You Know Things Are Bad When Saudi State TV Mocks Joe Biden

Via ZeroHedge

You know things are bad when Saudi television mocks the president of the United States in a SNL-style spoof. A state-run TV station featured a comedy sketch depicting Joe Biden attempting to address the Ukraine crisis, but he’s seen wandering away from the podium and falling asleep mid-sentence, while also being constantly prodded by his VP over what to say given he struggles to remember basic names and information.

The sketch went viral after it hit social media on Monday, and comes after last month Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly rejected attempts by the White House to set up a phone call between he and Joe Biden, at a moment the US is urging the Saudis to ramp up oil output. Watch the brief segment below:

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Saudi Arabia May Have Just Triggered Armageddon for the U.S. Dollar

Via Birch Gold Group

Saudi Arabia May Have Just Triggered Armageddon for the U.S. Dollar

For years now, the U.S. dollar’s status as global reserve currency has been in a precarious position.

I wrote about this way back in 2017, when countries with no prior interest in an alliance with each other agreed on a common interest to dethrone the U.S. dollar from its place as the world’s reserve currency. At that time the list included China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, among others.

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2020 – YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article I detailed my inability to predict the timing of events during this Fourth Turning, while maintaining the catalysts of debt, civic decay, and global disorder continue to drive the world towards a cliff.

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“Every schoolchild will know what happened next, from the Oh-Ohs to the 2020s, as the Fourth Turning unfolded—but academics will surely debate how and why it came to pass. In his history, this great-great-grandson of today’s baby girl will reflect on what the Fourth Turning came to mean for his own time and generation. His history is not yet written. What will it be?”Strauss & Howe

The Trump team is now poised to go on the offensive as this Constitutional crisis intensifies and hurtles towards a violent conclusion. Barr and Durham are busy building a case against the Obama administration and their illegal activities before and after the election. As the election approaches and Durham concludes his investigation, indictments handed down on Clapper, Brennan, Comey or any of the other conspirators would lead to turmoil not seen since the Civil War. No matter the result of the upcoming election, neither side will accept the outcome.

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Will More US Troops in Saudi Arabia Make America Great?

Guest Post by Ron Paul

President Trump deserves credit for resisting the war cries from neocons like Sen. Lindsey Graham and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after last week’s attack on two Saudi oil facilities. Pompeo was eager to blame Iran because he wants war with Iran and anything that can trigger such a war is fine with him. So he put the president in a difficult spot by declaring Iran the culprit: suddenly the president’s options in the media and in Washington were limited to “how to punish Iran.”

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A View from the Brink

Guest Post by Jim Kunstler

Welcome to the world where things don’t add up. For instance, some people did some things to the Saudi Arabian oil refinery at Abqaiq over the weekend. Like, sent over a salvo of cruise missiles and armed drone aircraft to blow it up. They did a pretty good job of disabling the works. It is Saudi Arabia’s largest oil processing facility, and for now, perhaps months, a fair amount of the world’s oil supply will be cut off. President Trump said “[we] are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!” Exclamation mark his.

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We’re Ready For “Full-Fledged” War: Iran Responds To US Accusation It Launched Saudi Oil Attack

Via ZeroHedge

After the United States was quick to point the finger at Iran for the early Saturday explosions that rocked Abqaiq facility and the Khurais field — forcing production to be shut and with it 5.7 million barrels a day of oil production lost — Iran has warned it stands ready for a “full-fledged” war.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi slammed Washington for a “maximum pressure” strategy that has turned to “maximum lies,” saying that because of the former’s “failure [the US] is leaning toward maximum lies”. FM Javad Zarif also said these were a continuation of efforts to pressure and shame into compliance under US hegemony.

Screengrab from video showing fires raging at Abqaiq facility on Saturday.

Iran denied the accusations, which followed photos circulating online which appeared to show cruise missile debris scattered in the Saudi desert outside the incapacitated oil facilities. Yemen’s Houthi forces had claimed responsibility, saying it deployed ten drones in the successful targeting of the facilities.

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Oil To Hit $100? Half Of Saudi Oil Output Shut After Drone Strikes Cripple World’s Largest Oil Processing Facility

Via ZeroHedge

Update: The WSJ is out with an update hinting at just how much the price of oil is set to soar when trading reopens late on Sunday after the Saudi Houthi false-flag drone attack on the largest Saudi oil processing plant:

Saudi Arabia is shutting down about half of its oil output after apparently coordinated drone strikes hit Saudi production facilities, people familiar with the matter said, in what Yemen’s Houthi rebels described as one of their largest-ever attacks inside the kingdom.

The production shutdown amounts to a loss of about five million barrels a day, the people said, roughly 5% of the world’s daily production of crude oil. The kingdom produces 9.8 million barrels a day.

And while Aramco is assuring it can restore output quickly, in case it can’t the world is looking at a production shortfall of as much as 150MM barrels monthly, which – all else equal – could send oil soaring into the triple digits. Just what the Aramco IPO ordered.

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The Saudis Learn the Term “Asymmetric Response”

Guest Post by Tom Luongo

The Saudis just learned that some moments in history show their significance as they unfold. Iran shooting down a U.S. Global Hawk stealth drone and President Trump refusing his war-hawk cabinet in retaliating militarily is one of them.

I said then and still maintain that this was a turning point in the history of the world.

Any retaliation by the U.S. would be catastrophic for the world economy. It would unleash a regional conflict on multiple fronts which would not be any kind of controlled theater…

… That for all the might of the U.S. military and financial empire, its weaknesses are deep enough that even a relatively weak military and economy like Iran’s can stop it all dead cold because of basic things like geography, logistics and simple human resolve.

Many people misinterpreted these statements, and, indeed the entire article, to mean that Iran could stand up to the U.S. in a direct military conflict and prevail. Nonsense.

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Saudi Arabia says two of its oil tankers attacked near Strait of Hormuz

Via Marketwatch

Two Saudi Arabian oil tankers suffered significant damage in an attack over the weekend near the Strait of Hormuz, the kingdom’s energy minister said, amid heightened military tensions in the Persian Gulf.

The Saudi tankers were attacked at 6 a.m. Sunday off the eastern coast of the United Arab Emirates as they prepared to cross into the Persian Gulf, the minister, Khalid al-Falih said Monday. The attack didn’t cause an oil spill, Mr. Falih said through the official Saudi Press Agency, but resulted in “significant damage to the structures of the two vessels.” He referred to the incident as sabotage.

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2019 FROM A FOURTH TURNING PERSPECTIVE

“An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

Image result for budget impasse trump schumer

Strauss and Howe wrote their book in 1996. They were not trying to be prophets of doom, but observers of history able to connect events through human life cycles of 80 or so years. Using critical thinking skills and identifying the most likely triggers for crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder, they were able to anticipate scenarios which could drive the next crisis, which they warned would arrive in the mid-2000 decade. The scenario described above is fairly close to the current situation, driven by the showdown between Trump and the Democrats regarding the border wall.

It has not reached the stage where all hell breaks loose, but if it extends until the end of January and food stamp money is not distributed to 40 million people (mostly in urban ghettos) all bets are off. The likelihood of this scenario is small, but there are numerous potential triggers which could still make 2019 go down in history as a year to remember.

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Dangers to Dissidents

Guest Post by Rand Paul

Dangers to Dissidents

The brutal murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi has opened a window into the world of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and reminded us that there are many places in the world where disagreeing with your government is a death sentence.

I break with the administration on their response to this killing for many reasons.  If Saudi Arabia is not held accountable for the barbaric murder of Khashoggi, what will it mean for the fate of other dissidents held in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere who are being held without trial?  What message does it send to kingdoms and dictatorships around the region and the world that America considers its defense sales paramount to its stand for human rights?

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THE FOURTH TURNING & WAR OF THE WORLDS

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“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

The paragraph above captures everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen during this Fourth Turning. It was written over two decades ago, but no one can deny its accuracy regarding our present situation. The spark was a financial crash. The response to the financial crash by the financial and governmental entities, along with their Deep State co-conspirators who created the financial collapse due to their greed and malfeasance, led to the incomprehensible election of Donald Trump, as the deplorables in flyover country evoked revenge upon the corrupt establishment.

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Time for Trump to Cut the Prince Loose?

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

Time for Trump to Cut the Prince Loose?

Was the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald still getting as much media coverage three weeks after his death as it did that first week after Nov. 22, 1963? Not as I recall.

Yet, three weeks after his murder, Jamal Khashoggi, who was not a U.S. citizen, was not killed by an American, and died not on U.S. soil but in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, consumes our elite press.

The top two stories in Monday’s Washington Post were about the Khashoggi affair. A third, inside, carried the headline, “Trump, who prizes strength, may look weak in hesitance to punish Saudis.”

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Saudi Arabia Considers Itself Untouchable Due to Oil and Money

Guest Post by Mike Krieger

The roots of that lobby’s rise to prominence in Washington lie in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As you may remember, with 15 of those 19 suicidal hijackers being citizens of Saudi Arabia, it was hardly surprising that American public opinion had soured on the Kingdom. In response, the worried Saudi royals spent around $100 million over the next decade to improve such public perceptions and retain their influence in the U.S. capital. That lobbying facelift proved a success until, in 2015, relations soured with the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal. Once Donald Trump won the presidency, however, the Saudis saw an unparalleled opportunity and launched the equivalent of a full-court press, an aggressive campaign to woo the newly elected president and the Republican-led Congress, which, of course, cost real money.

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