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How To Make American Foreign Policy Yours – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2019

The only thing missing is mention of AIPAC.

https://original.antiwar.com/Ryan_Summers/2019/11/12/how-to-make-american-foreign-policy-yours/

Originally posted at TomDispatch.

 

“Legislation Is Prepared by Lobbyists All the Time”

Foreign powers have a remarkably direct way of making sure their voices are heard in Washington: let their lobbyists script what various members of Congress say. That may sound wild, but it’s actually commonplace. Lee Fang of the Intercept reported a typical example of this recently. He discovered that, on November 13, 2017, Representative Ed Royce (R-CA), then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, read verbatim into the congressional record a set of talking points given to his office by lobbyists working for the Saudi government…

Buying Think-Tank Thinking

Foreign powers have ample ability, through their lobbyists, to directly influence congressional legislation. They also have at least three indirect, perfectly legal avenues for trying to shift US foreign policy in their favor: think tanks, the media, and academia.

As CIP’s recent report on the influence of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in America documented, lobbyists hired by foreign powers often work directly with influential think tanks to shape the narrative about the countries they represent. They meet with think-tank experts, provide them with talking points, offer research assistance, and sometimes even give them all-expense-paid trips to the country in question…

Shaping the Media Narrative

Media outlets are another prime target of foreign influence operations. Some governments, of course, run their own media outlets in America and many of these are required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. China’s CCTV and Russia’s RT, which was deemed “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet” in the Director of National Intelligence’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, are obvious examples. And, of course, foreign powers continue to engage in a number of illegal Twitter and Facebook activities meant to influence domestic politics, as well as American views of their own countries. In early November, for example, two former Twitter employees were charged with spying for Saudi Arabia and accessing the private information of the Kingdom’s critics in the US

Generally ignored, however, are the ways in which foreign powers often engage in legal media manipulation that neither they, nor such outlets, are required to tell viewers or listeners about. One of the most common tactics is simply to work closely with reporters covering issues of importance to them. No surprise then that the Center for International Policy’s investigations have consistently found journalists among the top targets of registered foreign agents. In some cases it’s fairly easy to see how this influence gets converted into extremely positive spin on their behalf…

Foreign Influence in the Ivory Tower

While foreign influence in Washington has consistently made front-page headlines, it’s arguably just as pervasive at American universities. Chinese influence has, for instance, garnered considerable attention in recent years. That country’s Confucius Institutes, ostensibly language and cultural centers at American colleges paid for by the Chinese government, have been the focus of eye-opening congressional investigations on the role foreign governments can play on campus. As a Senate investigation reported in early 2019, “Confucius Institute funding comes with strings that can compromise academic freedom,” allowing the Chinese government to play censor at academic conferences on US soil and even censor course materials critical of China…

Expanding the Spotlight to Perfectly Legal Foreign Influence

The scrutiny placed on malign actors like Rudy Giuliani’s associates and their alleged dealings with Ukrainian elites to compromise an American election is certainly warranted. We live in a world in which the ability of foreign powers to undermine American democracy (as this country once undermined democracies elsewhere) remains a genuine threat. Seldom, however, does anyone even think about the influence operations of foreign powers – operations that are perfectly legal and don’t garner headlines.

The American political system, which has always been vulnerable to outside influence, is arguably more susceptible to foreign meddling now than it has been in decades – and most of it is perfectly legal. From woefully inadequate disclosures regarding conflicts of interest by witnesses testifying before Congress to foreign agents filling campaign coffers and literally writing our laws, as well as influencing think tanks, media outlets, and universities, there remain a host of legal ways for foreign powers to try to bend our policies and thinking to their will. While it’s imperative that we be vigilant in rooting out illegal foreign influence, if American democracy is to remain “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” a bright light should be directed onto all forms of influence that seek to undermine it.

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FAKE SCIENCE for COPS: Alcohol level breathalyzers based on sham science, shocking investigation discovers – NaturalNews.com

Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2019

A Pennsylvania county judge said that it was “extremely questionable” whether or not any of the breathalyzer results from his state could stand up to real scrutiny.

Breathalyzer and radar-ask to see the calibration sticker. You won’t make a friend but you already have a ticket.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-11-11-alcohol-breathalyzers-based-on-sham-science-investigation.html

by:

FAKE SCIENCE for COPS: Alcohol level breathalyzers based on sham science, shocking investigation discovers

Monday, November 11, 2019 by:
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(Natural News) Breathalyzer test results have long been considered a lynch pin of the criminal justice system. About a million people are arrested every year for drunk driving in the United States — but a shocking investigation has revealed that many of these arrests were likely made in vain. As it turns out, breathalyzer testing is based on sham science, and most often, the results they produce are inaccurate. These devices can be found at just about every police station in the United States, and are commonly used during road-side traffic stops.

The way a breathalyzer works seems pretty simple: After you get pulled over, police will ask you to blow into the device. If the devices registers your alcohol levels as 0.08 or above, you’re probably going to jail. But as a special investigation by The New York Times reveals, nothing is ever as simple (or accurate) as it seems.

Breathalyzers are a scam

According to the Times, breathalyzers produce skewed results with “alarming frequency.” While these devices are marketed as being accurate to the third decimal point, many thousands of test results have been thrown out of court, largely due to human error and poor government oversight. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, judges have thrown out over 30,000 breathalyzer tests over the course of just the last year.

Breathalyzers are extremely sensitive devices. If they haven’t been calibrated properly, big trouble can follow. The Times reports that in instances where a breathalyzer isn’t calibrated correctly, the results may be up to 40 percent higher than they should be.

 

This means that quite a lot of people have probably gotten arrested or fined for no reason.

Add this to the fact that most police departments are in charge of maintaining their machines — and that most lack the expertise and high standards necessary to keep these devices accurate — and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Lab techs from some cities even use “homemade” chemical solutions, which further skew breathalyzer test results. Some police stations will actually disable features that are meant to ensure the device’s accuracy. States have chosen breathalyzers that their own experts cautioned against. Tech experts also say that many of these devices have grievous problems with their software.

And after all the human error is set aside, there is still the ridiculous fact that breathalyzers proclaim to provide an accurate assessment of blood alcohol content based on your breath. You cannot accurately measure blood alcohol levels without a blood test. It’s common sense, and yet, for some reason, civilians continue to be persecuted thanks to corrupt police tactics.

Enter the police state

The Times reportedly interviewed over a hundred scientists, lawyers, executives and police officers. Thousands of court filings, corporate records, confidential emails and other documents were reviewed. And together, they paint a very disturbing picture.

A Pennsylvania county judge said that it was “extremely questionable” whether or not any of the breathalyzer results from his state could stand up to real scrutiny. In Florida, officials described their state’s chosen device as a “magic black box” with “significant anomalies.”

And yet, in spite of the various and numerous complaints with these devices, breathalyzers continue to be used by police at a national level. The test results from these devices are used in our court systems as undeniable proof of guilt and drunkenness.

Industry veteran John Fusco, who ran the breathalyzer manufacturing company National Patent Analytical Systems, told the Times, “The tests were never meant to be used that way.”

While drunk driving is obviously a serious issue, and drunk drivers should be arrested, breathalyzer tests cannot be the only source of proof that puts people in jail. Police are using these devices incorrectly, sometimes intentionally, and at that point, breathalyzers become more of a nuisance than a savior.

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Fuel Cell VS Semiconductor Breathalysers - AlcoDigital

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Washington Has Disassociated America from Good and Deprived Her of Moral Basis – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2019

That some Americans are unable to comprehend the difference between endorsing Trump and endorsing accountable government is frightening. How can our country survive in accordance with our Constitution if Americans are incapable of rational thought, if they cannot understand their clearly written native language, if they cannot understand that a coup is a coup against democracy?

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/11/12/washington-has-disassociated-america-from-good-and-deprived-her-of-moral-basis/

Paul Craig Roberts

Not long ago I read that a US Assistant Secretary of State, or perhaps it was a member of the National Security Council, said that now that Washington had reestablished control over Ecuador, it would not be long before the governments of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Cuba would be overthrown.

Venezuela is proving to be hard for Washington to crack. Washington was banking on its NGO forces paid to stage protests, together with monetary bribes to the Venezuelan military, to chase Maduro out of office. But so far the Venezuelan military has refused to desert their country for Washington. Washington can, of course, raise the offer to the generals. Perhaps the generals are awaiting larger bribes.

However, the Bolivian military took the money and on the basis of protests organized by US-financed NGOs and the National Endowment for Overthrowing Democracy forced Evo Morales out of office. This is a huge loss for Bolivia.

Morales is the first president since the founding of Bolivia to come from the indigenous population. His seventy-nine predecessors were all members of the Spanish colonial elite allied with Washington. Together they plundered the country.

Washington considers Morales “leftist” because he focused on using Bolivian resources to reduce Bolivian poverty and to create a better life for Bolivians instead of for the profits of US corporations and banks and the Spanish elites who ruled Bolivia for Washington.

Self-determination in the southern hemisphere is simply not permitted by Washington or by its overthrow agent, the misnamed US “National Endowment for Democracy,” which is a well-financed organization for overthrowing real democracy.

Now that Bolivia is back in Washington’s hands, you can count on Wikipedia to rewrite Morales biography and cast him as a corrupt politician who was oppressing the Bolivian people.

Indeed, president Trump has already disposed of Morales as a man of the people. The hapless American president has praised the corrupt Bolivian military, which accepted Washington’s money to force out of office a president who represented Bolivia instead of Washington, as an agent of freedom and democracy.

The coup engineered by Washington used an election disputed only by Washington and its NGO protesters to charcterize Morales as an illegitimate president who tried to “overtride the Bolivian constitution and the will of the people.”

Trump actually described America’s overthrow of the democratic governemnt in Bolivia as “bringing the world one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western Hemisphere.”

Trump went on to describe the American overthrow of democratic government in Bolivia as a warning to the “illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail.” What Trump means by “democracy and the will of the people” is the interests of the New York Banks and American corporations known for their exploitation of Latin America. A “free Western Hemisphere” means free for exploitation by US business interests. An “illegitimate government” is one elected by the people instead of one put in office by Washington.

The former Ecuadoran president, Rafael Correa, who gave Julian Assange asylum and has been forced to seek safety abroad from Lenin Moreno, the corrupt tyrant Washington has imposed on Ecuador, said that the elected president of Bolivia was forced out in a Washington coup and that the Organization of American States is an instrument of US domination. He is correct. Moreno himself is proof of it. Moreno, a Washingon imposition unacceptable to the people of Ecuador, has been driven out of the capital by protesters.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/10/08/ecuador-protestors-move-into-captial-president-leaves-quito/3914546002/ Nevertheless, Washington still claims that Lenin Moreno, who sold Julian Assange to Washington for a $4.3 billion IMF loan, brought freedom back to Ecuador.

The Venezuela government sees the situation the same as Rafael Correa. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/statement-bolivarian-republic-venezuela-coup-bolivia

Trump has presided over a major crime against humanity. This would be a valid reason to impeach him.

I will receive emails from some readers wanting to know how I can attack Trump and still endorse him. Such letters show the failure of American education. I have never endorsed Trump. I endorsed the goals that got him elected—normalization of relations with Russia and bringing the offshored American middle class jobs home. I predicted accurately that Trump knew nothing of Washington and would be unable to appoint anyone capable of serving his agenda. Trump undertook to drain the swamp while staffing himself with the proprietors of the swamp.

In my recent columns—https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/11/07/a-successful-coup-against-trump-will-murder-american-democracy/ and https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/11/08/only-donald-trump-can-save-american-democracy-and-only-with-our-support/ — I do not endorse Trump. I endorse American Democracy and truth. If an elected American president can be removed in an orchestrated coup as Morales was, the American people will have lost all control over their government. Both political parties seem to desire this result. Those Democrats and progressives who just want Trump out of the White House and those Republicans who won’t defend him from false charges do not comprehend the price to democracy of removing an elected president via orchestrated coup.

That some Americans are unable to comprehend the difference between endorsing Trump and endorsing accountable government is frightening. How can our country survive in accordance with our Constitution if Americans are incapable of rational thought, if they cannot understand their clearly written native language, if they cannot understand that a coup is a coup against democracy?

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Stranger in a Strange Land – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2019

Stories about good people doing good things on a daily basis are boring to those controlling the narrative. The purpose of the propagandists supporting the Deep State is to keep the masses fearful and distracted. Scare tactics and keeping half the country at the throats of the other half is good for business. While the masses are distracted by trivialities, boogeymen (Russians), and impeachment porn, the ruling class absconds with what remains of the national wealth.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/jim-quinn/stranger-in-a-strange-land/

By

The Burning Platform

“Secrecy begets tyranny.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“Thinking doesn’t pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

When I read quotes by men like H.L. Mencken and Robert Heinlein, I realize I’m not really a stranger in a strange land, even though I feel that way most of the time. These cynical, critical thinking, libertarian minded gentlemen understood government tended towards corruption and tyranny, the populace tended towards ignorance and distraction, and reality eventually teaches a harsh lesson to fools, knaves and dumbasses.

Sometimes we think the current day worldly circumstances are new and original, when human nature, politicians, and governments never really change. When Mencken and Heinlein were writing and providing social commentary during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, they observed the same fallacies, foolishness, lack of self-responsibility, government malfeasance, and inability of the majority to think critically, that are rampant in society today.

The quotes above, written during the 1950s, are even more pertinent today. As the ongoing Surveillance State attempted coup against president Trump approaches its denouement, the fabric of this country is being torn asunder. It is the secrecy in which the Deep State has operated without oversight which has led to government tyranny. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden exposed the secrets of powerful interests operating within the CIA, NSA, FBI, White House, Congress and military industrial complex, revealing the malevolent disregard for the Constitutional rights of American citizens and wielding of power for power’s sake.

The collection of all electronic communications by Americans by all-powerful, unaccountable Deep State psychopaths is worse than anything conceived by Orwell in 1984. The fact Assange and Snowden are treated as traitors and criminals reveals the Deep State is still in control of our political and legal systems. Even though Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Clinton and Obama used their Deep State power to try and overthrow Trump, he still toes the company line by calling Assange and Snowden criminals. Government tyranny is still going strong.

Heinlein’s point about thinking is well taken. When you look at what is going on in this country and around the world with a critical eye, how could you not be discontented with what you see. We have government run schools inhabited by social justice engineers, teaching our children there are 47 genders, but not basic math or how to read and spell. We have the masses glorying in their ignorance as they worship silicone inflated shallow idols and vote for socialists and communists to provide them with free shit…

The vast majority of Americans choose not to think, not because it would cause them discontent, but because they are incapable of critical thought. Our joke of an educational system has taught generations of Americans how to feel, rather than how to think. Government controlled schools serve the purposes of the Deep State – dumb down the populace through social engineering, rewarding mediocrity, obscuring history, punishing critical thinking, feminizing boys and drugging those who don’t conform.

The dumbing down of the masses makes them pliable and easily manipulated through the mass media propaganda spewed from the boob tube and social media conglomerates. The unholy alliance between big tech, big media and big government keeps the masses uninformed, misinformed and distracted by meaningless minutia. The truth is hidden and obscured at all costs. A huge swath of populace will unquestioningly believe whatever they are told to believe, while millions more are so distracted with their iGadgets, they aren’t even paying attention.

The ruling class doesn’t want people thinking why they have used the military industrial complex in securing Syrian oil fields, supporting Saudi aggression, threatening Iran, attempting a coup in Venezuela, creating havoc in the Ukraine, occupying Afghanistan, and treating Russia and China as imminent threats, when their narrative is we are self-sufficient with regards to oil. The propaganda press peddles half truths about being a net exporter, when we still import 6 million barrels of oil per day…

Heinlein always considered himself a libertarian. In a letter written in 1967 he said, “As for libertarian, I’ve been one all my life, a radical one. You might use the term ‘philosophical anarchist’ or ‘autarchist’ about me, but ‘libertarian’ is easier to define and fits well enough.” The theme of personal freedom resonates throughout his body of work. Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes: the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the nature of sexual relationships, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought.

Much like Mencken, Orwell, and Steinbeck, as Heinlein aged, he became more cynical about government and society. He feared our culture and form of government was fatally flawed. Again, he foresaw where we are today – having lost freedoms, liberties, and rights as government laws, regulations and taxes have expanded.

“At the time I wrote Methuselah’s Children I was still politically quite naive and still had hopes that various libertarian notions could be put over by political processes … It [now] seems to me that every time we manage to establish one freedom, they take another one away. Maybe two. And that seems to me characteristic of a society as it gets older, and more crowded, and higher taxes, and more laws.” – Robert Heinlein

Government Power, Corruption and Tyranny

“Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy’s worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents – a depressingly low level, but what else can you expect?” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

When I read Heinlein’s view of democracy, the American populace, and politicians from the 1950s, it makes me wonder whether my cynical pessimistic assessment of our country is nothing new. Has the country been wallowing in ignorance, lack of virtue, parasitic politicians and government incompetence for decades and my depression with the current state of affairs is nothing new among libertarian minded people?…

Heinlein’s view of politicians, their corruptibility, and ability to tell half truths which are really lies, is even more evident in today’s world. The candidates are hand picked by the corporate interests. Their salaries while in office are fairly modest, but they leave office as multi-millionaires and are paid handsomely on the Boards of the corporations they were supposed to regulate.

Bernanke and Yellen now make more giving one speech at a Wall Street bank than they made annually as the Federal Reserve Chairman. Every local, state and federal politician is bought off to some extent. They do the bidding of the vested interests who got them elected, not what is best for their constituents. We are lost in a blizzard of lies. A society addicted to falsehoods and bereft of truth will surely degrade and eventually collapse.

“He’s an honest politician–he stays bought.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

Liberty, Freedom & Obligations to Society

“I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.” – Robert Heinlein

Heinlein still believed in the noble decency of the majority of people back in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The climactic scene in It’s a Wonderful Life captured the belief that even though there will always be cold hearted evil bankers like Mr. Potter (the Jamie Dimon of his day) feeding off the misery of others, most people are good hearted, kind and giving. Is Heinlein’s view applicable in today’s world? Bad news, bad people and crime produce views, clicks and eyeballs for the corporate media complex…

Based upon Heinlein’s definition of a dying culture, we have already crossed the Rubicon. The level of vitriol spewed on a daily basis on social media, by the propagandist media, by politicians, and by intellectual yet idiots is a clear indication of a culture gasping its dying breath. There are still good people in this country who can be counted on by their neighbors, friends and families. As the current culture dies and is swept away during this Fourth Turning, what kind of culture will follow?

Will decent, libertarian minded, freedom loving people arise to guide the country towards a better future? Or will totalitarian minded evil men crush the hopes and dreams of the good people and reign over an even darker period in our history. Goodness without backbone, wisdom and willingness to fight to the death will be overrun by evil.

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” – Robert A. Heinlein

“But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.” – Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

I still feel like a stranger in a strange land. But, based on my interactions with good people with hard, cold wisdom over the last ten years, I believe there is still hope for our nation. I think there are enough good people with common sense, critical thinking skills, and the courage and fortitude to stand up to the Deep State and defeat the evil permeating the current social order. Conflict against fellow Americans looms. Allying yourself with good people is essential. Maybe I’m being naïve believing good can win over evil, but it’s better than throwing in the towel and accepting our fate.

Reprinted with permission from The Burning Platform.

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The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda – a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make ‘good’ citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.

H. L. Mencken

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All It Takes Is a Slipup or a Nudge – America’s the next major war

Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2019

Well, truth be told, there are two groups of people who tend to relish war – the military and the political leaders.

I’ve often quoted Randolph Bourne as saying, “War is the health of the state.” He was quite correct.

https://internationalman.com/articles/all-it-takes-is-a-slipup-or-a-nudge/

by Jeff Thomas

Just prior to a war, the majority of people in the nations that are about to become involved tend to assume that another nation is threatening theirs, whist their own leaders are doing all they can to avoid conflict. This is almost never the case.

The “etiquette” of starting wars is for leaders to claim to their people that the last thing they want is war, but the enemy is goading them into armed conflict and, at some point, retaliation becomes “unavoidable.”

The reason for this etiquette is that, almost invariably, the people of a nation have no desire to go to war.

But if that’s the case, why is world history filled with warfare taking place on a regular basis?

Well, truth be told, there are two groups of people who tend to relish war – the military and the political leaders.

I’ve often quoted Randolph Bourne as saying, “War is the health of the state.” He was quite correct. The larger the nation, the greater the need political leaders have for warfare. After all, there’s no situation in which a people feel more greatly that they need their leaders to take charge, than in a time of war.

Political leaders, after all, thrive on taxation and the oppression of basic rights. And they can get away with taxing a people more heavily during a war. They can also remove basic freedoms “temporarily” in order to keep the people “safe.”

Then, when the war is over, taxes never seem to return to their previous low and freedoms never fully return. With each conflict, the state ratchets up its power over the people.

And in modern times, there’s an additional incentive. Since the end of World War II, the US military-industrial complex has been displeased with the fact that peacetime means diminished revenue for them. Increasingly, they’ve contributed heavily to election campaigns for both major parties in every election.

The repayment for those contributions has always been the same – the political class must find excuses to create a new conflict as soon as another one ends, ensuring the continued revenue of the complex.

This has resulted in the US becoming the first and only country that’s in a consciously created state of perpetual warfare. The cost of this, in 2018, was roughly $600 billion – 54% of all federal discretionary spending.

Much of that cost goes to the maintenance of some 800 military bases across the globe, but the military-industrial complex is forever seeking opportunities for expansion, and having been paid for it with campaign funds, political leaders need to find excuses for new conflicts with regularity.

Presently, world leaders are doing their best to deflect taunts by the US. The self-appointed “world’s policeman” is wagging its finger at North Korea with regard to nuclear weapons development, at Venezuela, seeking to replace their leader with an American puppet, at China with regard to islands in the South China Sea and at a host of countries in the Middle East. To each of these, US leaders have said that armed aggression by the US “cannot be ruled out.” And, “All options are on the table.”

As stated above, the peoples of these countries tend to have no desire to go to war. But political leaders have a vested interest in warfare. In addition, military leaders have a stake in the game.

Imagine having graduated from West Point and having spent your military career as an undistinguished desk jockey. By the time you’ve risen to the rank of general, all you’ve done is push pencils. And yet, the reason you joined up in the first place was to become a military leader, with a chest full of battle ribbons.

This is the conundrum that taunts the more sociopathic military leaders – the George Pattons and the Douglas MacArthurs – who, once they’ve been given a command, tend to become carried away in their zeal to create their own legacy through armed combat. The greater the bloodletting, the greater the victory.

In a leadup to active conflict, such generals tend to be like pit bulls on tight leashes – straining to be released so that they can fulfil their destiny.

In almost every case, there are players on both sides who fit this description. As a result, all that’s needed is a small spark to set off armed conflict.

And generally, the provocation that begins a war is a small one. For World War I, all that was necessary was for an archduke of Austria to be assassinated, by a Bosnian teenager, while riding in an open car…

The technical starting point of any major war is, in fact, incidental. Most any excuse will suffice. What’s necessary is two opponents, each of whom accuses the other of attempting to foment aggression. At that point, all that’s needed to light the spark is a young soldier or agitator with an itchy trigger finger, or a politician with a show of bravado, or a military leader who chooses to break from his orders to stand down.

In many cases, if the war does not start spontaneously, a false-flag incident suffices. One country creates an event which it purports is an act of aggression by its opponent. (The recent events in the Strait of Hormuz have a distinct false-flag odour about them.)

Again, the actual catalyst matters little. Once the rattling of sabres begins, as it has, presently, in the Middle East, all that’s required to create a major war is a slipup or a nudge.

Editor’s Note: The US government is overextending itself by interfering in every corner of the globe. It’s all financed by massive amounts of money printing. However, the next financial crisis could end the whole charade soon.

The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent new report with all the details. Click here

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War is the Health of the State - Kindle edition by Randolph Bourne. Politics & Social Sciences ...

 

 

 

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How Surveillance and Propaganda Work in ‘the Free World’ — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2019

The statistics obtained by Caught on Camera and comparitech differ markedly from those in the Bloomberg story which was retailed throughout the Western world by many news outlets, who increasingly refer to the West as “the Free World”. Comparitech records that as at August 2019 Moscow, with a population of 12.4 million, had 146,000 (not 200,000) cameras, while London’s 9 million citizens were being watched by 627,707 cameras.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/12/how-surveillance-and-propaganda-work-in-the-free-world/

  Brian Cloughley

A Bloomberg report of October 22 was concise and uncompromising in declaring Russia to be a surveillance state. Harking back to the good old days of the Cold War, as is increasingly the practice in much of the Western media, Bloomberg recounted that “The fourth of 10 basic rules Western spies followed when trying to infiltrate Russia’s capital during the Cold War — don’t look back because you’re never alone — is more apt than ever. Only these days it’s not just foreigners who are being tracked, but all 12.6 million Muscovites, too. Officials in Moscow have spent the last few years methodically assembling one of the most comprehensive video-surveillance operations in the world. The public-private network of as many as 200,000 cameras records 1.5 billion hours of footage a year that can be accessed by 16,000 government employees, intelligence officers and law-enforcement personnel.”

Terrifying, one might think. Straight out of Orwell’s 1984, that dystopian prediction of what the world could become, as noted in one description of how the face of the state’s symbolic leader, Big Brother, “gazes at you silently out of posters and billboards. His imposing presence establishes the sense of an all-seeing eye. The idea that he is always watching from the shadows imposes a kind of social order. You know not to speak out against The Party — because big brother is watching… The face always appears with the phrase Big Brother is watching you. As if you could forget.” Such is the terrifying Bloomberg picture of Moscow where there are supposedly 200,000 video cameras. You can’t blow your nose without it being seen. And wait for the next phase, in which Big Brother will hear you laugh.

In line with the Western approach, there is little mention of surveillance in other cities, but the website ‘Caught on Camera’ has analysed world-wide practices. It reports that there are some 25 million closed-circuit surveillance cameras world-wide and “the United Kingdom [with 4 million cameras] has more CCTV activity than any other European country, per capita… surprisingly, the Wandsworth borough in London in particular has more CCTV cameras than Boston, Dublin, Johannesburg and San Francisco put together. It is estimated there are 500,000 cameras dotted around London. The average person living in London will be recorded on camera 300 times in one day.”

The statistics obtained by Caught on Camera and comparitech differ markedly from those in the Bloomberg story which was retailed throughout the Western world by many news outlets, who increasingly refer to the West as “the Free World”. Comparitech records that as at August 2019 Moscow, with a population of 12.4 million, had 146,000 (not 200,000) cameras, while London’s 9 million citizens were being watched by 627,707 cameras. The picture (if one may use that word) is slightly slanted. To put it another way, London has 68 cameras for each 1,000 people, and the ratios elsewhere are enlightening: Shanghai 113 (China is in treble figures in three cities); Atlanta (Ga) 15; Chicago 13; Baghdad, Sydney and Dubai 12; Moscow and Berlin 11; and St Petersburg, Canberra and Washington DC tie at 5.

The slanting doesn’t stop there, because there are other ways of attacking Russia, spearheaded by such as the Washington Post, which highlighted the Bloomberg surveillance tale. The Post behaves like Big Brother focusing on Winston Smith, the hapless victim/hero of 1984 whose job it is “to rewrite the reports in newspapers of the past to conform with the present reality.” There is an eerie resonance in this, because the Post’s reportage on Russia verges on the obsessively censorious, while it avoids mention of anything remotely positive.

Understandably, the Post relies heavily on such sources as “Meduza, a Latvia-based online news outlet that covers the Kremlin” which reported that the Russian government “passed a law earlier this year that lets Vladimir Putin take all the country’s Internet traffic off the World Wide Web if he decrees that there’s an ‘emergency’.”

The fact that the intelligence services of the West have worked for a long time to devise strategies and tactics to destroy internet services in Russia and many other countries is neither here nor there, but it is important for Western propaganda purposes to condemn Russia for taking measures to counter the manoeuvres of the West’s cyberwar agencies. The Post emphasised that arrangements were made by various Russian ministries and agencies, including the Emergencies Ministry and the Federal Security Service which “is the successor to the KGB, where Putin was once an officer.”

The absurdity of that needlessly-injected personal point is amusing in a way, and serves to highlight the unending reiteration of detail intended to set the western public against Russia. Naturally, there is exclusion of information that could lead to audiences approving of Russia in any way.

The news site Axios states it aims to “deliver the cleanest, smartest, most efficient and trust-worthy experience for readers and advertisers alike” but when it comes to Russia it appears that there could be a bit of selectivity in that delivery. For example, in October the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported approvingly that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), alcohol consumption in Russia “has dropped by 43% since 2003” and commented that the WHO had “put the decrease down to a series of measures brought in under the sport-loving president, Vladimir Putin, including restrictions on alcohol sales and the promotion of healthy lifestyles.” But Axios didn’t report it quite like that.

The Guardian also noted that “The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, led an anti-alcohol campaign with partial prohibition, which brought down consumption from the mid-1980s until 1990. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, alcohol consumption exploded, continuing to rise until the start of the 2000s. Under Putin, Russia has introduced measures including a ban on shops selling any alcohol after 11 pm, increases in the minimum retail price of spirits and an advertising blackout.” The result has been “increased life expectancies in Russia, which reached a historic peak in 2018, at 78 years for women and 68 years for men. In the early 1990s, male life expectancy was just 57 years.”

This is an amazing societal development. In no other country has there been a comparable initiative that resulted in such a massive and positive shift in community habits.

The BBC was more coy than the Guardian about allocating approval for the remarkable success of the programme, and confined itself to reporting that the WHO “attributed the decline to a series of alcohol-control measures implemented by the state, and a push towards healthy lifestyles.” There was no reference to President Putin, and indeed the credit went elsewhere, because “alcohol-control measures introduced under former President Dmitry Medvedev included advertising restrictions, increased taxes on alcohol and a ban on alcohol sales between certain hours.”

Axios followed suit, and ‘Radio Free Europe’ didn’t mention Presidents Putin, Medvedev or Gorbachev, retailing simply that the “decline in consumption was due to “alcohol-control measures introduced at the beginning of the 2000s.” There were no reports of the achievement in US mainstream outlets or the UK’s resolutely right-wing anti-Russia media. (The Guardian doesn’t carry a Russian flag; it merely reports without xenophobic bias.)

The WHO Case Study provides an admirably detailed timeline of legislature and other developments concerning Russia’s successful drive against alcohol abuse, recording, for example, that in 2018 there was a “presidential decree on ‘National Purposes and Strategic Development Challenges of the Russian Federation until 2024’… including in the field of public health. The aim is to increase life expectancy to 78 years by 2024 and to 80 years by 2030, as well as the proportion of citizens leading a healthy lifestyle and systematically engaging in physical activities and sports.”

Don’t expect such an initiative to be praised or even mentioned by the Western media. Big Brother prefers to slant the cameras.

 

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CCTV: New guidance for household security cameras - Telegraph

 

 

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oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Now That We’ve Incentivized Sociopaths–Guess What Happens Next

Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2019

https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/11/now-that-weve-incentivized-sociopaths.html

Charles Hugh Smith

As long as central banks create and distribute trillions in conscience-free credit to conscience-free financiers and corporations, the incentives for sociopathy only increase.
“Sociopath” is a word we now encounter regularly in the mainstream media, but what does it mean? Here is a list of 16 traits, many of which are visible in lionized corporate and political leaders and entrepreneurs.
One key trait is a lack of moral responsibility or conscience; the sociopath feels no remorse if he/she takes advantage of people or exploits them.
Sociopaths are masters of superficial charm, intelligence and confidence, and adept at massaging or misrepresenting reality up to and including outright lying to persuade others or get their way.
Like all psychological syndromes (manic depression, autism, bipolar disorder, etc.), there is a wide spectrum of sociopathological traits, some of which may offer some adaptive benefits (and hence their continued presence in the human genome). In other words, an individual can have a few of the traits in greater or lesser proportions.
Thus the modern BBC Sherlock Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) describes himself as a “high-functioning sociopath” (though many contest this diagnosis of the original Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories).
Anyone who has read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs can readily see manifestations of sociopathy in Jobs: his famous “reality distortion field,” his refusal to accept that he’d fathered a daughter, his lack of empathy, his wild emotional swings (from verbal abuse to weeping), his dietary extremes, his charm, so quickly turned on or off, his uneven parenting, and so on. His obsessive-compulsive behavior was also on full display. Yet Jobs is lauded and even worshiped as a genius and unparalleled entrepreneur. Was this the result of his sociopathological traits, or something that arose despite them?
The ledger of costs and benefits of Jobs’ output is weighted by the global benefits of the products he shepherded to market and the hundreds of billions of dollars in sales and net worth he generated for investors while the head of Apple. Though narcissistic in many ways (with the resulting negative effects on many of his intimates), Jobs was clearly focused on creating “insanely great” products that would benefit customers and users. Despite his sociopathological traits, there is no evidence he set out to deceive anyone with the objective of exploiting their good will or belief in his vision to skim billions of dollars from unwary investors.
But the ledgers of others manifesting sociopathy are far less beneficial, as the billions of dollars they generated were in essence a form of fraud.
The rise and fall of WeWork is a recent textbook example of sociopathy reaping enormous financial gains for the sociopaths without creating any actual value. There are plenty of media accounts of the founders’ excesses (including the goal of becoming the world’s first trillionaire), some of which we might have expected to raise flags in venture capitalists, board members, etc., but these traits were overlooked in the rush for all involved to garner billions of dollars in fees and net worth when WeWork went public.
This example (among many) illustrates that sociopathy is incentivized in our socio-political-economic system, and sociopathic “winners” are lionized as epitomes of ambitious success. (The entire charade of the stock market rising due to Federal Reserve-enabled stock buybacks is an institutionalized example of sociopathy.)
Correspondent Tom D. recently summarized the core dynamic and consequence of this systemic incentivization of sociopathy:
I’ve been a successful business owner, but I’m not a sociopath–I deliver value to my customers, my investors, and I don’t move forward if I see anyone being substantially hurt by my actions.
My peers and I look at organizations such as WeWorks, see the rewards reaped by the sociopathic leaders, and realize we are at a constitutional disadvantage working within such a system.
I could never conceive of taking a $700-900m payday at the expense of investors for whom I’ve generated no value whatsoever.
I simply could not do it.
If ‘out-sociopathing’ the sociopaths is what it takes to ‘succeed’ in todays business climate– I’ll fail.
So I don’t try.
From the sociopath’s standpoint, that’s probably a feature not a bug–one that helps keep effective competition out of the marketplace.
I wonder how much of civilizational decline is simply due to good people accepting their lot and opting out.
If the system incentivizes conscience-free sociopaths more than it incentivizes those creating real value, the system will eventually fall into the equivalent of Gresham’s law (“bad money drives out good money”): the con-men and fraudsters will drive out entrepreneurs with a conscience who create real value for customers, investors and society at large.
If we look at recent IPOs and compare them to the Apple IPO, it seems we’ve already reached that point. Apple went public as a highly profitable company. Uber, Lyft, Beyond Meat and WeWork (if their IPO fraud hadn’t been revealed) are all unprofitable, in some cases losing billions of dollars with little prospect for eventual profits.
Venture capital folks explain this by noting that the flood of central bank credit-money-creation has generated trillions of dollars of liquid capital seeking “the next big thing” that will “disrupt” existing models and therefore generate billions in profits.
This pinpoints one key source of the incentivization of sociopaths: central banks’ creation of trillions of dollars of conscience-free capital seeking a quick profit anywhere on the planet, by any means available.
Conscience-free capital is an easy mark for a conscience-free sociopath. It’s a marriage made in heaven, a perfect match.
Those with a conscience are essentially squeezed out of the system. The choice is binary: either play and lose or opt out.
I’ve written about “opting out” since 2009, since it was one of the few options available to commoners in the final decline of the Western Roman Empire. If we feel we’re at a systemic disadvantage, i.e. the system is rigged against us, opting out makes much more sense than sacrificing oneself in a fruitless battle to stay alive in a system that incentivizes amoral sociopaths.
If we consider what generates outsized success in our rapidly changing economy, we find a variety of factors supporting “winner take most” asymmetric gains. As economist Michael Spence has observed, those who develop new business models earn outsized gains because new forms of capital and labor that are scarce create the most value.
Many of these new business models disintermediate existing models, obsoleting entire layers of middlemen and management.
Netflix is a good example: the move from mailing CDs to streaming content obsoleted cable companies. Now Disney is disrupting Netflix by launching its own streaming service at $6.99 a month, offering content that cable subscribers had to pay $60+ a month to access via a “premium” cable add-on, most of which they didn’t even use.
In contrast, WeWork sold itself as a “tech innovator” when in fact it was simply a commercial real estate packager, leasing large spaces and chopping them up into small spaces with common areas and a few services.
How does our system incentivize sociopathy? By focusing exclusively on short-term gains reaped from IPOs (initial public offerings) and by blindly seeking “the next disruptor that will generate billions,” the system is easy prey for charming sociopaths who can tell a good (if not quite truthful) story.
The amoral sociopath with the story attracts amoral sociopaths in venture capital, banking and politics, as these fields are all focused on short-term, outsized, quickly skimmed gains, regardless of the consequences to investors or society at large.
What would change this incentivization of sociopathy? Ending the Federal Reserve’s delivery of trillions of dollars in conscience-free capital to sociopaths and limiting the VC-IPO flim-flam machine would be a start, but given Wall Street’s dependence on these profits and the millions the Street gives to political campaigns, this is politically unfeasible. Any such regulation that reaches Congress will be watered down or larded with loopholes.
There may be no way to excise the incentives for sociopathy, because the incentives all favor the sociopaths’ most fertile ground: the Federal Reserve’s money spigot of nearly free money for the most sociopathological financiers and corporations; amoral, conscience-free greed; the worship of short-term gains, regardless of consequences, and the extreme profitability of rigged games and The Big Con PR (“we’re only evil when it’s profitable, which is, well, all the time”.)
As long as central banks create and distribute trillions in conscience-free credit to conscience-free financiers and corporations, the incentives for sociopathy only increase, and the incentives for everyone else to opt out increase proportionately.
What happens next? The dead wood of sociopathy is ignited by a random lightning strike, and the entire financial system (and the economy it feeds) burns to the ground in an uncontrollable conflagration of blowback, consequence and karma.
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Fox Guest Apologizes For Comparing Hillary To Herpes. Why? – Def-Con News

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US: Bolivia Junta Takeover ‘Not a Coup’ – News From Antiwar.com

Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2019

https://news.antiwar.com/2019/11/11/us-bolivia-junta-takeover-not-a-coup/

Jason Ditz

Bolivian President Evo Morales went from promising fresh elections to a forced resignation and exile in very short order this weekend. Though there were disputes about the last election, Bolivia’s military wasted no time in declaring themselves to be in control, and vowing to move against “vandals” who resist their rule.

There are suggestions some civilians may retain nominal authority within Bolivia, though the armed forces are very clear that they ultimately will be in charge. The White House, never fans of Evo Morales, has made it clear that’s fine with them.

A statement Monday from President Trump declared Morales’ ouster in favor of the military to preserve democracy. The statement also applauded the Bolivian military for showing that “democracy and the will of the people will always prevail.” The US is not going to consider this military takeover a coup d’etat, but rather a democracy with less pretense of the military not ultimately being in charge.

Trump’s statement also took shots at Venezuela and Nicaragua, declaring them “illegitimate regimes.” This once again points to the US being perfectly comfortable with military coups, and pretending not to notice them, so long as people they don’t like are being forced from power.

The US not wanting to recognize a coup as a coup is not just about superficial appearances. Rather, US law forbids the US from providing military aid to a nation under military rule. The US has often used a failure to recognize to dodge that requirement, with Egypt a major recent example of a nation where an overt, violent military takeover went unrecognized by the US, in no small reason because the US preferred the junta to the elected government.

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world tour

As someone said the only constant is change. Only in this case it is addition.

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Serving Your Fellow Man.

Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2019

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Down The Media Memory Hole Giraldi: Did Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Work for Mossad?

Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2019

Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper reports that in 1915 former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak entered into a partnership with Epstein worth millions.

Do you think Epstein had more dirt than J. Edgar Hoover?

Hoover had the FIB to protect him. Epstein had Mossad. Either Epstein was getting too careless/hot or was no longer useful.

https://israelpalestinenews.org/giraldi-did-pedophile-jeffrey-epstein-work-for-mossad/

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi writes that the affair has ‘all the hallmarks of a major espionage case, possibly tied to Israel… the filming procedure smacks of a sophisticated intelligence service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures…’ Prosecutor Acosta said: ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence’

By Philip Giraldi, reposted from American Herald Tribune

The extent of Israeli spying directed against the United States is a huge story that is only rarely addressed in the mainstream media. The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States.

Hollywood producer & Israeli spy Arnon Milchan

Last week I wrote about how Israeli spies operating more-or-less freely in the U.S. are rarely interfered with, much less arrested and prosecuted, because there is an unwillingness on the part of upper echelons of government to do so.

I cited the case of Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood movie producer who had a secret life that included stealing restricted technology in the United States to enable development of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, something that was very much against U.S. interests. Milchan was involved in a number of other thefts as well as arms sales on behalf of the Jewish state, so much so that his work as a movie producer was actually reported to be less lucrative than his work as a spy and black-market arms merchant, for which he operated on a commission basis.

DiCaprio, Milchan, Spielberg
Arnon Milchan flanked by Leonardo DiCaprio and Steven Spielberg at the 2016 Oscars. (Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty)

That Milchan has never been arrested by the United States government or even questioned about his illegal activity, which was well known to the authorities, is just one more manifestation of the effectiveness of Jewish power in Washington.

Jeffrey Epstein charged with trafficking underage girls

A far more compelling case involving possible espionage with major political manifestations has just re-surfaced. I am referring to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire Wall Street “financier” who has been arrested and charged with operating a “vast” network of underage girls for sex, operating out of his mansions in New York City and Florida as well as his private island in the Caribbean, referred to by visitors as “Orgy Island.”

Among other high-value associates, it is claimed that Epstein was particularly close to Bill Clinton, who flew dozens of times on Epstein’s private 727.

alex acosta jeffrey epstein 0b056
Alex Acosta (L) Jeffrey Epstein (R))

Epstein was arrested on July 8th after indictment by a federal grand jury in New York. It was more than a decade after Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, who is now President Trump’s secretary of labor, accepted a plea bargain involving similar allegations regarding pedophilia that was not shared with the accusers prior to being finalized in court.

There were reportedly hundreds of victims, some 35 of whom were identified, but Acosta deliberately denied the two actual plaintiffs their day in court to testify before sentencing.

Acosta’s intervention meant that Epstein avoided both a public trial and a possible federal prison sentence, instead serving only 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the almost-no-security Palm Beach County Jail on charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida. While in custody, he was permitted to leave jail for sixteen hours six days a week to work in his office.

Epstein’s crimes were carried out in his $56 million Manhattan mansion and in his oceanside villa in Palm Beach Florida. Both residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones in the bedrooms, which Epstein reportedly used to record sexual encounters between his high-profile guests and his underage girls, many of whom came from poor backgrounds, who were recruited by procurers to engage in what was euphemistically described as “massages” for money.

Epstein apparently hardly made any effort to conceal what he was up to: his airplane was called the “Lolita Express.”

Bill Clinton flew on ‘Lolita Express’ 26 times

The Democrats are calling for an investigation of the Epstein affair, as well as the resignation of Acosta, but they might well wind up regretting their demands. Trump, the real target of the Acosta fury, apparently did not know about the details of the plea bargain that ended the Epstein court case.

Bill and Hillary Clinton were, however, very close associates of Epstein. Bill, who flew on the “Lolita Express” at least 26 times, could plausibly be implicated in the pedophilia given his track record and relative lack of conventional morals. On many of the trips, Bill refused Secret Service escorts, who would have been witnesses of any misbehavior.

On one lengthy trip to Africa in 2002, Bill and Jeffrey were accompanied by accused pedophile actor Kevin Spacey and a number of young girls, scantily clad “employees” identified only as “massage.” Epstein was also a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation and was present at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010.

Trump

With an election year coming up, the Democrats would hardly want the public to be reminded of Bill’s exploits, but one has to wonder where and how deep the investigation might go. There is also a possible Donald Trump angle.

Though Donald may not have been a frequent flyer on the “Lolita Express,” he certainly moved in the same circles as the Clintons and Epstein in New York and Palm Beach, plus he is by his own words roughly as amoral as Bill Clinton. In June 2016, one Katie Johnson filed lawsuit in New York claiming she had been repeatedly raped by Trump at an Epstein gathering in 1993 when she was 13 years old.

In a 2002 New York Magazine interview Trump said  “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy… he’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump, Clinton
Left photo: Jeffrey Epstein and his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, with Donald and Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, before Epstein was charged and convicted. (Fox News reports: “Trump banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago estate ‘because Epstein sexually assaulted an underage girl at the club,’ according to court documents filed by Bradley Edwards, the lawyer who has represented several Epstein accusers.” – also here.) Right photo: Ghislaine Maxwell at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010 (after Epstein’s conviction). Clinton flew on the “lolita Express” at least 26 times. (Composite image from American Herald Tribune post of the article)

Hallmarks of an espionage case

Selective inquiries into wrongdoing to include intense finger pointing are the name of the game in Washington, and the affaire Epstein also has all the hallmarks of a major espionage case, possibly tied to Israel.

Unless Epstein is an extremely sick pedophile who enjoys watching films of other men screwing twelve-year-old girls the whole filming procedure smacks of a sophisticated intelligence service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures.

Those blackmailed would undoubtedly in most cases cooperate with the foreign government involved to avoid a major scandal. It is called recruiting “agents of influence.” That is how intelligence agencies work and it is what they do.

Acosta: ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence’

That Epstein was perceived as being intelligence-linked was made clear in Acosta’s comments when being cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” … “Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”

Questions about Epstein’s wealth also suggest a connection with a secretive government agency with deep pockets. The New York Times reports that “Exactly what his money management operation did was cloaked in secrecy, as were most of the names of whomever he did it for…

That is the normal practice, witness the 9/11 Report and the Mueller investigation, both of which eschewed any inquiry into what Israel might have been up to. But this time, if it was indeed an Israeli operation, it might prove difficult to cover up the story since the pedophile aspect of it has unleashed considerable public anger from all across the political spectrum. Senator Chuck Schumer, self-described as Israel’s “protector” in the Senate, is loudly calling for the resignation of Acosta. He just might change his tune if it turns out that Israel is a major part of the story.

[Update:  Schumer reportedly received thousands of dollars in donations from Epstein, as did a number of other Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, who received at least $20,000 . Epstein also donated a smaller sum to some Republicans. Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper reports that in 1915 former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak entered into a partnership with Epstein worth millions.]

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