All posts by alternativefreepress

Banksters

The US stock market is highly overvalued. Here’s why…

Simon Black
sovereign man : February 23, 2017

This is really starting to get out of control.

No doubt you’re familiar with the S&P 500, the stock index that measures the performance of the largest US companies.

And as we’ve discussed before, one of the most important benchmarks in measuring whether stocks are overvalued or undervalued is the Price/Earnings, or P/E ratio.

Looking back through more than a century of financial data, the long-term average P/E ratio for the S&P 500 has been about 15.

As of yesterday afternoon, the P/E ratio for the S&P 500 stock index reached 26.5.

That’s high– more than 75% higher than the long-term average.

More importantly, since the 1870s, there have been a total of THREE periods in which the average stock P/E ratio was above 26.5.

The first time was around the Panic of 1893.
The second was around the 2000 dot-com crash.
And the third was around the 2008 financial collapse.

See the pattern? Whenever financial markets get overheated, bad things tend to happen.

It’s also important to consider that economic growth worldwide has been slowing.

Global trade growth, for example, is at its lowest level since the financial crisis.

And in the United States in particular, GDP growth was just 1.6% in 2016.

In fact the US economy has gone 11 straight years without seeing 3% GDP growth.

Slow economic growth is generally negative for corporate profits, so it’s difficult to imagine phenomenal earnings with such tepid economic growth.

As an example, HSBC is one of the largest banks in the world with operations in dozens of countries.

Two days ago the bank announced that profits had plunged 62% due to slow growth and uncertainty around the world.

That brings me to another major indicator of the stock market– something known as the “Buffett Valuation”.

The Buffett Valuation looks at the total value of the stock market relative to the country’s GDP.

Warren Buffet has called this ratio “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.”

Right now, for example, the total size of the US stock market according to Federal Reserve data is $22.6 trillion.

Meanwhile the total size of the US economy is $18.8 trillion.

This puts the Buffett valuation at around 1.2, meaning the stock market is about 20% larger than the entire US economy.

Historically speaking, this is expensive. Stock markets start getting into trouble when the ratio surpasses 1.0.

(The Buffett ratio was 1.11 before the 2008 crash…)

On top of everything else, as we discussed yesterday, many of the largest companies in the US have been artificially inflating their stock prices.

They’re taking on billions of dollars in debt to pay out phony dividends and buy back their own shares.

As an example, I just read an article in a major financial publication that General Motors is the “best” stock to buy.

Really?

General Motors made $16.5 billion from its ongoing business operations in 2016.

But they had to spend an incredible $29 billion in capital expenditures just to sustain the business.

So GM’s Free Cash Flow was negative.

It was similar in 2015.

In order to make ends meet, GM increased total debt by an incredible $40 BILLION over the last two years.

This is seriously the best deal in the market?

None of this adds up.

Look, I don’t have a crystal ball. And if there’s one thing that’s consistent about financial bubbles, it’s that they can last longer than anyone expects.

So, yes, it’s possible prices go much higher.

But is it worth the risk in light of such obvious data?

(read the full article at sovereign man)

Health/Environment, Original

2017 Toronto Mumps Outbreak : Nearly half of infected population was fully vaccinated

AlternativeFreePress.com

Toronto is experiencing a Mumps outbreak. All of the currently confirmed cases have been in adults between 18 and 35. CBC reports that “About 60 per cent” of them had not received the two recommended doses of the MMR vaccine. Lab results have confirmed that 14 people have become infected with the virus, so “about 60 per cent” is most likely 57% or 8 out of 14 people. That means that 6 of the 14 people or 43% were completely vaccinated.

The MMR vaccine is ineffective. This recent outbreak in Toronto is far from the first time that vaccinated people have fallen ill . In 2014 we wrote about outbreaks in Massachusetts, Ohio and New York which were infecting vaccinated populations.

15 out of 15 students infected with whooping cough last month at Falmouth High School in Massachusetts had been vaccinated.

At Fordham University in New York City all students are required to be vaccinated including the vaccination for mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR), but as of February 21st, 13 cases of the mumps had been reported with 100% of those infected having already been vaccinated.

In Ohio, as of March 24th there were 63 reported cases & 97% of those infected had been vaccinated.

Dr Tetyana Obukhanych is an Immunologist who earned her PhD in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York and did postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. and Stanford University in California. In an interview with Catherine Frompovich, Dr Obukhanych explains why these outbreaks are occurring among the vaccinated population:

“I think this is happening because vaccination does not engage the genuine mechanism of immunity. Vaccination typically engages the immune response—that is, everything that immunologists would theoretically “want” to see being engaged in the immune system. But apparently this is not enough to confer robust protection that matches natural immunity. Our knowledge of the immune system is far from being complete.”

Dr Obukhanych describes natural immunity as: “in a way, a tautological expression because immunity can only be acquired naturally at this point, only through the exposure to an infected individual, although occasionally such exposure would go asymptomatic while still establishing immunity. Nevertheless, because there is a common misconception that vaccines also confer immunity, it is sometimes necessary to use a qualifier “natural,” when referring to immunity, to distinguish it from vaccine-based protection.”

In the following video Dr Obukhanych explains how protective serum titers drop very quickly after the second MMR dose, meaning some vaccinated people do not receive any lasting protection from the MMR vaccine.

Here is a screenshot of the chart in the video highlighting the data which shows the MMR booster is not very effective & provides at best, leaky immunity.

Dr. Russell Blaylock, a board-certified neurosurgeon, author and lecturer who attended the LSU School of Medicine and completed his internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina explains how herd immunity is only truly obtainable through natural immunity:

“In the original description of herd immunity, the protection to the population at large occurred only if people contracted the infections naturally. The reason for this is that naturally-acquired immunity lasts for a lifetime. The vaccine proponents quickly latched onto this concept and applied it to vaccine-induced immunity. But, there was one major problem – vaccine-induced immunity lasted for only a relatively short period, from 2 to 10 years at most, and then this applies only to humoral immunity. This is why they began, silently, to suggest boosters for most vaccines, even the common childhood infections such as chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella.

Then they discovered an even greater problem, the boosters were lasting for only 2 years or less. This is why we are now seeing mandates that youth entering colleges have multiple vaccines, even those which they insisted gave lifelong immunity, such as the MMR. The same is being suggested for full-grown adults. Ironically, no one in the media or medical field is asking what is going on. They just accept that it must be done.”

Geopolitics/War, Privacy, Tyranny

Flynn’s Gone But They’re Still Gunning For You, Donald

by David Stockman
Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity : February 17, 2017

General Flynn’s tenure in the White House was only slightly longer than that of President-elect William Henry Harrison in 1841.  Actually, with just 24 days in the White House, General Flynn’s tenure fell a tad short of old “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”.  General Harrison actually lasted 31 days before getting felled by pneumonia.

And the circumstances were considerably more benign. It seems that General Harrison had a fondness for the same “firewater” that agitated the native Americans he slaughtered at the famous battle memorialized in his campaign slogan. In fact, during the campaign a leading Democrat newspaper skewered the old general, who at 68 was the oldest US President prior to Ronald Reagan, saying:

Give him a barrel of hard [alcoholic] cider, and… a pension of two thousand [dollars] a year… and… he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.

That might have been a good idea back then (or even now), but to prove he wasn’t infirm, Harrison gave the longest inaugural address in US history (2 hours) in the midst of seriously inclement weather wearing neither hat nor coat.

That’s how he got pneumonia! Call it foolhardy, but that was nothing compared to that exhibited by Donald Trump’s former national security advisor.

General Flynn got the equivalent of political pneumonia by talking for hours during the transition to international leaders, including Russia’s ambassador to the US, on phone lines which were bugged by the CIA. Or more accurately, making calls which were “intercepted” by the very same NSA/FBI spy machinery that monitors every single phone call made in America.

Ironically, we learned what Flynn should have known about the Deep State’s plenary surveillance from Edward Snowden. Alas, Flynn and Trump wanted the latter to be hung in the public square as a “traitor”, but if that’s the solution to intelligence community leaks, the Donald is now going to need his own rope factory to deal with the flood of traitorous disclosures directed against him.

In any event, it was “intercepts” leaked from deep in the bowels of the CIA to the Washington Post and then amplified in a 24/7 campaign by the War Channel (CNN) that brought General Flynn down.

But here’s the thing. They were aiming at Donald J. Trump. And for all of his puffed up bluster about being the savviest negotiator on the planet, the Donald walked right into their trap, as we shall amplify momentarily.

But let’s first make the essence of the matter absolutely clear. The whole Flynn imbroglio is not about a violation of the Logan Act owing to the fact that the general engaged in diplomacy as a private citizen.

It’s about re-litigating the 2016 election based on the hideous lie that Trump stole it with the help of Vladimir Putin. In fact, Nancy Pelosi was quick to say just that:

‘The American people deserve to know the full extent of Russia’s financial, personal and political grip on President Trump and what that means for our national security,’ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a press release.

Yet, we should rephrase. The re-litigation aspect reaches back to the Republican primaries, too. The Senate GOP clowns who want a war with practically everybody, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are already launching their own investigation from the Senate Armed Services committee.

And Senator Graham, the member of the boobsey twins who ran for President in 2016 while getting a GOP primary vote from virtually nobody,  made clear that General Flynn’s real sin was a potential peace overture to the Russians:

Sen. Lindsey Graham also said he wants an investigation into Flynn’s conversations with a Russian ambassador about sanctions: “I think Congress needs to be informed of what actually Gen. Flynn said to the Russian ambassador about lifting sanctions,” the South Carolina Republican told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “At This Hour. And I want to know, did Gen. Flynn do this by himself or was he directed by somebody to do it?”

We say good riddance to Flynn, of course, because he was a shrill anti-Iranian warmonger. But let’s also not be fooled by the clinical term at the heart of the story. That is, “intercepts” mean that the Deep State taps the phone calls of the President’s own closest advisors as a matter of course.

This is the real scandal as Trump himself has rightly asserted. The very idea that the already announced #1 national security advisor to a President-elect should be subject to old-fashion “bugging,” albeit with modern day technology, overwhelmingly trumps the utterly specious Logan Act charge at the center of the case.

As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ voyeuristic pre-occupation with Flynn’s intercepted conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with envy:

Now, information leaks that Sally Yates knew about surveillance being conducted against potential members of the Trump administration, and disclosed that information to others. Even Richard Nixon didn’t use the government agencies themselves to do his black bag surveillance operations. Sally Yates involvement with this surveillance on American political opponents, and possibly the leaking related thereto, smacks of a return to Hoover-style tactics. As writers at Bloomberg and The Week both noted, it wreaks of ‘police-state’ style tactics. But knowing dear Sally as I do, it comes as no surprise.

Yes, that’s the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind to continue the 2016 election by other means. And it’s working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only be described as an audacious and self-evident attack on Trump’s Presidency by the Deep State.

Indeed, it seems that the layers of intrigue have gotten so deep and convoluted that the nominal leadership of the permanent  government machinery has lost track of who is spying on whom. Thus, we have the following curious utterance by none other than the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes:

‘I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,’ he told The Washington Post. ‘The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.’

Well, yes. That makes 324 million of us, Congressman.

But for crying out loud, surely the oh so self-important chairman of the House intelligence committee knows that everybody is bugged. But when it reaches the point that the spy state is essentially using its unconstitutional tools to engage in what amounts to “opposition research” with the aim of election nullification, then the Imperial City has become a clear and present danger to American democracy and the liberties of the American people.

As Robert Barnes of LawNewz further explained, Sally Yates, former CIA director John Brennan and a large slice of the Never Trumper intelligence community were systematically engaged in “opposition research” during the campaign and the transition:

According to published reports, someone was eavesdropping, and recording, the conversations of Michael Flynn, while Sally Yates was at the Department of Justice. Sally Yates knew about this eavesdropping, listened in herself (Pellicano-style for those who remember the infamous LA cases), and reported what she heard to others. For Yates to have such access means she herself must have been involved in authorizing its disclosure to political appointees, since she herself is such a political appointee. What justification was there for an Obama appointee to be spying on the conversations of a future Trump appointee?

Consider this little tidbit in The Washington Post. The paper, which once broke Watergate, is now propagating the benefits of Watergate-style surveillance in ways that do make Watergate look like a third-rate effort.  (With the) FBI ‘routinely’ monitoring conversations of Americans…… Yates listened to ‘the intercepted call,’ even though Yates knew there was ‘little chance’ of any credible case being made for prosecution under a law ‘that has never been used in a prosecution.’

And well it hasn’t been. After all, the Logan Act was signed by President John Adams in 1799 in order to punish one of Thomas Jefferson’s supporters for having peace discussions with the French government in Paris. That is, it amounted to pre-litigating the Presidential campaign of 1800 based on sheer political motivation.

According to the Washington Post itself, that is exactly what Yates and the Obama holdovers did day and night during the interregnum:

Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale secret investigation of her political opponents, including ‘intercepting calls’ of her political adversaries.

So all of the feigned outrage emanating from Democrats and the Washington establishment about Team Trump’s trafficking with the Russians is a cover story. Surely anyone even vaguely familiar with recent history would have known there was absolutely nothing illegal or even untoward about Flynn’s post-Christmas conversations with the Russian Ambassador.

Indeed, we recall from personal experience the thrilling moment on inauguration day in January 1981 when word came of the release of the American hostages in Tehran. Let us assure you, that did not happen by immaculate diplomatic conception — nor was it a parting gift to the Gipper by the outgoing Carter Administration.

To the contrary, it was the fruit of secret negotiations with the Iranian government during the transition by private American citizens. As the history books would have it because it’s true, the leader of that negotiation, in fact, was Ronald Reagan’s national security council director-designate, Dick Allen.

As the real Washington Post later reported, under the by-line of a real reporter, Bob Woodward:

Reagan campaign aides met in a Washington DC hotel in early October, 1980, with a self-described ‘Iranian exile’ who offered, on behalf of the Iranian government, to release the hostages to Reagan, not Carter, in order to ensure Carter’s defeat in the November 4, 1980 election.

The American participants were Richard Allen, subsequently Reagan’s first national security adviser, Allen aide Laurence Silberman, and Robert McFarlane, another future national security adviser who in 1980 was on the staff of Senator John Tower (R-TX).

To this day we have not had occasion to visit our old friend Dick Allen in the US penitentiary because he’s not there; the Logan Act was never invoked in what is surely the most blatant case ever of citizen diplomacy.

So let’s get to the heart of the matter and be done with it. The Obama White House conducted a sour grapes campaign to delegitimize the election beginning November 9th and it was led by then CIA Director John Brennan.

That treacherous assault on the core constitutional matter of the election process culminated in the ridiculous Russian meddling report of the Obama White House in December. The latter, of course, was issued by serial liar James Clapper, as national intelligence director, and the clueless Democrat lawyer and bag-man, Jeh Johnson, who had been appointed head of the Homeland Security Department.

Yet on the basis of  the report’s absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and “assessments”, the Obama White House imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a handful of Putin’s cronies.

Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would be soon reversed!

But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly about the fact that the very day following Flynn’s call — Vladimir Putin announced that he would not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter, the Donald tweeted that Putin had shown admirable wisdom.

That’s right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas Truce of 2016. But like its namesake of 1914 on the bloody no man’s land of the western front, the War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive.

The Donald has been warned.

Source: The Ron Paul Institute

Health/Environment

“Unimaginable” radiation levels at Fukushima cause second robot to be abandoned

Second robot abandoned due to ‘extreme radiation’ in Fukushima nuclear plant

James Gorman
9news: February 20, 2017

Another robot sent to investigate the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has been abandoned after succumbing to extreme radiation levels.

The “Scorpion” robot, designed by the Tokyo Electric Power company (TEPCO), experienced catastrophic failure as it approached the core of reactor number two due to “unimaginable” radiation levels.

It is the second robot TEPCO has been forced to abandon inside the crippled plant, which suffered a catastrophic meltdown during an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 2011, phys.org reports.

The advanced robot had been carrying two small cameras and other sensor equipment in an attempt to locate melted fuel cells inside the plant.

As it suffered the failure, it was moved to a position so as not to hinder future expeditions. It was then shut down and abandoned.

Earlier this month, TEPCO revealed the radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor two had reached more than of 530 sieverts per hour.

The “unimaginable” radiation levels were assessed by the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS).

According to the NIRS, just 4 sieverts of radiation exposure would be enough to kill a handful of people.

Earlier this month, TEPCO sent in its first exploratory robot to clear debris out of the way for future missions. The robot’s cameras shut down when it exceeded its maximum tolerance of 1000 sieverts.

TEPCO has insisted it will continue to push forwards with missions to examine the crippled reactors one at a time, as pressure mounts from the public and government officials to officially decommission the plant – an endeavour the company is still unsure how to accomplish.

(Read the full article at 9news)

Geopolitics/War, Health/Environment

The Cancer Of War: U.S. Admits To Using Radioactive Munitions In Syria

Daniel Mcadams
February 17, 2017 : The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity

Despite vowing not to use depleted uranium (DU) weapons in its military action in Syria, the US government has now admitted that it has fired thousands of the deadly rounds into Syrian territory. As Foreign Policy Magazine reports:

US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Maj. Josh Jacques told Airwars and Foreign Policy that 5,265 armor-piercing 30 mm rounds containing depleted uranium (DU) were shot from Air Force A-10 fixed-wing aircraft on Nov. 16 and Nov. 22, 2015, destroying about 350 vehicles in the country’s eastern desert.

Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman John Moore said in 2015 that:

US and coalition aircraft have not been and will not be using depleted uranium munitions in Iraq or Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve.

Now we know that is not true. 

Numerous studies have found that depleted uranium is particularly harmful when the dust is inhaled by the victim. A University of Southern Maine study discovered that:

…DU damages DNA in human lung cells. The team, led by John Pierce Wise, exposed cultures of the cells to uranium compounds at different concentrations.

 

The compounds caused breaks in the chromosomes within cells and stopped them from growing and dividing healthily. ‘These data suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant [DNA damage] risk and could possibly result in lung cancer,’ the team wrote in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

We should remember that the United States is engaged in military activities in Syria in violation of international and US law. There is no Congressional authorization for US military action against ISIS in Syria and the United Nations has not authorized military force in violation of Syria’s sovereignty either.

The innocent citizens of Syria will be forced to endure increased risks of cancer, birth defects, and other disease related to exposure to radioactive materials. Depleted uranium is the byproduct of the enrichment of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants and has a half-life in the hundreds of millions of years. Damage to Syrian territory will thus continue long after anyone involved in current hostilities is dead.

Source: Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity

Privacy

BC Liberals Posted Unprotected Voter Information Online; Caught Lying In Cover-up

The Canadian Press : February 10, 2017

An Independent member of British Columbia’s legislature has stepped forward to shed light on Premier Christy Clark’s allegations that the New Democrat Opposition hacked the B.C. Liberal party’s website.

Vicki Huntington, the member for the riding of Delta-South, says her staff found unprotected, personal information about voters posted on the B.C. Liberal party website.

Huntington says she shared the information with a reporter and was shocked when the Liberal party blocked access to the formerly unprotected section of its website and Clark claimed someone with malicious intent, working from within legislature, had hacked the site.

Huntington says she burst out laughing when Clark said the alleged hacking was an attempt to thwart the democratic process.

(read the full article at thechronicleherald.ca)

Geopolitics/War

9/11 Mastermind’s Letter to Obama: Here’s Why We Attacked America

Carey Wedler
Anti-Media :February 8, 2017

When Barack Obama was still in office, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the perpetrators of the 9/11 terror attacks, penned a letter to him. Though a judge recently ruled that letter could be sent to the White House before the outgoing president left office, the contents were to be withheld from the public until a month later — until after President Trump had assumed power.

This week, the Miami Herald obtained and published the contents of the 18-page letter, originally written in 2015 and titled “LETTER FROM THE CAPTIVE MUJAHID KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMAD TO THE HEAD OF THE SNAKE, BARACK OBAMA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE COUNTRY OF OPPRESSION AND TYRANNY.” It contains the Kuwait-born Pakistani terrorist’s insights into why 9/11 occurred, as well as surprisingly accurate assessments of American politics.

One of the main reasons for 9/11, according to Mohammed, is one terrorists have referenced before: American foreign policy. His explanation is rooted both in history and in current affairs.

“The American people were misled by the Johnson administration and the Pentagon into waging a war in Vietnam that cost 58,000 U.S. lives and millions of Vietnamese lives and ultimately led to a humiliating defeat,” he writes, correctly referencing Johnson’s false flag attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, which the Democratic president used to push the U.S. into a prolonged, messy, and ultimately failed war.

Mohammed also focused on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the Muslim world specifically, providing a long list of reasons why the “U.S. reaped what it sowed on 9/11.” One of those grievances was the U.S. government and CIA’s scheme to back and support  “the Indonesian dictator Suharto when his army-led massacres slaughtered hundreds of thousands of landless farmers,” though his examples span the globe.

He cites America’s notorious desire for oil, referencing when the U.S. built “military bases in the Arabian Peninsula in Tabuk, Dhahran, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and U.A.E – which is prohibited by Sharia laws – to secure a non-stop flood of oil to [their] country at the cheapest price.” He argues this was “to support the dictatorial rule of monarchial families and oppressive, corrupt, dynastic regimes and looting the wealth of the Muslim Ummah population; and to accomplish [U.S.] military objectives there.”

He references the CIA’s 1953 coup in Iran — conducted in conjunction with their British intelligence counterparts — to overthrow the country’s democratically elected leader and empower the “Shah of Iran and Safak, the brutal Iranian intelligence agency, for 40 years.”

Discussing Iraq in the 1990s, he references “when Anglo-Saxon crusaders imposed sanctions against the Iraqi people in a manner of collective punishment that resulted in the death of half a million civilians.” He later addresses former U.N. ambassador Madeleine Albright’s claim that the deaths of half a million children were “worth it.”

Mohammed also points out hypocrisies in American foreign policy, such as the American officials’ ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before they wanted to oust him. He also points out that before invading Iraq, the U.S. “supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, even when he was using poison mustard gas against the Kurds…”

Mohammed discusses at length the centuries of Western attacks on Muslims and their countries, also noting the way Western countries broke up formerly Ottoman nations in the early 20th century, dividing them up and claiming control in the region.

He circles back to indict the whole of American foreign policy, noting the U.S. has escaped prosecution for their “brutal and savage massacres against the American Indian and [their] crimes in Vietnam, Korea, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, and Latin America; and for [their] support for the Chinese Dictator, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Mexico’s dictator, Santa Ana.”

“You can keep your military bases in Japan, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere,” he writes, “but Muslim land will never accept infidels army bases in their land.” He credits Allah with helping them fight back against Western aggression, frequently weaving in religious sentiments as justification for further violence.

Though Mohammed focuses largely on U.S. imperialism, one of his main grievances is the U.S. government’s support for Israel throughout the decades. He argues America reaped what it sowed on 9/11 in part because of America’s backing of Israel “in the political arena, when you blocked resolutions in the United Nations Security Council more than 45 times to protect repeated Israeli crimes.” Mohammed cites the U.S.’ support for Israel’s invasions of Lebanon throughout the years, ultimately arguing that jihadists fight for all oppressed Muslims. He claims they represent Palestinians and others who have been crushed by Western influence and invasion (of course, it is impossible to prove all victimized Muslims support terrorism as recourse, making this claim rather grandiose).

He discusses Obama’s ongoing efforts to continue providing weaponry to Israel even as the former president openly questioned Israeli settlements. “While your children may play safely in the White House backyard, the entire world is watching your weapons kill Palestinian children at play on the Gaza beach during Holy Month of Ramadan or studying in their classrooms.”

Mohammed criticizes American politicians’ repeated claims that Israel “has a right to defend itself.”

“Why can’t you or any American president before you say that the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against Israeli crimes?” he wonders. “The answer is very clear but you can’t say it because your lords will be very angry.” Indeed, Israel wields significant influence over American policy.

The notion that American politicians are beholden to higher powers is echoed throughout the letter, but not just with regard to Israel’s influence through lobbying organization AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). With surprising accuracy, Mohammed details corporate influence throughout government. Early in the letter, he points out that politicians must serve their donors, whether they are in the healthcare industry, the prison industry, or “Blackwater, Halliburton, or any other arms industry of weapons firm.” He says the latter industry requires politicians “to push the DoD and U.S. soldiers into more wars…”

He condemns American capitalism and the farce of democracy throughout the letter, referring to politicians as mercenaries working for their financiers. He asserts that “[i]n the end, this will lead the rich to grow richer and the poor to grow poorer. The country will sink into debt and finally the nation will die.”

Mohammed also singles out Obama, citing his drone strikes, which killed countless innocent civilians and children. He condemns Obama’s assassination of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without trial — followed by the killing of his 16-year-old son — as well as the president’s establishment of indefinite detention and his failure to close Guantanamo, where Mohammed has been imprisoned for years.

He calls out Western media, as well. “Don’t let Fox, CNN, BBC, or American and pro-Israeli channels cover your eyes because they never show the truth, their main task is brainwashing,” he argues. “They are experts at lying and distorting the facts to achieve their masters’ ends.”

(Instead, he praises Al-Jazeera, which is, in fact, a news agency originally funded by the oil-rich Qatari government, an ally of the United States.)

Since 9/11, the political establishment’s narrative has asserted Islamic terrorists target the United States because they hate us for our freedom, because their religion is violent, and because they are hellbent on destroying anyone who disagrees with their ideology. While it’s indisputable that anyone who would seek to kill 3,000 civilians is a cold-blooded murderer, his explanation has been echoed by terrorists before; the Charlie Hebdo shooters, the Boston Marathon bombers, and the Orlando night club shooter all referenced violent, imperialistic American policy as reasons for their attacks.

Mohammed concludes:

“If your government and public won’t tolerate 9/11, then how can you ask Muslims to tolerate your 60 years of crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, the Arabian Peninsula and the whole Muslim World?”

As former congressman and longtime non-interventionist Dr. Ron Paul warned in 1998 — long before 9/11:

“Far too often, the bombing of declared (or concocted) enemies, whether it’s the North Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Sudanese, the Albanians, or the Afghans, produces precisely the opposite effect to what is sought. It kills innocent people, creates more hatred toward America, unifies and stimulates the growth of the extremist Islamic movement and makes them more determined than ever to strike back with their weapon of choice – terror.”

The Anti-Media (cc)

Banksters, Corporate Welfare

Trump proves he is a tool for Wall Street after all

Extreme Vetting, But Not for Banks

Matt Taibbi
February 3, 2017: Rolling Stone

Donald Trump, the man who positioned himself as the common man’s shield against Wall Street, signed a series of orders today calling for reviews or rollbacks of financial regulations. He did so after meeting with some friendly helpers.

Here’s how CNBC described the crowd of Wall Street CEOs Trump received, before he ordered a review of both the Dodd-Frank Act and the fiduciary rule requiring investment advisors to act in their clients’ interests:

“Trump also will meet at the White House with leading CEOs, including JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, and BlackRock’s Larry Fink.”

Leading the way for this assortment of populist heroes will be former Goldman honcho Gary Cohn, now Trump’s chief economic advisor.

Dimon, Schwarzman, Fink and Cohn collectively represent a rogues’ gallery of the creeps most responsible for the 2008 crash. It would be hard to put together a group of people less sympathetic to the non-wealthy.

Trump’s approach to Wall Street is in sharp contrast to his tough-talking stances on terrorism. He talks a big game when slamming the door on penniless refugees, but curls up like a beach weakling around guys who have more money than he does.

The two primary disasters in American history this century (if we’re not counting Trump’s election) have been 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, which cost 8.7 million people their jobs and may have destroyed as much as 45 percent of the world’s wealth.

The response to 9/11 we know: major military actions all over the world, plus a radical reshaping of our legal structure, with voters embracing warrantless surveillance, a suspension of habeas corpus, even torture.

But the crisis response? Basically, we gave trillions of dollars to bail out the very actors who caused the mess. Now, with Trump’s election, we’ve triumphantly put those same actors back in charge of non-policing themselves.

In between, we passed a few weak-sauce rules designed to scale back some of the worst excesses. Those rules presumably will be tossed aside now.

Trump’s “extreme vetting” plan for immigrants and refugees is based upon a safety argument – i.e., that the smallest chance of a disaster justifies the most extreme measures. Infamously this week, administration spokesdunce Kellyanne Conway resorted to citing a disaster that never even happened – the “Bowling Green Massacre” – as a justification for the crazy visa policy.

This makes Trump’s embrace of the Mortgage Crash Dream Team as his advisory panel for how to make Wall Street run more smoothly all the more preposterous.

The crisis was caused by the financial equivalent of open borders. Virtually no one was monitoring risk levels or credit worthiness at the world’s biggest companies.

The watchdogs who are supposed to be making sure the morons on Wall Street don’t blow up the planet all failed: the compliance people within private companies, the so-called self-regulating organizations like the NYSE, and finally the government agencies like the OCC and the OTS.

These companies are now so enormous that they can’t keep track of their own positions. Also, in sharp contrast to the propaganda about what brainy people they all are, many of them lack even the most basic understanding of the potential consequences of deals they might be making.

The leadership of AIG, for instance, basically had no clue how its derivatives portfolio worked, despite the fact that they had $79 billion worth of exposure. Similarly, then-CEO Chuck Prince of Citigroup told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that a $40 billion mortgage position “would not in any way have excited my attention.” Both companies ended up needing massive bailouts.

Not only can they not keep track of their own books, they already blow off regulators whenever they get the chance. Take JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” episode, in which some $6.2 billion in losses in one portfolio accumulated practically overnight. In that case, Dimon simply refused to give the federal regulators routine, required reports as to what was going on with his bank’s positions, probably because he himself had no idea how big the hole was at the time.

“Mr. Dimon said it was his decision whether to send the reports to the OCC,” a regulator later told the Senate.

This is the same Jamie Dimon about whom Trump said today, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie Dimon, so thank you, Jamie.”

The enduring lesson of the financial crisis is that in markets as complex as this one, the most extreme danger is in opacity. The big problem is that these egomaniacal Wall Street titans want markets as opaque as possible.

This is why they want to get rid of the fiduciary rule, because they don’t think it’s anyone’s business if they choose to bet against their clients (as Cohn’s Goldman famously did), or overcharge them, or otherwise screw them.

They don’t want to have to submit to even the most basic capital requirements, or be classified a systemically important company, or have to keep their depository businesses separate from their gambling businesses, or have to have a plan for dissolution if they melt down, or really deal with any intrusions at all.

(read the full article at Rolling Stone)

Banksters

Trump Keeps Swamp Full of Goldman Sachs Scum

‘The swamp is Goldman Sachs’: how the bank is rewarded for putting profits over people

Sarah Jaffe
The Guardian : January 18, 2017

In a persistent drizzle on 17 January, a group of protesters swathed in green ponchos unfurled tarps and sleeping bags on the sidewalk in front of Goldman Sachs’ high-rise building on the West Side highway in New York City. A few of them wore handmade swamp creature masks; others bore signs with the swamp creatures on them. A light-board sign declared the bank “Government Sachs”.

The protest was the beginning of a multi-day camp-out aiming to stay on the sidewalk outside the investment bank until the inauguration of Donald Trump, and to bring people affected by the bank’s policies to the doorstep of some of the world’s richest people – some of whom will belong to the Trump administration.

“It’s about highlighting the lie that was told to millions of people in this country, the lie that Trump was draining the swamp. If we really want the swamp to be drained, we have to do it ourselves and we’re doing it by going to Goldman Sachs,” says Nelini Stamp of the Working Families party.

As the crowd of about 100 people set up camp, the police erected barricades around them but mostly held off as the crowd moved from chanting “The swamp is getting deeper! The swamp is Goldman Sachs!” to a series of speak-outs from the crowd about the bank’s connection to payday lending, the economic crisis in Puerto Rico, foreclosures and more.

For Jean Sassine, who lost his job and nearly lost his home during the 2008 financial crisis, fighting the influence of the big banks in Washington is personal. He became a member of community organization New York Communities for Change (NYCC) six years ago as a way to fight back, and for him the Goldman action “means trying to wake people up that these are the people who were part of the big crisis in 2008, that Steven Mnuchin was called Mr Foreclosure at OneWest and Goldman Sachs. Do you want Mr Foreclosure to be secretary of the treasury?”

The organizers targeted Goldman Sachs because, as Stamp explains, the bank “is a pipeline to government”. Through Democratic and Republican administrations, she notes, Goldman Sachs in particular has fed its bankers into high-ranking government positions – if Mnuchin is confirmed as treasury secretary, Trump will be the third of the past four presidents to have hired for that job from Goldman’s ranks. To Stamp, particularly in the post-financial crisis era, this means the bank is being rewarded for its involvement in subprime mortgages and the financial instruments created to profit from them.

On that front, says Renata Pumerol of NYCC, it is important to confront the power brokers directly as well as the elected officials who work with them. Calling them “Government Sachs” is a way to highlight the level to which they have captured Washington and influence policy that benefits themselves.

As for the occupation itself, the tactic obviously brings echoes of Occupy Wall Street, but Pumerol says that this demonstration differs in its specific demands – to halt the appointment of Mnuchin as well as fellow Goldmanites Gary Cohn, Anthony Scaramucci, Dina Powell and Steve Bannon. Also, she notes, this action is led by people of color and people who have been directly affected by Goldman’s actions.

“It’s an interesting circle of life for someone like myself, who was involved with Occupy,” Stamp adds, “to see this fake crony populism of ‘draining the swamp’ while the swamp is actually continuing to be filled.”

For many of the people involved in the Government Sachs action, it seemed obvious that Trump’s promises to drain the swamp were less than genuine. But for Richard Robinson, they resonated and led him to vote for the president-elect.

The 60-year-old veteran and truck driver from Utah lives on social security after a work accident nearly killed him and pushed him into medical retirement. Out of work, he says, he found himself “sitting at home feeling worthless, didn’t feel like I was accomplishing anything”. A friend suggested he get a hobby, and, he laughs: “I became an activist, I guess.”

Robinson lives in a manufactured home community, and through forming a group called MH Action to deal with the issues that he and his neighbors faced, he began to get in touch with other people working on similar issues around the country.

Robinson’s community is owned by a multistate corporation that also owns apartment complexes in New York and Chicago, which helped him get in touch with NYCC. “These companies are buying communities, buying apartment complexes and their business model is not acceptable to me. It’s to raise rents as quickly as possible and decrease maintenance of the communities, and that’s not a good business model for America,” he says.

His vote for Trump, he says, was based on the assumption that because the president-elect was not a career politician, “maybe things would be run differently in Washington”. But the number of Wall Streeters and ultra-wealthy in the administration has him frustrated, and brought him to New York in protest. “He actually hit Hillary Clinton over meeting behind closed doors with [Goldman Sachs] and now I believe he was meeting with them at the same time. He’s appointed them so quickly that I’ve got to believe at the same time he was campaigning hard on Hillary Clinton for meeting with them behind closed doors, I believe he was doing the same thing.”

Nomi Prins, former managing director at Goldman Sachs turned journalist and author of All the President’s Bankers, says that rather than make sincere promises Trump simply attacked weaknesses, taking advantage of widespread anger at Wall Street to score points against first his Republican opponents and then Clinton. Mnuchin, she points out, was his finance adviser the whole time. “There were more apparent Wall Street connections through Hillary Clinton because of the foundation, the speeches and because of Bill Clinton that were real,” she says, “but these are bipartisan relationships; Wall Street is a bipartisan opportunist.” (That relationship is visible in New York City, where Alicia Glen, formerly of Goldman Sachs, serves as deputy mayor to Bill de Blasio.)

That bipartisan relationship, and the bipartisan anger at the power of finance, is what makes it so important to target the banks and lay groundwork for white working-class communities to come together with communities of color to fight, Pumerol says. Adds Sassine: “It is clear that they are ready to raid the American people as opposed to benefiting. Government is supposed to be for the benefit of the people, whether you believe in small government, big government, it’s supposed to be for the benefit of the people.”

(read the full article at the guardian

Geopolitics/War

Canadians Won’t Forget Trudeau’s Broken Promise on Electoral Reform

Claudia Chwalisz
The Tyee: February 3, 2017

In his mandate letter to the new Minister of Democratic Institutions, Karina Gould, Justin Trudeau told the nation that he was breaking one of his key election promises: “Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate.”

Blaming a lack of consensus on reform despite extensive consultations, Trudeau claimed that it would be harmful to Canada’s stability to pursue reform or a referendum on the issue. In question period, he added, “I’m not going to do something that is wrong for Canadians just to tick off a box on an electoral platform.”

His other comments implied that now that Canadians had a government with which they were happy, they were less interested in changing the system. But Trudeau’s remarks fly in the face of the truth.

The All-Party Parliamentary Committee which was tasked with recommending a way forward on reform said that “overwhelming majority” of submissions by almost 200 electoral experts and by thousands of Canadians were in favour of proportional representation. The committee itself recommended the government design a new system of proportional representation and gauge public support through a referendum.

In terms of wider public opinion, a recent Ekos poll found that 43 per cent of Canadians said proportional representation would be the best option for Canada (higher than for any other option) and 33 per cent said it would be second best. The same survey found that 59 per cent of people think the Liberals should deliver on their promise.

Why would the Liberals abandon their promise in the face of such stark evidence? They must feel they can get away with it electorally. They are riding high in the polls. Only one in five Canadians appeared to be engaged with the consultation process. They’re betting that most people don’t care. That gamble may come back to haunt them.

First, neither of the main opposition parties has a leader at the moment, so it is not surprising that they’re faring worse in the polls. It’s not guaranteed that either party will come back strongly with new leadership, but their public profiles and their ability to scrutinize the government will both be stronger when they are no longer concentrating on internal party politics.

Second, while the Liberals may be reassured by the fact that such a small percentage of Canadians was highly engaged in the electoral reform debate, it would make sense to assume that many of those engaged voters were current or former Green or New Democratic Party supporters. Both parties have been advocates of proportional representation for a long time. In the context of the “Anybody But Harper” election, some of them cast strategic votes for the Liberals at the expense of their beliefs, thinking the next time around the electoral system wouldn’t force them into this situation. Tactical voters will be less likely to believe the Liberals a second time.

Third, while the Liberals are probably banking on most people forgetting the issue by the time 2019 rolls around, there is no way that Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, will forget, and neither will the NDP after its extensive involvement in the all-party committee. Expect both parties to campaign heavily on the issue, with the added bonus of being able to repeat that Trudeau failed to deliver “real change.” Even the Conservatives are jumping on the opportunity to call Trudeau a liar despite their stance against reform.

(read the full article at The Tyee