Saturday, November 24, 2018

Zuesse: All US Gov't Accusations Against Russia's Gov't Are Lies

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Saker blog,

THE FIRST ACCUSATION, which is the source of the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, was in 2012 under U.S. President Barack Obama, and it alleged that Sergei Magnitsky had been a whistleblower in Russia who was a lawyer who uncovered corruption in Russia’s Government and was imprisoned for that and beaten to death there for that.

Magnitsky was, in fact, no whistleblower, and no lawyer, but the accountant of American billionaire Bill Browder, who had been charged by the Russian Government (and who then fled Russia) as having tax-defrauded the Russian Government of $230 million. And, Magnitsky’s death in prison was due to inadequate medical care of his pancreatitis by the medical personnel there, not (as Browder alleged) to any “beating.”

THE SECOND ACCUSATION, in 2014, is that “Russia stole Crimea.” This charge is the source of additional (and more severe) sanctions against Russis, and also of NATO’s massing of troops and weapons on and near Russia’s border, which are massed there allegedly to ‘protect’ European nations against ‘Russian aggression’ (such as ‘seizing Crimea’). It’s all founded on basic lies regarding Crimea and Ukraine. A fuller presentation of that case is here. But what constitutes the most remarkable evidence of all in this entire matter are two crucial phone-conversations. The first is the 27 January 2014 phone-conversation whereby the chief agent, Victoria Nuland, whom Obama had assigned to organize the coup to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected President Victor Yanukovych, gave the order as to whom Yanukovych’s replacement would be. This call is grossly misrepresented if not entirely ignored by the U.S. regime’s ‘journalists’ and ‘historians’. Nuland famously said there “Fuck the EU” (for the EU’s wanting a more moderate and less-nazi alternative to be selected). That much of the call was reported in the Western press (though with virtually no context as to what it meant and why she had said it), but the rest — the historically crucial part of it — wasn’t. This historically mega-important phone-call, which was posted to the internet a week later, on February 4th — three weeks before the man whom she named there received (just as she had instructed) the appointment to lead the post-coup Ukraine — isn’t even being denied by Washington. Instead, it’s either ignored by them, or else totally misrepresented, in the ‘historical’ accounts by the agents of the U.S. regime.

Especially remarkable about this phone-conversation, to select Ukraine’s new leader, is that it wasn’t between Ukrainians, but was instead between two Americans, selecting the person who would soon be appointed by the U.S. regime to rule Ukrainians; it actually obliterated Ukrainian national sovereignty. Nuland told Pyatt not to appoint the moderate Vitally Klitschko, the EU’s favorite, to become Ukraine’s new leader, but instead to appoint the rabidly anti-Russian Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Here, then, is the most crucial part of this historically crucial phone-conversation, the instruction she gave there that set “the New Cold War” — the movement toward World War III — overtly into motion (after its covert start on the night of 24 February 1990):

Nuland: … Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience the governing experience; he’s the… what he needs is Klitsch [the leading moderate] and Tiahnybok [an admirer of Hitler] on the outside; he [Yats] needs to be talking to them four times a week you know. I just think Klitch going in, he’s going to be, at that level, working for Yatsenyuk; it’s just not going to work.

Pyatt: Yeah [you’re right], no [I was wrong to think that Klitschko should become the new ruler], I think that’s right. Ok. Good.

Then, she referred, in the call, to her agent (just like she was Obama’s agent), Jeff Feltman, who had been assigned to persuade the U.N.’s Ban ki-Moon and his envoy handling Ukraine — who was Holland’s former Ambassador to Ukraine, the anti-Russian and pro-American Robert Serry — to go along with the U.S., in this context:

I talked to Jeff Feltman this morning; he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry; did I write you that this morning?

Pyatt: Yeah I saw that.

Nuland: Ok. He’s now gotten both Serry and Ban ki-Moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. That would be great, I think, to help glue this thing, and to have the UN help glue it, and, you know, fuck the EU.

Feltman chose Serry to become officially appointed on 5 March 2014 by Ban ki-Moon to “mediate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.” (Whether Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ever knew that the U.N.’s  ‘mediator’ had been chosen by Obama’s people, is unknown; presumably, he knew of the Nuland-Pyatt phone-conversation; but certainly Russia’s U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, wasn’t comfortable about Serry’s representing the U.N. on this matter; and Crimeans also were outright hostile toward Serry.)

In other words: this was a set-up deal, set up in Washington, to create — and with the U.N.’s acceptance — a rabidly anti-Russian government, right on Russia’s doorstep, in adjoining Ukraine. Would the U.N. have accepted Russia’s replacing Mexico’s Government in a bloody coup and installing a rabidly anti-U.S. regime there? Did the U.S. in 1962 accept Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, which is 100 miles away from the U.S.? Of course not. Why should Russia do that, in 2014 — or ever?

Then, in a phone-call on February 26th, occurred the second important item of evidence. The foreign-affairs chief of the European Union, Catherine Ashton, was confidentially informed by her investigator, Urmas Paet, that the new Government in Ukraine was not actually the result of what the democratically elected Government had done, but was instead a coup by “the new coalition” government that had just succeeded at overthrowing the elected Government. This is from the transcript:

What was quite disturbing, the same oligarch [Poroshenko — and so when he then became Ukraine’s President three months later, he already knew this] told that well, all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers, from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, [this will shock Ashton, who thought that Yanukovych had masterminded the killings] that they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides [so, Poroshenko himself knows that his regime is based on a false-flag U.S.-controlled coup d’etat against his predecessor, Yanukovych — and he even said as much]

Well, that’s yes, …

So that and then she [Dr. Olga Bolgomets] also showed me some photos, she said that as medical doctor, she can, you know, say that it’s the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition that they don’t want to investigate, what exactly happened; so that now there is stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition. 

Notice here that Paet had tactfully avoided saying that Ashton’s assumption that it had been Yanukovych was false; instead, he totally ignored her having suggested that, and he here simply said that the evidence went totally in the opposite direction, the direction that Poroshenko himself knew to be true, that the guilty party was “the new coalition,” which Paet said nothing about, and Ashton asked him no questions about it or about what country had actually organized it. Ashton responded:

I think that we do want to investigate. 

That sentiment on her part lasted, however, only about one second.

I mean I didn’t pick that up, that’s interesting. Gosh? 

Ashton here seemed to have felt outright embarrassed, and she thus ended in a “Gosh” that was almost inaudible, as if a question, and then she immediately proceeded simply to ignore this crucial matter entirely. All of the evidence suggests that she was exceedingly reluctant to believe that in the overthrow, the bad guys had actually been on the anti-Yanukovych side. The overthrow of Yanukovych has since been called “the most blatant coup in history”.

On the day when the coup peaked, 20 February 2014, there was an event which turned the residents of Crimea even more against the overthrow-Yanukovych demonstrators than Crimeans already were (and Crimea had voted over 75% for Yanukovych, so they were strongly against this overthrow): it was “The Anti-Crimean Pogrom that Sparked Crimea’s Breakaway”.

Almost immediately after Yatsenyuk became the leader of Ukraine, he sacked the existing three Deputy Defense Ministers, on March 5th, and replaced them with three rabidly anti-Russian neo-Nazis, who were committed to his bombing-policy, to eliminate enough Yanukovych-voters so that the new Government, in future elections, would be able to be a continuation of Yatsenyuk’s instead of a restoration of the one that had preceded Yatsenyuk’s. The person who was made the Minister of Defense, Mikhail Koval, announced his intention to ethnically cleanse from southeastern Ukraine the “subhumans” who voted for Yanukovych, who will “be resettled in other regions,” meaning either Russia (if Russia accepts these Ukrainian refugees) or else concentration-camps inside Ukraine (and then perhaps death). “There will be a thorough filtration of people.” (That English translation has since been taken down; so, instead, try this and this.) Their property will be confiscated, and “Land parcels will be given out for free to the servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and other military formations, as well as to the employees of Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine that are defending territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country in eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine.” That’s the euphemism for the ethnic cleansing, and mass-theft, which followed. And here is more of that, and more, and more, of this U.S.-imposed nazism. In other words, Obama’s rulers of Ukraine were rewarding ethnic-cleansing, and were offering their soldiers the opportunity to grab legally the property of their victims.

On 15 November 2017, two of the foreign mercenaries who had served as snipers in the Ukrainian coup confessed on Italian television and described how they had come to be hired for the job, by Mikheil Saakashvili (who is a U.S. Deep State asset).

The result of the U.S. regime’s takeover of Ukraine’s Government is this. And a generation of young Ukrainians are now being taught nazism, right on the border of Russia — Russia being the one country that in World War II had done the most to conquer the Nazis. The U.S. Government has flipped to pro-nazi. And time after time after time, the U.S. leads the three-or-fewer nations that vote at the U.N. against condemning nazism. That’s right: America, which under President FDR had fought against the Nazis and the other fascist regimes, now was and is itself the world’s leading racist-fascist, or ideologically nazi (but this time mainly against Russians, instead of mainly against Jews), regime, itself. (In fact, today’s America is allied with the ideologically racist-fascist, or nazi, anti-Palestinian, Israeli regime. And, it’s allied also with the nazi — but anti-Shiite — Saud regime, which was founded in 1744 on the basis of hating Shiites.)

Ukraine’s economy was destroyed by the U.S.-imposed Ukrainian regime. Until around 2013, Ukraine’s economy was fairly stable, but then the coup-operation, which had begun in Washington in 2011, for regime-change in both Ukraine and Syria, culminated successfully in Ukraine in February 2014. Ukraine’s national debt then nearly quadrupled, between 2013 and 2017, while Ukraine’s GDP simultaneously declined 39%:

Ukraine: National debt from 2012 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars)

2012=20.14

2013=22.67

2014=42.61

2015=60.24

2016=73.94

2017=83.96

Ukraine: GDP from 2012 to 2017

2012=175.71

2013=179.57

2014=132.34

2015=90.94

2016=93.26

2017=109.32

https://www.statista.com/

Because of what the U.S. regime did to Ukraine, Ukraine now has vastly higher debt, and also significantly reduced GDP from which to pay it. Nothing about this operation was at all democratic. The opposition to this operation was democratic. That’s not to say the crowd who had campaigned at the Maidan Square against Ukraine’s endemic corruption were anti-democratic, but that their leaders were — and so Ukraine is even more corrupt now than it was under Yanukovych. Four days before the Nuland-anointed Yatsenyuk left Ukraine’s Government, he tweeted on 10 April 2016, “I thank the colleagues who’ve acted honestly and selflessly. The last 2 Govs [his and Poroshenkos] were unique. They were the first manifestations of New Ukraine.” Look at the heap of contempt which his former followersheaped there upon that tweet. The pro-U.S.-regime site Euractive noted on that same day, that “his party’s approval rating has slumped to just two percent” and blamed it not on his ethnic-cleansing campaign and his sinking his country into hock to foreign investors in order to fund that war against the regions that had voted 90% for Yanukovych, but instead mainly “because of the painful transition away from a state-sustained economy” — not enough privatization, not enough graft for insider-investors to have been able to suck Ukrainians even drier than they’ve done.

All indications are that, right after the February 2014 coup, over 90% of Crimeans wanted to become Russians again, and that over 90% are happy today to be Russians again (which Crimea had been until 1954 when the Soviet dictator arbitrarily transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine). But the U.S. regime and its allies demand that Crimeans be taken over by the nazi racist anti-Russian and anti-Crimean regime the U.S. installed in Ukraine. The right of self-determination of peoples is honored (at least verbally) in The West for Spain’s Catalonians and for UK’s Scotts, but not at all for Crimeans, whom The West is instead determined to, essentially, destroy, by diktat (which is what the U.S.-imposed Ukrainian regime wants to do to Crimeans).

Instead of “Putin seized Crimea,” the reality is: Obama seized Ukraine. Crimeans rejected his seizure. “Putin seized Crimea” is lie #2.

THE THIRD ACCUSATION is that Russia’s Government, if not Putin himself, surreptitiously disclosed through “hacks” supplied to Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton’s and her campaign’s emails, and that Russia otherwise also campaigned, via Facebook ads, to make Donald Trump win against Hillary Clinton. Wikileaks said that the emails actually arrived via leaks not hacks, and that the leaks were from inside the Democratic Party, not from anyone outside the United States. Regarding the Facebook ads, the New York Times on 20 September 2018, bannered a 9,700-word article, “The Plot to Subvert an Election: Unraveling the Russia Story So Far”, and buried 92% of the way through it, as merely a clause in a sentence, the crucial fact that “no public evidence has emerged showing that his [Trump’s] campaign conspired with Russia in the election interference or accepted Russian money.”  This startlingly anomalous declaration by their reporters was publicly noted to be anomalous, on the very same day as the article was published, when the “Moon of Alabama” blogger headlined “NYT Admits That Its ‘Mountain of Evidence’ For Russian Collusion Is Smaller Than A Molehill”. Then, on October 1st appeared, from the “Alternative Insight” blogger, “The New York Times Plots the 2016 Election”, opening:

The article starts with

ON AN OCTOBER AFTERNOON BEFORE THE 2016 ELECTION, a huge banner was unfurled from the Manhattan Bridge in New York City: Vladimir V. Putin against a Russian-flag background…”

The paragraph ends with

In November, shortly after Donald J. Trump eked out a victory that Moscow had worked to assist, an even bigger banner appeared.”

Note that before any facts are presented, the reader is confronted with a conclusion “Moscow had worked to assist” in Trump’s victory.

Police never identified who had hung the banners, but there were clues. The earliest promoters of the images on Twitter were American-sounding accounts, including @LeroyLovesUSA, later exposed as Russian fakes operated from St. Petersburg to influence American voters.”

Although described “as Russian fakes operated from St. Petersburg to influence American voters,” the banners had nothing to do with the election, and the second banner was unfurled after the election. Why conclude they are Russian fakes? Could not these individuals be operating similar to many persons who have Facebook accounts, hiding their real names when commenting on controversial issues?
These lines are followed by leaps into fantasy.
“The Kremlin, it appeared, had reached onto United States soil in New York and Washington. The banners may well have been intended as visual victory laps for the most effective foreign interference in an American election in history.”

How do a few unknown persons, supposedly living in St. Petersburg, suddenly morph into “The Kremlin?” How could, “The banners be intended as visual victory laps?” How is this, “the most effective foreign interference in an American election in history?” A succeeding paragraph proves the article is a bundle of unproven statements. Before presenting any facts, and using conjecture, other conclusions are impressed into the readers’ minds.

But to travel back to 2016 and trace the major plotlines of the Russian attack is to underscore what we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come Acting on the personal animus of Mr. Putin, public and private instruments of Russian power moved with daring and skill to harness the currents of American politics. Well-connected Russians worked aggressively to recruit or influence people inside the Trump campaign.”

What are “the major plotlines,” of what “Russian attack,” that makes it certain that “The Russians carried out a landmark (ED: Why landmark?) intervention?”
Where has there been any evidence of “Acting on the personal animus of Mr. Putin?”

And, then, on November 2nd, appeared, from Gareth Porter, at Consortium News, a total mathematical disproof of the Times’s central allegation — of “The Times‘ claim last month that Russian Facebook posts reached nearly as many Americans as actually voted in the 2016 election.” He headlined “33 Trillion More Reasons Why The New York Times Gets it Wrong on Russia-gate” and displayed the mathematical impossibility of what the Facebook-ads hypothesis (which was accepted unquestioningly by the Times) asserts. He also exposed that the Facebook-ads hypothesis is based on misrepresenting what Facebook had actually asserted:

The newspaper said: “Even by the vertiginous standards of social media, the reach of their effort was impressive: 2,700 fake Facebook accounts, 80,000 posts, many of them elaborate images with catchy slogans, and an eventual audience of 126 million Americans on Facebook alone.” The paper argued that 126 million was “not far short of the 137 million people who would vote in the 2016 presidential election.” …

The newspaper failed to tell their readers that Facebook account holders in the United States had been “served” 33 trillion Facebook posts during that same period — 413 million times more than the 80,000 posts from the Russian company.

What Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 31, 2017 is a far cry from what the Times claims. “Our best estimate is that approximately 126,000 million people may have been served one of these [private Russian company, Internet Research Agency, ‘IRA’-generated] stories at some time during the two year period,” Stretch said.

Stretch was expressing a theoretical possibility rather than an established fact. He said an estimated 126 million Facebook members might have gotten at least one story from the IRA –- not over the ten week election period, but over 194 weeks during the two years 2015 through 2017—including a full year after the election.

That means only an estimated 29 million FB users may have gotten at least one story in their feed in two years. The 126 million figure is based only on an assumption that they shared it with others, according to Stretch.

Facebook didn’t even claim most of those 80,000 IRA posts were election–related. It offered no data on what proportion of the feeds to those 29 million people were.

In addition, Facebook’s Vice President for News Feed, Adam Moseri, acknowledged in 2016 that FB subscribers actually read only about 10 percent of the stories Facebook puts in their News Feed every day. The means that very few of the IRA stories that actually make it into a subscriber’s news feed on any given day are actually read.

And now, according to the further research, the odds that Americans saw any of these IRA ads—let alone were influenced by them—are even more astronomical. In his Oct. 2017 testimony, Stretch said that from 2015 to 2017, “Americans using Facebook were exposed to, or ‘served,’ a total of over 33 trillion stories in their News Feeds.”

To put the 33 trillion figure over two years in perspective, the 80,000 Russian-origin Facebook posts represented just .0000000024 of total Facebook content in that time.

Shane and Mazzetti did not report the 33 trillion number even though The New York Times’ own coverage of that 2017 Stretch testimony explicitly stated, “Facebook cautioned that the Russia-linked posts represented a minuscule amount of content compared with the billions of posts that flow through users’ News Feeds everyday.”

The Times‘ touting of the bogus 126 million out 137 million voters, while not reporting the 33 trillion figure, should vie in the annals of journalism as one of the most spectacularly misleading uses of statistics of all time.

The U.S. Government routinely interferes in elections all over the world, but builds mountains out of molehills of ‘evidence’ to charge that Russia’s Government is the global threat to democracy, and especially to America’s (fake) ‘democracy’. And that’s lie #3.

And, of course, the U.S. regime also had lied its way into invading Iraq in 2003, and lies today to allege that “Iran is the top state-sponsor of terrorism” and so much else; so that anyone who still trusts what the U.S. regime says, would have to be a fool. The New York Times (which participated so prominently in stenographically spreading the U.S. regime’s lies about Iraq in 2002 and 2003) is, no less now than it was then, an ongoing insult to the intelligence of its subscribers, but this time spreading lies especially against Russia. The newspaper’s subscribers didn’t cancel their subscriptions in revolt; that newspaper remains very successful, as if routinely lying to ‘justify’ invasion is okay.

The U.S. public believe the same ‘news’-media which had lied America into earlier invasions and mass-murders — wars and coups. it’s all of the U.S. major ‘news’-media, and most even of the ‘alternative’ ones (but certainly not the one you’re reading here). That’s why, when Trump’s U.N. Ambassador, Nikki Haley, on 5 April 2018, addressed students at Duke University, and said (at 46:50 in the video) “Russia’s never going to be our friend,” she wasn’t booed by anybody. And she continued, “You haven’t seen the end of what this administration will do to Russia.” In other words: she preached that hostility toward “Russia” is ‘good’. The students and the faculty seemed totally supportive of her nationalistic holier-than-thou lying pontifications. All of the questions, which were asked of her, presumed to be true all of the lies that she had stated against Russia, and against Bashar al-Assad and so much else. She easily fooled these people, because all of the major media already had fooled them, just like had been done about Iraq in 2002 and 2003. Fools never really learn, because they always already ‘know’ (the lies).

*  *  *

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.



via IFTTT

Assange Lawyers Barred From Visiting Client Ahead Of US Court Hearing

ORIGINAL LINK

After being cooped up for six years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, the Department of Justice is finally closing in on Julian Assange, and the government of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno is doing everything in its power to evict its most infamous tenant. To wit, lawyers for Assange have been refused entry to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, WikiLeaks announced in a tweet, which has only helped to spur fears that Assange will soon be evicted. And what's worse, he's being denied access to legal counsel at a time of desperate need.

Assange

WikiLeaks said the Ecuadorian government refused to allow Assange's lawyers, Aitor Martinez and Jen Robinson, to meet with their client this week, which is a huge problem for the whistleblower, because Assange is facing a US court hearing Tuesday, and needs to meet with his legal team to prepare.

BREAKING: Ecuador's government has refused Julian Assange's lawyers [UK lawyer @suigenerisjen & Spanish lawyer Aitor Martínez] access to him this weekend (although the embassy is manned 24/7) to prepare for his US court hearing on Tuesday.

Background: https://t.co/uMl2rQmfsP

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 24, 2018

The hearing is being called to remove the secrecy order on the charges against Assange (which were only publicly revealed because of a copy and paste error).

"The hearing is on Tuesday in the national security court complex at Alexandria, Virginia," WikiLeaks tweeted, adding it is to "remove the secrecy order on the US charges against him."

Visitors to Assange were only recently readmitted after being cut off by the Ecuadorian government. The government also restored Assange's communications in October. But this was accompanied by restrictions on Assange's communications.

In another sign that Moreno is preparing to oust Assange, the Ecuadorian government recently terminated the credentials of Ecuador’s London ambassador Abad Ortiz without explanation. As Wikileaks explained:

"Now all diplomats known to Assange have now been  transferred away from the embassy."

Assange has been living in the embassy since June 2012 after seeking protection from Swedish prosecutors who had been trying to arrest him on sex crime charges. Those have since been dropped, but Assange has long feared extradition to the US over Wikileaks' publication of thousands of government cables leaked by Chelsea Manning.

While the left has largely cheered Assange's misfortune, journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi have spoken out in his defense, and warned about the dangerous precedent that Assange's prosecution could set for all journalists.

I have to keep repeating this: reporters regularly publish stolen, hacked, or illegally-obtained material. They often provide logistical or emotional support to sources in possession of such material. Calling such relationships conspiracy for WL would criminalize it for others. https://t.co/95L0ZolXGn

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 23, 2018


via IFTTT

It's A Mad, Mad World

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad

The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had

I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take

When people run in circles it’s a very very

Mad world, mad world

The haunting Gary Jules version of the Tears for Fears’ Mad World speaks to me in these tumultuous mad times. It must speak to many others, as the music video has been viewed over 132 million times. The melancholy video is shot from the top of an urban school building in a decaying decrepit bleak neighborhood with school children creating various figures on the concrete pavement below. The camera pans slowly to Gary Jules singing on the rooftop and captures the concrete jungle of non-descript architecture, identical office towers, gray cookie cutter apartment complexes, and a world devoid of joy and vibrancy.

The song was influenced by Arthur Janov’s theories in his book The Primal Scream. The chorus above about his “dreams of dying were the best he ever had” is representative of letting go of this mad world and being free of the monotony and release from the insanity of this world. Our ego fools us into thinking the madness of this world is actually normal. Day after day we live lives of quiet desperation. Despite all evidence our world is spinning out of control and the madness of the crowds is visible in financial markets, housing markets, politics, social justice, and social media, the level of normalcy bias among the populace has reached astounding levels, as we desperately try to convince ourselves everything will be alright.

But it won’t.

The opiate of the masses is not just religion, but the propaganda, misinformation, lies and technological distractions designed by the invisible government ruling class to provide the masses with pleasant illusions about their country, society, and material situation. If the masses were to wake up and realize they are being manipulated, oppressed, and corralled like sheep, revolution would sweep the land. People are being driven mad by an overwhelming feeling of cognitive dissonance.

The mental masturbation required by a vast swath of the population who see the evidence of decline, created by excessive use of debt and systematic corruption of government, finance, and the media, has created a society of mentally stressed zombies. They know things aren’t right, but to admit the truth would shatter their delusions and require them to act. It’s easier to self-medicate with drugs, alcohol and losing themselves in their technological fantasy world of social media. They would rather believe comforting lies than deal with uncomfortable truth. They go along with the lies because to do otherwise would produce tremendous mental discomfort.

All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places, worn out faces

Bright and early for their daily races

Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses

No expression, no expression

Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow

No tomorrow, no tomorrow

The lyrics can be interpreted differently by different people, but the lyrics above paint a clear panorama of our mad world for me. We are running in circles, getting up early every morning, following the same routine, dutifully going to our work cubicles, seeing the same people, doing the same thing, and pretending it matters, for a paycheck worth less each day. We do this because we are trained like animals to believe buying shit we don’t need on credit is the way to get ahead in life.

Materialism, consumerism, greed, and keeping up with the Joneses has been embedded in our brains through years of government school indoctrination and media propaganda. Very few people succeed in getting ahead. They are just running on a hamster wheel and going nowhere. This is why there is so much depression, anger, and misplaced priorities in our lives.

Walking along a street in any crumbling urban area in this country you see miserable faces staring blankly as they trudge through their lives on the road to nowhere or wasting time absorbed by trivialities and bullshit emanating from their iGadgets. The lives of so many are a meaningless march of misery and mindless repetition of daily chores. There is an overwhelming cloud of sadness permeating the lives of the masses as our repulsive culture, built on fulfilling desires, consumerism, selfishness and greed, ultimately results in delusional, disappointed and desperate human beings.

This dysfunctional culture has resulted in soaring levels of suicide, drug overdoses, depression, and the formation of mentally unstable people who periodically go on shooting rampages for no foreseeable reason. Turn on the 24 hour news and try not realizing the world has gone mad.

Children waiting for the day, they feel good

Happy birthday, happy birthday

Made to feel the way that every child should

Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous

No one knew me, no one knew me

Hello teacher, tell me what’s my lesson

Look right through me, look right through me

Our society did not become so ludicrous, misguided and defective overnight. It has been decades in the making. And it can be attributed to the purposeful effort by those in control of the government in destroying our educational system and replacing it with a social indoctrination system. Children are no longer taught how to think, but how to feel. Children are being raised by the state as nothing more than cogs in the machine.

The family unit has self-destructed as millions of children are raised in fatherless households, broken households, or dysfunctional households. They are not taught how to act and think by loving parents at home, so they are easily susceptible to the social justice dogma jammed down their throats by low IQ government robots inhabiting the classrooms of our public schools. As Frank Zappa pointed out years ago, you need to educate yourself and not let government schools rot your mind. We didn’t heed his advice.

“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.” ― Frank Zappa

Children who question authority or do not act in a subservient manner are immediately diagnosed with ADD and drugged into submission. The public-school system doesn’t want high performers, critical thinkers or anyone questioning their government mandated orthodoxy. The ruling class (aka Deep State) wants controllable, malleable, non-thinking automatons to do the menial low paying jobs, buy cheap foreign crap with their credit cards, and be dependent upon the state for their miserable existence. George Carlin figured it out many years ago:

“They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.  It’s a big club. And you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe — what to think — and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.”   

Unhappy, drugged up, deluded children, who have been treated like a number, grow up to be unhappy, overly medicated, easily manipulated adults, creating the mad world we are experiencing. Children are waiting for the day they will feel good – like their birthday – but the day will never come. They grow up and do as they are told – going into massive debt to get a worthless college education – learning how to be offended – graduating as special snowflakes seeking safe spaces. After being protected and propagandized during their entire youth they are entirely unprepared for the real world of low wages, menial labor, and thinking for themselves. Multiple generations have experienced this despicable process, implemented by those in power.

They enter adulthood just as their keepers desire – enslaved in debt, dependent upon the mass media to tell them how to think – and dependent upon the state for their health and welfare. They don’t know how to think critically as their technological toys and endless absorption of trivialities on social media platforms makes them dumber by the minute. Frank Zappa understood the danger of mass media 45 years ago with his song “I’m the Slime”.

He realized the government and mega-corporations used TV as a tool for their propaganda, molding the minds of our youth, manipulating them into conforming to the ideas, opinions, habits and tastes desired by those pulling the strings of society. Zappa had no idea how much more control the corporate fascists could seize once the internet and social media proliferated around the world. Combining the power of the surveillance state with the devious underhanded methods of Google, Facebook and Twitter has created a social concentration camp with government armed guards and social justice warrior corporations providing the propaganda.

“I’m vile and perverted.
I’m obsessed and deranged.
I’ve existed for years but very little has changed.
I’m the tool of the government and industry too.
For I’m destined to rule and regulate you.
You may think I’m pernicious, but you can’t look away.
I’ll make you think I’m delicious with the stuff that I say.
I’m the best you can get… have you guessed me yet?
I’m the slime oozing out of your TV set….”
 ― Frank Zappa

The detrimental impact of social media has been documented in a recent study at an Ivy League university. Those who reduced their usage of social media saw a significant decrease in depression and loneliness. The data proved spending hours per day on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media is damaging to the mental health of college students.

Social media is nothing more than virtue signaling and peacocking by people trying to pump up their own egos. The incessant narcissism broadcast by the “beautiful” people results in others comparing their lives to these shallow egocentric elitists. When normal people spend their days comparing their plain lives to the fake awesome lives of strutting egomaniacs, they become depressed and unhappy with their own lives.

Until people put down their gadgets, spend time living in the real world with real people and stop idolizing shallow faux icons, they will become even more mentally unstable. This seems unlikely, as young children are handed tech gadgets while they are still in their designer cribs. The masses will never willingly put down their addictive devices and deal with real issues in a real way.

Until this selfie society undergoes a drastic reversion to reality, likely spurred by a debt implosion and civil or global conflict, people will continue to mindlessly wander the earth staring down at their smart phones, getting dumber by the minute. This madness will stop when daily survival becomes more important than Kanye and Trump’s latest tweet. Until people are more concerned with where they are going to obtain their next meal than the number of likes they are getting from posting a picture of their latest trendy restaurant meal, the madness will continue.

If you think the general public and our youth are acting madly, the supposedly brilliant Ivy League educated financial minds are saying “hold my beer”. The Intellectual Yet Idiot central banker academic puppets of Wall Street have done what they do best – blow bubbles and create madness in the markets. Their debt creation (aka money printing) since the crisis they created in 2008, due to their easy money/no regulation policies, has created the largest debt bubble in world history.

When you create the biggest bubble in history you will ultimately have biggest bust in history. They created the Dot.com bubble and the housing bubble in the space of eight years. They have triple downed and created a stock, bond and real estate (aka Everything Bubble) bubbles. It boggles my mind watching the feckless financial world go mad, believing they’ve made billions based on their investing prowess when it has clearly been handed to them by recklessly incompetent corrupt central bankers and government apparatchiks.

As Charles MacKay found throughout history, men go mad in herds, and will only regain their sanity individually based upon their ability to grasp reality when it clubs them over the head with a baseball bat. The recklessness of the highly educated is built upon a false belief they are smarter than markets and have rigged the system in a way that insures they will never lose.

The arrogance and hubris of these delusional masters of the universe during their mad pursuit of riches always leads to their downfall. These are truly mad times when millions of people can fix their minds on provably ridiculous conspiracy theories of Russians throwing a presidential election to the candidate of their choice. So many people are so easily convinced of the most ridiculous ideas (aka socialism works), that folly has become the national sport. This level of idiocracy will surely end badly for this nation.

“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” ― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

As a born skeptic, I feel uncomfortable living in this land of delusions, illusions and confusions. I don’t fit in. I don’t want to fit in. Does that make me abnormal or normal? I don’t want to be part of any team. I will not blindly cheer for Democrats or Republicans. I intensely dislike the worldviews and ideas of Obama, McCain, Romney, and Clinton. I have found Trump to be endlessly entertaining and agree with his pushback on the press, the GOPe, and left wing open border lunatics. The only politicians I’ve ever had any real respect for were from the Paul family.

I’m all for lower taxes, but Trump’s tax cuts for mega-corporations and the rich did little for the plight of the average American, while allowing corporations to buy back billions of their stock at market highs to keep the market bubble inflating. Cutting taxes while drastically increasing government spending nine years into an economic recovery is pure lunacy. Trump created a one year reprieve on the recession with this debt financed adrenaline injection, making this Potemkin economy appear strong, when in fact it is on the verge of collapse.

Driving deficits past the trillion dollar level at this point in the economic cycle is a recipe for disaster, but talking heads on the TV screen act like it is perfectly normal. Keeping real interest rates below zero nine years into a supposed economic recovery is insane, but the intellectual yet idiot central bankers and their criminal banking cartel owners, who profit from this insidious policy, act as if this is normal. It’s not normal. It’s about as abnormal as you can possibly get.

This madness and abnormality is clear to me. I can’t understand why it isn’t clear to others. Am I mad? Am I the one who is abnormal? How can so many millions of people be oblivious to the facts and reality of our situation? They just seem to sleepwalk through life believing what they are told, thinking the way their keepers want them to think, doing what they are told to do, not questioning authority figures, and fulfilling their infinite appetite for distractions with their technological gadgets. As Huxley predicted in the late 1950s, the fact people have adjusted to this profoundly abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. Being normal today is considered abnormal.

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

I refuse to accept the ideology perpetuated by the Deep State and their collaborators in the media, financial industry, academia and corporate board rooms. I would rather be estranged from the general population than sacrifice my integrity by adapting my thinking to a pathology of lies, delusions, and denial. I already feel like an outcast among family and friends. Meeting old friends for drinks and seeing how they have been brainwashed by the media and political class is depressing.

Sometimes I’ve doubted my own sanity when watching the stock market soar, year after year, to the most overvalued level in history. Shouldn’t I have gone along with the crowd and ignored facts and reality? Groupthink has enriched millions of lemmings. But, I’m a stubborn bastard and will never go along with the crowd. I believe my facts are right and expect to watch millions of lemmings get slaughtered over the next year or so. It’s already begun, but they are too brainwashed and will be paralyzed as their faux wealth evaporates once again.

I feel I’ve psychologically and emotionally suffered from being a sane man in an insane world. I’ve been alienated and shunned, but I’ve retained my dignity and self-respect. I’ve got my family and preserve my ability to think critically, question everything, and refuse to go along with the crowd. It’s a sometimes lonely position, but I’ve made this decision with my eyes wide open and a willingness to accept the consequences.

I will not adapt myself to a sick society where vices are considered virtues, lies are considered truth, feeling overrides thinking, fiction passes for fact, enemies are created to instill fear, and insanity is considered sane. It’s a mad mad world, but I choose not be overcome by the madness. What is your choice?

“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.” ― Erich Fromm, The Sane Society



via IFTTT

MI6 Scrambling To Stop Trump From Releasing Classified Docs In Russia Probe

ORIGINAL LINK

The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation, according to The Telegraph, stating that any disclosure would "undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers." 

Trump's allies, however, are fighting back - demanding transparency and suggesting that the UK wouldn't want the documents withheld unless it had something to hide. 

The Telegraph has talked to more than a dozen UK and US officials, including in American intelligence, who have revealed details about the row. 

British spy chiefs have “genuine concern” about sources being exposed if classified parts of the wiretap request were made public, according to figures familiar with discussions.

It boils down to the exposure of people”, said one US intelligence official, adding: “We don’t want to reveal sources and methods.” US intelligence shares the concerns of the UK. 

Another said Britain feared setting a dangerous “precedent” which could make people less likely to share information, knowing that it could one day become public. -The Telegraph

The Telegraph adds that the UK's dispute with the Trump administration is so politically sensitive that staff within the British Embassy in D.C. haver been barred from discussing it with journalists. Theresa May has also "been kept at arms-length and is understood to have not raised the issue directly with the US president." 

In September, we reported that the British government "expressed grave concerns" over the material in question after President Trump issued an order to the DOJ to release a wide swath of materials, "immediately" and "without redaction." 

Trump walked that order back days later after the UK begged him not to release them

Mr Trump wants to declassify 21 pages from one of the applications. He announced the move in September, then backtracked, then this month said he was "very seriously" considering it again. Both Britain and Australia are understood to be opposing the move. 

Memos detailing alleged ties between Mr Trump and Russia compiled by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, were cited in the application, which could explain some of the British concern. -The Telegraph

I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies’ called to ask not to release. Therefore, the Inspector General.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018

....has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me - and everyone!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018

The New York Times reported at the time that the UK's concern was over material which "includes direct references to conversations between American law enforcement officials and Christopher Steele,the former MI6 agent who compiled the infamous "Steele Dossier." The UK's objection, according to former US and British officials, was over revealing Steele's identity in an official document, "regardless of whether he had been named in press reports." 

We noted in September, however, that Steele's name was contained within the Nunes Memo - the House Intelligence Committee's majority opinion in the Trump-Russia case.

Steele also had extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie, who - along with Steele - was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump called for the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly reveal more about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of Justice for lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS. 

Perhaps the Brits are also concerned since much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016. Recall that Trump aid George Papadopoulos was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who Strzok flew to London to meet with). 

Also recall that CIA/FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper met with both Carter Page and Papadopoulos in London. 

Halper, a veteran of four Republican administrations, reached out to Trump aide George Papadopoulos in September 2016 with an offer to fly to London to write an academic paper on energy exploration in the Mediterranean Sea.

Papadopoulos accepted a flight to London and a $3,000 honorarium. He claims that during a meeting in London, Halper asked him whether he knew anything about Russian hacking of Democrats’ emails.

Papadopoulos had other contacts on British soil that he now believes were part of a government-sanctioned surveillance operation. -Daily Caller

In total, Halper received over $1 million from the Obama Pentagon for "research," over $400,000 of which was granted before and during the 2016 election season. 

Papadopoulos, who was sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying about his conversations with a shadowy Maltese professor and self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation, has publicly claimed he was targeted by UK spies, and told The Telegraph that he demands transparency. Trump's allies in Washington, meanwhile, have suggested that the facts laid out before us mean that the ongoing Russia investigation was invalid from the start

In short, it's understandable that the UK would prefer to hide their involvement in the "witch hunt" of Donald Trump since much of the counterintelligence investigation was conducted on UK soil. And if the Brits had knowledge of the operation, it will bolster claims that they meddled in the 2016 US election by assisting what appears to have been a set-up from the start.

Steele's ham-handed dossier is a mere embarrassment, as virtually none of the claims asserted by the former MI6 agent have been proven true. 

Steele, a former MI6 agent, is the author of the infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier. He worked as a confidential human source for the FBI for years before the relationship was severed just before the election because of Steele’s unauthorized contacts with the press.

He shared results of his investigation into Trump’s links to Russia with the FBI beginning in early July 2016.

The FBI relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier to fill out applications for four FISA warrants against Page. Page has denied the dossier’s claims, which include that he was the Trump campaign’s back channel to the Kremlin. -Daily Caller

That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious. 



via IFTTT

Friday, November 23, 2018

CNBC Reveals Predatory Student Loan Process America, Inc. Uses to Exploit Its Youth

ORIGINAL LINK
pirate-2750361_1280

A pirate plundering ships on the high seas is to be more respected than today’s American robber baron elite, who cloak their evil deeds with fake virtue

Imagine my shock when mainstream media propaganda outlet CNBC penned an article describing the predatory student loan practices that have turned a generation of college students into debt slaves after graduation.

The astute gentleman, reading between the lines can easily see the American public has been taken advantage of yet again by an evil corporate-government complex, a.k.a. fascists posing as guardians of the public interest and saints fluttering about Capitol Hill.

These are the same bastards who imploded the middle class with a carefully schemed mortgage crisis, designed by Wall Street and Washington power brokers (especially that toothless wonder Barney Frank). It seems they have also designed a student loan bubble that’s been simmering for decades, and is now about ready to boil over, singeing the remnants of the dying middle class.

Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities peels back the curtain a bit to let us get a glimpse of the men behind it:

“Cost escalation, which would normally be met with consumer resistance, is being facilitated by the easy availability of credit.”

His key observation:

“It’s disturbingly similar to what happened to tank the mortgage market.”

With a bubble that has popped like the mortgage bubble, and others ready to pop, including but not limited to the student loan bubble (the credit card bubble is another massive source of debt likely to never be repaid) what we are witnessing is the culmination of the Cloward-Piven strategy which was designed to implode the American and world economies so that worldwide Communism could someday be implemented. It’s as simple as that.

TNMM has discussed the student loan bubble in the past, a massive problem that mainstream media outlets have been in denial about until recently as they continue to sell the masses on gilded college dreams and “little house in the suburbs” middle class fantasies. Of course, while telling them to take the “easy credit” offered to them by Big Daddy Government and his cacophony of predatory lenders.

Few realize it’s money that comes with the price tag of lifelong bondage.

Reality paints quite a different story from the fantasy America sells its youth about going to college to live a decent life. As is usually the case when one dares to peek outside into the Real World beyond the lies, lies, lies of The Anglo-American Matrix, horrors await those with eyes to see beyond the shadows on the wall. CNBC reports:

Ten years after the 2008 financial crisis, there are headlines of record low unemployment and a booming economy. Yet one area has only worsened over the decade and threatens that recovery: student debt. Average debt at graduation is currently around $30,000, up from $10,000 in the early 1990s.

Those who made these loans possible knew an undermined middle class could never repay them. Continuing from CNBC:

The country’s outstanding student loan balance is projected to swell to $2 trillion by 2022, and experts say a large portion of it is unlikely to ever be repaid; nearly a quarter of student loan borrowers are currently in a state of delinquency or default.

Yeah, they sold us a false bill of goods. From elementary school through high school graduation. Here’s what we get for “studyin’ hard” and “playing by the rules” and “staying away from those girls” and “getting an education”:

Because of these loans, many Americans are unable to buy houses and cars, start businesses  and families, save or invest.

I was one of those who did what the system told me to do and was unable to buy a house, pay a car off, save or invest. Low wages, high rents, student loan bills, and “life debt” i.e. food, water, and clothing meant I barely scraped by.

This, even though I was a local newscaster for over a decade. I only made survival wages the entire time I dressed up in a suit and tie to help sell the myth of America. I was at what George Carlin called Bullshit Junction, the intersection of news, entertainment, and advertising.

Here’s the truth about those news anchors reading scripts telling young Americans to go to college and sign up for loans that became non-bankruptable in 2005.

Your local newscaster who puts on heirs that they’re God Almighty speaking to you in HD from their Duratran-lined studio is usually little more than a low paid, boilerplate writing, corporate-muzzled mouthpiece in a musty suit. Usually in debt up to his (or her) eyeballs and scared to death he’ll lose his job once his indentured servitude, i.e. employment contract comes up for renewal in a couple of years. Believe these vacuous big mouths at your own peril.

After realizing I had been carefully placed into a trap by rent seekers who wanted to keep me spinning round and round in a cycle of debt slavery, I bailed on the farce to start doing whatever the fuck I want to do while a man still can.

I have been dealing with my student loans – that I paid on for 10 years only to watch the balance never go down and which were not dismissed by my Chapter 13 bankruptcy as they would have been before Congress changed bankruptcy laws in 2005 – by slashing my expectations, adopting minimalism and MGTOW to keep Anglobitches from stealing what little money I’m able to work out, and keeping my income low enough to qualify for IBR deferment.

Harvard Law School’s Toby Merrill explains my plight and the plight of millions who got the Great American Bait and Switch Job. Merrill said:

Predatory colleges target the same low-income populations that the subprime mortgage boom targeted by offering a similar promise of white picket fences and higher education as part of the American middle class dream.

As was the case with mortgage borrowers who got taken on a ride by the corporate-government complex, so have student borrowers been taken on a ride. Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of SavingForCollege.com told interviewers:

“Family income has been flat, so their ability to pay for college has not changed even as college costs have increased.”

What happens is newly minted, college educated, Marxist indoctrinated corporate serfs become trapped a self-perpetuating cycle of debt that aims to milk them for the rest of their lives.

Collette Simone took on $200,000 of debt to get her doctorate in psychology. At least she caught onto the game. Sadly, only after the fact, like me.

“If you want to get ahead, you have to go into debt,” Simone said. “And then the whole debt structure is rigged to make sure you’re never going to get out of it.”

Indeed. That’s how the game is played at America, Inc. Simone’s $200k has become $400k even though she has paid $90k to the banking cartels.

Einstein knew compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe, something the physicist once stated in a tongue in cheek manner.

Simone, nearing retirement but heavily indebted now fears her Social Security check will be seized by edumacation system loan sharks.

Some college grads still haven’t caught on to how badly they’ve been screwed. But, in this Realtalk era more wake up each day to the extreme corruption of the predatory American power structure. CNBC writes:

Many student loan borrowers today express resentment and distrust toward their lenders and the companies that administer federal loan programs.

Those banksters and legislative prostitutes designing the trap feign sainthood even as the results of their actions reveal them to be devils, damning an entire generation to financial hell.

A growing body of research examines how student debt hinders people financially. A recent analysis by the Urban Institute found that a 1 percent increase in student debt decreases the likelihood of owning a house by 15 percentage points.

As student debt rises, young entrepreneurship is also falling. By the time college graduates reach age 30, the ones without student loans are predicted to have double the amount saved for retirement as those with them, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

As always, your trusty public servants, banking cartels and upstanding corporate CEOs have shafted you with a smile. These people knew exactly what they were doing with their shuck and jive, and a credulous American public believed them.

Now it’s too late, and the vultures are coming in for the kill as they implode another sector of the economy then profit from handing Americans the bill just as they did in 2008 when they said their banks were Too Big to Fail™.

These loans were designed to be written off someday. I’m not paying mine back. Only a fool would put himself in a bind to pay for his own demise.

You’ve been had, once again America.

Like this article? Has the blog helped change your life in a positive way? Buy one of my books from The New Modern Man Originals section of the Recommended Reading and Viewing page or buy anything from Amazon using this link. You can also sponsor The New Modern Man or make a donation for as little as $1.



via IFTTT

Study shows 60% of Britons believe in conspiracy theories | Society | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/23/study-shows-60-of-britons-believe-in-conspiracy-theories

With so many examples of real-life conspiracies, what purpose is served by calling them theories?

Soros Strikes Back At Facebook; Demands Congressional Oversight

ORIGINAL LINK

The Soros machine has hit back at Facebook after the social media giant admitted to using a Republican PR firm to cast liberal critics as operatives for the Hungarian-American activist billionaire, a claim first revealed in a November 14 New York Times exposé. 

In response to Facebook's "Thanksgiving eve" admission, the head of Soros' foundation, Patrick Gaspard, tweeted: "So @facebook decides to drop a turkey on Thanksgiving eve, with admission that Definers was tasked by company leadership to target and smear George Soros because he publicly criticized their out of control business model. Sorry, but this needs independent, congressional oversight"

So @facebook decides to drop a turkey on Thanksgiving eve, with admission that Definers was tasked by company leadership to target and smear George Soros because he publicly criticized their out of control business model. Sorry, but this needs independent, congressional oversight

— Patrick Gaspard (@patrickgaspard) November 21, 2018

On Wednesday evening, Facebook's outgoing Head of Communications and Policy, Elliot Schrage, fell on his sword and issued the following admission: 

Did we ask them to do work on George Soros?

Yes. In January 2018, investor and philanthropist George Soros attacked Facebook in a speech at Davos, calling us a “menace to society.” We had not heard such criticism from him before and wanted to determine if he had any financial motivation. Definers researched this using public information.

Later, when the “Freedom from Facebook” campaign emerged as a so-called grassroots coalition, the team asked Definers to help understand the groups behind them. They learned that George Soros was funding several of the coalition members. They prepared documents and distributed these to the press to show that this was not simply a spontaneous grassroots movement. -Elliot Schrage

COO Sheryl Sandberg added at the end of the "Thanksgiving eve" admission that while it was indeed Facebook's collective decision to go after Soros, "it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else." It just happened... and it wasn't even Putin's fault this time?

I also want to emphasize that it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else. Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate. The idea that our work has been interpreted as anti-Semitic is abhorrent to me — and deeply personal.

Both Sandberg and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied any knowledge of the company's hiring of Definers - despite the company's official statement describing their relationship as "well known in the media." 

Gaspard responded to this on CNN Tuesday night, stating "I find it hard to believe that one would go after someone like George Soros...without some clearance at the highest levels."

In his own CNN interview 

The day after the NYT story broke, Gaspard and Soros adviser Michael Vachon issued harsh rebuikes; with Vachon writing: "It is alarming that Facebook would engage in these unsavory tactics, apparently in response to George’s public criticism in Davos earlier this year of the company’s handling of hate speech and propaganda on its platform."

The Times’ story raises the question of whether Facebook has used similar methods to go after other critics or public officials who have tried to hold Facebook accountable. Zuckerberg and Sandberg’s claim that they were unaware of what the company was doing is more alarming than reassuring. What else is Facebook up to?
 
The company should hire an outside expert to do a thorough investigation of its lobbying and PR work and make the results public. 

Until then, this episode further demonstrates that Facebook continues to pursue its narrow corporate interests at the expense of the public interest. -Michael Vachon

Gaspard similarly responded, saying in a statement: "I was shocked to learn from the New York Times that you and your colleagues at Facebook hired a Republican opposition research firm to stir up animus toward George Soros," adding: "As you know, there is a concerted right-wing effort the world over to demonize Mr. Soros and his foundations, which I lead—an effort which has contributed to death threats and the delivery of a pipe bomb to Mr. Soros’ home. You are no doubt also aware that much of this hateful and blatantly false and anti-Semitic information is spread via Facebook."

Facebook has spent much of 2018 apologizing for the massive Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal, and has come under fire by lawmakers for allowing Russian disinformation to thrive on the platform surrounding the 2016 US election. 

When asked recently if he would ever step down as Facebook's chairman, Zuckerberg said "I don’t think that that specific proposal is the right way to go."



via IFTTT

Gun Bill To Require Buyers To Hand Over Social Media Passwords & Search History

ORIGINAL LINK

Submitted by Joseph Jankowski of Planet Free Will

The bill, drafted by state Senator Kevin Parker and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, would give state officials the ability to review up to three years worth of internet search history, reports WKBW Buffalo.

Providing more information on the newly-drafted bill, Rochester First is reporting that the search history will come from major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Also, anyone applying for, or renewing a pistol permit would have to give up all login information, including passwords, for any social media sites they’re a part of.

Posts from the past three years on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat would be reviewed for language containing slurs, racial/gender bias, threats and terrorism.

“There should be more restrictions on how guns are purchased. We should have more background checks,” Paul McQuillen, director of the Buffalo chapter of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, told WKBW.

“We’ve obviously seen some of the mass shooters have a social media history that should have sent red flags,” McQuillen added.

James Tresmond, a gun rights lawyer, told the local NY station that the bill would violate multiple constitutional rights.

“The first, the second amendment, the fifth amendment, the fourth amendment, and the 14th amendment,” Tresmond said.

Some are arguing that the subjective nature of the bill is highly concerning.

“The judge who grants or denies a permit has fairly broad digression under New York State law.  And it has to have a rational basis. So they can’t say they don’t like your gender or your race,” Sheldon Boyce, an attorney with Brenna Boyce PLLC, told WIVB 4.

“For example, religious practice- are we going to deny permits because a person goes to church or goes to a mosque?” Boyce asked. “In the case of Heller vs District of Columbia in 2008, the US Supreme Court held that the possession of a hand gun in the home is a fundamental constitutional right so anything that infringes upon that right is subject to challenge,” he explained

The bill is currently in committee with a scheduled vote still pending.



via IFTTT

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Facebook Admits To Targeting Soros In PR Attack

ORIGINAL LINK

Late on Wednesday, with markets closed and much of America stuck in traffic headed to their Thanksgiving venue of choice, Facebook admitted to paying a Republican PR firm to cast liberal critics as operatives for liberal financier George Soros, following a shocking exposé in the New York Times last week which shed light on a wide scope of questionable damage control techniques employed by the social media giant in the wake of several scandals.

We hired Definers in 2017 as part of our efforts to diversify our DC advisors after the election. Like many companies, we needed to broaden our outreach. We also faced growing pressure from competitors in tech, telcos and media companies that want government to regulate us.

This pressure became particularly acute in September 2017 after we released details of Russian interference on our service. We hired firms associated with both Republicans and Democrats — Definers was one of the Republican-affiliated firms. -Elliot Schrage

The admissions come from the company's outgoing Head of Communications and Policy, Elliot Schrage, who appears to be the company's chosen scapegoat. 

In the Wednesday release, Facebook admitted that it used the Washington, DC PR fiirm Definers for several purposes, which included the Soros smear. 

Did we ask them to do work on George Soros?

Yes. In January 2018, investor and philanthropist George Soros attacked Facebook in a speech at Davos, calling us a “menace to society.” We had not heard such criticism from him before and wanted to determine if he had any financial motivation. Definers researched this using public information.

Later, when the “Freedom from Facebook” campaign emerged as a so-called grassroots coalition, the team asked Definers to help understand the groups behind them. They learned that George Soros was funding several of the coalition members. They prepared documents and distributed these to the press to show that this was not simply a spontaneous grassroots movement.

In response to the Times article, Soros adviser Michael Vachon and the Open Society Foundation president, Patrick Gaspard, penned angry responses to the Times article, lambasting Facebook for smearing Soros amid "a concerted right-wing effort the world over to demonize Mr. Soros and his foundations." 

So... Facebook is now the Soros-funded alt-right?

The social network also admitted to having Defenders "respond to unfair claims where Facebook was been [sic] signaled out for criticism," referring to claims that Definers coordinated with a third party company to publish negative articles on Google and Apple which called out questionable business practices, in an effort to downplay Facebook's responsibility in the data harvesting and Russia scandals. 

Mr. Kaplan prevailed on Ms. Sandberg to promote Kevin Martin, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman and fellow Bush administration veteran, to lead the company’s American lobbying efforts. Facebook also expanded its work with Definers.

On a conservative news site called the NTK Network, dozens of articles blasted Google and Apple for unsavory business practices. One story called Mr. Cook hypocritical for chiding Facebook over privacy, noting that Apple also collects reams of data from users. Another played down the impact of the Russians’ use of Facebook.

The rash of news coverage was no accident: NTK is an affiliate of Definers, sharing offices and staff with the public relations firm in Arlington, Va. Many NTK Network stories are written by staff members at Definers or America Rising, the company’s political opposition-research arm, to attack their clients’ enemies. -NYT

Schrage said that responsibility lied with him, and that "Mark [Zuckerberg] and Sheryl [Sandberg] relied on me to manage this without controversy."

I knew and approved of the decision to hire Definers and similar firms. I should have known of the decision to expand their mandate. Over the past decade, I built a management system that relies on the teams to escalate issues if they are uncomfortable about any project, the value it will provide or the risks that it creates. That system failed here and I’m sorry I let you all down. I regret my own failure here. -Elliot Schrage

COO Sheryl Sandberg added that while it was indeed Facebook's collective decision to go after Soros, "it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else." It just happened... and it wasn't even Putin's fault this time?

Thank you for sharing this, Elliot.

I want to be clear that I oversee our Comms team and take full responsibility for their work and the PR firms who work with us. I truly believe we have a world class Comms team and I want to acknowledge the enormous pressure the team has faced over the past year.

When I read the story in New York Times last week, I didn’t remember a firm called Definers. I asked our team to look into the work Definers did for us and to double-check whether anything had crossed my desk. Some of their work was incorporated into materials presented to me and I received a small number of emails where Definers was referenced.

I also want to emphasize that it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else. Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate. The idea that our work has been interpreted as anti-Semitic is abhorrent to me — and deeply personal.

I know this has been a distraction at a time when you’re all working hard to close out the year — and I am sorry. As I said at the All Hands, I believe so deeply in the work we do and feel so grateful to all of you for doing so much every day. Thanksgiving seems like the right time to say a big thank you once again.

And there you have it - Facebook casually admits to smearing detractors as Soros operatives and using Definers to attack Apple and Google with factual information, as opposed to "fake news."



via IFTTT