Pro-Gun Republican Wins CT District First Time in 40 Years

Pro-Gun Republican Wins CT District First Time in 40 Years

Connecticut residents’ blatant rejection of the state’s new gun control laws becomes clearer every day.
A pro-Second Amendment candidate running as a Republican just won Connecticut’s 53rd District, a district which has been held by anti-gun Democrats for forty years.
Whether they are standing up face-to-face to lawmakers or simply ignoring the new gun registration laws, Connecticut gun owners are participating in one of the largest demonstrations of civil disobedience in recent history — and their pro-gun message is winning.

Breitbart reports:

Although Democrats and progressives have claimed politicians who oppose gun control will lose their offices at the hands of angry, pro-gun control Americans in coming elections, a pro-gun Republican just won in Connecticut. It is the first time a Republican has held the seat in 40 years.
Samuel Belsito won the Connecticut State Legislature’s 53rd District in a special election to replace Democrat representative Bryan Hurlburt.
Belsito’s election runs 100% counter to the argument that pro-gun positions will hurt politicians. For example, Belsito won although he made it clear he would have opposed the recent body of gun control legislation that passed in Connecticut.

This vote represents so much more than the “battle” between Republicans and Democrats; this was a vote for the protection of the Second Amendment.
Voters in Connecticut sent a message loud and clear: If you intend to infringe on our natural right to defense, you will not hold public office. Period.
Help spread the word about this victory for the Second Amendment by sharing this article on Facebook and Twitter.

Meanwhile, China Quietly Takes Over Zimbabwe

by admin · March 2, 2014

Zero Hedge

While the developed world is focusing on the rapidly deteriorating developments in the Crimean, China, which has kept a very low profile on the Ukraine situation aside from the token diplomatic statement, is taking advantage of this latest distraction to do what it does best: quietly take over the global periphery while nobody is looking.

Over two years ago we reported that none other than Zimbabwe - best known in recent history for banknotes with many zeros in them – was bashing the US currency, and had alligned itself with the Chinese Yuan. This culminated last month with the announcement by Zimbabwe’s central bank that it would accept the Chinese yuan and three other Asian currencies as legal tender as economic relations have improved in recent years. “Trade and investment ties between Zimbabwe, China, India, Japan and Australia have grown appreciably,” said Charity Dhliwayo, acting governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Business Live reported then:

 Exporters and the public can now open accounts in yuans, Australian dollars, Indian rupees and Japanese yen, Dhliwayo said. Zimbabwe abandoned its worthless currency in 2009.

It accepts the US dollar and the South African rand as the main legal tender. Their use has helped to stabilize the economy after world-record inflation threw it into a tailspin.

Independent economist Chris Mugaga said the introduction of the Asian currencies would not make a huge difference to Zimbabwe’s struggling economy.

 ”It is Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy, which has forced this, and nothing else,” he said.

And now, as a result of the “Look East Policy”, we learn that China has just achieved what every ascendent superpower in preparation for “gunboat diplomacy” mode needs: a key strategic airforce base. From the Zimbabwean.

China is planning to set up a modern high-tech military base in the diamond-rich Marange fields, says a German-based website, Telescope News.

The news of the agreement to set up the first Chinese military airbase in Africa comes amid increasing bilateral cooperation between Zimbabwe and China – notably in mining, agriculture and preferential trade. China is the only country exempted from the indigenisation laws which force all foreign investors to cede 51% of their shareholding to carefully selected indigenous Zimbabweans.

The airstrip at Marange has sophisticated radar
systems and ultra-modern facilities 

The Marange story quoted unnamed military officials and a diplomat admitting knowledge of the plan to set up the base. Efforts to get a comment from the Zimbabwe Defence Forces were fruitless, as spokesperson Lt Col Alphios Makotore was consistently unavailable and did not respond to emails by the time of going to press.

The website speculated that China could be positioning itself for future “gunboat diplomacy” where its military presence would give it bargaining power against superpowers like the US. It would also be safeguarding its significant economic interests in Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa.

Veil of secrecy

“Military officials in Zimbabwe said details of the airbase plan were sketchy and mostly classified due to the veil of secrecy around President Robert Mugabe’s relationship with China’s Red Army. A sizeable number of Chinese troops are reported to have their boots on the ground in the Marange diamond fields, which have since been cordoned off as a high level security zone,” said the publication.

It added that a senior Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) officer based in Harare confirmed that there were rumours of the impending establishment of the airstrip as a “follow up to a military treaty signed between China and Zimbabwe in July 2005”.

Telescope News has made sensational claims in recent weeks, among them that Defence Minister and Zanu (PF) Secretary for Legal Affairs, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was secretly anointed by the military to succeed President Robert Mugabe.

Key battle ground

It quoted a former Asian diplomat deployed to Zimbabwe for almost a decade as saying: “Haven’t you heard that Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today? As such in terms of geo-politics Zimbabwe is already a key battleground, for various competing powers. During my stay there, we heard about many military agreements being signed between the two countries.”

Chinese companies are heavily involved in diamond mining, in partnership with the Zimbabwe Government. They are believed to have constructed the airstrip at Marange that many suspect is being used to clandestinely haul diamonds to unknown destinations. It has sophisticated radar systems and ultra-modern facilities.

At this point expect to see a prompt, and unexpected, escalation in hostilities in southern Africa, most likely due to latent ethnic conflict of some kind (and brought back to the surface with the help of a few CIA dollars), which in turn will be the justification for US drones to begin operations in proximity to Zimbabwe to keep up with China’s encroaching take over of Africa, now from the south.

Perhaps most interesting is the finding that Zimbabwe’s president-cum-dictator, Robert Mugabe, so widely despised by the west, is in fact on China’s payroll:

Confidential Central Intelligence Organisation documents leaked last year suggested that China had played a central role in retaining President Robert Mugabe in the July 31 elections, indicating that high level military officers had worked closely with the local army in poll strategies while Beijing bankrolled Zanu (PF).

China is Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner after South Africa and has strategic economic interests in many African countries to guarantee raw materials, job sources and markets for its huge population.

The new Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Lin Lin, recently said trade between the two countries last year exceeded the $1 billion mark. Yet Zimbabwe is only 26th on the list of China’s 58 biggest African trading partners.

The Asian country has supplied Zimbabwe with military hardware, including MIG jet fighters, tanks, armoured vehicles and rifles, since Independence.

In other words, while nobody was looking, China just took over one more nation without spilling a drop of blood. And now back to the regularly scheduled Crimean War part X.

(Zero Hedge) -- The US Bureau of Reclamation released its first outlook of the year and finds insufficient stock is available in California to release irrigation water for farmers. This is the first time in the 54 year history of the State Water Project. “If it’s not there, it’s just not there,” notes a Water Authority director adding that it’s going to be tough to find enough water, but farmers are hit hardest as “they’re all on pins and needles trying to figure out how they’re going to get through this.” Fields will go unplanted (supply lower mean food prices higher), or farmers will pay top dollar for water that’s on the market (and those costs can only be passed on via higher food prices). Via Associated Press: Federal officials announced Friday that many California farmers caught in the state’s drought can expect to receive no irrigation water this year from a vast system of rivers, canals and reservoirs interlacing the state. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released its first outlook of the year, saying that the agency will continue to monitor rain and snow fall, but the grim levels so far prove that the state is in the throes of one of its driest periods in recorded history. Unless the year turns wet, many farmers can expect to receive no water from the federally run Central Valley Project. … the state’s snowpack is at 29 percent of average for this time of year.

Feds Withhold Water To California Farmers For First Time In 54 Years...

February 21, 2014

(Zero Hedge) -- The US Bureau of Reclamation released its first outlook of the year and finds insufficient stock is available in California to release irrigation water for farmers. This is the first time in the 54 year history of the State Water Project. “If it’s not there, it’s just not there,” notes a Water Authority director adding that it’s going to be tough to find enough water, but farmers are hit hardest as “they’re all on pins and needles trying to figure out how they’re going to get through this.” Fields will go unplanted (supply lower mean food prices higher), or farmers will pay top dollar for water that’s on the market (and those costs can only be passed on via higher food prices).
Via Associated Press:

Federal officials announced Friday that many California farmers caught in the state’s drought can expect to receive no irrigation water this year from a vast system of rivers, canals and reservoirs interlacing the state.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released its first outlook of the year, saying that the agency will continue to monitor rain and snow fall, but the grim levels so far prove that the state is in the throes of one of its driest periods in recorded history.

Unless the year turns wet, many farmers can expect to receive no water from the federally run Central Valley Project.

… the state’s snowpack is at 29 percent of average for this time of year.

Read More Here

Shocker: China Dumps $50 Billion in US Treasury Paper, Leaving Europe to Pick Up Slack

February 20, 2014 By 21wire 6 Comments

21st Century Wire says…

Some are saying that this latest dump by Beijing is indicative of a larger trend – of buyers remorse, as Asia moves to limit its exposure from a coming collapse of the US dollar as the world reserve currency.


So, as China and Japan back off of the dollar, we see Belgium moving in to pick up the difference on a US paper shortfall. Interesting.

Maybe it’s payback (or ponzi pay-dirt?) time for Europe, who were  bailed out during the Wall Street TARP affair and mortgage-

backed securities ’buyback scheme’.
With so much toxic and no-hope debt floating around Europe, maybe those stacks of thin US Treasuries look like the lesser of two evils?

We’ll see, but this is definitely a shift in trends…

China Sold Second-Largest Amount Ever Of US Treasuries In December: And Guess Who Comes To The Rescue

Zero Hedge
While we will have more to say about the disastrous December TIC data shortly, which was released early today, and which showed a dramatic plunge in foreign purchases of US securities in December – the month when the S&P soared to all time highs and when everyone was panicking about the 3% barrier in the 10 Year being breached and resulting in a selloff in Tsy paper – one thing stands out.

The chart below shows holdings of Chinese Treasurys (pending revision of course, as the Treasury department is quite fond of ajdusting this data series with annual regularity):

In a nutshell, Chinese Treasury holdings plunged by the most in two years, after China offloaded some $48 billion in paper, bringing its total to only $1268.9 billion, down from $1316.7 billion, and back to a level last seen in March 2013! 

This was the second largest dump by China in history with the sole exception of December 2011.
That this happened at a time when Chinese FX reserves soared to all time highs, and when China had gobs of spare cash lying around and not investing in US paper should be quite troubling to anyone who follows the nuanced game theory between the US and its largest external creditor, and the signals China sends to the world when it comes to its confidence in the US.
Yet what was truly surprising is that despite the plunge in Chinese holdings, and Japanese holdings which also dropped by $4 billion in December, is that total foreign holdings of US Treasurys increased in December, from $5716.9 billion to 5794.9 billion.
Why? Because of this country. Guess which one it is without looking at legend.

That’s right: at a time when America’s two largest foreign creditors, China and Japan, went on a buyers strike, the entity that came to the US rescue was Belgium, which as most know is simply another name for… Europe: the continent that has just a modest amount of its own excess debt to worry about. One wonders what favors were (and are) being exchanged behind the scenes in order to preserve the semblance that “all is well”?

READ MORE CHINA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire China Files