more complex than the media would have us believe.

But I ask you to look at this photo of supporters of CIA poster-boy, the West's puppet unelected "President" Juan Guaido, taken at a Guaido rally in Caracas two days ago and published yesterday in security services house journal The Guardian. Please take a really close look at the photo. Blow it up as big as you can. Scan individual people in the crowd, one-by-one.

These are not the poor and most certainly not the starving. As it chances I have a great deal of life experience working amongst seriously deprived, hungry and despairing people. I know the gaunt face of want and the desperate glance of need. Look at these Guaido supporters, one-by-one-by-one. This designer spectacled, well-coiffed, elegantly dressed, sleekly jowled group does not know hunger. This group does not know want. This is a proper right wing gathering, a gathering of the nicely off section of society. This is a group of those who have corruptly been siphoning Venezuela's great wealth for decades and who want to make sure the gravy train flows properly in their direction again. It is, in short, a group of exactly the kind of people you would expect to support a CIA coup.

Comment: See also:

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TV

Roger Stone interview with Tucker Carlson on being raided by FBI and arrested at gunpoint

Chris Donaldson
I Love My Freedom
Sat, 26 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Tucker Carlson Roger Stone
© Fox News
Tucker Carlson • Roger Stone
Americans got a glimpse of the police state that the Democrats are desperate to gain control over when a swarm of heavily-armed FBI agents descended on the home of Roger Stone to make an arrest that was televised live on CNN.

It was the last brazen exercise of power by special counsel Robert Mueller who is now arguably more powerful than President Trump but even for a rogue prosecutor imbued with extra-constitutional powers, the paramilitary raid on an old man's home was completely over the top.

The 66-year-old Stone was treated like El Chapo by Mueller's goon squad despite the unsealed indictment only being for the same type of process crimes that the sweeping witch hunt has produced in what should forever be referred to as "Operation Get Trump" because the unacknowledged objective is the reversal of the 2016 election.

Hardly a threat that merited such an overwhelming show of force, the elderly political operative blasted the feds for terrorizing his wife and dogs and decried how the U.S. was being turned into a "new Soviet Union" by Mueller and the Democrats.

After being released on a $250,000 bond with travel restrictions, the latest victim of Obergruppenführer Mueller's tyranny talked with Fox's Tucker Carlson on Friday night.


Comment: See also:

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