THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

Volume 6, Number 196

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• ‘What Is Taking Place Is Not an Impeachment; It is a Coup’
• President Trump Counter-Attacks Hard; Calls a Coup a Coup
• President Putin Warns U.S. Infighting, Attacks on Trump Impede Good Bilateral Relations
• U.S. Attorney General William Barr Was in Rome To Investigate the Mifsud Coup Connection
• Moderate, Red State Democrats Nervous About Impeachment Blowback
• Fourth Quarter Is Underway, With Big Trouble on Both the Physical Economy and Financial Sides
• JPMorgan Chase and the Repo Crisis
• High-Speed Maglev Rail Line Planned for Guangzhou-Wuhan Route
• Person Shot in Hong Kong Riots Was in a Mob Trying To Kill a Policeman on the Ground
• Agreement Signed on Donbas Special Status; Fascist go to Kiev Maidan
• Federal Reserve Warms to Climate Change

EDITORIAL

‘What Is Taking Place Is Not an Impeachment, It Is a Coup’

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday night: “As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP.”

That is precisely the case, as the LaRouche movement has charged—and documented—for years. And it is also the case that the coup is being run by the British Empire and their American allies, as the President’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently indicated by pointing to the role of MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s lying dossier in getting the whole operation off the ground. Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham are now in Italy, pursuing leads there that could also expose the whole coup operation. Indeed, every tree in the forest could fall.

LaRouche PAC is rushing a short dossier into publication that exposes the most vulnerable flank of the British operation against President Trump: their own involvement in the “Maidan” coup d’état in Ukraine, which put in place a neo-Nazi regime in that country, right on the border with Russia.

The British are aware of the danger they face, and have thrown all caution to the wind, including by forcing Congressional Democrats to fall on their sword by backing impeachment, even though they know that this means political suicide in many cases.

The level of desperation of the British is patent, and it is directly related to the onrushing collapse of their trans-Atlantic financial system. The freezing up of the U.S. interbank lending market did not end with the third quarter, but is continuing unabated this week. And the physical economy in the U.S. and Europe continues to plummet, with the Institute for Supply Management’s U.S. purchasing managers index for September falling to 47.8 (anything under 50 indicates an absolute decline)—the lowest point in over a decade. Similar collapses in manufacturing are occurring in Europe, Japan, and the U.K.

Compare that with China, where over the last half-century poverty has, for all intents and purposes, been wiped out; infant mortality has plummeted; life expectancy has increased sharply; and illiteracy has nearly disappeared, as overall educational and technical levels have risen dramatically. Indicative of the country’s emphasis on infrastructure, the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation has built a plant to produce maglev trains capable of reaching speeds of 600 kph, as well as working on a maglev model that can reach maximum speeds of 1,000 kph!

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

President Trump Counter-Attacks Hard, Calls a Coup a Coup

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump has come out swinging against those attempting to bring down his Presidency, stating in a tweet last night that “As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!”

This has led to all sorts of predictable histrionics from the liberal establishment; perhaps richest was California Sen. Kamala Harris’s response that Trump’s Twitter account should be shut down because he can’t be allowed to use it for such outrageous charges.

Very effective was Trump’s tweet from late last night, “the Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country,” which includes a few short video clips of Democrats speaking during Bill Clinton’s impeachment, decrying the use of impeachment for political purposes. These include Chuck Schumer warning “we’ve broken the seal on this extreme penalty so cavalierly, it will be used as a routine tool to fight political battles.”

The header “Impeachment for Nothing” is followed by the clip of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), shouting in January of this year, “we’re going to impeach this motherfucker.” Under the header “Impeachment to undo a national election” a younger, chubbier Rep. Jerald Nadler is also shown during the Clinton impeachment warning that the impeachment of a President is the “undoing of a national election.” This is followed by a recent clip of Rep. Al Green (D-TX), under the header “Impeachment for Political Payback” stating “I’m afraid that if we don’t impeach this President, he will get reelected.”

Trump has had several more tweets over the past 24 hours, attacking the claim that the anonymous whistleblower can’t be interviewed or questioned about his “second-hand information” and allegations about the President’s July phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky. He slammed the “Do Nothing Democrats” who are focused on “Impeaching the President for having a very good conversation with the Ukrainian President.”

President Putin Warns U.S. Infighting, Attacks on Trump Impede Good Bilateral Relations

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—Speaking to media on a panel at Russia Energy Week in Moscow today, President Vladimir Putin commented that President Trump has said he wants to have good relations with Russia. “He wants restoration of the bilateral relationship. We welcome that, and we will use any opportunity to implement that,” CNBC reported him as saying.

However, he added, there is fierce political infighting in the U.S. which began even before Putin and Trump met, but it affects the bilateral relationship. In fact, he said, “everything we see now in the U.S. domestic political sphere violates Russian-American relations.”

“We see what is going on in the United States: [some forces] are using any pretext to attack President Trump. Now that is Ukraine and all the wrangling linked to it—I mean, the relations with Ukraine and President [Volodymyr] Zelensky…. That once again confirms that we had nothing to do with [U.S. political games] from the very beginning. They have just looked for pretexts to attack the elected President,” Putin said, Sputnik reported.

Nonetheless, Putin stressed, “We will work with any partner, with any President the American people elect. If this is Mr. [Donald] Trump, then we will work with him, if not, then no,” Putin said at the Russian Energy Week.

In response to one question about whether Russia might meddle in the U.S.’s 2020 elections, Putin joked, “possibly … highly likely. Let me tell you a secret: yes we will definitely do that, just to entertain you even more.” Then seriously, Putin said that Russia is busy resolving its own significant domestic problems, and doesn’t have time to meddle in other nations’ elections.

Putin also commented on the possibility that his private conversations with President Donald Trump might be made public. “My previous life”—as head of the Russian Federation intelligence agency FSB —“taught me that any of my conversations may be published, and I always proceed from this standpoint,” he said.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr Was in Rome To Investigate the Mifsud Coup Connection

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—Mainstream media are sweating bullets at the mission of U.S. Attorney General William Barr to Rome, as Barr is coming close to the smoking gun of Russiagate perpetrators. Barr visited Rome two times recently and met the heads of Italian foreign and domestic intelligence, to find out whether Italian assets played a role in the Russiagate operation against the President. In particular, Barr is investigating the role and the backers of Josef Mifsud, the British agent who entrapped George Papadopoulos. According to Papadopoulos, Mifsud was deployed by Italian intelligence under the Renzi and Gentiloni governments (Italian Democratic Party) to do a favor for the Obama gang.

According to Italian media, Barr was in Rome first in mid-August and he met Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte together with the intelligence chiefs. During those days, Trump wrote the same “Giuseppi” tweet, in which he endorsed Conte’s effort to form a new government. Conte’s cooperation in the investigation might explain Trump’s endorsement.

Barr was again in Rome on Sept. 27, accompanied by U.S. Attorney John Durham, and met again the intelligence chiefs. The Department of Justice officially confirmed the visit: “A team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the origins of the U.S. counterintelligence probe of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign,” Kerri Kupec, the Justice Department spokesman said in a statement. “Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries. At Attorney General Barr’s request, the President has contacted other countries to ask them to introduce the Attorney General and Mr. Durham to appropriate officials.”

Mainstream media claim that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Rome yesterday also has to do with the anti-Russiagate investigation.

Moderate, Red State Democrats Nervous about Impeachment Blowback

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—Conservative-leaning Democratic Congressmen, or those residing in “red” states that are heavily pro-Trump, are nervous that they—and the Democratic Party—will be badly hurt by a full-blown impeachment inquiry that could drag on for months. Hanging in the balance, they warn, is Democrats’ ability to maintain a House majority, or make advances in the Senate, especially if they are seen to be ignoring other issues that Americans care about and focus solely on impeachment.

One America News network reports on remarks by Montana’s Democratic Sen. John Tester, who insists that the impeachment inquiry should be very narrowly focused on the Ukraine issue, Trump’s July 25, 2019 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and nothing else. “They need to make sure it is very, very focused,” Tester said, and they need to move fast.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) emphasized that Democrats should stay away from old issues, such as the Mueller report, collusion, etc. and just stick to the Ukraine issue. And Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones is quoted as saying he thinks the whistleblower complaint is not grounds for impeachment, because it is second-hand, hearsay information. “A lot of the whistleblower complaint is, in fact, hearsay. It is what other people have told him—that is clear on its face.”

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) has stated openly that he opposes the impeachment drive. Speaking on Fox & Friends on Sept. 29, he said he hadn’t seen any evidence of a true impeachable offense and suggested that Democrats would do well to focus on the country’s problems, such as veterans’ issues, Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure and national debt, rather than focus on impeachment. “Let the people impeach,” said Van Drew. “We are going to have an election very shortly.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Fourth Quarter Is Underway, with Big Trouble on Both the Physical Economy and Financial Sides

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—On Oct. 1, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) issued their purchasing managers’ index for September U.S. manufacturing factory activity, which shrank to its lowest point in over a decade, since June 2009. The manufacturing index fell to 47.8 (anything under 50 indicates an absolute decline), which is worse than August’s sharp contraction and which now makes six months in a row with a falling index.

The stock market tanked in response to the news. Deutsche Bank’s chief economist Torsten Slok commented: “There is no end in sight to this slowdown, the recession risk is real.” Financial media commentary are also alarmed, ascribing the situation to a) U.S.-China trade problems (the index for new overall export orders was 41%, the lowest since March 2009), with upcoming talks scheduled to begin on Oct. 10; and b) the looming Brexit on Oct. 31. The financial sector is also bracing for manufacturing payroll numbers which will be released this Friday, Oct. 4. Reuters reported that “the downturn in manufacturing in the U.S. mirrors similar patterns in the euro zone, Japan, the U.K. and China.”

The ISM itself said the numbers “reflect a continuing decrease in business confidence,” and “global trade remains the most significant issue.” Reuters said that the new manufacturing numbers may force the Fed to lower interest rates at their October meeting. But Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans, speaking in Frankfurt Oct. 1, said the Fed should keep rates as they are now.

Meanwhile, the Brexit deadline is looming. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled his final Brexit offer to the EU today, but it is not expected to change the fact that the whole situation is headed for a train wreck. As Reuters wrote, “more than three years after Britain voted to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum, Brexit talks are at an impasse.”

The real problem, of course, is that the British establishment refuses to accept an election result they don’t like (as they did with the French 2005 referendum against the EU “constitution”), and are working to reverse the Brexit vote come hell or high water—in much the same way they are trying to reverse the election of Donald Trump.

JPMorgan Chase and the Repo Crisis

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—Everyone has been asking just which banks were so short on cash that the entire interbank lending market seized up at the end of September, forcing the Fed to jump in with their (ongoing) emergency repo operations. The Fed of course doesn’t report which banks came knocking at their door. But Reuters published an article Oct. 1 which pointed at JPMorgan Chase as being at the center of the mess.

Reuters reported that “JPMorgan Chase & Co has become so big that some rival banks and analysts say changes to its $2.7 trillion balance sheet were a factor in a spike last month in the U.S. ‘repo’ market, which is crucial to many borrowers.” What happened is that from January to June 2019, JPMorgan Chase reduced its cash on deposit at the Fed by 57%, or $158 billion. This accounted for about a third of the drop in all banking reserves at the Fed during this period. Bank of America reduced its balance sheet with the fed by 30%, or $29 billion.

Reuters quoted an unnamed “executive at a competing bank” who called the shift by JPMorgan Chase “massive.” They ascribe it to JPMorgan Chase’s need to meet “sudden demands by corporate depositors and to meet government requirements for reserves on checking account deposits.”

Then Reuters did its de rigeur whistling past the graveyard: “While not seen as a sign of distress as it was during the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in 2008, the spike [in repo rates] did prompt the U.S. Federal Reserve to promise to lend at least $75 billion each day until Oct. 10 to relieve the pressure…. Hedge funds, for example, use it [the repo market] to finance investments in U.S. Treasury securities and banks turn to it as option for raising suddenly-needed cash for clients.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

High-Speed Maglev Rail Line Planned for Guangzhou-Wuhan Route

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—Work on building a 1,000-km railway connecting Guangzhou and Wuhan for a super-fast maglev is to begin next year. The line will be built by the Wuhan-based China Railway Siyuan Survey and Design Group, a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation, the Wuhan Evening News reported, according to the English-language China online publication That’s.

Jing Shiyuan, an engineer with Siyuan, told the newspaper that the project was initiated in 2015 and a train model was readied for testing the following year. Work will start in Hubei province, in which Wuhan is the capital.

China’s more ambitious maglev plans are taking shape. In May, China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation completed a factory to make maglev rolling stock in Qingdao, and the body of a prototype that could reach speeds of 600 kph was revealed to media. The company hopes to begin serial production of the unit some time in 2021. Engineers also work on a maglev model that can reach maximum speeds of 1,000 kph.

And last week a set of technical standards for maglev rail was released by the National Railway Administration, with a view to implementation at the beginning of next year. The standards unify basic technical requirements including track gauge and clarified main specifications of maglev trains. (rap)

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Person Shot in Hong Kong Riots Was in a Mob Trying To Kill a Policeman on the Ground

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—While the trans-Atlantic fake news press is headlining the shooting by Hong Kong police of an 18-year-old boy (who is listed in stable condition) on the day that the rest of China’s 1.4 billion citizens were celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, the actual story is on video—a mob of anarchist, violent and armed youths were attempting to kill a policeman they had knocked to the ground.  The story, including the video, was reported in Hong Kong’s daily South China Morning Post in “Hong Kong Protests: Angry Mobs Go on Night-Time Rampage amid Outrage over Shooting of School Pupil during Violent National Day Clashes.”

As seen in the video, from several different angles, the mob chased down a policeman, knocked him over, and began beating him, with great force, with hammers, bricks and iron pipes with sharpened tips. When another officer ran to his rescue with a drawn pistol, the mob attacked him. One of the gang was hitting the officer with a pipe, apparently trying to knock the gun out of his hand, when the policeman shot him in the chest. A molotov cocktail exploded in the midst of the policemen arriving at the scene.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Chris Tang Ping-keung defended the policeman who fired his weapon, saying, “his own life as well as those of his colleagues were threatened.”

The SCMP reports that when darkness fell on Oct. 1, “mobs dug up bricks, blocked roads, started fires, vandalized train stations and targeted mainland Chinese-linked businesses. Others trashed Bank of China ATM facilities and vandalized a China Mobile shop in the district. In Sha Tin, protesters smashed turnstiles and Octopus add-value machines.”

Thirty policemen were injured during the day, while 137 of the rioters were taken to hospital.

The police organizations appear to have reached their limit, urging the government to issue curfew orders or adopt measures under a colonial-era emergency law. If the Jacobin mobs, activated and supported by the British and American regime-change institutions, are so anxious to return to British colonial rule, imposing that imperial law would be a reminder for them of what it was like.

The SCMP writes that the colonial-era Emergency Regulations Ordinance, introduced in 1922, grants the city’s leader the authority to make any regulations whatsoever which he or she may consider desirable in the public interest in case of emergency or public danger. It allows media censorship, arrests, deportations, the control of ports and all transport, the appropriation of property, and the authority to enter and search premises.

Britain’s Guardian headline demonstrates the insanity of the British perpetrators behind this chaos: “Hong Kong’s Fight for Freedom.” This is the “freedom” of those hidden behind the Mask of Anarchy:

“And each dweller, panic-stricken,
“Felt his heart with terror sicken
“Hearing the tempestuous cry
“Of the triumph of Anarchy.
“For with pomp to meet him came,
“Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
“The hired murderers, who did sing
“ ‘Thou art God, and Law, and King.’ ”

Agreement Signed on Donbas Special Status; Fascists Go to Kiev Maidan

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—On Oct. 1, representatives of the Contact Group on Ukraine met in the Belarus capital of Minsk and signed an agreement on a peace plan called “the Steinmeier formula.” The plan, proposed in 2016 by then-German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, stipulates that the parties involved in the internal conflict in Ukraine should arrange free and fair local elections in the southeast (Donbas) and a new law must be passed granting them special status.

Within hours of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s having signed this agreement, Ukraine’s extreme right and neo-Nazis, including Bandera marchers and Azov Brigade fascists, took their torchlights and banners to Kiev’s Maidan Square, trying to ignite a new crisis. This spectacle of fascists and neo-Nazis demanding the downfall of Ukraine’s President, who is Jewish, was supported by has-been oligarch-President Petro Poroshenko, who denounced the agreement as “capitulation.”

An additional agreement on the separation of forces in the conflict-ridden southeastern regions of Ukraine is expected in the near future, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (D.P.R.) Foreign Minister and envoy to the Contact Group on Ukraine Natalia Nikonorova said. “We hope that Ukrainian representatives will approach the fulfillment of their obligations with full responsibility. We also hope that in the near future an addition to the framework agreement will be signed, which will allow to move further in the realization of the framework agreement, including making agreements on new locations [of troop separation],” Nikonorova said on Oct. 1, as quoted in a D.P.R. Foreign Ministry release.

According to Nikonorova, a particular schedule of forces separation in southeastern Ukraine was agreed on Oct. 1. Further, President Zelensky announced that a new law on the special status of Donbas would be prepared soon and would come into effect provided local elections are held in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Federal Reserve Warms to Climate Change

Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—The San Francisco Fed will hold a conference on the economics of climate change on Nov. 8, the first such event by any of the Fed’s regional banks, and Reuters reports that “it is already over-booked.” This is part of a growing trend in the Fed to get on board the climate change bandwagon, whose strongest proponent is Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan, a former Goldman Sachs banker “who earlier this year converted the Dallas Fed to use wind-generated energy for 100% of its electric power needs.”

The Fed is way behind its European counterparts, Reuters argues, because U.S. President Donald Trump is a climate skeptic. The Fed “remains far behind global peers, like the Bank of England and the Dutch central bank, who have led the way in calling for action to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change on economic growth and financial stability…. Most of the G20 central banks, including the ECB and the People’s Bank of China, have signed up to the Network for Greening the Financial System, an information-sharing group. The IMF, whose majority shareholder is the U.S., also joined last week. The Fed has not.”

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