Friday, May 19, 2017

Unvaccinated Children Have Much Lower Rates of Chronic Illness, New Jackson State Study Finds

ORIGINAL LINK

The first peer-reviewed study comparing health outcomes of vaccinated children versus unvaccinated was recently published in the Journal of Translational Science  by epidemiologists from the School of Public Health at Jackson State University.  The study’s conclusions are likely to inflame the fierce debate over whether vaccines and a mercury-containing vaccine preservative may be culprits in the dramatic rise in certain neurodevelopmental disorders in our children, including autism.

The “Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6- to 12-year-old U.S. children” implicates vaccines in a host of chronic illnesses now epidemic in our nation’s children. The team of scientists, led by the renowned epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Mawson, the author of more than fifty published studies, concluded that “In a final adjusted model designed to test for this possibility, controlling for the interaction of preterm birth and vaccination, the following factors remained significantly associated with NDD: vaccination (OR 2.5, 95% CI: 1.1, 5.6), nonwhite race (OR 2.4, 95% CI: 1.1, 5.4), and male gender (OR 2.3, 95% CI: 1.2, 4.4). Preterm birth itself, however, was not significantly associated with NDD, whereas the combination (interaction) of preterm birth and vaccination was associated with 6.6-fold increased odds of NDD (95% CI: 2.8, 15.5) (Table 8).” Jackson State is a leading university research center.

The study suggests that fully vaccinated children may be trading the prevention of certain acute illnesses (chicken pox, pertussis) for more chronic illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) like ADHD and Autism.

In order to find a large population of children who hadn’t received any vaccines, the Jackson State scientists utilized Homeschool organizations in four states and compared the incidence of a broad range of health outcomes in 666 children, 39% of whom were unvaccinated. Among the more concerning findings, vaccinated children had increased risks of autism (4.2 times), ADHD (4.2 times), learning disabilities (5.2 times) eczema (2.9 times), and an astounding 30 times the risk of allergic rhinitis compared to unvaccinated children.

As would be expected, vaccinated children did have lower likelihood of two vaccine-preventable illnesses compared to unvaccinated children: chicken pox (7.9% vs. 25.3%), and pertussis (2.5% vs. 8.4%), but the scientists found no significant differences in rates of other vaccine-preventable illnesses like hepatitis A or B, measles, mumps, rubella, influenza, meningitis or rotavirus. The study suggests that fully vaccinated children may be trading the prevention of certain acute illnesses (chicken pox, pertussis) for more chronic illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) like ADHD and Autism.

Despite numerous requests over the years from parents and vaccine safety advocates for just this type of research, the CDC has failed to act. The Jackson State scientists called for more scientific studies to help explain and clarify these findings.

View/Download Unvaccinated-Vaccinated Study

View Download Unvaccinated-Vaccinated Preterm Birth Study

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Why did Comey stonewall evidence Obama spied on Trump?

ORIGINAL LINK
Former FBI Director James Comey (Photo: Twitter)

Former FBI Director James Comey (Photo: Twitter)

WASHINGTON – Lost in all the hubbub and furor over President Trump’s firing of James Comey is that the former FBI director never complied with key a request from the House Intelligence Committee.

A March 15 letter from Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to the chiefs of the CIA, FBI and NSA essentially asks for any evidence that the Obama administration requested surveillance information on the Trump and/or Clinton presidential campaigns.

House Intelligence committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

House Intelligence committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

One agency did not respond: the FBI.

The bureau has thus far provided just a smattering of a response.

The letter asks questions about “unmasking,” the revealing of names within the intelligence community of U.S. citizens whose communications were monitored during foreign surveillance.

It asks the spy agencies who the administration was surveilling, who asked for and shared the information on those people, and why.

The letter includes requests for:

  • The spy agencies’ policies and procedures on unmasking and sharing the identities of surveilled U.S. citizens within and outside the agencies, and the number of people who can approve an unmasking.
  • The number of any U.S. citizens unmasked between June 2016 and January 2017.
  • The names of any unmasked U.S. citizens whose identities were shared because of requests from intelligence community agencies, law enforcement or senior executive branch officials between June 2016 and January 2017, and who were associated with presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and their associates in 2016.
  • The names of any intelligence community agencies, law enforcement agencies, and/or senior executive branch officials that requested and/or authorized the unmasking and sharing the identities of any U.S. citizens, and who received that information.
  • The reasons given for the unmaskings of those identities.

Why didn’t the FBI respond to the letter?

It’s not a question anyone is asking, certainly not the establishment media.

Is there a cover-up by the FBI? Was Comey himself stonewalling Congress?

His agents appeared to think so.

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In fact, rank-and-file members of the intelligence community were reportedly so outraged by the stonewalling that they went to the media with bombshell claims that surveillance had been done purely for “political purposes” to “hurt and embarrass (candidate) Trump and his team.”

They said the spying on the Trump team had nothing to do with the collection of foreign intelligence or an investigation into Russia election interference.

Their charges appear to be supported by a mounting pile of evidence.

As unpalatable as the thought of an FBI chief skirting the law may be, it may be a question worth asking, based on just what is known.

Consider the following facts:

  • As WND reported, the Obama administration was using information obtained from wiretaps to investigate Trump aides, as evidenced by the Jan. 20, story in the New York Times with the print version headline “Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides. Examining Russian ties.”
  • As WND also reported, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been looking into whether leaks of information on the targeting of the Trump team could have come from the FBI. That’s because the bureau had requested Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, warrants that led to the acquisition of the foreign surveillance that was leaked to the press.
  • Comey hid the investigation, ostensibly into possible Trump-Russia ties, from Congress. Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20, that the FBI began that investigation in July 2016. He testified that he should have notified Congress of such an investigation in a quarterly report. But he further testified that he did not notify Congress of that investigation until March 2017, eight months later. He did not explain the delay, and no one thought to ask him.

Former Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., considered her time spent on the House Intelligence Committee the most important work of her career as an elected public servant, and she was known for her devotion to the panel and ensuring national security.

WND asked her if she thought Comey was stonewalling Congress.

“The FBI may not have been as independent as they portrayed themselves to be,” Bachmann replied.

President Trump has strongly suggested that the investigation into his associates’ alleged collusion with Russia was really a cover story to hide the fact the Obama administration spied on his campaign and transition team for political purposes.

TRUMP

Trump famously tweeted his accusation “that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory” on March 4.

But subsequent tweets received less coverage. On March 20, he portrayed the Russia story as a smokescreen: “James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus (president of the United States) colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!”

His next tweet on that day stated: “The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!”

That was followed by a tweet on April 2 that essentially leveled a direct accusation against the Obama administration: “The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find the leakers.”

A tweet the next day clearly accused the Obama administration of plotting against him: “Such amazing reporting on unmasking and the crooked scheme against us by @foxandfriends. “Spied on before nomination.” The real story.”

On Tuesday, the day before former FBI Director Robert Mueller was named as special counsel to manage the investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, the president tweeted: “I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.”

On Thursday, the day after the appointment of the special prosecutor, Trump tweeted: “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”

He added a tweet that took dead aim at who he saw as the real culprit: “With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!”

“The scandal of scandals,” Bachmann told WND, “is the appearance that the Obama administration used unique, sophisticated tools only belonging to the federal government to spy on GOP rivals to Hillary.”

And, she warned: “Republicans need to stop being intimidated and find out and expose this gross abuse of power.”

trumpcomey2

Indeed, the FBI is a unique entity that straddles two worlds, with potentially conflicting missions. The bureau has dual tasks in that it collects intelligence, but it also investigates crime. If it were to commit a crime while collecting intelligence, such as the potential felony of illegally unmasking a surveillance subject or leaking intelligence to the press, it would be up to Congress to investigate, a task that would be all the more challenging were the FBI to have reason to stonewall.

“The FBI had a sad habit under the Obama administration of flagrantly thumbing its nose to requests from Congress,” Bachmann told WND.

She confirmed: “They played ‘hide the ball’ from lawmakers and their staffs. Requests for information or for production of documents often seemed to be treated as optional.

“In fact,” Bachmann charged, “the FBI allowed itself to be politicized by the Obama administration to an extent commensurate with the IRS, Justice Department and other federal agencies. Most worrisome is any hint of corruption within law enforcement.”

A timeline of publicly known developments in the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation indicates Comey was stonewalling requests for evidence of political spying by the Obama administration.

July 2016: FBI begins investigation

The FBI began its investigation into possible ties between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government. The FBI did not notify Congress of the investigation until eight months later.

Jan. 20, 2017: New York Times reveals spying on the Trump team

The Times reported: “American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communication and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation of possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump.”

new_york_times_building

Jan. 20, 2017: New York Times reveals Obama administration involved

The Times also revealed the spying information was shared with the Obama administration: “One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications have been provided to the White House.”

Jan. 23, 2017: FBI clears Flynn of wrongdoing

The Washington Post reported in January the FBI “in late December reviewed intercepts of communications between the Russian ambassador to the United States and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn – national security adviser to then-President-elect Trump – but has not found any evidence of wrongdoing or illicit ties to the Russian government, U.S. officials said.”

Feb. 13, 2017: Trump fires Flynn

Trump said his national security adviser had done nothing wrong by speaking with Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak after the election. The president also confirmed, as the FBI had previously concluded, that nothing was inappropriately discussed by the two men. Trump said he fired Flynn because, when asked, he did not tell Vice President Mike Pence everything about the discussions.

Former National Security Adviser and retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn

Former National Security Adviser and retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn

March 4, 2017: Trump accuses Obama of spying on him

Trump tweeted: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”

And: “How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy.”

March 5, 2017: Justice Dept. refuses to deny Obama wiretapped Trump

Someone leaked to the New York Times that Comey “asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones.”

The Times cited “senior American officials” as its anonymous sources.

However, the Justice Department refused to reject Trump’s claim. The FBI had no comment.

March 5, 2017: White House points to media’s own proof of spying

With the press demanding proof of Trump’s wiretap claim, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed out that “multiple news outlets” already had reported it.

She told ABC News, “And all we’re asking is that we get the same level of look into the Obama administration and the potential that they had for a complete abuse of power that they’ve been claiming that we have done over the last six months.”

Two days later, Glenn Thrush, chief White House political correspondent for the New York Times, asked White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, “Have you seen any evidence yourself?”

WND then reported the Times appeared to be trying to discredit its own reporting, as the evidence for Trump’s contention was published by the newspaper on Jan. 20 in an article with a print-version headline “Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides.”

NYT-wiretap-screenshot

March 15, 2017: Congress asks spy agencies for unmasking info

On March 15, Nunes and Intelligence committee ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., sent a letter to the heads of the FBI, CIA and NSA asking for a full report on unmasking request by the Obama administration.

A full response would essentially reveal whether or not the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign and/or transition team.

March 20, 2017: White House implies Comey stonewalling

A tweet sent from the official White House Twitter account read, “FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia.”

March 22, 2017: Nunes announces evidence of spying on Trump team

Nunes told the press he had learned that “on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.”

And he said details about those people “were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting” even though they had “little or no apparent foreign intelligence value.”

Nunes also confirmed that “additional names of Trump transition team members were unmasked.”

“To be clear,” he emphasized, “none of this surveillance was related to Russia or any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.”

Former President Barack Obama (Photo: Twitter)

Former President Barack Obama (Photo: Twitter)

Nunes confirmed that additional names of Trump transition team members were “unmasked,” quite possibly in violation of the law, which the congressman said he found “alarming.”

Obama’s executive order putting classified intelligence in the hands of political operatives was one reason why Nunes declared: “The House Intelligence Committee will thoroughly investigate this surveillance (by the Obama administration) and its subsequent dissemination to determine:

  • “Who was aware of it,
  • “Why it was not disclosed to Congress,
  • “Who requested and authorized the additional unmasking (revealing of names),
  • “Whether anyone directed the intelligence community to focus on Trump associates, and
  • “Whether any laws, regulations, or procedures were violated.”

March 22, 2017: FBI stonewalls Congress

Nunes said his March 15 letter had asked the directors of the FBI, NSA and CIA “to provide a full account of these surveillance activities.”

He said the NSA was cooperating, but the FBI was not.

Under Director Mike Pompeo, appointed by Trump, the CIA presumably was cooperating.

March 29, 2017: Obama official accidentally confirms spying on Trump

A little-noticed MSNBC interview on March 2, became widely reported when it was apparent that Evelyn Farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense under Obama, had not only confirmed that the previous administration was collecting intelligence on the Trump team, but was sharing it as far and wide as possible.

Farkas said, “We have very good intelligence on Russia,” and she was “very worried because not enough was coming out into the open.”

farkas

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas

However, intelligence chiefs who had seen the classified information in question, including Obama’s own former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as well as former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, said they had seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump team and the Russian government.

That would indicate the real reason the Obama administration was feverishly collecting and sharing the classified information was not for national security purposes, but for political reasons.

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March 31, 2017: Senate investigates FBI for leaks targeting Trump

Fox News reported the Senate Judiciary Committee was looking into whether leaks of information targeting the Trump team could have come from the FBI.

That was because the bureau had requested Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, warrants that led to the acquisition of some of the foreign surveillance.

March 31, 2017: Congress investigates FBI

The Senate Judiciary Committee began looking into whether the FBI wrongly included political opposition research from Trump’s opponents in its Russia investigation.

The panel also wanted to know whether or not the FBI paid a former British spy who wrote a sensational and discredited report alleging wild improprieties by Trump and his aides.

“When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics,” said committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Additionally, a source told Fox News the FBI was refusing to cooperate with the House investigation.

March 31, 2017: Rank-and-file spies try to break stonewall

Rank-and-file members of the intelligence community made bombshell revelations to fight back against a stonewall by the leaders at the nation’s spy agencies, according to Fox News.

Former FBI Director James Comey

Former FBI Director James Comey

Sources in the intelligence community said the potentially illegal revealing of names, or unmasking, of people in the Trump camp who were under surveillance was done purely “for political purposes” to “hurt and embarrass (candidate) Trump and his team.”

Fox said the sources were “not Trump” people but were “frustrated with the politics that is taking place in these (intelligence) agencies.”

The rank-and-file sources told Fox News:

1) Surveillance targeting the Trump team during the Obama administration began months earlier, even before the president had become the GOP nominee in July.

2) The spying on the Trump team had nothing to do with the collection of foreign intelligence or an investigation into Russia election interference.

3) The spying was done purely “for political purposes” that “have nothing to do with national security and everything to do with hurting and embarrassing Trump and his team.”

4) The person who did the unmasking was someone “very well known, very high up, very senior in the intelligence world, and is not in the FBI.”

5) Congressional investigators know the name of at least one person who was unmasking names.

6) The initial surveillance on the Trump team led to “a number of names” being unmasked.

7) House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had known about the unmasking since January.

8) Two sources in the intelligence community told Nunes who did the unmasking and told him at least one of the names of someone in the Trump team who was unmasked. The sources also gave Nunes the serial numbers of the classified reports that documented the unmasking.

9) It took Nunes a number of weeks to figure out how to see those intelligence reports because the intelligence agencies were stonewalling him, and not allowing the chairman or other people to see them.

April 3, 2017: Susan Rice revealed as unmasker

Multiple reports confirmed that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice was the Obama administration official who requested the unmasking of incoming Trump administration officials.

The White House Counsel’s office identified Rice as the person responsible for the unmasking after examining Rice’s document log requests.

Fox News reported the unmasked names of people associated with Donald Trump were sent widely to top officials in the Obama administration, a potential felony.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice

The unmasked names were reportedly sent to every member of the National Security Council, former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, then-CIA Director John Brennan and some officials at the Defense Department.

Sources said Rice “requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign.”

One source said the reports “contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.”

Intelligence sources told Circa News that the logs indicated Rice began to show interest in NSA materials that included unmasked Americans’ identities last July when Trump became the GOP presidential nominee, then accelerated after he won the election in November.

Circa News also reported that “most if not all” of the surveillance information collected on the Trump team had nothing to do with any of the alleged election interference by Russia.

April 4, 2017: Rice tacitly admits unmasking and lying about it

Speaking to MSNBC, Rice did not deny unmasking the identities of the names of Donald Trump associates collected in foreign surveillance.

She implicitly acknowledged and explicitly defended the unmaskings by claiming: “It was not uncommon. It was necessary at times to make those requests.”

But speaking to PBS on March 22, Rice denied any knowledge of such unmasking after it was revealed by Nunes.

She had told PBS, “I know nothing about this,” and “I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.”

Former National Security Adviser Susan RIce, former Secretary of State John Kerry and former President Barack Obama

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former Secretary of State John Kerry and former President Barack Obama

By her own admission, Rice was not telling the truth on March 22, but she told MSNBC she had done nothing inappropriate and that had sometimes sought the names of people in intelligence reports as part of her job.

NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell did not ask Rice: If that was true, why did you not tell the truth to PBS on March 22?

In her defense, Rice merely asserted to Mitchell that she did not leak unmasked names to the press and that the unmasking wasn’t politically motivated.

However, it was the unmasking that made the leak possible. The leak could have been committed by any of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of intelligence officials who could see the intelligence after Flynn’s name was unmasked. That was because of the executive order Obama issued in the waning days of his presidency relaxing the rules on the sharing of information within the intelligence community.

Rice told MSNBC the unmasking of any names of Trump associates in intelligence reports was not done to spy on them “for any political purposes.”

But former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said that can’t be true.

“The national-security adviser is not an investigator,” he wrote. “She is a White House staffer. The president’s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it.”

Requesting the unmasking, according to McCarthy, could have had no purpose other than politics because she was not an investigator.

“The thing to bear in mind is that the White House does not do investigations. Not criminal investigations, not intelligence investigations,” he wrote.

May 3, 2017: Comey dodges questions on Trump spying

Comey refused to confirm under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee if the bureau was investigating whether the Obama administration spied on Trump’s election campaign and transition team.

He also wouldn’t confirm if the FBI was investigating whether information about the Trump team was leaked to the media.

The director replied he could not confirm that in public without authorization from the Justice Department, which, he said, would have initiated any such investigation.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa

Comey did say he had never been an anonymous source of leaks in the media on the investigation of Clinton and the Trump campaign, and that he had never authorized anyone in the FBI to do so.

The director also said he had never shared classified information related to those investigations with the media.

At one point, chairman Grassley admonished Comey: “It is frustrating when the FBI refuses to answer this committee’s questions, but leaks relevant information to the media. In other words, they don’t talk to us, but somebody talks to the media.”

May 10, 2017: Comey fired

Trump had been displeased with Comey over several issues, including his handling of the investigation into his election campaign and the Russian government, especially as even Democrats had said they had seen no evidence of collusion.

But the main reason Trump gave for firing Comey was his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and his usurping the authority of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch on July 5, 2016, by announcing his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution, rather than simply presenting the FBI’s findings to the Justice Department.

May 17, 2017: Special Counsel appointed

Attorney General Jeff Sessions having recused himself, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel to investigate both Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters.

Given the course of the House and Senate investigations, it appeared likely those “related matters” will include whether the Obama administration spied on the Trump team.

They could also include why Comey did not cooperate with congressional investigations.

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UBS Hints At Rampant Auto Lending Fraud; "It’s Not Just Smoke And Mirrors Anymore"

ORIGINAL LINK

For months we've written about the imminently doomed auto bubble in the U.S., spurred in no small part by an unprecedented relaxation of underwriting standards by banks that would put even the shenanigans of the 2008 mortgage crisis to shame.  From stretched out lending terms to promotional interest rates, auto lenders have increasingly played every trick necessary to get those incremental new car buyers into the most expensive car their monthly budgets could possibly absorb.

That said, in recent weeks there has been growing concern that consumers, auto dealers and/or banks have been going beyond simply relaxing underwriting standards and have instead been forced to commit outright fraud in order to attract that incremental auto volume growth.  As UBS Strategist Matthew Mish told Bloomberg, “something is definitely going on under the hood...it’s not just smoke and mirrors anymore.”

The evidence is growing. First, the explosion of technology makes gaining access to information to improve credit scores very simple. Internet searches for 'credit score' are at record levels. Second, our survey finds 21% of auto loan borrowers admitted to some form of inaccuracy in their loan applications. Third, there is growing concern reported among auto lenders around fraud, which is the extreme case of this behavior.

 

Overall, the explosion and adoption of technology makes gaining access to "proven" methods for improving credit scores extremely simple. To this point, the popularity of internet searches for "credit score" has been rising consistently and is near peak post-crisis levels (Figure 7). Similarly, our survey finds that 21% of auto loan borrowers admitted to some inaccuracy in their application for non-mortgage related debt (auto, student or credit card loan). More concerning, this trend may be systemic as 29% of other consumer loan (i.e., student loan, credit card) borrowers acknowledged some form of inaccuracy in their applications (Figure 8).

Auto

 

Of course, this isn't the first time we've noted the probability that fraud is likely running rampant in auto lending markets.  In fact, according to a new study from Point Predictive, fraud rates on auto loan applications are currently reaching levels seen in the mortgage market back in 2009.  Per Bloomberg:

Borrower fraud in U.S. auto loans is surging, and may approach levels seen in mortgages during last decade’s housing bubble, according to a startup firm that helps lenders sniff out bogus borrowers.

 

As many as 1 percent of U.S. car loan applications include some type of material misrepresentation, executives at data analytics firm Point Predictive estimated based on reports from banks, finance companies and others. Lenders’ losses from deception may double this year to $6 billion from 2015, the firm forecast.

 

Those fraud rates are coming closer to the over-1-percent level for mortgages in 2009, when the financial crisis was boiling and more lenders started reporting incidents to one another, Frank McKenna, chief fraud strategist at the firm, said in an interview. While those losses will sting lenders, the impact on the overall economy will likely be much more muted than with the housing crisis, just because there’s less car debt outstanding.

 

Even so, “We see an extraordinary amount of parallels between the auto and mortgage industries, in terms of the rising levels of hidden fraud,” McKenna said. For home loans, it’s hard to know how widespread the deception was before 2009, because lenders often didn’t report information to one another and may not have even investigated incidents of probable lying much on their own, McKenna said.

And, right on cue, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs was recently forced to file a petition against a group of Major World auto dealers alleging that fraudulent loan applications had been submitted to lenders that contained, among other things, inflated income and asset statements.  Per NBC New York:

According to a petition filed by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, sales people at the Major World dealer group prepared dozens of auto loan applications containing inflated income and asset statements. The false information helped unqualified buyers purchase vehicles they could not afford.

 

In 2014, the I-Team reported on Margaret Zollner, a car buyer who accused staff at Major Chevrolet of tricking her into signing a loan application that falsely stated her income was $60,000, even though she was an unemployed senior citizen who needed food stamp benefits to get by.

 

Zollner's application also reported that she owned a house, but she rents her home.

 

"They said I made $60,000 a year. I was on food stamps," Zollner said.

 

At the time, a spokesperson for Major World suggested Zollner was responsible for signing her name to inaccuracies on the loan application.

All of which helps explain those surging delinquencies....

Subprime

 

...and loss severities in ABS structures.

Subprime

 

All great signs of a "plateau."



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Thursday, May 18, 2017

A Perspective About Donald Trump, The FBI Director, & North Korea You’ll Never See From Mainstream Media

ORIGINAL LINK

I think it’s safe to say at this point that the American political system has become one big joke. Presidential races, for the most part, now serve merely as entertainment, meant to captivate the attention of millions of people rather than stand as forums to discuss the many real issues our world currently faces. What’s more, leaks from various sources, such as Wikileaks and insider whistleblowers, have confirmed time and time again that most, if not all, presidential candidates have become political slaves to the much larger hand dominating geopolitics.

“Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” 

– Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (source)

Roosevelt is just one of many presidents and politicians to reveal the existence of this “secret” government throughout the ages. Some say this secret government is comprised of a few very powerful corporations that control all aspects of our lives, from the military industrial complex, health care, and finance to education, politics, and more. Above this government we have the world of finance, and if you follow the money that’s where it’ll take you.

This is something we must realize, as every single year presidents become frontmen for decisions that are made beyond their control or consent. They are simply figureheads, meant to receive both blame and praise for decisions given to them to enact. Perhaps they are offered financial incentives as well, but it’s impossible to say. What does seem evident is a global economic agenda, a “New World Order” plan to destabilize multiple countries and force a global political will on its inhabitants.

This isn’t really a secret. We have whistleblowers like Four Star General Wesley Clark, who was the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe of NATO from 1997-2000, for instance, describing how the U.S. had “plans to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off, Iran” (source). We also have clear instances of “false flag terrorism,” something that Putin referred to when speaking publicly about the recent chemical attacks in Syria.

The secret government, corporate and financial control, the relationship between big business and government, false flag terrorism — these are all important things to be aware of when contemplating what’s really going on with the presidency, particularly since the mainstream media is painting another picture entirely.

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

One thing is for certain, regardless of how much mainstream media and “the establishment” praise or denounce a president, very little actually changes. The same agenda seems to continue being propagated, and a great quote comes to mind here: “Democrats and Republicans are two wings of the same bird, and the flight path doesn’t change.” 

A Perspective on Trump You Won’t Hear From the Mainstream

Bombs are still being dropped, and the terror war industry is still running rampant under the Trump administration, just as it was in previous years. “Islamic Terror” is still cited as a problem, without any mention of the fact that Western intelligence agencies have had their hand in creating false flag terrorism to heighten the national security state for a long time. These powers orchestrate events, like creating fake terrorist videos, or even arming the very terrorists they are claiming to oppose, to justify military intervention into other countries.

“The global war on terrorism is a US undertaking, which is fake, it’s based on fake premises. It tells us that somehow America and the Western world are going after a fictitious enemy, the Islamic state, when in fact the Islamic state is fully supported and financed by the Western military alliance and America’s allies in the Persian Gulf. . . . They say Muslims are terrorists, but it just so happens that terrorists are Made in America.”

The fact that Donald Trump seems to support and continue on with the terror war industry, as those before him did, suggests he is just another puppet or part of this powerful cabal looking to establish their New World Order.

On the other hand, prior to his election he did reference Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as being key catalysts in the creation of ISIS. Are we seeing the same thing we saw with Al-Qaeda?

He also called out election fraud and political ties to big finance, something that was further revealed by Wikileaks who, all of a sudden, became a Russian source of misinformation for the first time in a decade, with absolutely no proof. If anything, other information from whistleblowers and declassified documents from other sources lend even more credibility to Wikileaks.

“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al-Qaeda, and any informed intelligence officer knows this. But, there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an intensified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive TV watchers to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the United States.”

– Robin Cook, former British Foreign Secretary (source)

The fact that Trump even mentioned this is both shocking and confusing given that, on the surface, it seems he fully supports this war that’s based on fake premises. And his comments on Hillary and Obama’s ties to ISIS, despite being ridiculed in the mainstream, actually have a lot of evidence behind them (See: Award Winning American Journalist Exposes The True Origin of ISIS & The War On Terror). So perhaps when it comes to this so-called war, Trump has some inside intel we are not aware of.

On the other hand, Trump has and continues to go against the will of some very powerful people. Obama, Clinton, and Bush all seem to be, in my opinion, easy and willing puppets for the corporations, but Trump is not. This is exactly why you’ll always see Donald Trump bashed by the corporate media.

Richard Dolan sums it up quite well.

For more than a year, we have been told that Trump is a racist, sexist, xenophobe, liar, cheat, and narcissist. The attack bears all the marks of a coordinated effort among the major news outlets: CNN, NYT, WaPo, HuffPo, USA Today, and the rest. It reminded me very much of the concerted media attack against Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff which culminated earlier in 2016 in her impeachment and removal from power. In the case of Rousseff, we see what has been alternately described as a soft coup or aWall Street coup, rather along the lines of the “color revolutions” of a few years earlier (which are now largely understood as CIA-NGO orchestrated). In both cases, pretexts were created and hammered home by an insistent media that whipped up public opinion. In Brazil, it worked. It seemed like it would work in the U.S.

It is important to understand why Trump was demonized. To be sure, his character makes it easy. There is no shortage of narcissistic, sexist, or otherwise offensive statements in his repertoire from which to draw. But I have never and will never believe this is why he was demonized. Ultimately, Trump is a disruptor, and his disruption falls squarely against the two key pillars of the American ruling elite’s ideology: neoliberalism and neoconservatism.

Unlike traditional liberalism and conservatism, neoliberalism and neoconservatism are not opposites. Neoliberalism is just another name for transnational globalization, while neoconservatism is nothing other than the U.S.-dominated global empire project. They work together, two inhuman, anti-human processes that ensure a tiny minority of people control and own all the water, minerals, drugs, GM foods, and everything else worth owning in this world. Hillary Clinton, as the ultimate representative of such an agenda, received unwavering support from all segments of that establishment, certainly from the media. Trump, on the other hand, was vilified.

Trump is not a New World Order global empire builder. He does not bother trying to hide his flaws or look good for the public. I do not support Trump, and clearly he has done and said a lot of crazy things, but he is not in the pockets of these elite, and they are responding to his defiance by bashing him every chance they get. This includes releasing false information and staging events, like the FBI incident we will get into later.

The corporate media looked on and praised George Bush for what was done in Iraq, as well as what was done to Libya under the Obama and Clinton administrations, despite the fact that these horrors were enacted based on lies and greed. Past administrations caused the wreck of a nation and the destruction of millions of lives, yet Trump spoke out against all of these and remains a villain, while Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

It doesn’t make much sense, does it?

The power mainstream media has over our perception of major events, people, and more is truly astonishing. You can read more about that in this article:

Declassified CIA Documents Shows Agencies Control Over Mainstream Media/Academia.

Trumps has spoken out multiple times against the big businesses and corporate media that control American politics. He has also dismantled the TPP and raised concerns over the fraudulent science that could be coming from the EPA and other government organizations.

Trump was made to look like a fool for pulling his funding from the EPA, but the EPA, just like the FDA, has become a cesspool of corruption. Many medical professionals have spoken out against the close ties between corporations and science, and how much of our published science today could actually be completely false. This would be in order to approve the pesticides that are sprayed on our food, or the glyphosate that’s found practically everywhere now. I’ll bet you didn’t hear that perspective from the mainstream media, did you? Instead, we simply heard that Trump doesn’t care about the environment, without ever realizing that neither does the EPA!

To learn more and to see one out of many examples, you can read about Genetically Modified Foods and the fraudulent science used to approve them in the article linked below:

Federal Lawsuit Forces The US Government To Divulge Secret Files On Genetically Engineered Foods.

Peer-Reviewed Science Losing Credibility As Large Amounts of Research Shown To Be False

He is also speaking out against vaccines.

The above are multiple reasons why Trump has probably been the most vilified president in United States history, but that’s only because all we’ve been presented with is that perspective.

A Perspective on the FBI Director You Won’t Year in the Mainstream

According to Michel Chossudovsky, an award-winning author, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, and the founder and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG):

The recommendation to fire Comey did not emanate from the White House. It was an initiative of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who prepared a three page memorandum, which  criticized James Comey for his handling of the Clinton email investigation and the release of his October 28, 2016 Second Letter to Congress 11 days before Election Day.The Attorney General’s office visibly acted in defiance of the White House.

He recently published an article on his website titled: “Who Was Behind The Firing of FBI Director James Comey? What Political Interests Are Being Served? Who Is Andrew McCabe?

Chossudovsky argues that this has been a propaganda campaign to draw even more negative attention toward Trump, with the goal of getting him impeached.

The firing of Comey was intended to weaken the president and provide ammunition to the smear campaign against himThe Attorney General’s  recommendation to fire Comey will eventually backlash on President  Trump  in the context of the Russia Probe, namely the investigation into the FAKE collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

This is indeed the perspective of ‘experts’ that you will never hear from the mainstream media. Any type of information presented against the mainstream media narrative will always be attacked, and that’s important to keep in mind.

North Korea

As mentioned earlier, Vladimir Putin is not the only one who called out global media and  the elite, claiming that they use “imaginary and mythical threats” to control us.

In an age plagued with false information, why should we continue believing everything we receive from corporate media? So much “fake” news has been dished out by these networks on a number of topics, like 9/11 for example, that it’s nearly impossible for anybody to determine what is real and what isn’t.

As a result of these controversies, mainstream authorities decided to designate a “fake news checker.” But this only created more backlash, because people understand that the solution is not to censor the information that people see, but rather teach them how to assess that information using critical thinking skills. If our source of truth has become a television screen, we are in big trouble. We should all be able to determine what constitutes “fake news” and what a credible source is. We don’t need Snoopes.com doing it for us.

When it coms to North Korea, we could be seeing the same situation as we are seeing with Iran and Syria, or what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. There always seems to be some major threat that requires our military invention, but we never hear anything from the other side. Anyone who questions the mainstream media narrative is made to look ridiculous. But can you blame the average person? Especially with all of the negative propaganda within the mainstream media, as well as the entertainment industry? What we know of North Korea simply comes from corporate media telling us “it is like this.”

Most of these mainstream media stories pertaining to global events are still believed by many, and the fact that the simple suggestion that they may be false or misleading is greeted with harsh criticism tells us a lot. A viewpoint that differs from the mainstream narrative should hold equal plausibility, especially in the  face of a narrative that simply comes from mainstream media intelligence, which is usually considered evidence.

It can be hard to entertain the idea that what we are being told about major global events isn’t entirely true, and that the wool has been pulled over our eyes. At the same time, all of the information leading to this belief is backed up by tremendous amounts of evidence. It didn’t just come from anywhere, which gives you something to think about.

Concluding Comments

Here at CE, we believe there to be a massive shift in consciousness currently taking place. One important part of this shift is a change in how we see, feel, and think about our world. Information alone has played a huge role in opening up our minds to new possibilities that once didn’t fit the accepted framework of knowledge. As time moves on, we are questioning what it is we are doing here, and starting to wake up to the fact that not everything is as we’ve been told. Much of what was previously labelled as a “conspiracy theory” now has significant backing and evidence behind it.

Confronting and acknowledging the deception that currently exists in our world is not easy, and some of it is so downright unbelievable that the human mind simply isn’t ready to accept it. Nevertheless, it’s just information. It’s our mind that labels it “good” or “bad” without stopping to realize that it’s all just one human experience, but that which does not resonate with us is something we clearly want to change. So much of the misinformation, corruption, and greed underling almost all aspects of our lives is now becoming visible, and as a result, our perception of the planet is changing. And as a result of that perception shift, physical material reality is also beginning to shift and we are starting to manifest a new human experience.

Obviously, this is a process, but it’s happening right now and we’re currently living in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Wednesday, May 17, 2017

There’s major fuckery afoot with the Washington Post, and I think I know why

ORIGINAL LINK

truth-lies-2_copy.jpg

Some days it’s slow news, some days Chelsea Manning gets released from prison while the CIA-funded Washington Post fans the flames of more Russia nonsense, the New York Times pushes more Syrian war propaganda insisting that Assad is literally Hitler, and evidence finally surfaces of Seth Rich’s connection to WikiLeaks. Julian Assange recently forecast a Niagara-like deluge of leaks following FBI director James Comey’s sacking by the Trump administration, and if today’s revelations are a taster of the meal that’s coming, you’d better not fill up on bread.

(Article by Caitlin Johnstone republished from Medium.com)

FBI source says the FBI will now start leaking leaking like Niagara. But please FBI friends full docs or you know the press will spin it!

— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) May 9, 2017

Fox News has just corroborated with its own source a story that broke yesterday about a report from former DC homicide investigator Rod Wheeler, who has been working for Seth Rich’s family as a private investigator looking into the former DNC staffer’s murder. Both Wheeler’s sources and Fox News’ assert that Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks leading up to his death, which casts the official story of his murder being the result of a random mugging into serious doubt for anyone who isn’t a glue-huffing imbecile. The Twitter accounts of both WikiLeaks and Julian Assangehave been tweeting about this story as well, if you needed a bit more convincing.

So that’s a thing now. Until today, Seth Rich was someone you just weren’t allowed to talk about, like Voldemort or the Rothschilds, but no more. The days when we could be called crazy conspiracy theorists exploiting a man’s death for political gain and upsetting his grieving family are officially over. The police would not be holding onto his laptop if this were some random mugging; we all know what this is. We’re allowed to talk about Seth Rich now, but the Washington Post wants us talking about Russia.

The Washington Post, if you need a refresher, was purchased in 2013 by Jeff Bezos, who as the fifth wealthiest person on planet Earth has billions upon billions of reasons to want to maintain the status quo that has made his extreme financial dominance possible. That same year, Bezos was awarded a $600 million contract (more than twice what the Post cost him) with the Central Intelligence Agency, a conflict of interest which Bezos’ paper to this day never discloses per universal journalistic protocol when reporting on US intelligence. Prior to the purchase, Bezos had proved his loyalty to America’s unelected power establishment by booting WikiLeaks from Amazon’s computer servers in 2010. Since the purchase, WaPo has become the single most virulently pro-establishment outlet in the top-tier corporate media, as well as a preferred outlet for leaks from the CIA, and has been shamelessly lying about Russia ever since the 2016 elections.

 

WashPost is richly rewarded for false news about Russia threat while public is deceived https://t.co/1bQ7uCvsXB by @ggreenwald

— The Intercept (@theintercept) January 4, 2017

So I think it’s understandable if people want to take it with a teensy weensy grain of salt when this glorified CIA trade rag tells us that anonymous sources say Donald Trump is colluding with those darn Russians again. In fact, I think it’s understandable if, knowing what we know about the CIA’s massive surveillance systems, we all found the timing of this release to be highly suspicious. After all, the fact that it’s getting harder and harder to dispute that the DNC emails WikiLeaks published were indeed a leak and not a hack does put a major damper on the “Russia hacked the election” narrative that corporate propaganda outlets like WaPo have been hammering the American consciousness with day in and day out since July of last year. Seth Rich being the leaker effectively kills the entire Russian hacking narrative, and thus the entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative that was built upon it, and thus all the manipulations which were built upon the collusion narrative. Could the CIA have known in advance that this propaganda-killing narrative was about to hit the airwaves? Of course. Would they have wanted to distract America in order to ensure the continued manufactured consent for escalations with Putin and regime change in Syria? Yes. Did they? Come on.

Read more at: Medium.com



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Ignored By Western Media, Syrians Describe the Nightmare the Armed Opposition Brought Them

http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/ignored-western-media-syrians-describe-nightmare-armed-opposition-brought-them

Supporters of the Syrian opposition have relentlessly demanded that Western observers listen to “Syrian voices.” The idea is that by absorbing the testimonies of Syrians who have experienced the violence of the conflict first hand, Westerners will know how to best help them. Yet Western media consumers have scarcely heard from ordinary people who reside within the areas controlled by the government -- the areas where the vast majority of Syrians live. Indeed, the voices of Syrians like Areej, one of many people I spoke to inside Syria’s government-held areas for this report, present a testimony that is simply too inconvenient for Western media to consider

Chromebook takeover signals major shift in education…but not in the way you may think

ORIGINAL LINK
Google's Chromebooks are now the most used devices in K-12 classrooms across the U.S. But is there more to the story than cheaper hardware?

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Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Professor Cohen Says Assault on Trump Presidency is Our Greatest National Security Threat: Is There A 4th Branch of Government?

ORIGINAL LINK

Steven Cohen, Professor of Russian studies at Princeton and NYU (an obvious Russian spy) was besides himself tonight, in sheer disbelief over the with hunt of gigantic nothing-burgers that are being used to assault the Presidency of Donald Trump.

He declared, "today, I would say (the greatest threat to national security) is this assault on President Trump. Let's be clear what he's being accused of is treason. This has never happened in America, that we had a Russian agent in the White House. Cohen believes Flynn did nothing wrong by talking to the Russian ambassador, describing it as 'his job' to do so.

He then illuminated the indelible fact that there is a 4th branch of government, the intelligence community, who have been meddling in American foreign affairs, obstructing the other 3 branches of government.

"In 2016, President Obama worked out a deal with Russian President Putin for military cooperation in Syria. He said he was gonna share intelligence with Russia, just like Trump and the Russians were supposed to do the other day. Our department of defense said it wouldn't share intelligence. And a few days later, they killed Syrian soldiers, violating the agreement, and that was the end of that. So, we can ask, who is making our foreign policy in Washington today?"

Professor Cohen added, "you and I have to ask a subversive question, are there really three branches of government, or is there a 4th branch of government? These intel services. What we know, as a fact, is that Obama tried, not very hard but he tried for a military alliance with Putin, in Syria, against terrorism and it was sabotaged by the department of defense and its allies in the intelligence services."

Watch.

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com



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Ace reporter mystified by FBI refusal to look at email-hack evidence

ORIGINAL LINK
Sharyl Attkisson

Sharyl Attkisson

WASHINGTON – On the heels of a bombshell revelation that indicated it might have been a Democratic staffer rather than the Russians who hacked the party’s emails, a top investigative reporter is even more puzzled by the FBI’s curious lack of curiosity in perhaps the prime piece of evidence.

Five-time Emmy-award winning reporter Sharyl Attkisson shared her razor-sharp insights with WND on a truly bizarre aspect of the investigation: If the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, claimed its email system was hacked by Russia, why didn’t it let the FBI examine its email server?

And why didn’t the FBI examine the server regardless of whether the DNC objected?

“This has always been befuddling to me,” Attkisson mused.

“If our intel agencies truly believe Russia (or any foreign interest) tried to ‘hack’ our elections or steal emails of the DNC, then it seems to me they would have an obligation in the interest of national security to confiscate and fully examine the evidence, even if the party holding the evidence doesn’t consent,” observed the former chief investigative reporter for CBS News, now the anchor of her own Sunday morning national TV news program, “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”

She pointedly noted, “The FBI doesn’t need the DNC’s consent to take their equipment and conduct a thorough forensic exam for the security of our nation.”

“The fact that the FBI didn’t press this issue seemed, at the very least, uninquisitive on its part,” Attkisson drolly observed with understatement.

Murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich reportedly sent 44,053 internal DNC emails to WikiLeaks before he was gunned down in while walking home from a bar in the wee hours of the night on July 10, 2016.

Murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich reportedly sent 44,053 internal DNC emails to WikiLeaks before he was gunned down in while walking home from a bar in the wee hours of the night on July 10, 2016.

“Based on the FBI’s lack of examining the DNC equipment and its concurrent insistence that Russia did it, and that Russia posed a dire national security threat; we’re left to conclude that the FBI allowed a political party (the DNC) to hamper its ability to secure our nation and mitigate the dire threat.”

“This doesn’t make much sense to me,” she concluded.

These lingering unanswered questions and pertinent observations took on riveting new significance with a sensational revelation Monday, one that lent new credence to the theory that it might not have been the Russians who hacked the DNC.

Instead, it might have been one of the DNC’s own employees, Seth Rich, who provided key emails embarrassing to the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

What do YOU think? Who killed DNC staffer Seth Rich? Sound off in today’s WND poll!

This is the story, in a nutshell, in a bombshell report from a local Washington television station that was corroborated by a federal investigator who spoke to Fox News:

  • A private investigator looking into the July 2016, murder of DNC employee Seth Rich claims the staffer was in contact with WikiLeaks.
  • A federal investigator told Fox News that Rich had emailed 44,053 DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
  • The investigator, former D.C. police homicide detective Rod Wheeler, claimed the FBI and Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police are covering up that information, contained on Rich’s laptop, which is in their possession.
  • Twelve days after Rich was killed, WikiLeaks published internal DNC emails that indicated party officials conspired to make sure Hillary Clinton won the party’s presidential nomination over rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.
  • WikiLeaks has denied Russia was the source of the DNC emails it published and has offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of Rich, while not confirming he was their source.
  • Although police called Rich’s murder a botched robbery, nothing was stolen.

WND asked Attkisson, if WikiLeaks was getting DNC emails from Seth Rich, what does that do to the narrative of Russia hacking the DNC?

And, does that leave any evidence of Russian meddling in the election at all?

“According to the joint intel report ordered by President Obama prior to Trump taking office,” she replied, “our intel officials concluded Russia was involved in the DNC hacking.”

“However, as I have pointed out, other Obama intel officials indicated it’s not such an easy conclusion to draw for many reasons including, they say, computer interference can be made to appear as though it’s coming from one source when, in fact, it’s coming from another.”

Related stories: 

Chilling similarities between Seth Rich murder and ‘Clinton body count’ victims

News media blackout over Seth Rich revelations

Deafening silence in Washington after DNC murder bombshell

DNC staffer’s murder capped month of Democrat scandal

Seth Rich chased Dem ideals starting in high school

Attkisson delivered a jab that could make some question the official version of events.

“Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that WikiLeaks has strongly denied Russia was its source, and (to date) WikiLeaks has proven a more reliable source of accurate information than some intel officials, including former Director of National Intelligence Clapper who has provided false testimony to Congress in the past.”

That doesn’t mean Russia didn’t try to meddle in the 2016 election, she noted.

Indeed, a congressional source did tell WND on Tuesday, “There’s significant evidence that it was the Russians – don’t think the Seth Rich issue will change that.”

But even if the Russians did attempt to hack the 2016 election campaigns, that doesn’t mean Rich might not have provided WikiLeaks the key emails.

“I do believe Russia and other foreign countries have attempted to interfere with our elections on many occasions, based on criminal cases in the past and intel sources, but I don’t think the DNC hacking is a closed case, based on the available public information and reliable intel sources,” Attkisson concluded.

She provided this summary of the joint report ordered by President Obama that led intelligence officials to say they had concluded Russia was involved in the DNC hacking:

  • The U.S. believes two hacking groups tied to the Russian government are involved.
  • The U.S. has nicknamed the hacking groups “APT28” or “Fancy Bear,” and “APT29” or “Cozy Bear.” APT stands for “Advanced Persistent Threat.”
  • The U.S. believes the GRU, Russia’s military service, is behind APT28.
  • The U.S. believes the FSB, Russia’s counterintelligence agency headquartered in the building of the former KGB, is behind APT29.
  • The U.S. believes the groups accessed “a political party” by sending emails that tricked users into clicking links that planted malware or directed them to Russian servers.
  • The U.S. believes APT29 entered into “the party’s systems” in summer 2015, and APT28 in spring 2016.
  • The U.S. believes APT28 provided the stolen emails to WikiLeaks, which WikiLeaks denies.

Attkisson recommended those interested in more information read the article on her website, “Eight facts on the Russian hacks.”

This isn’t all abstract conjecture to the superstar reporter. She has had personal experience with having her computer hacked.

As WND documented in March, Attkisson has complied abundant evidence that the Obama administration hacked her computers and spied on her.

Included in the harrowing experience was watching her computer turn itself on and off.

“That’s one visible sign I noticed over many months,” Attkisson told WND in an email interview.

“At the time, I suspected it was some sort of phishing program seeking my passwords and contacts, and was confident my computer had sufficient protections. I never suspected it was connected to an intrusion of my systems until sources and forensics told me that it was.”

Sharyl Attkisson

Sharyl Attkisson

She also watched a different computer that she used delete files by itself.

Attkisson announced in January she is suing the Justice Department and seeking $35 million in damages for illegally hacking her computers and monitoring her work between 2011 and 2013.

Three separate computer forensic exams of her computers revealed what appears to be stunning evidence pointing straight to the Obama administration.

“The most important and irrefutable finding is: forensic evidence of a government-owned I.P. (internet protocol) address accessing my computer,” Attkisson told WND.

She said she was told that was “better evidence than the U.S. had when it accused China of various acts of hacking into our government, which the government accepts as proven.”

Her computers were examined by three independent forensics examiners including: a confidential source, an examiner hired by CBS News and an examiner hired by her attorney.

What they found was stunning.

Attkisson provided an itemized overview of some of their findings, and described what a confidential source and examiner hired by her attorney found:

  • “A government-owned I.P. address was used to access my computer.”
  • “We are able to see instances of exact date and time that the intruders entered my computers, and the methods they used to do so.”
  • “They used commercial, non-attributable software proprietary to the CIA, FBI, NSA or DIA.”
  • “The malware was constantly running on my computers. It included a feature that logged my keystrokes, accessed all my emails and collected my passwords.”
  • “Skype was surreptitiously used to listen in on audio.”
  • “My smartphone was also infected.”
  • “Three classified documents had been put on my computer.”
  • “Once sources notified me that I was likely being surveilled, and I discussed this in emails, the intruders took steps to erase evidence of their presence. However, the deletions themselves create a record of evidence.”

CBS and its analyst found:

  • “Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012.”
  • “Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts.”
  • “An intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.”
  • “This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.”
  • “[Attkisson’s] systems were indeed subject to non-standard interactions between June 2012 and January 2013.”
  • “Definitive evidence that shows commands were run from Sharyl’s user account that she did not personally authorize.”
  • “This history has been deliberately removed from Sharyl’s hard drive.”
  • The intruders conducted an inordinate number of internal computer clock “time stamp” changes, likely to try to confuse any forensics that might be conducted.

Why her?

WND asked the former CBS Washington bureau investigative correspondent, did she think the administration considered her a foe? And acted to stop her out of purely political concerns?

“I have no idea, the perpetrators would have to answer that question and they certainly aren’t stepping forward,” she replied.

“But,” she continued, “my computer intrusions occurred in context of the Obama administration’s crackdown on whistleblowers and a lot of my work deals with whistleblowers.”

“Additionally, we know the administration was aggressively trying to control the narrative on a number of stories it saw as damaging, especially as the re-election year of 2012 shaped up.”

Attkisson detailed her experience under surveillance in 2014 in her highly acclaimed New York Times bestseller, “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”

stonewalled

Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, records previously obtained by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch indicate Attkisson was targeted by the Obama administration because of her critical reporting.

In 2014, Judicial Watch said it “obtained an October 4, 2011, email to White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz, Attorney General Eric Holder’s top press aide, (in which) Tracy Schmaler, described Attkisson as ‘out of control.’

“Schmaler added ominously, ‘I’m also calling Sharryl’s [sic] editor and reaching out to Scheiffer’ (an apparent reference to CBS’ Chief Washington Correspondent and Face the Nation moderator Bob Scheiffer). Schultz responded, ‘Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG’ (attorney general).”

Given that Obama’s Justice Department had labeled her as “out of control” and tried to get the reporter’s employer to rein her in, WND asked Attkisson: What do you make of an administration that seeks to control reporters?

“I expect it,” was the sober response. “But it’s our job to resist it, and we aren’t doing a very good job of that as an industry.”

(Attkisson described problems endemic in the news media, including the genesis of fake news, in an interview with WND in December previewing her new book titled “The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote,” due to be published on May 22, 2017.)

Did she think her experience and that of the Associated Press and Fox News reporter James Rosen (both spied on by the Obama administration) were part of a pattern?

“Yes. I was informed about my case prior to us knowing about any of the other cases, just before the Snowden revelations, and prior to former DNI (Director of National Intelligence James) Clapper falsely telling Congress that the government was not collecting data of millions of Americans … but all of these events occurred in the same general time frame.”

smear

So, was it the administration that was “out of control?”

“You decide!” she replied, echoing a famous news slogan.

Investigating the truth about her own story, the award-winning reporter has faced what she called a Catch-22 dilemma.

“To find out who accessed my computer, we need the government’s cooperation, but the government isn’t cooperating.

“In my lawsuit, we seek to learn who had access to the I.P. address that was used to infiltrate my computer,” she continued. “To date, the Department of Justice has taken multiple steps to block us from finding this answer.”

However, her persistence has revealed some compelling results.

“Finally, at my request, the DOJ (Department of Justice) Inspector General’s office sent investigators to look at a separate computer, my personal home computer.”

Attkisson said that although the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office will not release their notes and records, “and have improperly failed to respond to my Freedom of Information Act request for the information,” their forensics investigators reported to her that they found the following on her personal computer:

  • “Evidence of suspicious deletions of files that could not have been done by me.
  • “Use of my computer in ‘advanced mode’ (which was not done by me).”
  • “‘Someone’ installed software onto my desktop and executed it and overwrote some important logs, effectively covering their tracks and erasing much evidence of their actions.”
  • “As with my CBS computer, they found a lot of unusual time and date setting changes on my personal computer as well (15 times in four days).”
  • “They executed data recovery, recovering previously deleted logs.”

Attkisson said the forensics examiners working for the Justice Department’s inspector general “told me they believed the intruder(s) were actually working in my house at the computer conducting these acts, rather than conducting them remotely, but, in fact, the acts were conducted remotely, as with the work computers referenced above.”

“Furthermore,” she continued, “the examiners indicated that prior to their supervisors signing off on their findings, ‘somebody’ narrowed their mission to only reporting on any ‘remote’ intrusions (i.e. not addressing the suspicious forensics they found by someone they believed was actually in my house working at the computer).”

And that’s when the investigation hit a wall.

“At this point, as their report was sent to higher-ups for approval, they dialed back their communications with me and would not deliver the promised final report or the notes that went with it.”

Attkisson said she filed a FOIA to obtain them, but it was ignored. Many months went by.

“When Congress pressed the issue, the DOJ IG issued only a summary and emphasized there was no evidence of ‘remote’ intrusion in that computer and left out the suspicious forensics they discovered,” explained the investigative super-sleuth. “To this day, the DOJ IG has failed to properly respond to my FOIA requests seeking the full information and report.”

As a result, “Many in the media misreported that this DOJ IG report was somehow conclusive evidence that my computers had not been infiltrated.”

“In fact,” she clarified, “the DOJ IG didn’t even examine the primary computers in question – referenced in the other exams above – because CBS would not allow them to look at the computers.”

Did she think the problem was specific to the previous administration, or was it due the growth of the surveillance community, its powers and lack of oversight?

“I think this is an outgrowth of technology that makes such surveillance possible, politicians and corporate interests who are willing to use it for improper purposes, and a weak and conflicted news media that has done little to stop it.”



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State of Denial: The Economy No Longer Works As It Did in the Past

ORIGINAL LINK

If there is one reality that is denied or obscured by the Status Quo, it is that the economy no longer works as it did in the past. This is the fundamental economic context of our current slide into political-social disintegration.

The Status Quo narrative is: the policies that worked for the past 70 years are still working today. Boiled down to its Keynesian state-corporate essence, the Status Quo economic narrative is simple:

All we need to do to escape a “soft patch” (recession) is for governments to borrow and spend more money to temporarily boost incomes and demand until the private sector gets back on its feet and starts borrowing and spending more.

To help the private sector, central banks lower interest rates so it’s cheaper to borrow and spend.

As soon as the private-sector borrowing and spending rises, we can raise interest rates and trim state fiscal stimulus (i.e. governments borrowing and spending trillions more than they did before the recession).

But the inconvenient reality is these Keynesian policies no longer work. Fiscal stimulus (governments borrowing and spending trillions more than they did before the recession) has continued for a decade–or in Japan’s case, almost three decades.

The Keynesian gods have failed, but the worshippers of these false idols have no other form of black magic to turn to.

Why is fiscal stimulus now a permanent policy? The answer is uncomfortable: if fiscal stimulus is withdrawn (or even trimmed), the economy immediately goes into a self-reinforcing contraction.

As for near-zero interest rates: after 10 years of supposed “recovery,” central banks are terrified of pushing rates higher by quarter-point baby-steps, for the same reason that fiscal stimulus cannot be withdrawn: raising interest rates to historic norms would immediately send the economy into contraction.

So “emergency” temporary measures are now permanent life-support, lest the comatose patient expire once life support is removed. If unprecedented “emergency” measures are now permanent props required to keep stagnation from imploding into depression, then what policies are left to deal with the next (inevitable) downturn?

The problem with zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) and fiscal stimulus is neither are remotely connected to real wealth creation, i.e. increased productivity.Printing /borrowing more money into existence does not create wealth; all the new money only increases future claims on existing productive assets.

Real wealth is generated by increasing the output of goods and services with fewer assets, less energy and less labor.

Corporations have foregone investment in favor of stock buy-backs. Much of the borrowed money has gone into unproductive housing and other asset bubbles.

As Gail Tverberg has explained, there is a collar on oil prices: if they’re too low, producers lose money and shut down higher-cost wells, crimping supply; if they’re too high, low and moderate-income households can no longer support the consumption the economy needs to keep expanding: Why We Should Be Concerned About Low Oil Prices (Our Finite World).

Cheap, abundant energy is required for expansion of borrowing, consumption and payrolls; as energy costs notch up, wages and consumption stagnate.

In effect, the conventional state/central bank policies reduce down to one simple directive: borrow from the future until “organic” (i.e. not dependent on state stimulus, self-sustaining) growth of the private sector returns.

But since productivity and average wages have declined, self-sustaining expansion is no longer the norm. Instead, every sector is borrowing from the future just to maintain the illusion of solvency and expansion. Corporations, states, central banks and households are all living off money borrowed from future earnings and taxes, or spending the gains from unsustainable asset bubbles.

The economy no longer works, and the Status Quo has no Plan B. All the Status Quo has is policies that no longer work: lowering interest rates (10 years and counting), fiscal stimulus (10 years and counting) and monetary easing/stimulus (10 years and counting).

We sense the economy is no longer working as it did in the past, but we’re too terrified to even admit this. Since there’s no conventional fix, our “leadership” acts as if everything is just fine, and authorities “adjust” measures of stagnation to appear healthy to support the illusion of solvency and expansion.

Productivity: stagnating, declining:

productivity4-17.jpg

Personal income: stagnating, declining:

personal-income.png

Federal debt (borrow and spend from future taxpayers)–through the roof:

US-debt1-17.png

Private-sector bank credit–through the roof:

us-bank-credit2-17.png

Wealth inequality–through the roof:

wealth-distribution1-17.jpg

There’s no Plan B for a state-corporate form of central-planning capitalism that is no longer functioning. The only policies available are the “emergency” ones that are now permanent life-support systems of our failed global economies.

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State of Denial: The Economy No Longer Works As It Did in the Past was originally published on Washington's Blog



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