Max no longer needs a sitter!
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Will Iran be stupid enough to reject Trump's opening and attack us domestically?
Even if Iran operates through proxies it is evident Iran finances them so they cannot escape blame should a "proxy" attack occur. (See 1 below.)
And:
Is Erdogan as big a threat as Iran? (See 1a below.)
Meanwhile, Trump, who considers himself a good negotiator, has chosen the negotiating route making all his detractors look foolish again. Unlike Obama , Trump knows he holds an upper hand and is willing to exercise restraint until provocations escalate leaving him no room to duck. His response is , as Spencer Tracy said of Hepburn "churse."
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I broached his subject in a memo early last year. It is coming and many closed or vacated malls may provide the space. (See 2 below.)
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VDH on Trump victory. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Dick
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1)
An Iranian Attack On The U.S. Homeland May Already Be In The Works
Following the January 3 killing of IRGC Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike, Iranian authorities and media were quick to warn of retaliation. IRGC commander Maj.-Gen. Hossein Salami promised "a strategic revenge which will definitely put an end to the U.S. presence in the region." Former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaie and current secretary of the Iranian regime's Expediency Council tweeted that Iran "will take vigorous revenge on America." Former Iranian defense minister Maj.-Gen. Hossein Dehghan said that Iran would "for sure" target U.S. military personnel and bases; Iranian Majlis member Abolfazl Abutorabi noted, "We can respond to them on American soil," adding that Iran "can attack the White House itself." Soleimani's newly appointed successor, Esmail Qaani, promised "to continue the martyr Soleimani's path with the same strength, and his martyrdom will be reciprocated in several steps by removing the U.S. from the region."
The possibility of a threat to the U.S. homeland already has authorities on high alert in major U.S. cities, including Washington DC, where a range of security precautions has been taken at government sites; Los Angeles; and New York City, whose mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that he had spoken with top law enforcement about "immediate steps" to "protect key NYC locations from any attempt by Iran or its terrorist allies against America." The Department of Homeland Security warned the U.S. public that while there is "no specific, credible threat," the Iranian leadership and several affiliated violent extremist organizations have publicly stated their intentions to retaliate against the U.S. and have shown the intent, and the capability, to conduct operations in the U.S. – on top of previous plots against homeland targets that have included scouting and planning against infrastructure targets and cyber-enabled attacks against a range of U.S.-based targets. Something else not mentioned publicly in these warnings is the threat of a drone attack as retaliation.
It must be noted that for several years now, U.S. National Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessments have noted the growing threat of Iranian elements inside the U.S. According to the National Intelligence 2018 assessment, "Iran will continue working to penetrate [the] U.S." as it "cultivate a network of operatives across the globe as a contingency to enable potential terrorist attacks." The 2019 assessment stated that Iran will increase its cyber espionage and attacks and will continue to seek political, economic and military advantage over the U.S. It added that Iran will almost certainly further develop and maintain terrorist capabilities – likely already used in the foiled mid-2018 plot to bomb an Iranian opposition event in Paris that was attended by prominent European and U.S. figures.
There is clear evidence that the warnings in the Threat Assessments are valid; Iran has tried to infiltrate the U.S. and may have pressed militias it supports to attack U.S. targets. One of the most prominent cases was in October 2011, when U.S. officials accused elements of the Iranian government including Soleimani himself of plotting to assassinate Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel Al-Jubeir, a key advisor to Saudi King Abdullah, at a restaurant in the U.S.
It should be noted that Soleimani also posted on his Instagram account a personal threat to attack the U.S. – a graphic image of himself using a walkie-talkie in front of the White House as it explodes. The text accompanying the July 28, 2018 image, and the text in the graphic, reads "We will crush the USA under our feet," along with a request to readers to follow his Telegram channel.
Two days later, on July 30, 2018, Soleimani posted a photo of himself giving a speech. The image included a quote from his July 26 speech: "Mr. Trump, the Gambler! Don't threaten our lives! You are well aware of our power and capabilities in the region. You know how powerful we are in asymmetrical warfare."
Arrests Of Iranian Elements In U.S. – Ongoing For Over A Decade
Iranian elements inside the U.S. have been arrested for offenses including espionage, cyber crime targeting individuals, groups, and companies, and violating the U.S. sanctions on Iran. One of the most disturbing and telling recent cases was last August. Two Iranians, one a dual citizen and one a U.S. resident, were arrested in the U.S. and indicted for allegedly conducting covert surveillance on behalf of Iran of Israeli and Jewish facilities in the U.S., including a Chabad House in Chicago, as well as for collecting identifying information about U.S. citizens and nationals who are members of the group Mujahedin-e Khalq. This, said a Department of Justice official, "demonstrates a continued interest in targeting the United States, as well as potential opposition groups located in the United States."
Most recent is the case of Amin Hasanzadeh, who in November 2019 was accused of stealing sensitive technical data from his employer in Michigan and sending it to his brother in Iran, who has connections to the Iranian military. He has been denied bond.
Earlier, on September 24, Iranian national Negar Ghodskani was sentenced to 27 months in prison for her participation in a conspiracy to facilitate the illegal export of controlled technology from the U.S. to Iran. She had pleaded guilty to helping establish and operate a Malaysia-based front company for the Iran-based Fana Moj company which provides microwave radio systems and wireless broadband access in Iran. Fana Moj's primary client is the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) – and both Fana Moj and IRIB are U.S. Department of the Treasury Specially Designated Nationals. It should be noted that IRIB was designated for assisting or denying the free flow of information to or from the Iranian people and was implicated in censoring multiple media outlets and airing forced confessions from detainees.
On September 19, a New Jersey man, Alexei Saab, aka Ali Hassan Saab, was charged in a nine-count indictment for offenses related to his support for Hezbollah and, separately, for marriage fraud. A member of the IJO, the Hezbollah unit responsible for external operations, he had, while living in the U.S., "served as an operative of Hezbollah and conducted surveillance of possible target locations" to help Hezbollah "prepare for potential future attacks" against the U.S. and had '"allegedly used his training to scout possible targets throughout the U.S." and "surveilled multiple locations in major cities."
Prior to that, on July 16, the FBI announced the extradition and indictment of an Iranian citizen and the indictment of two others for exporting material that can be used in enriching uranium from the U.S. to Iran. They are charged with violation, conspiracy to violate, and attempted violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
In June 2019, an Iranian citizen was charged with conspiracy to acquire U.S.-origin aircraft parts and goods to supply to Iran. Months earlier, in February, former U.S. counterintelligence agent Monica Elfreide Witt had been charged with spying on behalf of Iran, and four Iranians were charged with running a cyber campaign targeting her former colleagues – a major PR achievement for Iranian efforts.
In 2018 there were many other cases of Iranians and others involved in plots inside the U.S. In December, the CFO of Huawei was arrested for allegedly violating the sanctions, as was an Iranian scientist, arrested in November as he arrived in the U.S. for a position as a visiting scholar.
Also in November, two Iranian nationals were indicted for deploying ransomware to extort hospitals, municipalities, and public institutions, causing over $30 million in losses. In April, a New Jersey woman was charged with $2 million in illegal sales to Iran and violating the sanctions, and three Bay-area businessmen were indicted for using an "elaborate system of international wire transfers" to send automotive parts to Iran, also violating the sanctions.
Earlier, in March, nine Iranians were charged with conducting a massive cyber theft campaign on behalf of the IRGC, and an Iranian national was arrested for a scheme to evade the sanctions by illicitly sending over $115 million from Venezuela through the U.S. financial system. Earlier, in 2016, four men were indicted on charges of violating the sanctions, and a U.S. man was charged with illegally funneling approximately $1 billion in Iranian financial translations through the U.S. Additionally, in 2015, four companies and five individuals were indicted for illegally exporting technology to Iran.
Iranian Loyalists' Subversive Activity In The U.S. – Including Illegally Subleasing Studio In MEMRI's Office Building
Another incident highlighting Iran's subversive activity inside Washington, D.C. was its state-run Tehran-based Press TV's illegal subleasing, from a production company, of a studio in the building housing the MEMRI offices. Press TV's parent company is the U.S. Treasury-designated Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting organization. Press TV itself is one of the channels MEMRI monitors; its sublease was discovered when its staff was observed broadcasting live from in front of the building. Once MEMRI notified authorities, Press TV quickly vacated the premises. Last January, Press TV's activity made news in the U.S. when anchor Marzieh Hashemi was arrested by the FBI in St. Louis on a material witness warrant.
All these are only one part of Iran's highly valued army of supporters outside Iran – and in the U.S. and the West. The Iranian religious and government establishments openly boast that there is support inside the U.S. to do Iran's bidding. Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution member Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi said on Iranian TV on December 21, 2018 that Iran's influence is worldwide, that it "has forces that are willing to sacrifice their lives" and "has bases from North Africa to East Asia... [and] supporters inside America and Europe."
Backing up these statements, some Shi'ite mosques and cultural centers in the U.S. openly support the Iranian regime. On February 20, 2019, the Islamic Education Center of Houston, posted on its YouTube channel a video of a February 17 ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, showing children singing: "Allah Akbar! Khamenei is our Leader!... we are your followers, you are our Leader. We are your followers, we are your soldiers, and together we can all be your power."
A speaker at a May 31, 2018 Dearborn, Michigan rally for International Qods Day expressed support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and said: "Not only will we witness the liberation of Palestine, but Allah willing, we are going to play an active role in it with our own hands..." Qods Day is a 1979 Iranian initiative taking place on the last Friday of Ramadan; it is now marked by annual events worldwide. MEMRI has also published reports on Iranian funding of Shi'ite mosques in France and Germany; a MEMRI TV clip of a ceremony at a mosque in Muenster, Germany featured a recitation of an oath of allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran's Ayatollahs And Military Figures Are Threatening The U.S.
The MEMRI Iran Media Studies Project, which maintains the largest archives of translated Farsi content from the past two decades, has documented Iran's ayatollahs' and military figures' open threats to attack U.S. interests, made at Iranian religious, political, academic, and media venues. The threats are coming from, inter alia: Iran's Supreme Leader and defense minister and their representatives; commanders, deputy commanders, and generals in branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force; top Iranian Army officials, including the chief of staff and ground forces commander; and regime officials, including members and former members of the Majlis Foreign Policy and National Security Committees, the Assembly of Experts, the Expediency Council, and the Supreme Council For Cultural Revolution. Regime officials have not just threatened to attack the U.S. – they claim that there is support within the U.S. to carry out attacks inside it.
Iran's top military and religious echelons are not only calling for, describing, and orchestrating simulations of attacks on the U.S.; their speech is infused with the language of annihilation and genocide, broadcast live on state television, used in military drills, in Majlis sessions, and in sermons. This constant stream of incitement from Iran's highest-ranking officials must be denounced.
On September 26, Iran's Ambassador to Iraq Gen. Iraj Masjedi, formerly of the IRCG, warned that "if the Islamic Republic is threatened," "the Americans' locations, wherever they may be... may be bombed, anywhere in the world" and he added, "This can be (in) America itself..."
Iran's Ofogh TV aired, on June 1, 2019, a documentary about a village event in which a crowd of villagers gathered to watch as "missiles" were sent down ziplines toward structures representing a U.S. naval vessel, the U.S. Capitol, and other targets. The men punched their fists in the air and the women and girls shrieked with delight and took pictures. The crowd chanted "Allah Akbar! Death to America!" The event was attended by IRGC Officers College Commander Gen. Ali Fazli and IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
An October 2018 video on Iran's Channel 5 showed Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei with military leaders including Soleimani inspecting an IRGC foot drill depicting the collapse of the White House with a Star of David atop it, as the drilling soldiers sang "America, America, death to your deception!"
And, in a January 2019 threat against the White House, Ayatollah Lotfollah Dezhkhan, Khamenei's representative in Fars Province, said in a Friday sermon in Shiraz: "Until we turn the White House into a Hussainiya [Shi'ite Islamic center], we will all continue to shout: 'Death to America!'"
Calls For Attacking And Destroying The U.S.
Senior Iranian military officers openly call not only for attacks inside the U.S., but for its destruction. IRGC deputy commander Gen. Hossein Salami said in a speech aired February 19, 2019 on IRINN TV (Iran): "We have plans to defeat the world powers... We are planning to break America, Israel, and their partners and allies. Our ground forces should cleanse the planet from the filth of their existence."
In a March 24, 2018 Tasnim news agency interview, Iranian Army chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi said: "We will be able to crush the murderous America at the height of its power." Additionally, IRGC Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces, said in an April 25, 2019 address: "We courageously say, in obedience to the late imam [Khomeini], and out of respect to our Leader [Khamenei]: We have powerfully, decisively, and actively proven that we will squash America under our feet... Our front with America is never defensive... We will squeeze America's throat until it chokes, so that humanity is saved from America. This is our mission. This is our responsibility... In the next 40 years, we must act quickly and powerfully to bring an end to America's life."
*Steven Stalinsky is executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute and the author of "American Traitor: The Rise And Fall Of Al-Qaeda's U.S.-Born Leader Adam Gadahn."
1a) Turkey Is Trying to Take over the Mediterranean, through Libya
Turkey calls this the "blue motherland," or "Mavi Vatan" in Turkish. It has launched major naval exercises in the last year to show off its power. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has referred to this "motherland" as the 462,000 square kilometer area from the Black Sea to Aegean. Turkey openly says in its media, which is all pro-government, that it is deploying naval assets as a "show of force" and that it is angered by drilling being conducted by other states. In short, it will begin more drilling and more pushing out its boundaries. Future deals are in the cards.The real story is buried in the report. Turkey is trying to assert itself across the swath of Iraq, Syria and now all the way to Libya, with its eyes set on having power not seen since the Ottoman Empire more than 100 years ago. The reports claim that Turkey now sees its control of the Mediterranean from the "three-dimensional viewpoint" and this "maximizes the country's maritime boundaries and shows that Turkey's border districts of Marmaris, Fethiye and Kas are actually neighbors with Libya's Derna, Tobruk and Bardiya districts."
Turkey's February 2019 Mavi Vatan (Blue Motherland) naval exercise, stretching from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, was the largest in its history.
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The Mediterranean policy is part of increased pressure on Cyprus that Turkey has brought and also Ankara's view of the Tripoli government of Libya as a key part of its agenda. For instance Fahrettin Altun, the communications director for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tweeted that "security and military cooperation" is a key part of support for one of Libya's governments.
Libya has been in a civil war since 2011. In the last year the forces of Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Egypt and the UAE, have been laying siege to Sarraj's government. The deal Sarraj signed potentially gives Turkey rights to areas off the coast of Libya that the Sarraj government doesn't even control. Yet the Sarraj government has gone to Turkey as the "UN-backed" government of Libya because even though it controls a minority of the country, it has worked with the UN and tends to receive official discussions from Western powers. Turkey has supplied drones and military vehicles to the Tripoli government. The country is seen as a proxy war between Turkey and Egypt as well as the Gulf countries. Turkey opposes Egypt's Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and supported the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, who was pushed out of office in 2013. Libya is "ground zero" for this proxy fight of drones and other hardware.
Dozens of Turkish-made BMC Kirpi armored vehicles in the port of Tripoli, May 2019.
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Now it is revealed that the drones and other support were part of a much larger Turkish goal. Turkey wants the economic access and strategic corridor linking its coastline to Libya. This is no small amount of water because it bypasses Cyprus and Greece across 800 km. of open water to an area of Libya controlled by Haftar's forces. In essence, Turkey swept in to strong-arm Libya's government because the government is weak and Turkey knows that the government can sign away areas it doesn't even control, while Haftar won't recognize the deal anyway.
This is Turkey's strategy everywhere. Give the world a fait accompli, whether by bombing in northern Iraq, invading Syria or sending troops to Qatar in 2017. Turkey is expanding every day and threatening other countries, whether insulting France or comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, as it did at the UN. For Turkey, there is no restraint, but the country also works quietly behind the scenes to engineer things like this Mediterranean deal. The deal has major ramifications also for discussions between Israel, Greece, Italy and Cyprus, and also any discussions of an EastMed pipeline. Turkey is throwing down a gauntlet over the pipeline concept, saying in essence: "No, we control this area between Turkey and Libya, and we now cut the Mediterranean in half."
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis
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Greece will ask NATO members to support Athens in the dispute now. This sets up a larger problem in the seas of Cyprus. Kyriakos Mitsotakis says NATO must not remain indifferent to this violation of international law. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said that Turkey had not signed a Law of the Sea with respect to the recent claims and that the current deal with Libya would be frowned upon by other signatories. Greece hopes that Libya's decision will not be approved by Libya's parliament and that Greece had demanded the details of the agreement or it would expel Turkey's ambassador.
Greece is now also working with Egypt to delineate its own exclusive economic zones. There are larger games afoot. Italy, which was once the colonial power of Libya after the 1911 war with the Ottomans, may look askance at the deal. Libya's Haftar government in the east of the country does not accept the deal. The US has been seeking a peace deal quietly in Libya and the Russians are also involved in Libya.
Turkey has other cards to play. Every time NATO or the EU or anyone pressures Turkey, Ankara will threaten to "flood" Europe with refugees and migrants. Turkey threatened European countries against critiquing its invasion of Syria in October and most European countries have toed the line. Turkey has also sought to use its power in NATO to veto plans for the Baltics in return for NATO support for its Syria operations. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has appeared to support Turkey's role in Syria and praised Turkey's spending in NATO. That means Greece has an uphill struggle. It is on the front line with refugees coming from Turkey. Greece has announced new, tougher policies on refugees; the last thing it wants is another million people coming from Turkey.
Turkey's model in the Mediterranean is to exploit either weak states like Libya or unrecognized states like Northern Cyprus, to move forward. It does the same thing in Iraq and Syria. With its new S-400s, it may be able to wrangle a deal with Moscow over Libya. Greece, US and other countries will have to do something if they really care.Turkey has learned that in dealing with the US, Europe or NATO and the UN that the way to get things done is to act first, and that in all likelihood, it will get support and respect after. The UN has gone to Turkey to study plans for occupation of northern Syria. The US is studying Turkey's purchase of the S-400s from Russia. Turkey has sought to drill off Cyprus, claiming that Northern Cyprus, which Turkey invaded in the 1970s, can give it rights to do so. Cyprus rejected the idea, but Turkey moved forward anyway in October. The US critiqued Turkey, but words are less important than drilling rigs. Turkey knows how the international community works: if you are the first to drill and build facts on the ground, as China did in the South China Sea, then you will eventually get what you want.
Seth Frantzman, a Middle East Forum writing fellow, is the author of After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East (2019), op-ed editor of The Jerusalem Post, and founder of the Middle East Center for Reporting & Analysis.
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Lab-grown food will soon destroy farming – and save the planet
Scientists are replacing crops and livestock with food made from microbes and water. It may save humanity’s bacon
It sounds like a miracle, but no great technological leaps were required. In a commercial lab on the outskirts of Helsinki, I watched scientists turn water into food. Through a porthole in a metal tank, I could see a yellow froth churning. It’s a primordial soup of bacteria, taken from the soil and multiplied in the laboratory, using hydrogen extracted from water as its energy source. When the froth was siphoned through a tangle of pipes and squirted on to heated rollers, it turned into a rich yellow flour.
This flour is not yet licensed for sale. But the scientists, working for a company called Solar Foods, were allowed to give me some while filming our documentary Apocalypse Cow. I asked them to make me a pancake: I would be the first person on Earth, beyond the lab staff, to eat such a thing. They set up a frying pan in the lab, mixed the flour with oat milk, and I took my small step for man. It tasted … just like a pancake.
But pancakes are not the intended product. Such flours are likely soon to become the feedstock for almost everything. In their raw state, they can replace the fillers now used in thousands of food products. When the bacteria are modified they will create the specific proteins needed for lab-grown meat, milk and eggs. Other tweaks will produce lauric acid – goodbye palm oil – and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids – hello lab-grown fish. The carbohydrates that remain when proteins and fats have been extracted could replace everything from pasta flour to potato crisps. The first commercial factory built by Solar Foods should be running next yea
The hydrogen pathway used by Solar Foods is about 10 times as efficient as photosynthesis. But because only part of a plant can be eaten, while the bacterial flour is mangetout, you can multiply that efficiency several times. And because it will be brewed in giant vats the land efficiency, the company estimates, is roughly 20,000 times greater. Everyone on Earth could be handsomely fed, and using a tiny fraction of its surface. If, as the company intends, the water used in the process (which is much less than required by farming) is electrolysed with solar power, the best places to build these plants will be deserts.
We are on the cusp of the biggest economic transformation, of any kind, for 200 years. While arguments rage about plant- versus meat-based diets, new technologies will soon make them irrelevant. Before long, most of our food will come neither from animals nor plants, but from unicellular life. After 12,000 years of feeding humankind, all farming except fruit and veg production is likely to be replaced by ferming: brewing microbes through precision fermentation. This means multiplying particular micro-organisms, to produce particular products, in factories.I know some people will be horrified by this prospect. I can see some drawbacks. But I believe it comes in the nick of time.
Several impending disasters are converging on our food supply, any of which could be catastrophic. Climate breakdown threatens to cause what scientists call “multiple breadbasket failures”, through synchronous heatwaves and other impacts. The UN forecasts that by 2050 feeding the world will require a 20% expansion in agriculture’s global water use. But water use is already maxed out in many places: aquifers are vanishing, rivers are failing to reach the sea. The glaciers that supply half the population of Asia are rapidly retreating. Inevitable global heating – due to greenhouse gases already released – is likely to reduce dry season rainfall in critical areas, turning fertile plains into dustbowls.
A global soil crisis threatens the very basis of our subsistence, as great tracts of arable land lose their fertility through erosion, compaction and contamination. Phosphate supplies, crucial for agriculture, are dwindling fast. Insectageddon threatens catastrophic pollination failures. It is hard to see how farming can feed us all even until 2050, let alone to the end of the century and beyond.
Food production is ripping the living world apart. Fishing and farming are, by a long way, the greatest cause of extinction and loss of the diversity and abundance of wildlife. Farming is a major cause of climate breakdown, the biggest cause of river pollution and a hefty source of air pollution. Across vast tracts of the world’s surface, it has replaced complex wild ecosystems with simplified human food chains. Industrial fishing is driving cascading ecological collapse in seas around the world. Eating is now a moral minefield, as almost everything we put in our mouths – from beef to avocados, cheese to chocolate, almonds to tortilla chips, salmon to peanut butter – has an insupportable environmental cost.
But just as hope appeared to be evaporating, the new technologies I call farmfree food create astonishing possibilities to save both people and planet. Farmfree food will allow us to hand back vast areas of land and sea to nature, permitting rewilding and carbon drawdown on a massive scale. It means an end to the exploitation of animals, an end to most deforestation, a massive reduction in the use of pesticides and fertiliser, the end of trawlers and longliners. It’s our best hope of stopping what some have called the “sixth great extinction”, but I prefer to call the great extermination. And, if it’s done right, it means cheap and abundant food for everyone.
Research by the thinktank RethinkX suggests that proteins from precision fermentation will be around 10 times cheaper than animal protein by 2035. The result, it says, will be the near-complete collapse of the livestock industry. The new food economy will “replace an extravagantly inefficient system that requires enormous quantities of inputs and produces huge amounts of waste with one that is precise, targeted, and tractable”. Using tiny areas of land, with a massively reduced requirement for water and nutrients, it “presents the greatest opportunity for environmental restoration in human history”.
Not only will food be cheaper, it will also be healthier. Because farmfree foods will be built up from simple ingredients, rather than broken down from complex ones, allergens, hard fats and other unhealthy components can be screened out. Meat will still be meat, though it will be grown in factories on collagen scaffolds, rather than in the bodies of animals. Starch will still be starch, fats will still be fats. But food is likely to be better, cheaper and much less damaging to the living planet.
It might seem odd for someone who has spent his life calling for political change to enthuse about a technological shift. But nowhere on Earth can I see sensible farm policies developing. Governments provide an astonishing £560bn a year in farm subsidies, and almost all of them are perverse and destructive, driving deforestation, pollution and the killing of wildlife. Research by the Food and Land Use Coalition found that only 1% of the money is used to protect the living world. It failed to find “any examples of governments using their fiscal instruments to directly support the expansion of supply of healthier and more nutritious food.”
Nor is the mainstream debate about farming taking us anywhere, except towards further catastrophe. There’s a widespread belief that the problem is intensive farming, and the answer is extensification (producing less food per hectare). It’s true that intensive farming is highly damaging, but extensive farming is even worse. Many people are rightly concerned about urban sprawl. But agricultural sprawl – which covers a much wider area – is a far greater threat to the natural world. Every hectare of land used by farming is a hectare not used for wildlife and complex living systems.
A paper in Nature suggests that, per kilo of food produced, extensive farming causes greater greenhouse gas emissions, soil loss, water use and nitrogen and phosphate pollution than intensive farming. If everyone ate pasture-fed meat, we would need several new planets on which to produce it.
Farmfree production promises a far more stable and reliable food supply that can be grown anywhere, even in countries without farmland. It could be crucial to ending world hunger. But there is a hitch: a clash between consumer and producer interests. Many millions of people, working in farming and food processing, will eventually lose their jobs. Because the new processes are so efficient, the employment they create won’t match the employment they destroy.
RethinkX envisages an extremely rapid “death spiral” in the livestock industry. Only a few components, such as the milk proteins casein and whey, need to be produced through fermentation for profit margins across an entire sector to collapse. Dairy farming in the United States, it claims, will be “all but bankrupt by 2030”. It believes that the American beef industry’s revenues will fall by 90% by 2035.
While I doubt the collapse will be quite that fast, in one respect the thinktank underestimates the scale of the transformation. It fails to mention the extraordinary shift taking place in feedstock production to produce alternatives to plant products, of the kind pioneered in Helsinki. This is likely to hit arable farming as hard as cultured milk and meat production will hit livestock farming. Solar Foods thinks its products could reach cost parity with the world’s cheapest form of protein (soya from South America) within five years. Instead of pumping ever more subsidies into a dying industry, governments should be investing in helping farmers into other forms of employment, while providing relief funds for those who will suddenly lose their livelihoods.
Another hazard is the potential concentration of the farmfree food industry. We should strongly oppose the patenting of key technologies, to ensure the widest possible distribution of ownership. If governments regulate this properly, they could break the hegemony of the massive companies that now control global food commodities. If they don’t, they could reinforce it. In this sector, as in all others, we need strong anti-trust laws. We must also ensure that the new foods always have lower carbon footprints than the old ones: farmfree producers should power their operations entirely from low-carbon sources. This is a time of momentous choices, and we should make them together.
We can’t afford to wait passively for technology to save us. Over the next few years we could lose almost everything, as magnificent habitats such as the rainforests of Madagascar, West Papua and Brazil are felled to produce cattle, soya or palm oil. By temporarily shifting towards a plant-based diet with the lowest possible impacts (no avocados or out-of-season asparagus), we can help buy the necessary time to save magnificent species and places while these new technologies mature. But farmfree food offers hope where hope was missing. We will soon be able to feed the world without devouring it.
• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist. His film Apocalypse Cow is on Channel 4 at 10pm on Wednesday
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3)Why Trump will win again in 2020
There is a growing wrath in the country, either ignored, suppressed or undetected by the partisan media
My reasons for thinking Trump was going to be elected in 2016 were entirely unscientific. One of my Hoover Institution colleagues recently reminded me of my data-free, amateurish and bothersome predictions.
I teach for three weeks at Hillsdale College every September during my vacation from the Hoover Institution. Each morning I try to ride a bike 15-18 miles out into the Michigan countryside. I have been doing that since 2004. Over the previous 12 years even this conservative rural Michigan county had showed no real excitement over George W. Bush, John McCain or Mitt Romney. But in 2016, Trump signs — both professionally made and hand-painted — had sprouted everywhere, on barns, lawns and sheds. Whatever Trumpism was, lots of southern Michiganders seemed ready for it.
Six weeks ago, I rode the identical rural Michigan routes. Sometimes I stopped and talked to a few people. The script was almost predictable. After the requisite throat-clearing — ‘Trump should cut back on the tweeting,’ they said — they were even more eager to vote for him this time than last.
In my hometown near my central California farm, I spent autumn 2016 talking to mostly Mexican American friends with whom I went to grammar or high school. I had presumed then that they must hate Trump. Remember the speech in 2015 announcing he was going to stand, when he bashed illegal immigration, or his snide quip about the ‘Mexican judge’ in the Trump University lawsuit, or his expulsion of an interrupting Univision anchor, Jorge Ramos, from one of his campaign press conferences?
But I heard no such thing. Most said they ‘liked’ Trump’s style, whether or not they were voting for him. They were tired of gangs in their neighborhoods and of swamped government services — especially the nearby Department of Motor Vehicles — becoming almost dysfunctional. I remember thinking that Trump of all people might get a third of the Latino vote: of no importance in blue California, but maybe transformative in Midwest swing states?
During the last two weeks I made the same rounds — a high-school football game at my alma mater, talks with Mexican American professionals, some rural farm events.
Were those impressions three years ago hallucinations? Hardly.
Trump support has, if anything, increased — and not just because of record low unemployment and an economy that has turned even my once-ossified rural community into a bustle of shopping, office-construction and home-building, with ‘Now Hiring’ signs commonplace.
This time I noticed that my same friends always mentioned Trump in contrast to their damnation of California — the nearby ‘stupid’ high-speed rail to nowhere, the staged power shutoffs, the drought-stricken dead trees left untouched in flammable forests, the tens of thousands of homeless even in San Jose, Fresno and Sacramento, the sky-high gas prices, the deadly decrepit roads, the latest illegal-alien felon shielded from ICE.
Whatever Trump was, my friends saw him as the opposite of where California is now headed. His combativeness was again not a liability but a plus — especially when it was at the expense of snooty white liberals. ‘He drives them crazy,’ Steve, my friend from second grade, offered.
One academic colleague used to caricature my observations in 2016 that Trump’s rallies were huge and rowdy, while Hillary’s seemed staged and somnolent — and that this disconnect might presage election-day turnouts. ‘Anecdotes!’ I was told. ‘Crowd size means as little as yard signs.’ If anything, Trump’s rallies now are larger, the lines longer.
Maybe the successive progressive efforts to abort his presidency by means of the Electoral College, the emoluments clause, the 25th Amendment, the Mueller investigation and now Ukraine only made him stronger by virtue of not finishing him off.
When I talked to a Central Valley Rotary Club in November 2016, I assumed on arrival that such doctrinaire Republicans would be establishment Never Trumpers. But few were then. When I returned this week to speak again, I found that none are now.
These business-people, lawyers, accountants and educators talked of the money-making economy. But I sensed, as with my hometown friends, that same something else. There was an edge in their voices, an amplification of earlier fury at Hillary’s condescension and put-down of deplorables. ‘Anything he dishes out, they deserve,’ one man in a tailored suit remarked, channeling my grade-school friend Steve.
I take it by that he meant he and his friends are frequently embarrassed by Trump’s crudity — but not nearly so much as they are enraged by the sanctimoniousness of an Adam Schiff or the smug ‘bombshell’ monotony of media anchors.
It is easy to say that 2020 seems to be replaying 2016, complete with the identical insularity of progressives, as if what should never have happened then certainly cannot now. But this time around there is an even greater sense of anger and need for retribution especially among the most unlikely Trump supporters. It reflects a fed-up payback for three years of nonstop efforts to overthrow an elected president, anger at anti-Trump hysteria and weariness at being lectured.
A year is a proverbial long time. The economy could tank. The president might find himself trading missiles with Iran. At 73, a sleep-deprived, hamburger-munching Trump might discover his legendary stamina finally giving out.
Still, there is a growing wrath in the country, either ignored, suppressed or undetected by the partisan media. It is a desire for a reckoning with ‘them’.
For lots of quiet, ordinary people, 2020 is shaping up as the get-even election — in ways that transcend even Trump himself.
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3a) Trump Unbound
3a) Trump Unbound
One major point is being overlooked concerning the “impeachment”: now that the impeachment weapon has been unsheathed, and swung, and shattered into myriad pieces without so much as scratching its target, the Dems have absolutely nothing to use against Trump. In fact, it can be doubted that they will ever again have anything to use against Trump.
Impeachment is over – Pelosi admitted as much when she issued her pro forma State of the Nation invitation to the President only days after the impeachment vote. She has still failed to present the articles to the Senate, but it’s all anticlimax at this point. Only a few hysterics on either side of the spectrum have any doubt as to how this is going to work out.
So what do they come up with next? Well, nothing much. Al Green (I’m convinced that he got most of his votes from people who confused him with the great gospel singer) may bluster all he likes about “another impeachment,” but it’s all gas. A second impeachment on the heels of a failed first attempt would simply be a plunge into the depths of absurdity. If impeachment is an awe-inspiring spectacle of a democratic government arisen in wrath, a second attempt scarcely rises to the level of a joke. Best just to appoint Green to the chairmanship of the Permanent Trump Impeachment Committee and be done with it.
No – they hit him with an attempt to subvert electors, with the Mueller investigation, with the emoluments clause, with the 25th Amendment, and then with impeachment. And all of it simply bounced off. As it stands, Donald Trump is now beyond any legal, procedural method of harassment. He has been investigated to a fare-thee-well, and less has been found than would on you, me, or the Dalai Lama. Consider how much we know about his persecutors – Pelosi, Tlaib, Omar -- and then look at Trump.
Like one of Lister’s patients, he is now immune. They can caper, shout as loud as they want, call up all the demons there are, but they can’t get at him. (True, they could – and very well may – try to kill him, but that’s something we’ll confront at another time).
That puts Trump in an interesting and unique position as a second-term GOP president. For the first time since Eisenhower, a Republican president faces his second term with nothing at all blocking his road. Consider the three two-termers since Ike.
Richard M. Nixon’s self-destructive paranoia ruined what promised to be a triumphant second term. Nixon had nothing to fear from George McGovern, an old-line fellow-travelling political hack with the charisma of a moldy sponge. But he took counsel of his fears, and turned loose his gang of screwball staffers who (most likely with no knowledge on Nixon’s part) hired lowlifes to burgle the DNC only to be caught. Nixon’s Boy Scout sense of loyalty, which dictated an attempt to cover up for his wacko assistants (who included such luminaries as G. Gordon Liddy, John Dean, and H.R. Haldeman), took him down, leaving the country in turmoil and paving the way for the new left to enter conventional politics.
Reagan’s second term was not as successful as his first for similar reasons: a “scandal” triggered by congressional interference in the Executive’s prerogatives (specifically foreign affairs, as involved Central America). While efforts to bring down Reagan (the cry for “impeachment” was being thrown around then as well) were curtailed by loyal subordinates – Oliver North above all – the uproar wasted time and undercut Reagan’s authority.
George W. Bush’s second term was crippled by the blowback against his foreign policy, particularly the bungled Iraq occupation, which made him a target for every last mutt in the left, the media, and the Democrats. This was further complicated by his utter refusal to either explain or defend himself and his policies by as much as a single word. This left the public stage completely open to his enemies (who also happened to be America’s enemies). In short order, his administration was bogged down, and whatever plans W may have had – which we can only guess at, W being a scion of the “no vision thing” Bushes – were stifled in the crib.
That sad record sums it up for the GOP on the past half-century. But for Donald Trump, the road is wide open. There are no lurking scandals. All the questions have been answered. His enemies have launched their warheads only to see them bounce off. In the upcoming term – I don’t think we need to discuss reelection here – they would be reduced to shouting, capering, and banging on their shields. For the first time in a long time, a reelected Republican will have perfect freedom to accomplish whatever he wishes.
And there is plenty to be done.
The wall needs to be finished. Here too, the opposition has run out of ammo. There’s a limited number of times that the same court can be presented with the same case without judges losing patience. Crippling the sanctuary movement is yet another imperative. The clearer it has become that unlimited illegal immigration holds absolutely nothing but the prospect of chaos, the more its supporters have doubled down. They need to be swept aside.
There’s unfinished business as regards the destruction of the Swamp. A sweeping purge of the bureaucracy, particularly as regards the Department of Justice and the “Intelligence Community,” needs to be carried out. Amid all the anti-Trump rhetoric, the gravity of the current situation has been completely overlooked. A group of mid-level bureaucrats attempted to remove the country’s chief executive on specious grounds. It could be that this is so hard to grasp because it’s unprecedented – no pencil pusher in any previous administration would have dared to contemplate this. That they even attempted it is prime evidence that the entire crowd needs to be cut down quite a few notches. A mammoth task, but who better?
Going beyond that, we need to have many -- probably most -- of the departments and agencies decapitated and their personnel cut by something on the ordered of 50%. Obama was able to get away with his “Phone and pen” ploy solely because the Executive branch had become so bloated that it has tentacles in virtually aspect of American life. It needs to be cut down to restore the governmental structure to a vague semblance of what it was intended to be, and also remove the drag of government from the country as a whole. This will not be easy – few are aware that by law not only can civil service workers not be laid off, but if their position is somehow eliminated, a place must be found for them in some other agency at the same GS level and salary. The federal bureaucracy is not only corrupt, it is deliberately designed to be unreformable.
Is Trump up to the challenge? I think he is. Moving agencies out of the Beltway is a brilliant ploy to overcome bureaucratic metasticization and inertia, but it ought to be expanded. There are many government agencies and departments that need to be transferred to Nome and Point Barrow. Trump is the man for the job.
Beyond even this are things we don’t even know about. Donald Trump is a man of surprises (as Qassem Soleimani learned). I have no doubt that he has moves in mind that nobody yet knows about – or would even be able to guess.
One thing for sure: Donald Trump’s second term is on line to be as ground-breaking, monumental, and successful as his first.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reagan’s second term was not as successful as his first for similar reasons: a “scandal” triggered by congressional interference in the Executive’s prerogatives (specifically foreign affairs, as involved Central America). While efforts to bring down Reagan (the cry for “impeachment” was being thrown around then as well) were curtailed by loyal subordinates – Oliver North above all – the uproar wasted time and undercut Reagan’s authority.
George W. Bush’s second term was crippled by the blowback against his foreign policy, particularly the bungled Iraq occupation, which made him a target for every last mutt in the left, the media, and the Democrats. This was further complicated by his utter refusal to either explain or defend himself and his policies by as much as a single word. This left the public stage completely open to his enemies (who also happened to be America’s enemies). In short order, his administration was bogged down, and whatever plans W may have had – which we can only guess at, W being a scion of the “no vision thing” Bushes – were stifled in the crib.
That sad record sums it up for the GOP on the past half-century. But for Donald Trump, the road is wide open. There are no lurking scandals. All the questions have been answered. His enemies have launched their warheads only to see them bounce off. In the upcoming term – I don’t think we need to discuss reelection here – they would be reduced to shouting, capering, and banging on their shields. For the first time in a long time, a reelected Republican will have perfect freedom to accomplish whatever he wishes.And there is plenty to be done.
The wall needs to be finished. Here too, the opposition has run out of ammo. There’s a limited number of times that the same court can be presented with the same case without judges losing patience. Crippling the sanctuary movement is yet another imperative. The clearer it has become that unlimited illegal immigration holds absolutely nothing but the prospect of chaos, the more its supporters have doubled down. They need to be swept aside.
There’s unfinished business as regards the destruction of the Swamp. A sweeping purge of the bureaucracy, particularly as regards the Department of Justice and the “Intelligence Community,” needs to be carried out. Amid all the anti-Trump rhetoric, the gravity of the current situation has been completely overlooked. A group of mid-level bureaucrats attempted to remove the country’s chief executive on specious grounds. It could be that this is so hard to grasp because it’s unprecedented – no pencil pusher in any previous administration would have dared to contemplate this. That they even attempted it is prime evidence that the entire crowd needs to be cut down quite a few notches. A mammoth task, but who better?
Going beyond that, we need to have many -- probably most -- of the departments and agencies decapitated and their personnel cut by something on the ordered of 50%. Obama was able to get away with his “Phone and pen” ploy solely because the Executive branch had become so bloated that it has tentacles in virtually aspect of American life. It needs to be cut down to restore the governmental structure to a vague semblance of what it was intended to be, and also remove the drag of government from the country as a whole. This will not be easy – few are aware that by law not only can civil service workers not be laid off, but if their position is somehow eliminated, a place must be found for them in some other agency at the same GS level and salary. The federal bureaucracy is not only corrupt, it is deliberately designed to be unreformable.
Is Trump up to the challenge? I think he is. Moving agencies out of the Beltway is a brilliant ploy to overcome bureaucratic metasticization and inertia, but it ought to be expanded. There are many government agencies and departments that need to be transferred to Nome and Point Barrow. Trump is the man for the job.
Beyond even this are things we don’t even know about. Donald Trump is a man of surprises (as Qassem Soleimani learned). I have no doubt that he has moves in mind that nobody yet knows about – or would even be able to guess.
One thing for sure: Donald Trump’s second term is on line to be as ground-breaking, monumental, and successful as his first.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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