EDITORIAL

Trump Electorate Need More Than Anger Now: They Need Creativity

While an extraordinary drama is being enacted in the United States, with the use of intelligence agencies to try to overturn a decided presidential election, the President-elect has spoken to a series of monster rallies across the nation.

The Trump voters have been waiting by tens of thousands in the cold, to register their anger once again against the hated blows to their lives, of “globalization” and its advocates. But they urgently need something more and better than anger.

There is a new economic paradigm abroad in the world, especially from Asian powers, which could turn their fortunes around. But as citizens, they have to understand how to link their country up with that new paradigm. There are new scientific frontiers, including in space and fusion energy, which can mean a higher human existence for their children. They need to understand how those frontiers slipped from America’s mind in the past, and with whom to collaborate to restore them.

They need to see the political battle now, not as a Super Bowl to cheer for “killer hits” and injured opponents; but as a play of Shakespeare at which to gain ideas. Not a heavy metal rock concert, but a performance of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy as Europe held when they threw off Soviet Communism.

The Obama and Hillary backers cannot overturn the election. Their aim is to bring down another President, Putin of Russia. They are relentless for constant wars, “regime-change” wars, whose ultimate target is Russia and China. They aim to bring those nations down by war if necessary, before they become economically ascendant over Obama’s declining United States.

The American electorate, now as citizens, are in the drama. They have to act to make sure the new President does not attempt to continue that war policy; and does not continue Obama’s—or the Republican leadership’s—economic and science policies.

Instead, they can set off a mobilization to save the economy and the nation: restore the Glass-Steagall Act; create a Hamiltonian national bank for productive credit; build new infrastructure at the technological frontiers—like high-speed and magnetically-levitated rail lines—across the country; restore NASA’s Moon and Mars and deep-space missions and seek the breakthrough to fusion technologies.

That kind of creativity, on the part of thousands and even millions, is what LaRouche PAC and EIR exist for. Americans are not using that creativity until they realize the U.S. electoral shock was part of a global phenomenon, which can lead to a new paradigm of the rights and abilities of human beings.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

New Framework Group for Syria Negotiations Leaves Out Obama

Dec. 18 (EIRNS)—Having attained the turning point of ridding Aleppo of its jihadi occupiers, the 15-month-old initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Syria is now moving to a new phase. A new negotiating framework group for Syria’s military and political future is being formed, involving Russia, Turkey, Iran and Kazakhstan—and not necessarily involving the United States, at least until Barack Obama is out of the Presidency.

The Presidents of these four nations have all agreed on the new framework group, with the medium-term aim of a national ceasefire agreement in Syria. This framework group is due to hold formal discussions with Syrian opposition figures for the first time on Dec. 27. But TASS reports this isn’t the first time that Astana, Kazakhstan, has been the site of talks involving the Syrian opposition. At least twice in 2015 Syrian opposition groups met there. During the first meeting a joint document was drawn up, envisaging that foreign military personnel would be withdrawn from Syria and a national army would be revived. A second round of talks in October resulted in the adoption of a declaration on parliamentary elections in Syria, under conditions of international observers’ monitoring and security guarantees for all candidates. The groups and individuals that participated in these meetings are not named.

Today, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Dec. 17 called the foreign ministers of Turkey and Iran to discuss the Syria crisis. The ministry said they discussed the Aleppo evacuation and humanitarian efforts and stressed “the importance of continuing to coordinate efforts of the international community to provide humanitarian aid to those in need.” Similar coordination calls were initiated by Russian Defense Minister Shoigu with the Iranian, Syrian, and Turkish defense ministers.

The U.S. role under Obama now appears only to be the arming, along with his Gulf “allies,” the jihadi and related terrorist groups in Syria.

As to France’s latest UN Security Council resolution to oversee the evacuation of East Aleppo, it is dismissed as too late by Russia, which suggests instead that the UN prepare to monitor a national ceasefire in Syria in the future.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

LaRouche: Obama’s Words Are a Threat To Kill

Dec. 18 (EIRNS)—In a nationally broadcast interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” filmed on Dec. 15 and aired on Dec. 16, in response to allegations of Russian hacking of the DNC, President Obama stated menacingly, “I think there is no doubt that, when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, we need to take action, and we will, at a time and place of our choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be. But Mr. Putin is well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it.”

Lyndon LaRouche responded, “Obama’s words are a threat to murder people of importance. This is what [Obama’ step] father taught him.”  LaRouche called on citizens to “watch this guy, that he doesn’t kill.” He is publicly threatening the world. “The nations of the planet are now threatened by Obama’s plan for mass killing of people….”

At his White House press conference Friday afternoon, Obama concurred with the CNN White House reporter’s summation, that “The President thinks Vladimir Putin authorized the hack.”

LaRouche noted that “Internationally right now, we have people leading a world program for development and peace [the Eurasian New Silk Road, with President Xi Jinping, along with President Putin and others], but Obama will not just let things get by peacefully. They will kill; then the problem comes in, and it’s a bloody mess.” LaRouche emphasized that, “The signals are all there. Obama has made it clear.”

LaRouche called for taking action to warn people. “Obama has made repeated efforts to show his readiness for large-scale killing in the United States and other nations.” What needs to be done, is “to shut down Obama,” to prevent what he intends to do.

Former Sen. Mike Gravel Calls ‘Hacking’ Charges ‘Ridiculous!’

Dec. 18 (EIRNS)—Former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska was interviewed on Dec. 14 for the LaRouche PAC Friday Webcast of Dec. 16, as one of the prominent signers of the letter released by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity on Dec. 12. in response to the New York Times-led media hype around Russia hacking the elections. Host Jason Ross asked Senator Gravel, who is also a former Adjutant top-secret control officer for the Communications Intelligence Service, and a special agent of the Counterintelligence Corps, what he thought of this notion that Russia hacked Clinton emails and that determined the outcome of our Presidential election here in the U.S.?

Senator Gravel responded, “First off, it’s ridiculous! It’s far-fetched ridiculous! We know—and here we can be grateful to Edward Snowden—that the United States’ capability, along with their partners in Britain, had the capability of vacuuming up every single communication in the world. Now, that means that the NSA has all of Hillary’s emails; has all of the communications between the U.S. and Russia. And so for the government to come out and say, via the intelligence community, that this is all instigated by Russia, is just part of the demonization that we’ve seen take place about Putin and Russia, as part of a plan in the United States to have regime change in Russia.  Believe it. …

“So, in point of fact, we have all the knowledge in the NSA. Now, maybe the NSA doesn’t talk to the FBI, or doesn’t talk to the CIA. I don’t know. We’ve had this problem in 9/11, with nobody connecting the dots; and we may have that same problem right now. But there’s no question that the United States government does more activity in the cyber world than anybody else. Russia is probably a distant second. China is a distant second. But there’s nobody that holds a candle to what we’re capable of doing. …

“So, that’s essentially what I think is the case. Here, too, we have enough people with skills and knowledge, particularly with our group, the former intelligence officers in government, very senior intelligence officers—because none of us are spring chickens—to be able to question what has been put out, and say that this doesn’t seem accurate, and doesn’t make sense.”

Trump Is ‘on the Right Track’ with Russia, Says Former Defense Secretary Hagel

Dec. 18 (EIRNS)—Former Obama Administration Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (2013-15) said yesterday that President-elect Donald Trump is “on the right track” in his pursuit of a new working relationship with Russia.

Speaking to the Lincoln Journal Star after delivering a commencement address at the University of Nebraska on Dec. 17, Hagel said “We’ve got to find a way to anchor a new relationship” rather than continue down “a dangerous path that could lead to serious confrontation,” he said.

Hagel said he believes engagement with both Russia and China is critical. “Engagement is not surrender or appeasement,” he said. “Secure leaders engage; great powers engage. I like what Trump is saying about engaging with Russia. Let’s reach out and see if we can put this relationship on a whole new footing.”

The alternative, he said, could be a slide toward “a showdown somewhere, a confrontation” that could be very dangerous. The world is too dangerous now not to engage, Hagel said.

In Syria, “all these big powers are rumbling around with boots on the ground and aircraft in the air,” Hagel said, and “something’s going to happen” if a settlement or cooperative agreement isn’t reached. There’s “no possibility for stability in the Middle East” without multinational engagement.”

Before becoming Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Hagel was a two-term Republican Senator from Nebraska.

Rep. King: House Intelligence Committee Should Investigate CIA Chief Brennan

Dec. 18 (EIRNS)—Rep. Peter King (R-NY), on the House Intelligence Committee said today on ABC News’ ”This Week” that CIA Director John Brennan should be investigated for “the hit job he seems to be orchestrating against the President-elect” and for refusing to testify before the committee concerning his claims about Russian attempts to influence the presidential election.

When asked by ABC anchor Martha Raddatz, “Why don’t you buy the consensus of the intelligence community on that?” King replied, “Because we haven’t been shown that consensus. What we’ve been told all along is that it was virtually definite that the Russians did hack the Democratic National Committee. I’m willing to accept that. I have no reason not to. But as far as John Podesta, it was uncertain whether or not that could be directly traced to the Russians. And I haven’t seen anything since then…. We have John Brennan … leaking to the Washington Post, to a biased newspaper like the New York Times, findings and conclusion that is he’s not telling the Intelligence Committee.”

King said that Brennan, in a meeting this week with Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), had shown Nunes no real evidence and had not agreed to testify to Congress on it. And President Obama, in his Dec. 16 press conference, told reporters, concerning this hacking evidence, “It’s classified; you will not see it.”

Asked, “So you think this is all political by John Brennan?” King said, “I take that … when he comes out and leaks to the newspapers that the entire intelligence community has concluded that the Russians were targeting Hillary Clinton and favoring Donald Trump, when we’ve never been told that before—certainly Director Comey didn’t tell us that. I have not heard that from Director Clapper.

“So if he—if that is such a dramatic finding, such a dramatic conclusion, then what he should have done is gone before the entire Intelligence Committee, briefed us on it. If that’s the case, I’ll accept it…. If they have evidence, show it. They have not shown it yet.”

King concluded, “And if it’s not Director Brennan that gave it to the Washington Post, then he should be carrying out a full-scale investigation to find out who in the intelligence community is talking to the media on this issue, when they’re not talking to the elected representatives.”

Gabbard Again Calls for End to Obama’s Regime Change War in Syria

Dec. 17 (EIRNS)—Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) blasted President Obama’s Syria policy in a series of Twitter postings following Obama’s Dec. 16 press conference. Obama, Gabbard said, “rightly addressed the humanitarian needs of people of Aleppo today, but did not address his Admin’s actions fueling the crisis.” Obama had another option: “End the counterproductive regime change war that has caused immense suffering, destruction and loss of life.” For years, Gabbard went on, “the CIA has directly & indirectly been arming so-called ‘moderate’ rebels who are allied with al-Qaeda to overthrow Syrian govt. This is why I introduced #StopArmingTerroristsAct – to end this madness which is causing great suffering, while strengthening al Qaeda.”

NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER

Abe-Putin Meeting in Japan Created ‘Unlimited Opportunities for Development of Relations’

Dec. 17 (EIRNS)—In an exclusive interview with TASS immediately following his Dec. 15-16 meetings with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lauded the visit and exclaimed: “President Putin and I have come to the conclusion—in case of common effort, Japan and Russia have unlimited opportunities for development of relations in all spheres.”

In remarks to the press along with Putin on Dec. 16, Abe had elaborated: “If we had only talked about the positions we held, we would not have made any progress. We must proceed differently. We need to work hard in every area to help Russia and Japan build win-win relations and open a bright future of prospects, including the resolution of this issue in the future”—referring to the disputed Kuril Islands.

Besides the establishment of a joint investment fund and other economic accords, the two leaders agreed to create a “special economic regime” on the Southern Kurils, an area of festering territorial claims and conflict for decades. Tagir Khuziyatov, Professor of Economics at Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University, told Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH) that these achievements constituted “a breakthrough” at the summit, since the two countries “were finally able to look at each other as strategically important partners, and began to form a fundamentally new level of interaction.” Khuziyatov strongly disagreed with those who “say that nothing sensational happened” at the summit. “If by sensational, they meant the immediate conclusion of a peace treaty and the resolution of the issue of Southern Kuril Islands, it is unlikely that this could seriously have been imagined.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Draghi Plundered MPS To Help Bail Out the Trans-Atlantic System

Dec. 17 (EIRNS)—ECB President Mario Draghi’s criminal role as the originator of the Italian banking crisis might emerge in the trial which opened yesterday in Milan against former Deutsche Bank and Nomura managers for the derivative scam that helped conceal losses for Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS). The trial will last several months.

Draghi’s role is proven in two documents, which are in EIR’s possession, and which consumers associations have asked to be put on the record at the Milan trial. The first document is a negative assessment by Bank of Italy superintendent, dated March 2007, on the MPS request for authorization to purchase Antonveneta bank from Santander. The second document is a letter signed by then-head of the Bank of Italy Mario Draghi, issuing that authorization on the basis of a fraudulent assessment of costs, and authorizing those very derivative loans which are the subject of the Milan trial.

The purchase of Antonveneta for a blown-up price of €9 billion and a total cost of €19 billion has been indicated by an investigative committee of the Tuscany regional legislature as the main single cause of the MPS crisis.

In a Dec. 15 statement, Chairman Elio Lannutti of Adusbef Consumer Association calls that 2008 Draghi letter “a smoking gun” which “authorized a leveraged purchase,” financed through loans and including “the issue of hybrid and subordinate instruments for a total of €2 billion.” These are the famous Deutsche Bank and Nomura “Alexandria” and “Santorini” derivative scams.

But Draghi “knew that the entire operation was at high risk, after the bursting of the subprime bubble in August 2007. Why did Draghi do that?” Lannutti states that Draghi was also Chairman of the Financial Stability Forum and asks whether Draghi wanted to gain political support to become head of the ECB.

EIR’s view is that Draghi plundered Italy’s third largest commercial bank in order to help save the bankrupt financial system on behalf of his British Empire masters, with whom he met aboard the Royal yacht Britannia off Italy’s coast in 1992. In fact, everything started with the insolvency of a systemic bank, ABN-Amro, in 2008. To avoid a default and a collapse of the system, Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland were called in to takeover ABN-Amro.

In order to relieve Santander from the debt burden, it was resolved that Antonveneta bank, which belonged to ABN-Amro, would be sold to MPS at twice what ABN-Amro had paid one year before.

In his 2008 letter, Draghi authorized the purchase at a total “cost” of €9 billion. However, that was not the cost, but only the “price,” whereas the total costs amounted to €17 billion. This was well-known to the Bank of Italy, as the 2007 Superintendent’s Report warned of the troubled financial status of Antonveneta, including a €7.5 billion debt to Santander.

Those documents prove that a fraud had been committed, and from a legal standpoint, the purchase is invalid. This means that Santander must refund MPS €17 billions. Whereas no judge might have the guts to rule that, this is a solid political ground for the government to move in to protect MPS depositors and commercial customers.

Obama’s Other False Claim—Economic Betterment

Dec. 18 (EIRNS)—Besides claiming that U.S. intelligence agencies have indisputable evidence of Russian tampering with the U.S. election—evidence which “you are not going to see”—Barack Obama also claimed, in his Dec. 16 press conference, progress and economic betterment for the American people during his terms in office. “What I can say with confidence is that what we’ve done, works. That I can prove,” Obama said. “I can show you where we were in 2008 and I can show you where we are now. And you can’t argue that we are not better off; we are.”

But the real, physical-economic and social evidence is quite otherwise.

The number of Americans eligible to participate in the nation’s workforce has grown by about 15 million during Obama’s presidency, but the number not participating has grown by an astonishing 13 million. This makes a mockery of claims of “full employment” in 2016; at least 8-9 million more than normal in other decades, have dropped out of the labor force.

The annual rate of growth of the employed workforce, which was between 2% and 2.8% from 1975-2000, has never been higher than that, and frequently lower than 1.5% during Obama’s presidency.

Manufacturing, mining, and construction employment has declined by 1,000,000, or about 5%, during Obama’s presidency.

Labor productivity growth has disappeared during the Obama presidency, averaging just 0.4% annually from 2010-2015. The only other time since World War II that this happened, was much more briefly in 1979-81, during a deep, so-called “double-dip recession.”

Electricity production per capita in the United States, a key measure of standard of living, has dropped during Obama’s presidency from 14 megawatt-hours/year, to 12 MWh/year.

The median real (inflation-adjusted) income of American households is $3,000, or 5.5% lower than when Obama took office. It has declined in two-thirds of all U.S. counties, including the entire Eastern half of the country and most of the Western quarter of it.

Federal spending on “investment” (particularly infrastructure and public construction) has dropped from 15% to 7% of expenditures during Obama’s presidency, although Federal spending on transfer payments have risen from 40% to over 50%.

Annual deaths from opioid painkiller overdoses have risen from 14,000 to 22,000/year; and deaths from heroin overdoses from 2,500 to 12,000/year during Obama’s presidency; total deaths from opiate overdoses, therefore, have doubled from 16,500 to 34,000/year. The United States now has 21 million opiate addicts according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Finally, death rates for the prime-age white population, and then from 2015 for the entire population, have risen under both G.W. Bush’s and Obama’s presidencies, an unprecedented trend for an industrialized country; life expectancy was falling for the entire American population as of 2015.

Not just betterment, but very survival has been put at risk for the American people by Obama. For the President to have bragged of such a record when leaving office is shameful.

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

Sessions Playing Leading Role on NASA in Trump Transition

Dec. 18 (EIRNS)—Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General-designate, is playing a leading role in shaping the Trump transition team’s policy on NASA. As a Senator from Alabama, home of Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Sessions has been instrumental in trying to defend NASA from the Obama White House’s efforts to destroy it.

The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources Dec. 13, who said that Sessions has “heavily influenced” the makeup of the transition team for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Sessions over the years has been a champion of the agency’s proposed heavy-lift rocket, dubbed Space Launch System, or SLS; and has helped protect its roughly $2 billion-a-year budget from cutbacks pushed by the Obama White House.

The SLS, the Journal noted, is expected to cost nearly $18 billion before its first unmanned flight slated for 2018. Total NASA expenditures on the rocket and associated Orion capsule, being developed by Lockheed Martin, could be double that by the time the first crew blasts off.

The Journal reported that candidates for NASA administrator also are being vetted, in part, by Sessions or his associates, while officials at Boeing and other legacy aerospace giants increasingly believe that Sessions will help block possible changes inside NASA that would hurt existing, big-ticket projects to send astronauts back to the Moon, and eventually to Mars. Among the candidates reportedly being considered for NASA administrator is Doug Cooke, a veteran NASA official who initially helped promote the SLS on Capitol Hill.