WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2020 Volume 7, Number 30 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• As Democratic Party Disintegrates, Trump Aims for the Stars
• Mike Bloomberg’s White Collar Racism Exposed….No Wonder Obama Loves Him
• Dramatic DOJ Reversal in Roger Stone Case; How Far Will Barr Go?
• National Security Council Getting Itself Fumigated of Swamp Creatures
• India’s Prime Minister Modi Invites President and First Lady Trump to Visit in February
• Syrian Army Takes Full Control of Major Highway in Western Syria
• Esper Reshaping Pentagon Budget as Driven by War Plans Against Russia and China
• Munich ecurity Conference Aims To Address ‘Westlessness’
• Massive Locust Breakout in East Africa Poses Threat of Plague
• Dramatic Shift in Russia-Ukraine Relations
• Trump and NASA Now Have a Different Space Policy Than Congress

EDITORIAL

As Democratic Party Disintegrates, Trump Aims for the Stars

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—The Trump Administration has challenged the Congress to live up to the tremendous optimism of the Artemis program—to place “the first woman and the next man” on the Moon by 2024, and to establish a functioning base on the Moon as the launch site for a manned visit to Mars. The budget presented to the Congress this week (see below) has called for the full funding of the project. The Artemis program is already functioning, as intended, to inspire the citizens of the United States and throughout the world in the same manner that John F. Kennedy did in 1962 by declaring thatmankind would land on the Moon and return safely “within the decade.” Reaching for the stars, breaking mankind of its Earth-bound restraints, trusting and believing in the creative powers of the human mind to make the required scientific discoveries to make that happen—this is the true nature of the human race.

But will the Congress comply? Will the champions of a return to the dark ages, the Green fascists who wish to cut off all credit to industrial progress under the false god of “climate change?” This will be a crucial test, especially for the Democrat Party, which is no longer the party of John F. Kennedy.

The Democratic Party has transformed itself into a virulently anti-science and anti-development cult, demanding that all policies be subservient to the fake science of man-made, carbon-induced climate change. It is now in a state of disintegration—the party faithful long ago lost interest in the baseless Russiagate and impeachment campaigns, and are now being presented with a group of pathetic Presidential candidates who inspire no one and have virtually zero chance of beating President Donald Trump in November.

But wait! There is always the Last Great Hope from Wall Street and London, as “Mouselini” Mike Bloomberg has been programmed to ride onto the scene in a golden Rolls Royce and save the Democratic Party, and the world, from the horrible Donald Trump.

This is indeed a real danger. As EIR has documented, Bloomberg, together with Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, are the sponsors and leaders of Green Finance, the planned Wall Street/City of London dictatorship to cut off credit to all carbon-producing projects—i.e., virtually every productive enterprise in the world.

This afternoon, however, a recording of a speech given by Bloomberg in 2015 at the Aspen Institute was leaked to the press, adding a useful dose of reality to the public knowledge of the character of this perverted billionaire. Trying to defend his infamous “stop and frisk” policy when he was Mayor of New York, Bloomberg said: “Ninety-five percent of murders, murderers and murder victims … are male, minorities, 16-25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city…. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them.” He has since apologized for his racist program, but this information will make his stated policy of winning over the Black vote rather shaky.

The American people must step up, beyond the question of party politics, and demand that the Congress act for the future, beginning now with Trump’s Artemis program. Today, Wednesday, Feb. 12, marks the first anniversary of the death of the great statesman, economist and philosopher Lyndon H. LaRouche (as well as the 2011th anniversary of one of LaRouche’s greatest predecessors, Abraham Lincoln). It is also a time in history of great moment, in which the world is tipping towards either nuclear war and economic breakdown, or global cooperation in science and development. LaRouche’s entire life was devoted to preparing for a moment such as this, in which the general population was suddenly confronted with the breakdown of society around them, forcing a confrontation with the realities of the troubled world, as well as an internal confrontation with the true nature of a meaningful life. It is now more than ever that the world needs access to the power of LaRouche’s ideas. It is time for the exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Mike Bloomberg’s White Collar Racism Exposed … No Wonder Obama Loves Him

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—As expected, the billionaire’s well-documented racism and disdain for the lower working classes is now making its way to the public. The audio recording of an Aspen Institute tape, featuring Bloomberg speaking candidly among hoity toity friends at that venue in 2015, has leaked, despite Bloomberg’s fervent efforts to prevent it from ever being published. The leak comes at a most inconvenient time, as Bloomberg’s latest ad barrage features Barack Obama sucking up to the elites’ now favorite candidate.

The leak is also complicated for President Donald Trump, who got sold on the stop-and-frisk policy by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. As subsequent mayor, Bloomberg drastically and dramatically expanded Giuliani’s initiative into a virtual police occupation policy for whole sections of New York City. Those sections of New York City were simultaneously being completely marginalized by Mayor Bloomberg’s economic policies aimed at attracting and stroking the very rich while promoting the information age service economy that made him rich.

In the audio excerpt released, Bloomberg says, “95% of your murders, 95% of your murder victims fit one MO [modus operandi]. You just xerox a copy of the description, male, minority, 16-25, and hand it out to the cops. You put the cops in those neighborhoods because that’s where the crime is…. [To get rid of guns] you just throw them up against the wall and frisk them.” According to other accounts of the speech, he also said, “These kids think they are going to get killed anyway, because all their friends are being killed…. So they just don’t have any long-term focus on anything.  It’s a joke to have a gun. It’s a joke to pull a trigger.”

In 2015, Bloomberg recognized that his remarks were a problem. He secured an agreement from the Aspen Institute to ban any video reproduction of the tape, despite prior Aspen policies.

There is no doubt that in the nation’s cities, minorities are the primary victims of crime, most often committed by other minorities. But the policing policies of Michael Bloomberg have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that that crime rate and the crime rate overall dropped in New York City. According to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City’s crime rate began to drop, dramatically, as the crack epidemic faded after a rampage that specifically targetted minority communities in the 1990s. It has continued to drop at almost the same rate ever since.

Bloomberg’s stop and frisk policies were held unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Floyd v. City of New York in 2013. That case documented that 2.4 million Black and Hispanic New Yorkers were stopped on such pretexts as furtive gesture, suspicious bulge, in high crime area, during the Bloomberg administration, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Some 150,000 arrests resulted from these stops producing a conviction rate of 3%. Less than 0.01% of those arrests involved crimes of violence. In 2011 alone, the New York Police Department recorded a record 685,724 stops. Fully 84% of those stopped were Black or Latino, and 88% of the people stopped were neither arrested nor received summonses. Despite Bloomberg’s incredible boasts about throwing them against the wall and frisking them as the means to eliminate guns, weapons and other contraband were recovered less than 2% of the time.

Dramatic DOJ Reversal in Roger Stone Case; How Far Will Barr Go?

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—Tuesday afternoon’s breathless Washington Post headline is that Attorney General William Barr has intervened to deep-six a sentencing recommendation by line prosecutors in the Roger Stone case after President Donald Trump tweeted that it was unfair. The Post pontificates that this is horrible political interference by the only two people charged by the Constitution and applicable law with administering the laws of the United States, the President and his Attorney General, an irony seemingly well beyond the comprehension of Washington Post journalists.

Late in the day the Post was busily obtaining statements of outrage from such as Mary McCord, the former Justice Department National Security Division head who had been caught up in the entrapment of Michael Flynn, and more recently saw duty feverishly working for Adam Schiff in Ukrainegate.  McCord, echoed by others, claimed that Attorney General Barr was politicizing the DOJ by intervening in the Stone case.

There is much more to this story which will be covered soon.  It concerns the knife fight going on behind closed doors in Washington, as to how far Bill Barr will go in the reckoning now due for three years of outright sedition against the Presidency of the United States.

The line prosecutors include lead prosecutor Aaron Zelensky, assigned to Stone’s case under Robert Mueller, and prosecutors working in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. who collaborated with Mueller, including Jonathan Kravis, who signed the now-rejected sentencing recommendation. As of Tuesday afternoon, both Zelensky and Kravis had resigned as Assistant U.S. Attorneys, although Zelensky will reportedly return to the office of the U.S. Attorney in Maryland where he previously served.

Attorney General Barr also recently replaced Jessie Liu, who headed the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s office during Mueller’s investigations, with his own personal assistant Timothy Shea. Shea is now acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, the probable venue for any prosecution of those involved in the coup against the President.

Simple truth here is that the Stone sentencing recommendation was egregiously unfair, under anyone’s standards, recommending a seven- to nine-year jail term for lying to Congress, trash talking a potential Congressional witness, and outrageously dissing the federal judge in charge of the railroad against Stone, all allegedly committed by a 67-year-old first-time offender. Stone’s real crime, in the minds of the Robert Mueller attack dogs, and their media and federal courthouse allies, was his loyalty to President Trump, and disloyalty to the establishment hacks who had previously supported and loved Stone for his mastery of bare-knuckle political tactics. Stone is now scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 20.

A Justice source, claiming that the DOJ was blindsided by the sentencing recommendation, told the Post: “That recommendation is not what had been briefed to the Department. The Department finds the recommendation extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone’s offenses.” The same source said the decision to revise the recommendation occurred before Trump’s tweet, which called the proposed sentence a “travesty of justice.”

National Security Council Getting Itself Fumigated of Swamp Creatures

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—The National Security Council confirmed yesterday that it is proceeding to reduce staff levels, down from the bloated level of 400 reached under the Obama Administration, the Washington Times reported today. It is a welcome move, given that the NSC has harbored a number of nasty foreign intelligence agents and other allied swamp creatures who worked to subvert the Donald Trump Presidency.

NSC spokesman John Ullyot said that this month “we will complete the right-sizing goal” that National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien outlined last October, “and in fact may exceed that target by drawing down even more positions.” O’Brien had said that he wanted to reduce the staff to fewer than 120 positions by early this year. More than 40 staffers were already moved out last December, and another 70 are expected to be reassigned this week.

This couldn’t come too soon for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who told the Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” program with Maria Bartiromo Feb. 9 that the NSC was responsible for undermining the President. Nunes expanded: “I’ve been saying for a long time that the National Security Council … there at the White House, 400 and some people, he would be best to take all of those people, ship them across the Potomac, quarantine them, get them the hell away from the White House, because we know that a lot of the leaks for the last three-plus years have been coming from that National Security Council.”

According to the Washington Examiner, Nunes is also targetting Justice Department Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who changed the whistleblower statute to allow for the infamous whistleblower’s hearsay “revelations” about President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which was used to unleash the impeachment inquiry. Nunes has written to Atkinson, giving him until Feb. 14 to hand over “documentary evidence” on the “unusual handling” of the whistleblower’s complaint, or otherwise he would refer the matter to the DOJ.

India’s Prime Minister Modi Invites President and First Lady Trump To Visit in February

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump will make his first state visit to India at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A statement yesterday on the White House website reads: “President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will visit India on Feb. 24-25, 2020. The President and The First Lady will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad, which is in Prime Minister Modi’s home state of Gujarat and played such an important role in Mahatma Gandhi’s life and leadership of the Indian independence movement. During a phone call over the weekend, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi agreed the trip will further strengthen the United States-India strategic partnership and highlight the strong and enduring bonds between the American and Indian people.” A tweet from the White House similarly remarked, “The trip will further strengthen the U.S.-India strategic partnership & highlight the strong & enduring bonds between the American & Indian people.”

The Indian External Affairs Ministry announced today that Trump would also visit Gujarat, where Modi had been Chief Minister, and that “President Trump and the First Lady will attend official engagements in New Delhi and Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and interact with a wide cross-section of Indian society. … The visit will provide an opportunity for the two leaders to review progress in bilateral ties and further strengthen our strategic partnership.”

Trade issues are expected to be on the agenda of talks between the President and Prime Minister.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Syrian Army Takes Full Control of Major Highway in Western Syria

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—The Turkish intervention in Idlib province appears to have had little effect, so far, on the Syrian campaign against the jihadis. According to news reports this morning, the Syrian Arab Army took full control of the north-south M5 highway after liberating adjacent western suburbs of Aleppo city. At least six of the twelve observation posts that Turkey set up in Idlib as part of the 2018 Sochi agreement are in territory now controlled by the Syrian government.

To the southwest, the jihadis, with Turkish artillery support, launched an offensive to retake Saraqib but the Syrian army reportedly beat it back.

Esper Reshaping Pentagon Budget as Driven by War Plans against Russia and China

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—Secretary of Defense Mark Esper made clear in remarks to Defense News last weekend that he is reshaping the Pentagon budget, which was just rolled out on Feb. 10, according to the 2018 National Defense Strategy—that is, the budget is being driven by war plans that are under development for conflict with Russia and China. “This budget will reflect as much of my imprint on it as I could make in three months,” he said. “The next budget that we’re developing now, clearly, will have my fingerprints all over it.”

Those fingerprints, Defense News reports, start with Esper’s ongoing development of what he described as a “modern, up-to-date, approved war plan against our near peers, at least one of them, so that we know it’s current and it’s in the post [National Defense Strategy] environment. We don’t have one of those right now.” He added that plan, which is “a big pivot point for us,” should be completed sometime in the summer. But in the meantime, the department will be conducting war games, exercises and compute simulations that can help inform the development of the FY22 budget request.

Munich Security Conference Aims To Address ‘Westlessness’

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—The 56th Munich Security Conference (MSC) will take place on Feb. 14-16. Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, who has headed the forum since 2008, released the Munich Security Report on Feb. 10 in Berlin, announcing that the theme of this year’s event will be “Westlessness,” which he described as follows: “There is a double phenomenon right now, that the first is, the West is less western, and the second is, the world as a whole is less western. What does it mean to German, European and global relations, especially to our security politics?”

He said that there is a “widespread feeling of uneasiness and restlessness in the face of increasing uncertainty about the enduring purpose of the West. Many security challenges seem to have become inseparable from what some describe as the decay of the Western project,” as reported in Xinhua.

“What is more,” he went on, “we appear to have lost a common understanding of what it even means to be part of the West. Although perhaps the most important strategic challenge for the transatlantic partners, it appears uncertain whether the West can come up with a joint strategy for a new era of great power competition.”

Mr. Ischinger would do well to recognize that it would be better to give up the geopolitical fallacy of the West versus the East altogether.

More than 500 high-level international decision-makers, including over 35 heads of state or government, as well as some 100 foreign and defense ministers, are expected at the conference. The U.S. will be represented by neo-con Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

ECONOMY

Massive Locust Breakout in East Africa Poses Threat of Plague

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—The massive locust outbreak in East Africa could turn into a locust plague, UN officials warned in a Feb. 10 press conference in New York. The locusts have struck Uganda, Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. “There is the risk of a catastrophe,” UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock told the New York press conference, pointing out that 13 million people already face severe food insecurity, 10 million of them in places affected by locusts, the Guardian reported.

Dominique Burgeon, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) emergency and resilience director, warned that another 20 million people in the region are in danger of becoming food insecure. Without enough aerial spraying to stop the swarms, the locust outbreak could turn into a plague, “and when you have a plague, it takes years to control,” he said. Burgeon explained that current locust invasion is an “upsurge”—when an entire region is affected; however, if it gets worse and cannot be contained, over a year or more, it would become a “plague” of locusts. There were six major desert locust plagues in the 20th century, the last of which was in 1987-89. The last major upsurge was in 2003-05.

According to Associated Press, Uganda is struggling to respond to the arrival of the biggest locust outbreak seen in decades in that part of East Africa. In Kenya, swarms of billions of locusts are destroying crops, as well as in Somalia and Ethiopia. Wet conditions, resulting from months of rain, allow locusts to proliferate. Kenya’s Ambassador to the UN Lazarus Ombai Amayo, also warned that the locusts are eating vegetation that supports vibrant herder communities in the region, raising the “inherent risk of communal conflict over pastures.” The outbreak is so severe it could even disrupt crop planting in coming weeks, he said.

FAO’s senior locust forecasting officer Keith Cressman, explained in New York that Kenya has received “waves and waves of swarms” since the beginning of 2020, from the Horn of Africa, and “over the weekend they moved on the side of Mount Kilimanjaro across the border into Tanzania.” Immediate action is required, UN officials say, before more rainfall in weeks ahead will provide new vegetation to attract “new generations” of locusts. If left unchecked, their numbers could grow up to 500 times before drier weather arrives.

The UN has asked for $76 million in immediate aid. So far just under $20 million is in hand, including $10 million released by Lowcock from the UN emergency relief fund and $3.8 million from FAO, officials said. The United States said Feb. 10 it has released $800,000 and the European Union has released $1 million.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Dramatic Shift in Russia-Ukraine Relations

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—Both Russia and Ukraine have appointed new special representatives to each other, in a sign that both sides want to improve relations.

The new Russian representative is Dmitry Kozak, who is also President Vladimir Putin’s newly appointed deputy chief of staff. In Ukraine, the new representative is Andriy Yermak, who is also President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff.

Both men have been part of the process leading to prisoner exchanges between Kiev and the Donbas, and both speak well of each other.

Yermak has been very much in the news during the impeachment hearings in the House, as the U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland (fired on Feb. 7) claimed he had told Yermak about a “quid pro quo” between President Donald Trump and President Zelensky, although Sondland admitted he had only surmised that there was one. (His surmise was literally the only “evidence” of a quid pro quo in the entire impeachment charade.) Yermak, however, refuted that Sondland had told him any such thing.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Trump and NASA Now Have a Different Space Policy Than Congress

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—A closer look at the budget plans released Feb. 10 by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine for Fiscal Years 2021-24 indicates that under President Donald Trump’s Moon-Mars mission, NASA has charted a quite different space policy for the United States in that period and beyond, than the Congress had been authorizing under President Barack Obama and continues to authorize now.

NASA’s budget summary requests, for “Deep Space Exploration Systems” and “Exploration Technology” combined, an immediate 45% year-to-year increase of $3.25 billion over FY2020—from $7.11 billion to $11.34 billion; and then up to $12.84 billion by FY2024. This means investing about $43 billion during those four years into this field of NASA’s missions, within which the Artemis mission is now central, compared to a pace of about $6 billion/year up until FY2019 and $7 billion in FY2020. President Trump announced the new Moon-Mars mission early in FY2020. NASA’s plans do not yet mean a real crash program—most critically they lack the vital connection to fusion power development—but they would mean a rapid acceleration of the pace of the lunar return and settlement mission, Artemis, and the new technology for it, compared to all other activity. Funding of about $700 million is requested for lunar surface activities including mining—a first; the House FY2020 authorization bill prohibits it.

In the first year (FY2021) $3.7 billion funds the SLS and Orion crew capsule; $3.34 billion the lunar lander system, for the first time—if Congress continues virtually to ignore lander development as in FY2020 so far. There is only one significant cut within this mission: roughly $300 million for the SLS upper stage of Boeing, which was not planned to integrate with any lunar orbiter system (“Gateway”), and which Bridenstine has made clear is not wanted for this first four-year phase of Artemis. Congress appears to be fully funding despite him, however, in FY2020.

By comparison, the funding of “Low-Earth Orbit and Spaceflight Operations” is kept flat through 2024 in NASA’s request, at about $4.15 billion/year. Commercial space companies’ LEO efforts are still a quite small part of this, but are increased in NASA’s plan to $175-200 million/year; Congress appears to be virtually zeroing this out in FY2020.

“Space Science” is kept essentially flat at the $6.5-6.7 billion level of the pre-Artemis period, allowing Bridenstine to say on Feb. 10 that space science remains integral to space exploration. But from the FY2020 level of $7.14 billion voted by Congress this does make a cut of hundreds of millions, at the expense of “Earth Science,” “Heliophysics” and “Astrophysics” (the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope).

Evenwith the rapid acceleration of the Artemis mission, commercial space companies are kept outside “Deep Space Exploration” so far, except for technology development contracts. In this plan NASA opens one door: It proposes to consider their rockets for the 2024 mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa, and looks for a lower cost than the SLS would be for this mission. One of those companies, SpaceX, announced today it had hired NASA’s former long-time director of human space flight, William Gerstensmaier.

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