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Why “the Ukrainians” Lie – Prof. A. Moytl Says the West Shouldn’t Freak Out!
George Eliason
(RINF) – In an article published at the New Atlanticist, Political Science Professor Alexander Moytl of Rutgers University wrote the strongest justification a Ukrainian Nationalist scholar can mount in defense of the Ukraine”s love affair with the nationalism of Stepan Bandera.
Bandera, a mass murderer, torturer, and assassinated former leader of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist emigre political movement is the Ukrainian equivalent to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson in A. Moytl’s thesis.
According to Moytl, because of the affinity the Ukrainian nationalists have with Washington and Jefferson, raising Bandera to their level as of father of the nation is nothing the West should “freak out over.”
Really?Moytl’s defense of the nationalist Ukrainian government and “the” Ukrainians love affair with Bandera’s war criminality starts and ends with- If you don’t speak fluent Ukrainian, haven’t read Shevchenko, or seen two Ukrainian plays…YOU are in no position to judge us! You can’t possibly understand us!
Why the West should freak out!Professor Moytl’s scholarly justification of Bandera ideology is at best delinquent and at worst extremely dangerous. Moytl, a product of “the” Ukrainian culture describes nationalism as a love story using the themes of two plays. Star-struck lovers that are pulled apart either succumb to their fate or fight at all costs to be together- the consequences be damned!
The moral of the second play according to Professor Moytl is that the author, “Makovii, obviously, is trying to move Ukrainian culture away from its traditional submissiveness to a dreadful fate and, in decidedly modern fashion, suggesting that Ukrainians can be masters—or mistresses—of their lives. That happened to be the message of the Maidan “Revolution of Dignity”: that a humbled people can assert their humanity by rising up against tyranny.”
Lest we forget, Ukraine and Ukrainians were “free” for 20 years prior to Maidan. The next presidential election cycle was a little over one year away when Maidan’s coup happened.
This isn’t about that story. This isn’t about Ukrainians. Motyl’s justification stems from “the Ukrainians” or to keep it simple Ukrainian emigres. This story is about how they have taken advantage of freedom and the damage they have done since they were taken in by western countries, especially the United States of America and Canada.
Why “the” Ukrainians Lie- What would Americans say if they knew that at the same time America was fighting German forces in WWII, Ukrainian emigres were supporting entire SS battalions, even providing leadership? Would they freak out?
- What would Americans do if they knew that the Ukrainians were behind the Korean and Vietnam wars where we lost over 100,000 people? Should they freak out?
- What would westerners do if they knew the Ukrainian emigres were behind almost 500,000 executions worldwide from 1950 through the 1980’s in the name of democracy and freedom? Could they freak out?
- Can any group of American’s step on your rights to start a private war with another Sovereign Country? Did they ask your opinion about it? Would you freak out?
The UCCA and its umbrella the UWC represent the interests of the worlds Ukrainian diaspora. Pointedly, both organizations adhere to the same ultra-nationalist politic they did in the 1930’s- 1940’s World War 2.
Bandera’s direct relationship with the US was tenuous at best because of Bandera’s attempted assassination of sitting president Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the same time frame the assassination of the president was to occur, Bandera and his second in command Yaroslav Stetsko were arrested for trying to declare a Ukrainian state in Galicia.
Who was running the UPA and the OUNb while Bandera was in prison?
According to Institute of Historical research of the Lviv Institute, guest professor at the Central European Institute in Budapest, Senator and Chair of History of Ukraine Catholic Institute Jaroslav Gritsak, it was the emigres in the West. While Ukrainians in America were serving in the US armed forces during WWII, OUN leadership in America was cooperating with Bandera’s SS Battalions. In 1943 after Stalingrad, when it became apparent that Germany would lose the war, they started democratizing Bandera nationalism’s image. This was to make Ukrainian Nationalism more palatable for western democratic sensibilities in America.
The Bandera started rewriting their history prior to 1943. They became less anti-semitic, more anti- nazi, and leaning toward democracy. This tendency was noted throughout CIA documents that dealt with them and released under the Nazi War Crime Disclosure Act. The CIA saw through the ruse and the common theme- “the Bandera are lying again” goes across almost all documents.
After Bandera’s release in 1944, the emigres had to get him up to speed on what his organization was doing. Bandera promptly rejected any move toward democracy. By 1946, the CIA took note that the terrorist Stepan Bandera was the undisputed leader of the entire Ukrainian diaspora in America. “BANDERA is still the leader of the secret Ukrainian nationalist organization OUN, which controls UHWR, ABN, and UPA. BANDERA is considered as a successor to KONOVALETS. MELNYK is the head of a. small group of dissident OUN elements, mostly formerly’pro-German.”
One of his demands that the US State Department acquiesced to was inculcating nationalism in the entire diaspora. In 1953 Bandera was formally elected leader of the worldwide Diaspora. He was the leader until his death. By 1980, the US emigre population became recognized as solely represented by Bandera OUNb in their politics. They never were Democrats or Republicans. Ukrainian emigre children in America are still brought up to be Bandera ultra-nationalists.
By 1950’s America’s executive branch regretted dealing with them at all. From 1946- 1957 over 200,000 Ukrainian emigres flocked to American shores. Almost to the person they comprised the core of Bandera’s Nazi SS Battalions. The internal conversation for emigres in America shifted from whether a communist, monarchist, or nationalist made a better Ukrainian to who is a better, more committed Ukrainian nationalist/ultra-nationalist/nazi.
The Real Reason for the Korean and Vietnam Wars“The Bandera by this time included many national emigre groups the ABN auspice. The Polish-American Congress, Baltic emigres, and Eastern European emigre nations in exile were under Bandera’s leadership. The fledgling CIA underestimated the nationalist emigre population thinking it was only 500,000 people. This made the OUN’s first intervention in American politics easy.
One of the founders of the China Lobby and chief strategist Yaroslav Stetsko(Bandera’s second in command) brought the first million man march to Washington DC during the Eisenhower years. In one day the OUNb changed the course of American policy from recognizing China, to a policy which plunged the United States into the Korean war in which 50,000 American lives were lost. Syngman Rhee president of South Korea and Chiang Kai-shek president of Taiwan were both ultra-nationalist leaders and close partners of ABN leader Yaroslav Stetsko. Leading the way was Stetsko friend and co-nationalist, Senator Joe McCarthy.
The Luce-Hearst-Liebman-Stetsko China Lobby wasted no time ratcheting up the propaganda and political pressure in Congress and on the President to act. America could not let “democratic” South Korea fall to communism as it had done to Chiang’s China. Christian America went to war against the satanic Godless communists, or at least that was how it was sold.
The Real Reason for the Vietnam WarIt is unquestionable that the men and women that served in these wars were heroes. President Johnson, who made the decision to go into the Vietnam war did so to protect Democracy. He just never said which democracy he was protecting. South Vietnam was an ultra-nationalist nation like 3rd Reich Germany or the Ukrainian Bandera envisioned. He sent our troops to put the question of a nationalist America off until a quieter time. Our soldiers protected American democracy at home.
[President Lyndon Johnson] later recalled: “I knew Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had lost their effectiveness from the day the Communists took over in China. I believed that the loss of China had played a large role in the rise of Joe McCarthy. And I knew that all these problems, taken together, were chickenxxxx compared with what might happen if we lost Vietnam.” VanDeMark, Brian (1995). Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Oxford University Press . p. 25
In May 1964 the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League (APACL), created and steered by Yaroslav Stetsko and Marvin Liebman asked for US help to bring the war to the communists and stated: “Every free nation should support the Republic of Vietnam, which is waging the war for the “freedom of the whole free world.” Its not surprising Ukraine is echoing these same words today.
Stetsko’s purpose was to surround the Soviet Union with Nationalist countries that would work actively to destroy both it and Russia by creating ultra national revolutions within the Soviet Union.
On August 2, 1964 the United States was at war in Vietnam.”
Bandera’s List of AccomplishmentsThis small list provides highlights on some of the pro-democracy work of the Bandera during the last 50 years. In all that time, the nationalists methods have never changed. Every leader other than Petliura and Bandera were under Yaroslav Stetsko’s leadership. Stetsko had become Congress’ leading anti-Communist expert.
- Ukraine/Galicia- Simon Petliura- 50,000 civilians murdered in 1 year of power.Stepan Bandera, 500,000 civilians murdered including 200,000 Jews, 3,000,000 war prisoners starved to death in concentration camps.
- South Korea – Syngman Rhee, in 1949 between 10-20,000 murders at Jeju Island. 1950 ordered 200,000 executions at Bodo Island, 1951 Geochang 719 executions including over 300 children
- South Vietnam- Ngo Dim Diem-12,000 executions 1955-57, 40,000 jailed
- Guatamala Death Squads-Fernando Romeo Lucas García, 1980’s- 200,000 executed
- The Bosnian War- Over 100,000 killed.
Each of these projects were to set up Bandera’s friends as ultra-nationalist leaders in their respective countries.
Who are the Bandera?In 1946 Bandera started the ABN and put his second in command Yaroslav Stetsko in charge of it. In 1949, CIA Director, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter in a letter to the Chairman of the Displaced Persons Committee made official a change in policy towards the OUN. He acknowledged that while the organization had collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War, its members were to be considered solely as anti-Soviets able to “find common ground with new partners.” The CIA Director did warn, however, that the Bandera faction was made up of extreme nationalists. This reclassification as anti-Soviet (better known as anti-communist) paved the way for a quiet nationalist invasion of the United States . The ABN (Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations) dominated US foreign policy for the entire cold war. Complementing this and giving it teeth, Stetsko helped form the China Lobby which became the most powerful lobby in modern US history.
The ABN grouped every ultra-nationalist or nazi “nation in exile” in the world together under one umbrella. In the USA it meant Stepan Bandera gained a large power voting bloc directly in the USA from the 1950’s until today. If you consider the article linked above, any local, regional, state, or national politician in the US that wants to get elected, needs a swing state, or needs real activist boots on the ground pays homage to the Bandera (formerly) ABN, emigre nationalists.
Bandera’s Political Weight in the USWhen the first wave of Ukrainian nationalists arrived in America they set up corporations like credit unions and insurance companies to finance their nationalist agenda for the future. They didn’t need to wait very long.
The Bandera are profoundly more than Ukrainian Nationalists. The Ukrainian emigres lead them but at its peak the ABN represented over 100 nations including Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam.
In a letter to CIA Director Allen Dulles in 1958, Stetsko outlined a plan to rebuild the world into nationalist states submissive to US policy. Stetsko made it clear that he alone represented this constituency.
“Now, when I am here it is my hope that you will agree on our coming together with the purpose to deliberate on concepts and strategy leading eventually to a strong and friendly alliance between the American people and the Russian captive nations I have the honor to represent.”
Stetsko closed the letter with- “I am on and off in Washington, testifying before the House of Un-American Activities Committee and the House Committee for Foreign Affairs, and I feel assured that you, sir, will find the time to give me an audience.”
Only a few years before this the Ukrainian Nationalists were the focus of HUACC investigations for Un-American activities. The order to change their status because of the start of the Cold War dropped the investigations in their tracks. When the Deputy Director forwarded the letter to Dulles he made a note that it was from Bandera’s chief lieutenant.
Bandera’s Nazis now determined WHO was a GOOD American and would do so in Congress for another 20 years. How many American lives and careers did they ruin? They became the engine behind Joseph McCarthy.
In July 1960, the nationalist emigre groups gained their first major victory in the fight to establish nationalism in America. New York City hosted the Stars and Stripes Gala Affair that punctuated the Captive Nations Week celebration. At the parade on the podium were every prominent Jewish leader, 87+ US Senators and US Congressman, New York’s mayor, the Governor, and the captive nations leaders which included at least seven former Third Reich SS officers. The nationalist Ukrainians marching in the parade were from Banderas army in WW2. (I wonder how many SS units were represented that day.)
How Much Political Impact do the Bandera Have?After 1960, their impact on American politics grew because they were better organized. The emigre mainstay has always been Congress. The heaviest concentration and headquarters locations are marked by major cities in important political states. The most effective means they employ has been to donate heavily and provide people to political campaigns that promise to vote “for Ukraine/ Poland/ Latvia/ Guatamala/ etc.
In the 1970’s the Ukrainian faction bragged about delivering states to presidential candidates. The Polish faction was large enough to swing presidential elections by itself in the 1950’s. By the 1980’s they delivered their first presidency. Regardless of how you look at the Reagan years, it is now unquestionable how he attained the office in the first place.
How large is this group?
The CEEC which is the new umbrella group boasts over 20 million members across the country. They vote in bloc and for both congressmen and presidential candidates they can harness the funding of countries whose people they represent for your campaign. The caveat is you will vote against Russia at every opportunity and not mind their open Nazi ties.
Moytl’s modelLets take Professor Moytl’s Ukrainian nationalist romance and inject it with reality. In the end, the facts bear out not a love story or even an infatuation. It’s a modern tragedy, not a love story. A young drug addicted girl kills her husband and children while stealing money for her next fix- would be closer to the truth.
The Ukrainian government today is acting like “the Ukrainians” always have, and always will. In the west, particularly in the US and Canada, its time to de-tooth this dragon. The Bandera (Ukrainian emigres) have broken the Anti-Genocide Law as well as the Neutrality Act starting the war in Ukraine. If you don’t think they are stepping on your rights to do this, how do you think we got here in the first place?
It’s time for the grownups to belly up to the table and demand explanations from both the emigres and our Congress.
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Unprecedented emergency statewide fishing closures enacted in Pacific Northwest — “We’ve never had to do anything like this” — “Very alarming” mass die-offs linked to disease outbreak — Nearly 100% infection rate in some areas — Rotting gills, distended bellies — NOAA: It’s a ‘head scratcher’ (VIDEOS)========================================================================================================================Published: July 17th, 2015 at 2:26 pm ET
By ENENewsKTVZ, Jul 16, 2015 (emphasis added): Restricting fishing in Oregon streams and rivers for the first time ever… Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife announced it’s taking drastic measures… they’ve never had to do this before… ODFW: “We’re starting to see fish kills in more places than we typically do. This is a pretty extreme set of conditions.”
Statesman Journal, Jul 16, 2015: [ODFW is taking] an unprecedented step… The move comes on the heels of multiple fish die-offs… “We’ve never had to do anything like this before — we’re in new territory,” said [ODFW's] Bruce McIntosh.
Mail Tribune (Oregon), Jul 16, 2015: Emergency fishing closures go statewide
Spokesman Review, Jul 17, 2015: Washington Fish and Wildlife Department officials are enacting fishing restrictions involving 38 rivers… emergency rules take effect on Saturday.
AP, Jul 9, 2015: Fisheries biologist Rod French said [dead salmon] appeared to have been infected with a gill rot disease
The Oregonian, Jul 10, 2015: Scores of dead salmon are washing ashore… mortality rates are rapidly rising for juvenile fish near John Day Dam… [French] said it appears the fish are dying from a bacterial infection… “It’s very alarming that we’re seeing them this early,” he said… [Paul Wagner, NOAA fisheries biologist] called it a head scratcher. The die-offs seem to be associated with disease, he said.
Siskiyou Daily (Calif.), May 19, 2015: Klamath Fish Health Assessment Team has raised its level of alert… due to an increased detection of a deadly disease…. Chinook salmon tested in two reaches of the Klamath River… reached a 100-percent prevalence of infection [for] one of the deadliest salmon diseases… [Juveniles] have been found with… distended bellies, pale-colored gill and gill erosion… [N]ear the Scott and Klamath rivers confluence… 86 out of 120 showing distended bellies and 87 out of 114 showing pale gills…
OPB, Jun 9, 2015: More than half of the 3-inch long Chinook in the [Klamath River] trap are either dead or showing signs of a serious parasitic infection… nearly 100 percent of Chinook caught in this fish trap in early May were infected.
KATU (Portland), Jul 10, 2015: Salmon and trout, even sturgeon, are dying like never before… on the Deschutes, Santiam, Mackenzie, Clackamas, and other rivers.
KGW (Portland), Jul 7, 2015: It just seems like it’s getting worse… the issue certainly hasn’t improved since we reported on it 2 weeks ago… Chinook salmon, even some sturgeon, continue to wash up… Several fishermen I spoke with down here today, well they’re worried… Pretty much everywhere you look… dead fish… Starting last month, Chinook salmon began washing up… far short of their spawning grounds… It’s all the talk among local fisherman, “I’ve lived here about 25 years, and I’m an avid fishermen. I’ve never seen any fish like this on the bank as much as I’ve seen this year.”
KOIN (Portland), Jun 19, 2015: Is this a really big concern right now? Very much so… “I’ve never seen it like that before“… The Chinook are on their way back from the ocean… Fishermen are coming up empty and are worried.
KGW, Jun 22, 2015: A startling site… Chinook salmon dying in the rivers… Biologists counted more than 100 on just a 3 mile stretch… We came down here this morning expecting to find 1, maybe 2, dead Chinook salmon. Boy, were we wrong — you can find them about every 20 yards… one after another… Have you ever seen that before? “Never, ever, ever, ever.” Jeannie Brooks has been fishing [here] with her dad for decades, never before had she seen this… “I looked all the way down and thought, what are all these dead fish doing here?”
KPTV (Oregon), Jun 19, 2015: One after another… “I never saw a dead fish, ever, here.”
KGW, Jul 9, 2015: [A diver] told us what he’s been seeing under the surface… there are salmon sitting dead in spots on the Clakamas River bottom… littered here and there.
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US installs 'leadership' of foreign countries with US citizens and CIA assets
Wayne MadsenThe recent appointment of the austerity-loving U.S. citizen and investment firm chief Natalie Jaresko as Ukraine's Finance Minister continues a trend that has seen one Eastern European country after another appointing or electing U.S. citizens as major government officials. Jaresko had Ukrainian citizenship conferred on her by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as she arrived in Kiev to take up her new post in the government of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, himself a former legal U.S. resident who has been linked to the crypto-Satanic Church of Scientology.
Jaresko is involved in contentious asset redistribution court battles with her ex-husband, Ihor Figlus. Together, the two managed the Kiev-based Horizon Capital, established 20 years ago with a $150 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Horizon Capital operated the Emerging Europe Growth Fund, a group charged with illegal insider trading of Ukrainian securities. According to court divorce documents, Horizon Capital bought Ukrainian artwork, Georgian carpets, expensive cars, and antique furniture, all of which are now subject to the battle for ownership between Jaresko and Figlus. Jaresko also managed the USAID-financed Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), a CIA contrivance that steered U.S. investment dollars into "pro-democracy" movements in Moldova and Belarus and laundered much of the $5 billion in U.S. aid for the Maidan Square coup in Kiev that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.
Jaresko's arrival in Kiev was shortly followed by that of former Reno, Nevada assistant police chief Ron Glensor,who became an official adviser to the Ukrainian police with an initial posting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Khmelnytsky region. Glensor has been very active with the U.S. Department of Justice's International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). Glensor is also a former fellow of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in Washington, D.C. In August 1999, The Progressive magazine reported that, "Janice Stromsen, a career employee of the Justice Department who served as ICITAP's director, resisted the program's takeover by CIA elements. In February [1999], Stromsen was relieved of her duties after complaining to the Justice Department Inspector General that ICITAP was being used by the CIA to recruit agents among foreign police officials."
Mostly outsourced to a favorite CIA contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), ICITAP provided cover for the CIA to infiltrate police agencies around the world. After initially blowing the whistle on ICITAP's intelligence-related operations, Stromsen was joined by another ICITAP employee, Martin "Mick" Andersen, who charged that agencies other than the Justice Department were engaging in "illegal activities" in Haiti. Charles Allen, who worked for the Richardson, Texas police department and was assigned to ICITAP in 1995, said that the CIA would approach foreign police students enrolled in ICITAP training programs during off hours and weekends in an attempt to recruit them to be American spies. Other CIA recruitment of foreign police officers occurred during ICITAP training sessions at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
ICITAP first began providing the CIA with "official cover" to infiltrate foreign police agencies in 1990 when it began its first operations in Panama after the U.S. military invasion. These operations were then expanded to Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, the Eastern Slavonia province of Croatia, Serbia, Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Macedonia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa, and Iraq. ICITAP and CIA operations were closely linked in counter-narcotics/insurgency operations in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Haiti, and Panama.
ICITAP grew out of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) program started in the early 1960s that saw U.S. police officers assigned to foreign police agencies for the purpose of training. However, it soon became obvious that the CIA was using the USAID program to gain influence over foreign police agencies to combat Soviet and Chinese influence. This was particularly the case in Somalia, where the Somali National Police served as a pro-U.S. counterpart to the pro-Communist bloc Somali armed forces. The chief CIA liaison working with the Somali National Police was a police officer on loan from the Los Angeles Police Department. Former Richmond, Indiana police officer Dan Mitrione joined the CIA to advise the Brazilian and Uruguayan governments, under USAID cover, on how to use electric shock and other torture techniques on political prisoners. Mitrione was kidnapped and executed by Uruguayan Tupamaro guerrillas for his crimes against humanity waged on the people of Uruguay. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was but one recipient of Mitrione's brutal torture tactics which were implemented by the Brazilian security forces.© Wikipedia
Radoslaw Sikorski, the current leader of the Polish parliament and member of neocon American Enterprise Institute
The bow-tied President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, grew up in New Jersey and attended Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. Ilves was employed as the chief of the Estonian desk for the CIA-financed Radio Free Europe, working out of the broadcaster's main studio in Munich. Ilves' first marriage was to an American and his two children by that marriage are American citizens. Ilves' brother, Andres Ilves, was also on the payroll of the CIA- financed broadcasting operations, including the Afghanistan Bureau of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, for which he worked from the Prague headquarters, and Radio Farda, the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors-funded radio station that beams its programming in Farsi to Iran. Andres Ilves also worked on destabilizing operations in Serbia on behalf of the National Endowment for Democracy-funded and George Soros-linked National Democratic Institute and is now involved in political operations in South Africa's KwaZulu province, which are obviously targeting the African National Congress government of President Jacob Zuma.
Valdas Adamkus served two terms as President of Lithuania. Adamkus was a U.S. citizen and a Ronald Reagan - appointed senior official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and served as a non-commissioned officer for the U.S. Fifth Army Military Intelligence unit. Adamkus was not the only official of the right-wing Reagan administration to come to power in post-Cold War Eastern Europe. Kateryna Chumachenko, a U.S. citizen, served as the special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the U.S. State Department, the Reagan White House Office of Public Liaison for liaison with "Captive Nations" communities in the United States, the executive secretary's office of the U.S. Treasury during the George H. W. Bush administration, and the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. In 2005, Chumachenko became the First Lady of Ukraine after her husband, Viktor Yushchenko, was sworn into office after the Soros- and CIA-financed "Orange Revolution".
Other Americans who have embedded in Eastern European governments and political organizations include Ljubica Acevska, who became Macedonia's first ambassador to the United States; Ukrainian anti-Russian politician Ivan Lozowy; Roman Zvarych, who became Minister of Justice in the Yushchenko government; and Peter Zwack, who became Hungarian ambassador to the United States and chairman of the Hungarian Entrepreneurs' Party.
Most of these Americans, prior to their renouncing their American citizenship, were in violation of the 1799 Logan Act, which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. However, the Logan Act, like many American laws, is not enforced because of pressure from domestic U.S. ethnic lobbies, as well as the CIA, which encourage dual citizens to engage in foreign ethnic- and religious-based activities on behalf of U.S. intelligence. -
Seven-day NHS plan could lead to big staff shortages, says pay review
Independent pay advisers warn that health workers could quit the NHS in protest if allowances for unsocial hours are cut
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It was a rough morning for the US economy
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bad-morning-for-the-us-economy-2015-7#ixzz3gGwDwNlV
Tuesday was a rough morning for the US economy.
Retail sales were a big miss.
Small-business optimism declined.
And in a note to clients after these reports, Ian Shepherdson summed up Tuesday's economic data dump by writing, "Taken together with the drop in the NFIB small business survey reported earlier, the numbers today paint a picture of an economy stuttering in June, likely under the weight of the rebound in gas prices and the drop in stock prices."
Retail sales in June fell 0.3%, well below expectations for a 0.3% increase. Excluding cars, auto sales in June fell 0.1%, and the "control" retail-sales reading declined 0.1%. The retail-sales control group excludes car sales, tobacco stores, mobile-home sales, gas-station sales, building materials, and office supplies.
On a year-over-year basis, control retail sales rose 2.1%, the smallest increase since February 2014, according to Bloomberg's Matt Boesler.
The retail-sales report also showed that June sales at clothing stores and grocery stores, as well as at bars and restaurants, declined from the prior month. A disappointment any way you cut it up.
FREDRetail sales have been doing nothing but disappointing.
Meanwhile, the less heralded but still important small-business reading from the National Federal of Small Businesses was a miss.
The NFIB's Business Optimism index fell to 94.1 in June from 98.5 in May, and in its release the NFIB said the reading was "not a recession signal" but was "a clear sign that economic growth on Main Street is not set for a strong second half."
The report indicated that small businesses essentially added no jobs in June, while earnings indicators were particularly disappointing, as a net negative 17% of small businesses reported higher wages in June.
And so while Fed chair Janet Yellen on Friday indicated that she still expected it would be appropriate for the Fed to raise rates sometime this year, questions still remain about whether the US economy will be strong enough to warrant this change in policy.
AP ImagesFed chair Janet Yellen: "What to do about the US economy?"
In June we've gotten a disappointing jobs report and now a disappointing retail-sales report, perhaps the two most important economic indicators on a month-to-month basis.
Shepherdson still expects a bounceback in the data when we get July's readings, with this leading to a rate hike by the Fed in September. But of course, it depends.
"One soft month is not a trend," Shepherdson writes, "and two more retail sales reports will be released before the September FOMC meeting. If they both look like this, the Fed won't tighten, but we think that's very unlikely."
{C}
SEE ALSO: Retail sales flopRead more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bad-morning-for-the-us-economy-2015-7#ixzz3gGvpaXJ0
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Anti-Russian propaganda is ‘unconvincing’, because Western narrative is false
Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries including The Guardian, Morning Star, Daily and Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Week, and The American Conservative. He is a regular pundit on RT and has also appeared on BBC TV and radio, Sky News, Press TV and the Voice of Russia. He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs @NeilClark66
Published time: 23 Mar, 2015 15:00Reuters / Fabrizio Bensch / ReutersYou really couldn’t make it up. Almost 24 million people in the EU are unemployed. The Greek debt crisis has yet to be resolved. An Islamic State terrorist attack in Tunis, just over 100 miles from Italy. The ever-worsening problem of climate change.And what are the EU elite talking about? How best to counter ‘Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns’. It’s good to know they’ve got their priorities right, isn‘t it?
At last week’s summit in Brussels, EU leaders discussed a range of options- one of which could include the setting up of a new Russian-language TV channel funded by European taxpayers.
A timetable has been laid out: we’re told the EU-funded European Endowment for Democracy will present media proposals to a summit in Latvia on May 21-22, and that EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini will finalize the plans by the end of June.
This follows on from Members of the European Parliament passing a resolution in January urging the EU to counter Russian ‘propaganda’.
“The EU and its member states have been concerned for some time about Russian propaganda, and about the fact that the counter-argument coming from the EU often seems to be poorly focused and unconvincing,” according to the BBC website.
Well, that BBC report is right, because the “counter-argument” which comes from the EU and the US is certainly “unconvincing”.
But it’s “unconvincing” not because of presentation flaws, or because insufficient money was put into “selling” the message, but because the dominant Western narrative on Russia and the Russian “threat” is false, and anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see that it’s false.
That’s the basic problem that those seeking to push this narrative have. Setting up a new European TV channel, or giving money to ex-Soviet Republics to set up their own Russian-language channels to fight Russian “propaganda”, won’t remedy it.
“The Russian threat to the west”? You only have to look at a map of Europe and see how NATO has expanded eastwards since the demise of the Soviet Union to realize who is threatening whom.
“Russia is a dangerous aggressor which needs to be stopped.” This is truly risible. By any objective assessment it’s the US and its allies who are the dangerous aggressors. Was it Russia which invaded Iraq in 2003, falsely claiming it had WMDs? Or Russia which bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days and nights in 1999? Or Russia which attacked Libya in 2011, helping to destroy a country which had the highest living standards in Africa? Or is it Russia which has killed up to 200 children in Pakistan in drone strikes since 2004?
“Russia is to blame for the Ukraine crisis.” Again, one only has to spend a few minutes on this topic to realize that this claim is nonsense too - it was the EU and US who caused the crisis, by sponsoring and supporting a “regime change” against a legitimate, democratically-elected government.
Just imagine if Russia had interfered in the same way in Canada! But the EU and US do it in Ukraine, and somehow Russia is to blame.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine”, again, a load of hogwash. If Russian had invaded Ukraine, we would certainly know about it by now. It’s hard to keep up with the number of false reports of “Russian tanks in Ukraine” we’ve had: here’s two more for the collection from February.
“Russia‘s annexation of Crimea”, well, Crimea would still be part of Ukraine today had it not been for the Western-sponsored coup which toppled the legal government of the country. Crimea was only handed to the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 and the majority Russian population of Crimea unsurprisingly voted to return to their motherland after the coup in which far-right anti-Russian extremists played a leading role.
As to the rubbishing of the referendum in which the people of Crimea exercised their democratic rights to rejoin Russia, the best response I read was from the British journalist Peter Hitchens:
“I have spent much of the weekend wheezing with helpless mirth at the efforts of members of my trade to disapprove of two things they’ve spent their lives applauding –democracy and self-determination. They have to do this because on this occasion they operate in favor of Russia, a country on which we must all (for some reason) look down with cold sneers on our faces.”
What we’ve been fed in the West about the Ukraine conflict is lies, lies and more lies, and we‘ve witnessed, as Hitchens notes, elite hypocrisy on a massive scale. A crisis caused by the EU and the US’s regime-change activities in a country bordering Russia is blamed on Russia. Russia, threatened by NATO’s eastward expansion, is portrayed as a “threat.” Countries that have committed serial aggression against other sovereign states in recent years, leading to massive loss of life, label a country that hasn’t taken part in these crimes a “dangerous aggressor.” Lies are told and the truth is suppressed on a daily basis.
“The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember," writes veteran, award-winning anti-war journalist John Pilger.
“The biggest Western military build-up in the Caucasus and eastern Europe since World War Two is blacked out. Washington's secret aid to Kiev and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the population of eastern Ukraine is blacked out. Evidence that contradicts propaganda that Russia was responsible for the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner is blacked out.”
It doesn’t really matter how much the EU decides to spend on countering “Russian propaganda,” if the script they’re pushing is so clearly untrue, then they’re not going to convince people.
Once again, Europe is following in the footsteps of Washington. In February, Secretary of State Kerry pleaded for more funding to counter news outlets like RT. But RT’s budget is less than the budget of the US government media services and indeed the BBC’s World Service.
Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, hit the nail on the head when he told RT: ”I think the problem the US has is they have an unlimited advertising budget, but the product they’re selling is not very attractive overseas. People are tired of US interventionism; they’re tired of US exceptionalism; they’re tired of the US bombing their country… if you’re a Somalian, you don’t care about listening to a radio broadcast from the US, you just wish the US would stop bombing you.”
The EU will be making a big mistake if they can solve the problem of having “unconvincing” counter-arguments on Russia and Ukraine by throwing euro at it. An old Persian proverb tells us that “the man who speaks the truth is always at ease.” When it comes to the current propaganda war against Russia the Western elites are clearly not at ease and it’s not hard to work out why.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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Greece Deal is ‘Inhumane and Colonialist’ Says Uruguay’s Mujica
Germany’s terms for the Greek bailout package are “inhumane and imposing,” said former President Jose Mujica.
Former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica described the deal between Greece and the European Union as “brutal,” adding that at its core Europe is, after all, “colonialist.”
“What we have seen in Greece is a brutal thing. It is as if Europe had established a protectorate or something like that,” said Mujica in an interview with a local radio station Tuesday.
The former president also added that this decision by the Eurogroup “reminds us yet again that basically this is a Europe that decides. It’s an heir of colonialist Europe.”
Mujica had strong words for the bailout package that Greece was forced to accept that was proposed by its EU creditors, particularly Germany. The deal will involve Greece making drastic spending cuts, and impose austerity measures in order to receive the necessary loan from EU creditors and be able to stay in the eurozone.
“Germany imposes not only its economy, its high technology … the Germany of today rules Europe. In the end, its decisions are inhumane and imposing. Take it or leave it. And, of course … the rest of Europe somehow nods,” said Mujica.
The beloved former president also compared the EU negotiating tactics with Greece to how the European body has been approaching free trade agreement talks with Mercosur – a trade bloc comprised of several South American countries.
According to Mujica, the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay have been “fighting and trying” for over 10 years to sign a trade agreement with the European bloc, but it has shown very little leniency.
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Source: TeleSUR, 15 July 2015
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MH-17 Mystery One Year Later: A New Tonkin Gulf Case?
By Robert ParryGlobal Research, July 18, 2015One year ago, the world experienced what could become the Tonkin Gulf incident of World War III, the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. As with the dubious naval clash off the coast of North Vietnam in 1964, which helped launch the Vietnam War, U.S. officials quickly seized on the MH-17 crash for its emotional and propaganda appeal – and used it to ratchet up tensions against Russia.
Shocked at the thought of 298 innocent people plunging to their deaths from 33,000 feet last July 17, the world recoiled in horror, a fury that was then focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin. With Putin’s face emblazoned on magazine covers, the European Union got in line behind the U.S.-backed coup regime in Ukraine and endorsed economic sanctions to punish Russia.
In the year that has followed, the U.S. government has continued to escalate tensions with Russia, supporting the Ukrainian regime in its brutal “anti-terrorism operation” that has slaughtered thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. The authorities in Kiev have even dispatched neo-Nazi and ultranationalist militias, supported by jihadists called “brothers” of the Islamic State, to act as the tip of the spear. [see Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists.”]
Raising world tensions even further, the Russians have made clear that they will not allow the ethnic Russian resistance to be annihilated, setting the stage for a potential escalation of hostilities and even a possible nuclear showdown between the United States and Russia.
But the propaganda linchpin to the West’s extreme anger toward Russia remains the MH-17 shoot-down, which the United States and the West continue to pin on the Russian rebels – and by extension – Russia and Putin. The latest examples are media reports about the Dutch crash investigation suggesting that an anti-aircraft missile, allegedly involved in destroying MH-17, was fired from rebel-controlled territory.
Yet, the U.S. mainstream media remains stunningly disinterested in the “dog-not-barking” question of why the U.S. intelligence community has been so quiet about its MH-17 analysis since it released a sketchy report relying mostly on “social media” on July 22, 2014, just five days after the shoot-down. A source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me that the reason for the intelligence community’s silence is that more definitive analysis pointed to a rogue Ukrainian operation implicating one of the pro-regime oligarchs.
The source said that if this U.S. analysis were to see the light of day, the Ukrainian “narrative” that has supplied the international pressure on Russia would collapse. In other words, the Obama administration is giving a higher priority to keeping Putin on the defensive than to bringing the MH-17 killers to justice.
Like the Tonkin Gulf case, the evidence on the MH-17 case was shaky and contradictory from the start. But, in both cases, U.S. officials confidently pointed fingers at the “enemy.” President Lyndon Johnson blamed North Vietnam in 1964 and Secretary of State John Kerry implicated ethnic Russian rebels and their backers in Moscow in 2014. In both cases, analysts in the U.S. intelligence community were less certain and even reached contrary conclusions once more evidence was available.
In both cases, those divergent assessments appear to have been suppressed so as not to interfere with what was regarded as a national security priority – confronting “North Vietnamese aggression” in 1964 and “Russian aggression” in 2014. To put out the contrary information would have undermined the government’s policy and damaged “credibility.” So the facts – or at least the conflicting judgments – were hidden.
The Price of Silence
In the case of the Tonkin Gulf, it took years for the truth to finally emerge and – in the meantime – tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese had lost their lives. Yet, much of the reality was known soon after the Tonkin Gulf incident on Aug. 4, 1964.
Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1964 was a young Defense Department official, recounts – in his 2002 book Secrets – how the Tonkin Gulf falsehoods took shape, first with the panicked cables from a U.S. Navy captain relaying confused sonar readings and then with that false storyline presented to the American people.
As Ellsberg describes, President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced retaliatory airstrikes on Aug. 4, 1964, telling
“the American public that the North Vietnamese, for the second time in two days, had attacked U.S. warships on ‘routine patrol in international waters’; that this was clearly a ‘deliberate’ pattern of ‘naked aggression’; that the evidence for the second attack, like the first, was ‘unequivocal’; that the attack had been ‘unprovoked’; and that the United States, by responding in order to deter any repetition, intended no wider war.”Ellsberg wrote: “By midnight on the fourth, or within a day or two, I knew that each one of those assurances was false.” Yet, the White House made no effort to clarify the false or misleading statements. The falsehoods were left standing for several years while Johnson sharply escalated the war by dispatching a half million soldiers to Vietnam.
In the MH-17 case, we saw something similar. Within three days of the July 17, 2014 crash, Secretary Kerry rushed onto all five Sunday talk shows with his rush to judgment, citing evidence provided by the Ukrainian government through social media. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” David Gregory asked, “Are you bottom-lining here that Russia provided the weapon?”
Kerry:
“There’s a story today confirming that, but we have not within the Administration made a determination. But it’s pretty clear when – there’s a build-up of extraordinary circumstantial evidence. I’m a former prosecutor. I’ve tried cases on circumstantial evidence; it’s powerful here.” [see Consortiumnews.com’s “.”]Two days later, on July 22, the Director of National Intelligence authorized the release of a brief report essentially repeating Kerry’s allegations. The DNI’s report also cited “social media” as implicating the ethnic Russian rebels, but the report stopped short of claiming that the Russians gave the rebels the sophisticated Buk (or SA-11) surface-to-air missile that the report indicated was used to bring down the plane.
Instead, the report cited “an increasing amount of heavy weaponry crossing the border from Russia to separatist fighters in Ukraine”; it claimed that Russia “continues to provide training – including on air defense systems to separatist fighters at a facility in southwest Russia”; and its noted the rebels
“have demonstrated proficiency with surface-to-air missile systems, downing more than a dozen aircraft in the months prior to the MH17 tragedy, including two large transport aircraft.”Yet, despite the insinuation of Russian guilt, what the public report didn’t say – which is often more significant than what is said in these white papers – was that the rebels had previously only used short-range shoulder-fired missiles to bring down low-flying military planes, whereas MH-17 was flying at around 33,000 feet, far beyond the range of those weapons.
The assessment also didn’t say that U.S. intelligence, which had been concentrating its attention on eastern Ukraine during those months, detected the delivery of a Buk missile battery from Russia, despite the fact that a battery consists of four 16-foot-long missiles that are hauled around by trucks or other large vehicles.
Rising Doubts
I was told that the absence of evidence of such a delivery injected the first doubts among U.S. analysts who also couldn’t say for certain that the missile battery that was suspected of firing the fateful missile was manned by rebels. An early glimpse of that doubt was revealed in the DNI briefing for several mainstream news organizations when the July 22 assessment was released.
The Los Angeles Times reported,
“U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.” [see Consortiumnews.com’s “”]The Russians also challenged the rush to judgment against them, although the U.S. mainstream media largely ignored – or ridiculed – their presentation. But the Russians at least provided what appeared to be substantive data, including alleged radar readings showing the presence of a Ukrainian jetfighter “gaining height” as it closed to within three to five kilometers of MH-17.
Russian Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov also called on the Ukrainian government to explain the movements of its Buk systems to sites in eastern Ukraine and why Kiev’s Kupol-M19S18 radars, which coordinate the flight of Buk missiles, showed increased activity leading up to the July 17 shoot-down.
The Ukrainian government countered by asserting that it had “evidence that the missile which struck the plane was fired by terrorists, who received arms and specialists from the Russian Federation,” according to Andrey Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s Security Council, using Kiev’s preferred term for the rebels.
On July 29, amid this escalating rhetoric, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of mostly retired U.S. intelligence officials, called on President Barack Obama to release what evidence the U.S. government had, including satellite imagery.
“As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information,” the group wrote.
“As Americans, we find ourselves hoping that, if you indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay. In charging Russia with being directly or indirectly responsible, Secretary of State John Kerry has been particularly definitive. Not so the evidence.”But the Obama administration failed to make public any intelligence information that would back up its earlier suppositions.
Then, in early August, I was told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had begun shifting away from the original scenario blaming the rebels and Russia to one focused more on the possibility that extremist elements of the Ukrainian government were responsible, funded by one of Ukraine’s rabidly anti-Russian oligarchs. [see Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-down Scenario Shifts”and “Was Putin Targeted for Mid-air Assassination?”]
Last October, Der Spiegel reported that the German intelligence service, the BND, also had concluded that Russia was not the source of the missile battery – that it had been captured from a Ukrainian military base – but the BND still blamed the rebels for firing it. The BND also concluded that photos supplied by the Ukrainian government about the MH-17 tragedy “have been manipulated,” Der Spiegel reported.
And, the BND disputed Russian government claims that a Ukrainian fighter jet had been flying close to MH-17, the magazine said, reporting on the BND’s briefing to a parliamentary committee on Oct. 8, 2014. But none of the BND’s evidence was made public — and I was subsequently told by a European official that the evidence was not as conclusive as the magazine article depicted. [see Consortiumnews.com’s “Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case.”]
Dog Still Doesn’t Bark
When the Dutch Safety Board investigating the crash issued an interim report in mid-October, it answered few questions, beyond confirming that MH-17 apparently was destroyed by “high-velocity objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.” The 34-page Dutch report was silent on the “dog-not-barking” issue of whether the U.S. government had satellite surveillance that revealed exactly where the supposed ground-to-air missile was launched and who fired it.
In January, when I re-contacted the source who had been briefed by the U.S. analysts, the source said their thinking had not changed, except that they believed the missile may have been less sophisticated than a Buk, possibly an SA-6, and that the attack may have also involved a Ukrainian jetfighter firing on MH-17.
Since then there have been occasional news accounts about witnesses reporting that they did see a Ukrainian fighter plane in the sky and others saying they saw a missile possibly fired from territory then supposedly controlled by the rebels (although the borders of the conflict zone at that time were very fluid and the Ukrainian military was known to have mobile anti-aircraft missile batteries only a few miles away).
But the larger dog-not-barking question is why the U.S. intelligence community has clammed up for nearly one year, even after I reported that I was being told that U.S. analysts had veered off in a different direction – from the initial blame-the-Russians approach – toward one focusing on a rogue Ukrainian attack.
For its part, the DNI’s office has cited the need for secrecy even as it continues to refer to its July 22 report. But didn’t DNI James Clapper waive any secrecy privilege when he rushed out a report five days after the MH-17 shoot-down? Why was secrecy asserted only after the U.S. intelligence community had time to thoroughly review its photographic and electronic intelligence?
Over the past 11 months, the DNI’s office has offered no updates on the initial assessment, with a DNI spokeswoman even making the absurd claim that U.S. intelligence has made no refinements of its understanding about the tragedy since July 22, 2014.
If what I’ve been told is true, the reason for this silence would likely be that a reversal of the initial rush to judgment would be both embarrassing for the Obama administration and detrimental to an “information warfare” strategy designed to keep the Russians on the defensive.
But if that’s the case, President Barack Obama may be acting even more recklessly than President Johnson did in 1964. As horrific as the Vietnam War was, a nuclear showdown with Russia could be even worse.
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(Jim, I noticed, when this thread first started, that you were unusually quiet, and expected that you were probably waiting to see how the thread flowed before you came in. It is always calm before the storm. Darn predictability!)
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Must say though, I was quite surprised that folks were so respectful the last couple of days on this thread regarding his passing.
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Would like to remind you that we are all human, and we grieve when someone we cared about is lost. Hold on to that thought for a minute. It would seem to me that folk could have at least waited to air any problems they had with someone so recently deceased. Now grant you, probably a lot of people who you folk admire, I can't stand. but I know what grief feels like (we all do) and would offer condolences and at least wait until a bit of time passed before I said anything. and I'd watch the way I said it. But that is just me.
We've all read about the 5 stages of grief and each of us has probably experienced them. Those are going to come out, in one form or another. It is part of being human.
C'mon people, there is room all over this forum for later Gary questionings. Can you just allow a place where folk can put a few "Sorrys", or "I should haves" or something else w/o telling us what a bad guy he was in your opinion? I'm sure the reading audience already knows from former postings how you feel about Gary. The folks who are jumping on him, or getting ready to are no surprise to me, anyway, as I'm sure others aren't surprised,either.
Bit of room to breathe, please.
It is just a request.
Things got very hot at the old Rich Dellarosa JFK Forum when Gary Mack was posting.
Especially after I said that : If he wanted to do real JFK research, all he had to do is just for him to call the law firm of the TSBD.
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- Gary was very polite after he stopped posting on Forums and thanked me in an E-mail about a Jameson Film Company find I had. (I just deep read wiki)
- The sad thing is that like many of his generation he seemed to have sold out after expressing idealism in concrete ways.
- I hope he had Jesus Christ as LORD in his heart. ,gaal
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I am sorry to hear this news.
As you can see from a number of my posts, Gary Mack and I did not agree on much of anything. However, he did point some directors/producers of JFK assassination documentaries having a focus on the limousine in my direction, and I am appreciative of that. He used to email me regularly, as he has others, to 'correct' my position to something he was more comfortable with. But that raised 'red flags', and I came to realize that when that happened I should probably research my idea further as it probably had merit.
Gary tried to keep me from becoming involved with Judyth Baker, and when I attempted to explain what I was doing (keeping an open mind until her book came out) he was not happy with that. After the long and arduous seven years I spent involved with Judyth, I can only think that he may have thought he was looking out for me, and I appreciate that too...
May I call you Pamela ?
BAKER FAKER CANDLESTICK MAKER.....YEARS & YEARS OF RESEARCH ..... WHAT I CAN SAY OF FOR CERTAIN >>>>> there is a jfk disinfo industry ,gaal
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see http://www.ctka.net/2015/JudythBaker-DJ.pdf
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also http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=21890&p=302385 post # 4
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All Hail Our Banking Overlords!
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You really have to be paying attention to see what’s truly going on these days. The keepers of the system, that is the banking elites, now openly control everything — though you’d never know that by listening to the media.
Consider this:
How generous of the finance ministers of all those EU member states to agree to a “bridge loan” that will help Greece “keep its finances afloat”. This should provide the people of Greece with a bit of breathing room, right? Maybe access to their bank accounts (finally!), perhaps?
Eurozone backs €7bn bridging loan
Jul 16, 2105
Eurozone ministers have agreed to give Greece a €7bn (£5bn) bridging loan from an EU-wide fund to keep its finances afloat until a bailout is approved.
The loan is expected to be confirmed on Friday by all EU member states.
In another development, the European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to increase emergency funding to Greece for the first time since it was frozen in June.
The decisions were made after Greek MPs passed tough reforms as part of a eurozone bailout deal.
No, not at all. Here’s what the entirety of the “”loan”” will go towards instead:
Ummmm…that “money” will not ever go anywhere near Greece.
The bridging loan means Greece will be able to repay debts to the ECB and IMF on Monday.
This is all merely electronic window-dressing for entirely esoteric bookkeeping purposes. Servers will blink at one location in Europe as digital 1s and 0s are transmitted to another. The electronic balances at the ECB and the IMF will change, but not much else.
The people of Greece will see none of it. Nor will they see their bank accounts unfrozen.
This act of banker “largess” is, of course, of, by, and entirely for the bankers. It has nothing to do with Greece or its people, about whom the banker class cannot care less.
But, they hide this disdain under and increasingly thin and condescending veneer of graciousness. Take, for example, the recently-announced ‘generosity’ of the powers that be — that is, the banking powers that be — which will permit the long suffering depositors to…*cough*…deposit more money into the banks:
Greece: Banks Can Reopen … for DepositsJul 17, 2015Greek banks will reopen Monday after a three-week closure, the country’s deputy finance minister says, though withdrawal restrictions will stay in place. Bank customers“can deposit cash, they can transfer money from one account to the other,” but they can’t withdraw moneyexcept at ATMs, the official says, and a withdrawal limit of 60 euros ($67) a day will stay in place, he said, though Greek authorities are working on a plan to allow people to roll over access to their funds so that if they don’t make it to a bank machine one day, they can take out 120 euros the next day.Yeah, depositing more money into the Greek banking system is exactly what all 12 remaining Greek idiots are clamoring to do…everybody else just wants their money back, thank-you-very-much.Obviously, the only rational response of anybody in Europe watching this charade of theft continue would be to sell gold, right? (which has happened vigorously ever since the Greek crisis began) Because, you know, nothing says “confidence” quite like selling your gold so you can then park that money in a bank that may not let you withdraw it again.
Of course, we here at Peak Prosperity hold to the view that everything, and we mean everything, in our ””markets”” is stage-managed. And that especially includes gold. The central banks are demanding and commanding complete fealty to their story line, no exceptions tolerated. We are at that all-or-nothing moment in history when everything either works out perfectly or it all falls apart.
Savers have to be punished so debtors can be saved.
Why? Because if debtors are rescued, that makes it possible for more debts to be issued in the future..
And why is that important? Because the banking system needs ever more loans in order to survive.
Why do we slavishly feed a banking system that is rapacious, insatiable and always threatening calamity whenever it doesn’t get exactly everything it wants, when it wants it? That is a question nobody in power is willing to address.
Why not? Because there’s no good reason to do it — unless you’re a bank, or one of the many proxy agents (like politicians) receiving kick-backs from the banks.
We have a banking system that feeds on the blood, sweat and tears of the public. But the public’s collective output is no longer ‘enough’ to subsidize everything that central planners have promised. So with a stagnating/shrinking pie – surprise! – the group that writes the rules, the banks, has decided that they should be the ones to get as much of it as possible.
Naturally, this will not work for very long. History is replete with examples why it can’t. Just consider the root meaning of “bankrupt” which has an interesting history:
The word actually comes from Italianbanca rotta, a broken bench (not a rotten one, as the false friend of Italianrottamight suggest — it’s from Latinrumpere, to break). The bench was a literal one, however: it was the usual Italian word for a money dealer’s table. In his dictionary, the great Dr Johnson retold the legend that when an Italian money trader became insolvent, his table was broken.()To “break the banker’s table” means to smash the money lender’s physical place of business after they have taken or lost all of your wealth. It’s speaks of an act of anger by the betrayed. And that’s where the banking system finds itself again and again over time, for the exact same reasons all through history — today being no different in anything but scale and complexity.
ConclusionYou have to read past the headlines today because they quite often say exactly the opposite of what’s actually happening. Like today’s description spinning GE’s 2Q, $1.38 billion earnings loss as a 5% rise in profits.
The bankers and financiers are badly overplaying their hands, again, and people are starting to catch on to the scam.
Real wealth is tangible things produced with tangible effort. Loans made out of thin-air ‘money’ require no effort and are entirely ephemeral. But if those loans are used to acquire real ownership of real assets, then something has been exchanged for nothing and one party is getting screwed.
That’s what has just happened in Greece. And expect it to happen increasingly elsewhere, as Charles Hughes Smith and I recently discussed in this week’s excellent Off The Cuff podcast.
If you had asked me ten years ago if there was any chance of Greece becoming a failed state within a decade, I would have said ‘No, no chance.’ But here we are. In ten years, I suspect, we’ll be marveling over all the other failed states as the rot proceeds from the outside in. Again, Charles does a wonderful job articulating why in his recent report More Sovereign Defaults Are Coming.
There’s simply too much debt and too little cheap oil for there to be any other trajectory to this story. Boneheadedly, our leadership is so out-of-touch that their best response to this set of predicaments is to sacrifice the populace of an entire developed nation (for generations to come) just to keep the status quo stumbling along for a bit longer.
We need to all prepare for the inevitability that, as the rot proceeds, the people of Greece will not be the only casualties of the banks’ attempts at self-preservation. They’ll try to throw all of us under the bus before taking any losses themselves.
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13 holes in government & media account of 2005 London Bombings
Tony Gosling
RINF Alternative News===
1. Train the alleged bombers are supposed to have caught from Luton was cancelled that day
2. Benjamin Netanyahu who was in London that day and Israeli embassy had a warning before the ‘surprise attack’ bombings according to AP journalist Amy Tiebel and Israeli embassy spokesperson Dan Sheham
3. After speaking to scores of survivors that day Guardian’s Mark Honigsbaum describes bombs were ‘under the carriage of a train’
4. French anti-terrorism expert Christophe Chaboud said tube train bombs were so powerful they were almost certainly C4 military explosives not home made TATP
5. Peter Power ‘terror drills’ at same three tube stations on same day, which he himself describes a ‘spooky coincidence’? Only about one in eight billion chance Peter Power is telling the truth.
6. Peter power’s drills were commissioned by Reed Elsevier, event organisers of Britain’s biggest annual arms fair, Exel in docklands.
7. Chemical and Biological attack police drills going on before the attacks that morning.
8. Despite hundreds of CCTV cameras, no CCTV images of any of four alleged bombers getting on to or on any of four tube trains or bus
9. Daniel Obachike says he was on the no. 30 bus believes he identified the bomber who was a white male, and that alleged bomber Hasib Hussain was not on his bus.
10. No trial because bombers are dead but Lady justice Hallett’s 2010 inquest into the 7/7 attacks was designed for a single death and held without a jury.
11. Victims’ families stonewalled: questions were not answered by the inquests, families were not allowed to have legal representation at the inquests.
12. Potential mastermind, Islamist organiser Al-Muhajiroun’s Haroon Aswat who spoke to the bombers in the days running up to the attacks is believed to have been working for MI6 and was never interviewed about 7/7, instead shipped out of UK legal jurisdiction.
Ten Years Ago: London 7/7 Bombing Terror Suspect Linked to British Intelligence
http://www.globalresearch.ca/london-7-7-terror-suspect-linked-to-british-intelligence/782
13. Alleged bombers Mohamed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were given terrorism training via Iqra bookshop in Beeston, Leeds by former Royal Navy Special Boat Service (SBS) soldier Martin McDaid
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Anniversary of London 7/7 terrorist bombings: clip of London Underground control room staff discussing possible explosion on London underground; clip Mark Honigsbaum – Guardian journalist on the scene of 7/7 Edgware Road – bombs under train; powerful military grade explosives; Peter Power terror drill – clip of him discussing spooky coincidence of 3 stations being the same; terror drills and false flags; clip of civil servant who’s worked for MoD and NHS Paul Oweson discussing chemical, biological exercises he saw on the day; no CCTV pictures of any alleged bombers on or getting on bombed tubes or buses on 7/7; clip of Daniel Obachike who says was on number 30 bus that was bombed; clip from ‘Ludicrous Diversion’ – independent inquiry needed; clip of families at press conference saying their questions haven’t been answered; clip of Graham Foulkes lost his 22 year old son David in the 7/7 attacks – terrorists not clean skins. Fran Anderson special 7/7 report on bookshop where two alleged bombers were trustees: Mohamed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two alleged bombers, were trustees of Iqra Learning Centre and bookshop in Bude Road, Beeston, Leeds. It was run by day-to-day by Martin McDaid, an (ex?) Special Boat Service (SBS) RN Special Forces ‘Muslim convert’. He also ran a terrorist training camp in the Lake District in which Khan is known to have attended; BBC Newsnight reported that youth worker at Iqra, Mark Hargreaves, says McDaid had a hidden agenda in grooming young Muslim men in terrorist skills and the bookshop received six-figure sums in government and EU grants.
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J7: 7/7 Inquests Blog
7/7 Inquests: Examining and documenting the proceedings of the Coroner’s Inquest into the London Bombings of 7 July 2005, including analysis of the hearing transcripts and the evidence presented.==============================================================
Audio Player
http://77inquests.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/mcdaid-who.html -
site jfkfacts
JFK review board was thwarted on Marines’ assessment of Oswald
April 3, 2014 jeffmorley
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One of the most effective open government laws ever passed by the U.S. Congress was the JFK Records Act, passed 22 years ago in October 1992.
The implementation of the law, mandating the review and release of all records related to the assassination of President John Kennedy in 1963, was overseen by the Assassination Records Review Board, a forgotten federal agency that did a remarkable job uncovering what former New York Times reporter Phil Shenon has called “the hidden history of the Kennedy assassination.”
But the ARRB was stymied on one key group of records.
Oswald, the ex-Marine
One area of the JFK assassination story where ARRB was unable to shed much new light was the U.S. Marine Corps records on Oswald, who served in the Marines from age 17 to 20 before defecting to the Soviet Union in 1959.
It seems almost certain that such records exist (or existed once). Yet they have proven hard to find.
The ARRB’s FInal Report described the issue.
“The question of whether the Marine Corps conducted a post-assassination investigation and produced a written report on former Marine Private Lee Harvey Oswald, circa late 1963 and early 1964, has never been resolved to the satisfaction of the public. Similarly, many have wondered whether the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) conducted a post-defection ‘net damage assessment’ investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald circa 1959 or 1960. Various former Oswald associates and military investigators have recalled separate investigations….”
The ARRB asked about Oswald’s Marines Corps records.
“The Review Board asked the Marine Corps to search for any records relating to post-assassination investigations that the U.S. Marine Corps might have completed, as some researchers believe. The U.S. Marine Corps searched files at both U.S. Marine Corps HQ in Quantico, and at the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, but the Marine Corps did not locate evidence of any internal investigations of Lee Harvey Oswald, other than correspondence already published in the Warren Report.”
Fred Reeve’s story
The ARRB considered the possibility of an ONI post-defection investigation.
“The Review Board became aware of an individual named Fred Reeves of California, who was reputed to have been in charge of a post-defection ‘net damage assessment’ of Oswald by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) shortly after Oswald’s defection to the U.S.S.R. The Review Board contacted Reeves, interviewed him twice by telephone, then flew him to Washington, D.C., where the Review Board staff interviewed him in person.”
Reeves was seemingly a credible witness. In 1959, he was a civilian Naval Intelligence Operations Specialist. He served in the District Intelligence Office of the San Diego, California, 11th Naval District.
“Reeves told the Review Board that a week or so after Oswald defected to the U.S.S.R., two officers from ONI in Washington, D.C. (one of the officers who called Mr. Reeves was Rufus Taylor, who was Director of Naval Intelligence in 1964) called him and asked him to conduct a background investigation at the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, California, Oswald’s last duty station before his discharge from the Marine Corps.
“Reeves said that he went to El Toro, copied Oswald’s enlisted personnel file, obtained the names of many of his associates, and mailed this information to ONI in Washington, D.C.”
“He said that ONI in Washington ran the post-defection investigation of Oswald, and that the Washington officers then directed various agents in the field. Although Reeves did not interview anyone himself, he said that later (circa late 1959 or early 1960), approximately 12 to 15 ‘119’ reports concerning Oswald (OPNAV Forms 5520119 are ONI’s equivalent of an FBI FD302 investigative report), crossed his desk.
“Reeves said he was aware of ‘119’ reports from Japan and Texas, and that the primary concern of the reports he read on Oswald was to ascertain what damage had been done to national security by Oswald’s defection. Reeves reported that he also saw eight to ten ‘119’ reports on Oswald after the assassination, and that he was confident he was not confusing the two events in his mind.”
NCIS responds
From the ARRB report:
“In the spring of 1998, Review Board staff members met with two Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) records management officials, one of whom personally verified that he had searched for District Intelligence Office records (with negative results) from the San Diego, Dallas, and New Orleans District Intelligence Offices in 1996 with negative results. This search included ‘119’ reports from the time period 1959-1964, during an extensive search of NCIS record group 181. The search included any records that would have been related to Oswald’s defection. Thus, the Review Board ultimately located no documentary evidence to substantiate Reeves’ claims.”
What is to be done?
Reeves story is credible and logical and corroborated by other witnesses and evidence. Of course, the Marines would do a damage assessment when one of its members defected to a foreign power. It is simply not possible that the Marines did not do an assessment of the damage done by his defction.. In short, the available evidence points to the existence of U.S. Marines Corps files on Oswald that have never been seen.
If these records still exist, the JFK Records Act mandates that they be made publicly immediately.
Unfortunately, since the ARRB went out of existence in 1998, there is no mechanism to enforce the JFK Records Act. We have seen that the National Archives is unable or unwilling to publicly challenge the CIA’s extreme secrecy practices around JFK records.
The only alternative would seem to be litigation.
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To be continued
Gee!
Golly!
Gosh!
Of course, the Marines would do a damage assessment when one of its members defected to a foreign power. It is simply not possible that the Marines did not do an assessment of the damage done by his defction.. In short, the available evidence points to the existence of U.S. Marines Corps files on Oswald that have never been seen.
If these records still exist, the JFK Records Act mandates that they be made publicly immediately.
Unfortunately, since the ARRB went out of existence in 1998, there is no mechanism to enforce the JFK Records Act. We have seen that the National Archives is unable or unwilling to publicly challenge the CIA’s extreme secrecy practices around JFK records.
The only alternative would seem to be litigation.
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To be continued
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GOSH GOLLY GEE , gaal
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Russia Says No to GMO Seeds, Aims for Food Supply That's 'Cleanest in the World'
Russians are content to let the westerners be the guinea pigs on this one
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July 15 (NaturalNews) - The future of agriculture in Russia won’t involve genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), says the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. In order to preserve the quality and integrity of its food supply, Russia plans to stick with growing methods that protect the soil and boost yields naturally, a move that Dvorkovich says will make his country’s food among the “cleanest in the world.”
Russia does not import GMOs like most of Europe currently does, nor does it grow them. Unlike the U.S., Russia has deep concerns about the safety of GMOs and has chosen to implement an extended moratorium on their use as it looks to other, safer technologies that don’t come with the risk of birth defects, endocrine disruption and cancer.
At the recent International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Dvorkovich told listeners that Russia has “chosen a different path,” and that the country “will not use these [GM] technologies” to boost agricultural production. The announcement coincides with statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin back in 2014 about the need to “protect” Russian citizens against GMOs.
“We need to properly construct our work so that it is not contrary to our obligations under the WTO [World Trade Organization],” Putin stated.“But even with this in mind, we nevertheless have legitimate methods and instruments to protect our own market, and above all citizens.”Russian official: GMOs cause obesity and cancer and won’t be tolerated
This is the type of thing Americans should be demanding from their own elected leaders – an emphasis on protecting people rather than corporate profits – but, alas, the United States looks at GMOs much differently. Regardless of all the safety risks involved, America’s political puppets believe that GMOs should continue to dominate the national food market without even being labeled.
Meanwhile, Russia is leading the way in ridding its land of toxic poisons, stressing the need for agricultural policies that take a precautionary approach to controversial modalities like biotechnology that involve artificial gene splicing and toxic pesticides. The Vice President of Russia’s National Association for Genetic Safety, Irina Ermakova, had this to say recently about the issue:
“It has been proven that not only in Russia, but also in many other countries in the world, GMOs are dangerous.Consumption and use of GMOs obtained in such way can lead to tumors, cancers and obesity among animals.”Prime Minister: If Americans want GMOs, fine, but Russians prefer organic
Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev also made global headlines last year when he announced that Russia would no longer import any GMO products, boldly proclaiming that Russia has more than enough land and resources to produce organic food safely and cleanly without the need for corporate-owned, bio-pirated GMOs seeds and their corresponding growth chemicals.
He stated, as quoted by RT.com, “If the Americans like to eatproducts, let them eat it then. We don’t need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food.”With all this in mind, the American media’s “Russia is evil” ruse becomes increasingly less convincing.
Americans would be hard-pressed to ever have a politician stand up against GMOs like Russia’s leaders have, and yet they’re the “bad guys” and we’re the “good guys”?
Perhaps it’s time for more Americans to reevaluate who’s really calling the shots in the “land of the free” and what their motivation might be to vilify a country that has chosen to reject bio-piracy and uphold true, free-market agriculture in the interest of public health and national sovereignty.
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As a well-paid disinfo agent, I fully endorse both your work on the ONI issues and your new avatar. // Parker
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serving up the nutritious truth ,gaal
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It also included the Taylor memo to McDonald about Patterson, which establishes the fact that Admiral Taylor, the director of ONI, took a keen interest in the ONI affairs in Dallas immediately after the assassination, and suspected an association between Oswald and Ruby.
http://archive.polit...ords-revisited/ MAYBE BECAUSE THE TSBD was a ONI gun running operation done at the behest of the State Department, as I have previously posted, gaal
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see post # 1063 above
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In 1930, Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service. It became the Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) with the formation of the oil company Coronado Corp in 1939. During the Second World War, the GSI expanded and started producing electronics for the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. In 1951, the company was once again reorganized and named General Instruments. Later on, in the same year the name was changed to Texas Instruments and GSI became a subsidiary of the new company. In the 1950s, under a secret government contract, the TI-GSI monitored the Soviet Union’s underground nuclear weapons testing from Oklahoma. Texas Instruments entered the defense electronics market manufacturing equipment for the seismic industry using technology previously developed for the oil industry. (Navy-Texas Instrument connection)
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Defense business begins work on submarine-detection equipment (Navy-Texas Instrument connection)
http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/history/timeline/defense/1940/docs/42-defense_business.htm
There exists a Texas Instruments Ruby connection see
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19854&p=264910
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ITS A CIA/SHOOTING TEAM USING THE ONI/TSBD PLATFORM. The shooting out of the TSBD is a classic example of covert operation compartmentalization.
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The ONI files actually existed, but were admittedly destroyed. (incorrect, never admitted they existed,gaal)
[2] Steel, Robert D. Oral History interview transcript w/Steel. (Attached)
Steel recently reaffirmed the contents of the letter – that he personally knew both Arthur C. Sullivan, who he identified as the head of the Dallas ONI office, as well as Dallas detective Paul Bentley, and that his agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), did indeed have “quite a file on Oswald.”
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Oswald’s ONI File
The Warren Report mentioned that “….the Commission has reviewed the complete files on Oswald, as they existed at the time of the assassination, of the Department of State, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the FBI and the CIA.”
Using that reference, Paul Hoch requested and acquired a 300 page ONI file in 1967, which he says is definitely not one of the USMC files the The Warren Commission published (two USMC files, personnel and medical, as the Folsom and Donabedian Exhibits.), but that it did include a reference to Oswald’s Soviet Embassy visit in Mexico and: “Information presently available to the Office of Naval Intelligence does not indicate what significance, if any, this contact may have represented, and no other information on OSWALD was received until 22 November 1963.”
It also included the Taylor memo to McDonald about Patterson, which establishes the fact that Admiral Taylor, the director of ONI, took a keen interest in the ONI affairs in Dallas immediately after the assassination, and suspected an association between Oswald and Ruby.
http://archive.politicalassassinations.net/2013/02/oswalds-oni-records-revisited/
The ONI files actually existed, but were admittedly destroyed. (incorrect, never admitted they existed,gaal) The official position of ONI is that the 8 feet of files reported by a ONI whistleblower that researcher Bill Kelly wrote an article on ,never existed.,gaal
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As to ONI-DMV man Robert D. Steel , he is just reporting a office story myth that grew and took a life on its own...right ??? , gaal
Naval Intelligence (ONI), did indeed have “quite a file on Oswald.// Golly Mr. Parker = >> HOW YOU SAY IT + PRODUCE THE FILE, CANT ? then it never existed. ,gaal
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It also included the Taylor memo to McDonald about Patterson, which establishes the fact that Admiral Taylor, the director of ONI, took a keen interest in the ONI affairs in Dallas immediately after the assassination, and suspected an association between Oswald and Ruby.
http://archive.politicalassassinations.net/2013/02/oswalds-oni-records-revisited/ MAYBE BECAUSE THE TSBD was a ONI gun running operation done at the behest of the State Department, as I have previously posted, gaal
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HANG THE BANKERS SITE
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Welfare cheat Prince Philip once again shows disdain for humanityDuring a visit to a Dagenham, east London community center the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch asked a group of women “who do you sponge off?”
An aide feebly attempted to backtrack, saying there was “context” to the remark. He said the insult was in regard to sponge cake
The royals are usually circumspect and do not openly display their contempt for the commoners, but Philip, now 94, as of late has let it all hang out.
Less than a week ago he told a lowly photographer “just take the f—— picture” during a photo session for the Battle of Britain anniversary.
The royals have shown their true colors numerous times.
Philip may want to look into his own sponging before berating the commoners.
The Windsors grab $300 million a year (£180 million) out of the British public coffer.
Queen Elizabeth II is the owner of around 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface, making her the largest landowner on the planet. The value of this mammoth estate is estimated to be approximately £17,600,000,000,000 or $33,000,000,000,000.
She is said to be personally worth half a billion dollars. The wealth comes from “property holdings including Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands, stud farms, a fruit farm and marine land throughout the U.K.; extensive art and fine jewelry; and one of the world’s largest stamp collections built by her grandfather,” notes Forbes.
Not included are those assets belonging to the Crown Estate, which she gets to enjoy as Queen, such as $10 billion worth of real estate, Buckingham Palace (estimated to be worth another $5 billion), the Royal Art collection, and unmarked swans on stretches of the Thames. The Crown has claimed ownership of these birds since the 12th century when swan meat was considered a delicacy; they are no longer eaten. The Queen also receives an annual government stipend of $12.9 million.
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related
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Japanese Government Pushes Militarist Legislation Amid Mass Protests
The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe passed sweeping laws through the Japanese lower house yesterday, allowing for the foreign deployment of Japanese troops under provisions for “collective defense” with its military allies, above all the United States.
The passage of the laws marks an escalation in the Abe government’s campaign, initiated when it came to office in December 2013, to revive Japanese militarism by “reinterpreting” the country’s nominally pacifist post-World War II constitution. It complements the agreement signed between Abe and US President Barack Obama in April, providing for Japan to participate in US military actions beyond its own shores.
The bills, which have been the subject of parliamentary debate for several months, were put to the security committee of the lower house on Wednesday. Opposition MP’s sought to block the vote, holding up placards against Abe’s legislation, and seeking to obstruct voting procedures. When the laws passed the committee, they boycotted the lower house vote on Thursday.
According to opinion polls, public opposition to the laws is as high as 80 percent, On Wednesday as many as 100,000 protesters gathered outside the Diet in Tokyo, while several thousand demonstrated again on Thursday, carrying placards such as “Scrap War Bills” and “Stop Abe’s Recklessness.”
The bills will now be put to the upper house, where Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partners hold an effective majority, and are expected to pass. The lower house can overrule any objections.
The laws may yet face legal challenges. On June 4, three constitutional scholars testified to a Diet sub-committee that the laws were unconstitutional. According to the New York Times, surveys have indicated that over 90 percent of Japanese experts view the laws as a violation of the so-called pacifist clauses of the charter.
The mass opposition to the legislation threatens to provoke a crisis for the Abe government, with numbers of commentaries drawing parallels with Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who was forced to resign as premier in June 1960, in the face of mass hostility to a US-Japan security pact he had signed.
The official opposition parties are above all concerned about the domestic and international implications of openly pursuing the same imperialist policies that led to the catastrophes of the Second World War.
Katsuya Okada, head of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the main opposition party, summed up the fear of mass anti-war sentiment. He stated, before boycotting Thursday’s vote, “It is a huge mistake to set aside a constitutional interpretation built up by governments for 70 years without sufficient public understanding and debate.”
Abe’s policies reflect the determination of the Japanese ruling elite to more aggressively assert their interests in the Asia-Pacific. They have been brought forward under the auspices of the US “pivot to Asia” and a military build-up against China in the region. As part of the “pivot,” Washington has encouraged the revival of Japanese militarism.
The entire Japanese political establishment is implicated in supporting this program, including the opposition parties. The previous DPJ government deliberately ratcheted up tensions with China in 2012 by “nationalising” the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
Abe all but acknowledged that his government’s legislation was primarily directed against China, telling reporters after Thursday’s vote, “The security situation around Japan is getting tougher…. These bills are vital to protect the Japanese people’s lives and prevent war.”
Since Abe’s trip to Washington in April, during which the new military agreement between the two nations was signed, Japan’s integration into the provocations of the US and its allies has escalated.
At the G-7 summit in June, Abe played a central role in inserting a clause into the dialogue’s communique, obliquely directed against China’s activities in the South China Sea. The previous month, the US and its regional allies, including the Philippines and Australia, had carried out provocations against China, over long-standing disputes in the sea. Both the US and Australia are reported to be considering deploying aircraft and warships into Chinese-claimed territory in the area—an action that could trigger a military conflict.
In June, Japanese spy planes, acting in collaboration with the Philippine military flew near Chinese-claimed territory in the South China Sea, in a provocation mirroring similar actions by the US since the start of the year.
Yesterday, Japanese top military commander, Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, on a visit to Washington, told reporters there had been “talk” of Japanese patrols and anti-submarine activities in the South China Sea. Echoing the talking points of the Obama administration, he sought to present China as an expansionist threat in the region.
This month, Japanese forces are also participating for the first time in the biennial Talisman Saber military exercise. Involving some 33,000 Australian and US military personnel, the war games, held in Northern Australia, are a rehearsal for a US-led war against China.
Over the past two weeks, Japan has also escalated tensions with China in the East China Sea, with Abe’s cabinet denouncing a new Chinese gas field development in the region.
According to the Associated Press, US State Department spokesman John Kirby would not comment on the Abe government’s legislation, but underscored Washington’s support for the revival of Japanese militarism. Kirby said that the US welcomes, “Japan’s ongoing efforts to strengthen the alliance and play a more active role in regional and international security activities.”
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, issued a statement on the laws yesterday, which declared, “It is fully justified to ask if Japan is going to give up its exclusively defense-oriented policy.”
Hua pointed to the 70th anniversary of the ouster of Japanese forces from China at the end of World War II:
“We solemnly urge the Japanese side to draw hard lessons from history… and refrain from jeopardising China’s sovereignty and security interests or crippling regional peace and stability.” -
From the hardlylee.nut website that my new malwarebytes software warns me about every time I go there:
The record (IBM card) on OSWALD was pulled from the files. Several other employees (5 or 6) of the Department saw the driver's license which was dirty and worn as though it had been carried in a billfold. The license was the talk of the office that day since everyone knew who OSWALD was, and the reason his driver's license records were being pulled from the active file was the fact that he had been killed.
Lee's driver's license application. I submit that this dirty and worn document is what was seen by staff at the Department of Public Safety. It was taken by investigators and claimed to have been found at N Beckley.
Above dirty and worn and his actual Drivers License was dirty and worn (I submit).
Four of the DMV employees sworn under oath ,in a POTUS murder investigation, they had seen the LHO DRIVER LICENSE.
I submit that DMV employees know the difference from a Drivers License application from a actual drivers license. ,gaal
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Boston Bombing: Tsarnaev Faces More Charges – In Case He Gets Off?
By James HenryGlobal ResearchThis article was first published by WhoWhatWhy.
Convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might face additional charges related to the Watertown shootout and the murder of MIT cop Sean Collier. That is, if Middlesex County District Attorney Marian T. Ryan has her way.
Tsarnaev, already found guilty on federal murder charges, is likely to appeal his conviction—completely routine for someone convicted of a capital crime. What is not routine, and indeed almost unheard of, is for someone facing the death penalty after being convicted of murder in a federal court to face additional charges from a local jurisdiction. Although federal death sentences are themselves rare, most experts seem to agree additional local charges are redundant and a waste of resources.
Observers are scratching their heads about Ryan’s efforts—particularly in light of the fact that Massachusetts does not have the death penalty. At worst, Tsarnaev will have an additional life sentence tacked on to his existing sentence.
Ryan cited the “severity of the crime” as justification for her decision. She also indicated that “state charges could act as an insurance policy in case Tsarnaev successfully appeals his federal conviction.”
Does the Middlesex County DA really think there’s a chance Tsarnaev might be exonerated upon appeal?
This would be an abrupt departure from law enforcement’s confidence about Tsarnaev’s guilt.
Or is this just a political maneuver by an elected official trying to latch herself on to a high profile case?
Experts Weigh in
The Boston Globe noted that the experts they consulted couldn’t think of another case where someone facing federal capital charges was tried again on additional state charges.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, DC, said that, “There is no legal impediment to doing it. The question is whether it is a waste of resources.”
In fact, most legal experts quoted by Boston-area news outlets expressed a similar sentiment, saying that state charges would be “redundant” and would only “drag out the process.”
Brad Bailey, a former prosecutor for Middlesex County, told Boston’s WBUR: “With somebody facing the ultimate penalty like that, one wonders really what the necessity is to try for an outcome that is something less than [the death penalty].” Massachusetts has no death penalty; life without parole is the maximum sentence a state court can hand down.
Another former prosecutor, Brian T. Kelly, told The Globe, “You have all the problems with the federal case. It becomes a media circus, a security nightmare, and it takes up a lot of expense and the courts time.” But he added: “It’s understandable that [local authorities] would want him to be held accountable for the murder of a police officer.”
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Considering the time and expense of another trial, it is hard to see what obtaining another life sentence might accomplish. How could Tsarnaev possibly be held more accountable than what he’s already facing? Even if his lawyers succeed in removing the federal death penalty conviction upon appeal, he’s still likely to face life in prison.
So, what else could possibly justify the expense, security risks, and additional anguish for families of the bombing victims that a new trial would surely bring? Is this simply overreach by an up-and-coming DA? If the comments sections of local Boston news websites are any indication, the public seems dead set against the idea. If that’s indeed the case, Ryan’s move would be politically ill-advised.
Or is it possible there’s a legitimate fear in law-enforcement circles that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might be exonerated, or set free because of prosecutorial missteps or misconduct in the recently completed federal trial?
One more factor must be considered. A new trial before another judge has the potential to focus attention on the many loose ends in the case against the Tsarnaevs that haveremained unresolved despite “official investigations” and their subsequent “findings.”
In particular, Cambridge, in Middlesex County, was where local police found multiple teams of federal agents “conducting surveillance” in the general vicinity of the Tsarnaev’s neighborhood, as well as on the campus of MIT where Sean Collier was killed. They did this without the knowledge of Cambridge PD which caused some friction andcreated suspicion among local police that the FBI might have been tracking the Tsarnaevs. The FBI calls those assertions “patently false.” They claim not to have known who the suspects were until after older brother Tamerlan’s death.
It will be interesting to see if the FBI or some other federal agency tries to dissuade DA Ryan in her quest to bring local charges. More than likely they won’t have to; public sentiment may do the job for them.
It’s worth repeating: The evidence clearly shows that the Tsarnaev brothers were involved in the violence that erupted in and around Boston that week. But it’s also clear there are important questions and nagging inconsistencies—including those that touch on the US government’s connections with the brothers before the bombing—that cry out for resolution. Maybe DA Ryan thinks so too?
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Bernie / Stephen,
One warning only: do not make claims that someone is a paid agent, etc. If you believe you have proof of such then contact a mod for permission to post it... but be warned - if you are going to accuse someone of such then the bar for such proof is set high.
This goes for other Forum members as well.
WHEN WERE DID I SAY THAT ANYONE WAS A PAID AGENT ?? PLEASE ELABORTE Mr. Burton. ,gaal
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David Talbot's new book The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government" is available on preorder from Amazon with a release date in mid October 2015. I suspect this book will be very revealing.
Thanks for the heads up about the book, Paul, and for the kind words in your previous post.
I just read the description of the book on Amazon and can't wait to read it.
BRIAN me too !!
Prescott Bush and Allen Dulles were very close friends since the early 1930s , GAAL
see http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=21367&p=289607
the Dulles did it thread by gaal
Proposed Military Strike on Syria
in Political Conspiracies
Posted
repeat info
Conspiracy against Syria & Iran initiated in 2007
Introduction by Brandon Martinez
Here are excerpts from a 2007 report from award winning journalist Seymour Hersh. His report, published in the New Yorker under the heading “The Redirection,” outlines in clear language that the conspiracy to topple the governments of Syria and Iran, specifically by sponsoring terrorist groups as mercenaries against them, was conceived and initiated during the Bush years, and began to take shape in earnest in 2007.