[Army Times] Nestled in a quiet Virginia county called Fauquier is an isolated farmhouse that’s been in use since 1803, including as a dairy. Originally referred to as "Vint Hill," FOIA records from NSA show that it had several owners before it was purchased by the Army in 1942.
Situated in convenient proximity to the Signal Intelligence Service headquarters in Arlington, but still located far enough from the city to remain secretive, Vint Hill proved the perfect place for the Army to house a spy base: Monitoring Station No. 1.
The geography was the key. Evidently, its "location and quiet electromagnetic geology" made it a prime spot for intercepting radio signals abroad, reported Smithsonian Magazine. And during World War II, soldiers stationed there did just that.
"Private Leonard A. Mudloff intercepted a message from the Japanese ambassador to Germany in 1943 that described German fortifications, troop strength and contingency plans in western France," the Fauquier Times wrote. "Once decoded, that information aided the Allies in planning the successful D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944."
According to the documents released by the NSA, the station was a crucial intelligence-gathering mechanism throughout World War II and beyond. Additional Army resources classified Vint Hill Farms Station at one point as one of the largest intercept facilities in the world.
[Aljazeera] The United States is the world's most complicit country in helping individuals hide money from the rule of law, according to a new report from the Tax Justice Network (TJN). The network's findings come as Angola accuses Africa's wealthiest woman of siphoning public funds and moving the money offshore with the help of western consulting firms. The scandal has become known as the "Luanda Leaks".
Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola's former president, is worth an estimated $2bn, according to Forbes magazine. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) claims dos Santos used an "army" of Western advisors to "hide assets from tax authorities".
"Isabel dos Santos, too, took advantage of a US secrecy jurisdiction. The Luanda Leaks documents show that dos Santos used a Delaware company to buy property in Portugal. Delaware is one of the easiest places to create a low-taxed, secretive company," said Fergus Shiel, Luanda Leaks project manager at the ICIJ.
Africa's first female billionaire is accused of using international tax havens to move and store her assets. In a televised interview, dos Santos told Al Jazeera the allegations levied against her are untrue.
#3
So, let's review - an Angolan broad is accused of buying property in Portugal via a Delaware company, and the big problem (natch) is … one of the world's freest and open financial marketplaces.
Uncle Sugar, the guilty party once again and forevermore.
Who writes crap like this? Morons and propagandists, that's who.
[al fin next level] Europe decided to gamble it all on the China trade. Europe’s demographic crash means that local markets can no longer provide for economic growth. Immigration from Africa and the middle east is leading to higher crime rates and greater demand on social welfare services. And now exports to China are lagging. The spectre of recession hangs over the continent.
#3
The Chinese are about to lose $120 billion dollars worth of business and yet they say the contagion is under control?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/19/2020 12:49 Comments ||
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#4
Trump's trade war was already causing business to flee China. With the virus it's much worse. China is getting completely hosed right now and it is glorious.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/19/2020 14:30 Comments ||
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#5
Trump's trade war was already causing business to flee China. With the virus it's much worse. China is getting completely hosed right now and it is glorious.
Agreed - he can also pile on in subtle and effective ways since it'll all be attributed / blamed on the virus in any event. Clean hit.
[American Thinker] - The inevitable cratering of Joe Biden’s campaign, accelerated by the impeachment fiasco orchestrated by Nancy Pelosi and the inexorable rise of Bernie Sanders, has caused the Ruling Class to turn their lonely eyes to a hoped-for savior, Michael Bloomberg. But along with Bloomberg comes his de facto business partner and long-time close ally: China, a nation determined to destabilize American security, prosperity and freedom while growing more tyrannical and secretive internally and more dangerous than ever externally as it faces a potential economic and societal cataclysm. Some stuff about Bloomberg's personal & Bloomberg's News advocacy for Xi's regime
...As Josh Rogin of the Washington Post points out, among the ways Michael Bloomberg and his company Bloomberg LP make a considerable amount of money in China is not only through the extraordinarily profitable licensing of its financial software but via its massive Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index. Bloomberg LP is helping finance Chinese companies by sending billions of U.S. investor dollars into the Chinese bond market.
In 2019, the index began a 20-month plan to support 364 Chinese firms by directing an estimated $150 Billion into their bond offerings, including 159 controlled directly by the Chinese government. Bloomberg, along with other Wall Street firms, is effectively supporting the Chinese government’s human rights abuses, their resistance to Donald Trump’s efforts to rein in Chinese trade exploitation and espionage, all the while exposing American investors to increased risk in a nation that habitually obfuscates its economic statistics and manipulates its currency. It explains why he's willing to spend half a billion of his own money on the elections - he'll be repaid by/through the Chinese (if he wins)
[American Thinker] Victor Davis Hanson is the perfect person to refute the arrogance of former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who denigrated the "gray matter" needed by farmers in now infamous remarks to a group of elitists at Aspen. Hanson is not only a brilliant historian of ancient Greece and a political commentator with few if any peers, but also a fifth-generation farmer.
He understands the skills and brainpower needed to be an academic or other elite member of the analytical class, and he understands the skill sets and brainpower needed to be a successful farmer today. In his mind, there is no contest.
This is absolutely must-see TV. I almost stood up and cheered when I saw it.
#1
They don't know where the food comes from or the electricity, it's all magic to them. However, the urbanites seem intent on allowing these fans of Soviet Central Planning loose on the the rest of us.
#2
Mikey is showing us the unbelievable shallowness of our oligarchs. They're actually not very smart.
Ruthless, sure. Determined.
But their brilliance appears to consist in an unusual ability to cut corners -- to manipulate markets and twist government policies to their advantage.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/19/2020 11:48 Comments ||
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#4
A lot of people really don't understand where food comes from. When I lived in south Alabama a man was seeking approval to open a dairy farm just outside town. A woman at the meeting was very much against it. When asked where was going to get milk she said, "I'll get it where everyone else does, at the grocery store".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/19/2020 12:10 Comments ||
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#5
Brilliant the way Tucker Carlson compares Bloomberg's philosophy to Robert Mugabe's.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/19/2020 13:15 Comments ||
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#6
Farm equipment today has more in common with the Space Shuttle than the draft horse. Same with manufacturing and the water wheel.
#5
The Japanese were way ahead on HD TV and the industry demanded we subsidize a catch up program. Then digital happened and all the Japanese advances in analog HD disappeared in the winds of new technology. The government should never bet on a winner, see all the 'green' waste of the first Obama years.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.