Saturday, January 5, 2019

Chinese Professor Censored After Admitting Real GDP Growth Is Below 2%

ORIGINAL LINK

Stirring up unpleasant echoes of the market chaos that swept the world in the opening days of 2016, Apple's decision to cut its quarterly revenue guidance for the first time in 16 years - citing slowing iPhone sales in China as the primary culprit - reinforced concerns about slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy that could have wide-ranging repercussions for global markets.

This wasn't the only factor prompting fears over slowing Chinese economic growth: a batch of soft economic data including consumption, manufacturing surveys and retail sales indicators has undoubtedly helped contribute to the paranoia. As we argued on Friday, when prognosticating the direction of global markets in 2019, all eyes will be on the USA's largest trading partner.

For the first time since it overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy back in 2011, China has displayed surprisingly weak economic data that have somehow obscured the widely held, if rarely discussed in public belief that these data, which are compiled by the Chinese state, are largely suspect. Contributing to its goal of maintaining order and stability at home, the Communist Party is widely believed to doctor and goalseek its data to present a rosier picture. Apparently, the notion that this is probably happening has become so widely accepted that investors often lose sight of it.

China

But in an well-timed reminder, the Financial Times has published a story citing a presentation by a controversial yet widely recognizable Chinese economist and others who argue that China's GDP growth could be much weaker than the official data - which showed the Chinese economy grew at an annualized rate of 6.7% through the third quarter - reflect.

To the consternation of Chinese censors, a presentation delivered by an economics professor at Renmin University in Beijing sparked a controversy last month when the professor claimed that a secret government research group had estimated China’s growth in gross domestic product could be as low as 1.67% in 2018, far below the official rate.

Even experts who are skeptical of the official data dismissed the presentation, delivered by a professor Xiang Songzuo, as unrealistic. Yet despite being scrubbed from Chinese social media and the mainland Internet, the presentation has been viewed 1.2 million times on YouTube (clip above), suggesting that Xiang's warnings are resonating with everyday Chinese consumers, who are struggling with one of the worst-performing stock markets of 2018, a collapsing shadow lending sector, a crackdown on China's vast online peer-2-peer lending infrastructure, and a currency that has weakened significantly over the past 12 months.

To be sure, (almost) nobody is forecasting a recession in China or even a slowdown to sub-5% growth over the next two years (for the simple reason that Beijing would never allow such an admission due to social instability fears).

But regardless of whether the presentation is accurate, it doesn't change the fact that China's economy has slowed...

Three

...and leading indicators suggest that the slowdown will continue.

China

At the end of 2018, the China Beige Book (CBB) fourth-quarter preview, released Dec. 27, reported that sales volumes, output, domestic and export orders, investment, and hiring all fell on a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis. A much-weaker 2019 appears to be in the offing for China, but it’s not solely due to trade tensions with the United States. The domestic economy was already on weak footing and the CBB argues that government support is unlikely.

“China is an aging, leveraged country, with excess industrial capacity. Appearances by inflation should be cheered,” according to the CBB Q4 preview. “They are also rare.”

At least one prominent financier who has an on-the-ground view of Chinese consumer sentiment says the mood is more dour than even the depths of the financial crisis. And since this will likely continue to constrain private spending and investment, the big question on every domestic investors' mind is will the Chinese government revive its stimulus efforts, like one powerful committee of economic policy makers recently promised to do?

"Domestic sentiment is definitely very bad, perhaps even worse than during the 2008 global financial crisis," said Fred Hu, founding partner of Primavera Capital, a Hong Kong-based private equity group, and former Greater China chairman for Goldman Sachs.

"In theory, China has wide latitude to boost domestic demand to offset the trade war hit on external demand. But with sagging business and consumer confidence, private spending on both capital expenditure and personal consumption is more likely to trend down."

Far from being some impossible task, bypassing China's opaque official statistics is as easy as recognizing that there are other measures that are more difficult to falsify. And these indicators still point to relatively robust growth. 

Huang Yiping, vice dean at Peking University’s National School of Development, who stepped down from the People’s Bank of China’s monetary policy committee in June, acknowledges that the official growth rate may be overstated. But he says that the so-called "Li Keqiang Index" - a gauge of tamper-resistant indicators such as electricity production and freight volumes, which premier Li Keqiang privately told a US ambassador in 2007 that he views as more trustworthy than GDP - still points to growth of "6 per cent or slightly below."

But more importantly, one individual who spoke with the FT pointed out, to a significant extent, the slowdown is largely the government's own fault (for having the gall to try and force through some macroprudential deleveraging).

Starting in mid-2016, policy shifted from stimulus to austerity, a response to years of warnings about financial risks from a rapid debt build-up. A "regulatory windstorm" targeting shadow bank lending, which had channeled loans to the riskiest borrowers, led to a sharp drop on off-balance sheet credit.

Tighter credit combined with stricter environmental enforcement and a drive to shutter low-end factories — part of Mr Xi’s broader call for a "new era" in which growth quality would take priority over quantitative targets.

"To some extent the slowdown is a result of the government’s own priorities. China is transitioning from relatively low cost to high cost, so a lot of old industries need to be shut down," says Huang Yiping, vice dean at Peking University’s National School of Development, who stepped down from the People’s Bank of China’s monetary policy committee in June. "The key economic policy battles like cleaning up the environment and containing financial risk all contributed to the slowdown in economic activity," he says.

More recently, Beijing appears to have gotten second thoughts about its deleveraging campaign, although the government’s light-touch approach to stimulus reflects the reduced policy flexibility today compared with 2008, when debt levels were lower and a simpler growth model based on investment in housing and infrastructure had more room to run.

At the end of the day, China is simply mired in the same problem plaguing the rest of the developed world - it has too much debt. The amount of new capital investment required to generate a given unit of GDP growth has more than doubled since 2007, according to Moody’s. In other words, investment stimulus produces little bang for Beijing’s buck, even as it adds to the debt levels

China

And yet, Beijing's restrained stimulus has left markets underwhelmed, with China's stock market tumbling 25% in 2018.

"[Beijing] will soon have no choice but to launch massive stimulus,” says Alicia GarcĂ­a Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis in Hong Kong. “They do not want to give away their credibility because they said they wouldn’t do it, but there is no time to be cautious any more. Not having growth is ultimately the worst outcome of all.”

He's right, although as we discussed last night, a further complication for Beijing arises from the fact that China's economy is in the middle of a "tectonic transition" as its formerly massive current account surplus is about to turn negative...

Four

... which in turn is creating serious disruptions in capital flows that could portend weakness beyond China's borders, assuming the trade war continues to impede the foreign investments that China's increasingly consumption-based economy needs to expand.

 



via IFTTT

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Atlantic Council Partners with Facebook to Censor Social Media

ORIGINAL LINK

In May 2018, Facebook partnered with Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab to censor information on social media, while claiming to protect the integrity of US elections.

The partnership between Facebook and the Atlantic Council to fight fake news has resulted in the censorship of anti-establishment narratives. The Atlantic Council is a Washington, DC-based think tank with strong military ties. It receives significant sponsorship from major corporate entities, US intelligence agencies, and foreign governments, and is understood by many as a lobbying group for NATO. The criteria for how the Atlantic Council categorizes fake news or misinformation remain undisclosed as Facebook continues to close hundreds of mostly left-wing Facebook pages and accounts. The partnership between Facebook and the Atlantic Council has also discredited numerous progressive and independent media outlets by identifying them as serving “foreign interference.”

The corporate media has failed to investigate the interests of the parties involved in the partnership. CNN, Fox News, and NBC News provide very basic information without analyzing the deeper implications of the story they are reporting. Some articles question the accuracy of the operation; however, none of them depict the events as censorship that undermines our democratic rights. Independent news outlets, including Common Dreams, Mint Press News, and Global Research, address the real issue: Powerful factions are working to control the flow of information to best reflect their interests.

Sources:

Elliot Gabriel, “Facebook Partners with Hawkish Atlantic Council, a NATO Lobby Group, to Protect Democracy,” Mint Press News, May 22, 2018, https://www.mintpressnews.com/facebook-partners-hawkish-atlantic-council-nato-lobby-group-protect-democracy/242289/.

Jake Johnson, “Alarming: Facebook Teams Up with Think-Tank Funded by Saudi Arabia and Military Contractors to ‘Protect’ Democracy,” Common Dreams, May 18, 2018, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/18/alarming-facebook-teams-think-tank-funded-saudi-arabia-and-military-contractors.

Johnathan Sigrist, “Facebook Censorship and the Atlantic Council,” Global Research, October 14, 2018, https://www.globalresearch.ca/facebook-censorship-and-the-atlantic-council/5656896.

Kevin Reed, “Facebook’s Partnership with the Atlantic Council,” World Socialist Web Site, September 8, 2018, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/08/atla-s08.html.

Student Researcher: Mikhaela Alcasabas (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

The post Atlantic Council Partners with Facebook to Censor Social Media appeared first on Project Censored.



via IFTTT

Happy De-Platforming: Truth Is The New 'Hate-Speech'

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,

Just a quick post to thank all of you, the readers and contributors, for a great year and for making this possible.

Most of you know that the organs (as Solzhenitsyn might have styled them) are using their effective monopoly control over all modern forms of communication – the Internet, social media – to stifle information and opinion that isn’t orthodox.

For a brief decade or so, the Internet really was free. It enabled contrarian viewpoints to end-run what had been the information lockdown of pre-Internet media outlets  – i.e., the major TV networks, of which there were just three; the major print media, of which there were also basically just three – The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times – all of them run by the ideologically simpatico.

That lockdown is in the process of being reasserted. It is being done by suppressing dissenting or just different viewpoints via what is styled (in the hideous jargon of technocratic tyranny) “de-platforming,” which means barring any person who produces “objectionable” material from making it available through entities such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and so on – all of them owned, it is important to point out, by the same cartel or might as well be – as in the case of the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times.

It’s not censorship, per se – since the offending material hasn’t (yet) been characterized as illegal.

But it amounts to the same thing.

These entities used to serve as apolitical conduits for information – generating their revenue from advertising associated with the information being conduited. They nowsuppress information that rubs up against the ideological biases of the owners of these conduits – even if that information is popular and generates lots of revenue. The technocratic elites did not anticipate, probably, that so many millions of people disagree with their biases – and take issue with their agenda.

These “deplorables” – as Hillary made the mistake of publicly calling them – used the new tools provided by the technocracy  to spread (and read and listen to and view) differing points of view.

Having let the cat out of the bag, the question became: How to stuff him back in?

It was easy enough.

“De-platforming” was one way. Another – in the case of Goo-guhl – was (and is) manipulation of search results to bury the offender’s material, or even to not list it at all – which has the effect of un-personing the material and its creator, airbrushing them out of existence like Stalin’s out-of-favor cronies.

The organs issue bland, Kafkaesque decrees about “violating terms of service” or accusations of purveying “hate” speech – but nothing specific (let alone illegal) need be cited; often, the alleged “violation” amounts to nothing more than tilting an inscrutable algorithm. There is no practical way to find out why the algorithm tilted – which is just the point: To preclude even the opportunity to correct whatever the problem supposedly is.

It works most effectively.

The offender – someone like Alex Jones, who has millions of viewers and listeners – is silenced almost as thoroughly as if the government had kicked in his door and dragged him off to a cage for “sedition.”

But his real crime is popularity.

The organs practically writhe with fury that someone like him (or me, or any other person who isn’t in lockstep with them) has an audience.  Efforts that rival the Royal Navy’s quest to sink the  Bismarck are roused and rallied to place obstacles in between the popular writer/speaker/video-maker and his audience. To prevent him from growing his audience, if possible.

And to apply economic pressure.

The organs control almost all advertising on their mediums – and critical online payment methods (e.g., ZahlenFreunde, which is an adjunct of Goo-guhl). Along with “de-platforming” comes “de-monetizing.” The popular writer/speaker/video-maker who was making a living via the ads viewed by his audience suddenly isn’t because the ads get pulled – once again, for unspecified “violations.”

And regardless of the fact that of people were viewing those ads. The virulence of the organs is such that they are willing to lose money for the sake of landing blow against those not in lockstep with their politics.

The “de-platformed/de-monetized” writer/speaker/video-maker is still free to publish online, to operate their own web pages. But it becomes hard to make a living doing it – even when the audience is huge, because the advertising revenue becomes nil.

Sites like this one have evaded that economic torpedo attack by relying mostly on direct reader support, obviating the need to kowtow to the algorithms of Goo-guhl and eliminating any worry about what Gesichterbuch thinks about what you’re reading/seeing here.

But the next shoe is already halfway fallen to the floor.

2019 is likely to be the year for the attempted outright banning (if not criminalizing) of any public expression of viewpoints that depart in the slightest from the rancid PC orthodoxies which almost everyone must already at least pretend to agree with. Everyone knows – even if they cannot actually say – what may and may not be said.

At work, at school . . . almost everywhere except (as Winston Smith, the main character in Orwell’s 1984 put it) in one’s own bed, whispered in the dark of night.

Even then, Alexa might be listening.

Speech codes already exist in many Western European countries and it is beyond naive to believe it could not happen here. Because it already has.

The First Amendment could be rendered a functional nullity as quickly as the Fourth, Fifth and (arguably) Second Amendments have been.

Internet Service Providers/website hosting companies could simply decide to not provide service to “objectionable” publishers. These ISPs and web-hosting companies are, after all, part of the same technocratic oligarchy which is making it very hard to make a living outside the fences of political correctness.

The next step is that obvious – or ought to be. If you’re not  asleep at the wheel.

They’ll start (once again, as they already have) with outliers like Alex Jones, easy to demonize. Then – the principle having been established – the practice will be expanded.  See the fire being directed at reasonable (and factual) commentators such as Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carson and Ben Shapiro – precisely because they arereasonable and factual and thus, persuasive – and so, dangerous.

And at me, for being neither left nor right but opposed to both.

When a Libertarian – someone whose bedrock principle is to shun violence and insist upon the equal rights of every human individual to be left unmolested and free to pursue his (or her) happiness, as they see it, so long as they don’t infringe upon the equal rights of others to the samehas to worry about being “de-platformed” and “de-monetized” and possibly being caged – you know the sun is getting low in the sky.

So, again – thanks to everyone out there who has supported not just EPautos but freedom of expression generally. I suspect matters are coming to a head, sooner rather than later – and it bucks me up to know people like you have got my back!

Here’s to a great 2019!



via IFTTT

Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network’s Support For Endless War

ORIGINAL LINK

A journalist with NBC has resigned from the network with a statement which highlights the immense resistance that ostensibly liberal mass media outlets have to antiwar narratives, skepticism of US military agendas, and any movement in the opposite direction of endless military expansionism.

“January 4 is my last day at NBC News and I’d like to say goodbye to my friends, hopefully not for good,” begins an email titled ‘My goodbye letter to NBC’ sent to various contacts by William M Arkin, an award-winning journalist who has been associated with the network for 30 years.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve left NBC, but this time the parting is more bittersweet, the world and the state of journalism in tandem crisis,” the email continues. “My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus.”

The lengthy email covers details about Arkin’s relationship with NBC and its staff, his opinions about the mainstream media’s refusal to adequately scrutinize and criticize the US war machine’s spectacular failures in the Middle East, how he “argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years”, the fact that his position as a civilian military analyst was unusual and “peculiar” in a media environment where that role is normally dominated by “THE GENERALS and former government officials,” and how he was “one of the few to report that there weren’t any WMD in Iraq” and remembers “fondly presenting that conclusion to an incredulous NBC editorial board.”

“A scholar at heart, I also found myself an often lone voice that was anti-nuclear and even anti-military, anti-military for me meaning opinionated but also highly knowledgeable, somewhat akin to a movie critic, loving my subject but also not shy about making judgements regarding the flops and the losers,” he writes.

Arkin makes clear that NBC is in no way the sole mass media offender in its refusal to question or criticize the normalization of endless warfare, but that he feels increasingly “out of sync” and “out of step” with the network’s unhesitating advancement of military interventionist narratives. He writes about how Robert Windrem, NBC News’ chief investigative producer, convinced him to join a new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential race. Arkin writes the following about his experience with the unit:

“I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton’s hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself — busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play.
“I’d argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn’t missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I’d also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there’s a lot to report here, but I’m more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America’s wars.”

Arkin is no fan of Trump, calling him “an ignorant and incompetent impostor,” but describes his shock at NBC’s reflexive opposition to the president’s “bumbling intuitions” to get along with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, and his questioning of the US military’s involvement in Africa.

“I’m alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn’t get out Syria? We shouldn’t go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don’t even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?”

“There’s a saying about consultants, that organizations hire them to hear exactly what they want to hear,” Arkin writes in the conclusion of his statement. “ I’m proud to say that NBC didn’t do that when it came to me. Similarly I can say that I’m proud that I’m not guilty of giving my employers what they wanted. Still, the things this and most organizations fear most — variability, disturbance, difference — those things that are also the primary drivers of creativity — are not really the things that I see valued in the reporting ranks.”

That’s about as charitably as it could possibly be said by a skeptical tongue. Another way to say it would be that plutocrat-controlled and government-enmeshed media networks hire reporters to protect the warmongering oligarchic status quo upon which media-controlling plutocrats have built their respective kingdoms, and foster an environment which elevates those who promote establishment-friendly narratives while marginalizing and pressuring anyone who doesn’t. It’s absolutely bizarre that it should be unusual for there to be a civilian analyst of the US war machine’s behaviors in the mainstream media who is skeptical of its failed policies and nonstop bloodshed, and it’s a crime that such voices are barely holding on to the fringes of the media stage. Such analysts should be extremely normal and commonplace, not rare and made to feel as though they don’t belong.

Click here to read William M Arkin’s full email, republished with permission.

_____________________

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSou

via IFTTT

The Great Myth Of The Anti-War Left Exposed

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Andrew Moran via Liberty Nation,

Otto von Bismarck once said, “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” For decades, a common myth pervading the American political arena has been that the left is anti-war.

But they are as much opposed to war as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – at least he is honest about his appetite for blood and desire for perpetual regime change, no matter who occupies the Oval Office. So, from where did this mendacity come?

In 2008, the United States was entrenched in an election battle and two major wars – Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats portrayed themselves as the anti-war party, promising to correct the foreign disasters of the incumbent administration. Since then, it’s as if former President George W. Bush never departed. The Democrats have championed military interventions, twiddled their thumbs under President Barack Obama, and nominated a hawk to lead the party in 2016.

Progressives, the same ones who, under Republican administrations, routinely held massive anti-war rallies on days that ended in “y,” have been eerily silent for the last ten years.

Today, the left has united with the neoconservatives in opposition to President Donald Trump’s decision to bring 2,000 troops home from Syria and potential plans to withdrawfrom Afghanistan. Because they loathe Trump so much and don’t want him to be portrayed as a more peaceful president than his predecessor, leftists demand that U.S. forces permanently stay in the region, facing death or serious injury.

Is this a case of Freaky Friday politics, or has the left always been pro-war?

Anti-War Democrats, Please Stand Up

Attempting to locate a handful of consistent anti-war Democrats is like trying to spot Vice President Mike Pence with a woman other than his wife at a restaurant: It’s never going to happen.

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the man who switches from Independent to Democrat when it suits the occasion, has come out of the closet on occasion as a hawk. In addition to supporting the so-called Little War in Kosovo in the 1990s, Sanders revealed to ABC News in September 2015 that the U.S. could use its military forces when not attacked and apply sanctions on adversaries.

For the last century, virtually every war, invasion, and occupation have been given the stamp of approval by Democrats. President Woodrow Wilson dragged the U.S. into one of those wars-to-end-all- wars fiascos. President Harry Truman sent thousands of young men to their deaths in Korea, setting the stage for perpetual global interventionism. President Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. The Democratic leadership approved of the Iraq War, and Obama destabilized an entire region, killed American citizens, and intensified the drone bombing campaign.

Outside of Capitol Hill, the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media have never seen a war it didn’t like. In the last two years alone, the vacuous TV commentators have employed the same two strategies: Demand action against Russia (eh, Paul Begala?) and oppose President Trump for using diplomacy and other tactics to institute peace.

So, how exactly is the left anti-war?

The Born-Again Right

When it comes to foreign policy, there are now three wings of the GOP: hawks, doves, and those who realize the doctrine of the last 20 years has failed.

One of the biggest surprises since Trump’s election is that the right has become increasingly more cautious about seeking dragons to slay and erecting Old Glory on every plot of land in the world. House Republicans have slashed foreign aid in the billions, Senate Republicans have voted to endAmerica’s role in Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, and prominent figures in the White House have asked one simple question: Why should the United States be the policeman of the world?

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president, recently dismantled the hawkish Counterfeit News Network when he told Wolf Blitzer:

“What I’m talking about, Wolf, is the big picture of a country that through several administrations had an absolutely catastrophic foreign policy that cost trillions and trillions of dollars and thousands and thousands of lives and made the Middle East more unstable and more dangerous. And let’s talk about Syria. Let’s talk about the fact — ISIS is the enemy of Russia. ISIS is the enemy of Assad. ISIS is the enemy of Turkey. Are we supposed to stay in Syria generation after generation, spilling American blood to fight the enemies of all those countries?”

Had Obama uttered these fiery remarks in ’08, they would have been the headline for many outlets that covered the interview. Instead, The Washington Post reported, “Wolf Blitzer tells Stephen Miller to ‘calm down’ during heated interview.” The Huffington Post ran with this headline: “CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tells Stephen Miller to ‘Calm Down.’

Comments that should draw praise from the left have been met with mockery and scorn.

US Foreign Policy

H.L. Mencken was right when he said that “every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.” There is no other area in government that should instill more shame in the population than foreign policy.

The political theater of sending young men and women overseas to fight in wars is a tragicomedy: a comedy for those who don’t have to wield a weapon and a tragedy for those who do. It is easy and comfortable for politicians and pundits, a paltry few of whom have ever done any of the fighting, to shout platitudes as if they were reincarnated John Waynes.

It’s clear that politicians of all stripes have blood on their hands. The only difference is that some policymakers showcase this human flesh with pride, while others pretend to be benevolent. Trump’s foreign policy has not been perfect, but it has been far superior to what has transpired over the years. To rebuke the president’s withdrawal of soldiers in an NPC-like manner makes you complicit to atrocity.



via IFTTT

MH17 Turnabout: Ukraine's Guilt Now Proven

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Finally, a clear and convincing - and unrefuted - case can now be presented to the public, as to precisely whom the guilty party was, that downed the MH17 Malaysian airliner over Ukraine on 17 July 2014, and why it was done. The complete case, which will be fully documented here, displays unequivocally who needed the MH17 murders (of 298 persons) to be perpetrated. This mass-murder was done for one leader’s very pressing obsession. For him, it simply had to be done, and done at that precise time. 

The full MH17 case will be presented here, to be judged by the public, because no court of law which possesses the power to bring this (or even any) case on the MH17 murders, is willing to do so, and because the evidence in this 17 July 2014 case has become overwhelming, and is unrefuted. This evidence is accepted by both sides. But it still remains effectively hidden from the publics in the United States and its allied countries. (The present news-report, which is the first ever to present this entire case, is submitted to all news-media in English-speaking countries, so that any of them that wishes to provide its audience access to this uncontested and conclusive evidence in the MH17 case can do so, by publishing this article. Any of them that won’t, don’t want their audience to have access to the conclusive evidence in this case, because this article is being made available to all of them to publish, free of charge; so, there is no other reason not to publish it.)

The complete evidence will be described, and all of the conclusive evidence is linked-to, proving who perpetrated, and who demanded, the shoot-down on 17 July 2014 of the Malaysian airliner MH17. 

This article will start by demonstrating the most important thing, and will demonstrate it by means of links to the most conclusive evidence of all. This is the evidence which absolutely proves that the official Netherlands-headed investigation into this matter is an intentional and utter fraud — a fraud which has already been conclusively answered and exposed by the Russian Government. (Netherlands headed the investigation because 196 of the 298 murder-victims were Dutch.) Russia’s response provided, in excruciating detail, not only clear disproofs of the Netherlands-headed investigation’s conclusions of Russian guilt, but also (and on the basis of the very same evidence that the official investigation had made public on 24 May 2018) provided the still-unrefuted (but nonetheless still effectively hidden) proofs of Ukraine’s actual and incontestable guilt, in this mass-murder. This evidence, of the Netherlands team’s fraudulence, carries the investigation a large part of the way toward its ultimate conclusion, regarding whom the person was who had demanded Ukraine to commit this crime. 

Incidentally, the Netherlands Government had partially funded the coup that in February 2014 overturned Ukraine’s Government and installed the new regime, which regime is allied with the United States Government and actually perpetrated the MH17 shoot-down. The Government of Netherlands is not a neutral in this case that it is judging. It had helped install the present regime in Ukraine. In fact, as you can see here, Netherlands’ Government had been the largest single contributor to Ukraine’s Hromadske TV, which was propagandizing to exterminate the residents in Ukraine’s former Donbass region, which breakaway region had voted over 90% for Ukraine’s Democratically elected President, whom Obama’s coup had just overthrown. This operation in Ukraine is an extension from the corrupt Nazi Prince Bernhard's having established in Netherlands in 1954 the secretive Bilderberg group to coordinate NATO’s efforts for the US and its allies to conquer ultimately the world. He got caught in 1976, for one of his skimming operations, a million-dollar kickback from Lockheed Corporation. Holland’s Deep State is anything but benign.

So, Russia’s response, on 17 September 2018, used that Netherlands-headed team’s own documentation, to disprove that team’s attribution of guilt to Russia, and to prove conclusively Ukraine’s guilt as having been the actual perpetrator of this mass-murder. Thus, the Netherlands-headed team includes the actual perpetrator, Ukraine, and not only the Netherlands Government, which had helped overthrow Ukraine’s prior and democratically elected Government and bring Ukraine’s current regime into power in February 2014, just months prior to the MH17 shoot-down, which resulted from that US coup

Most readers who click onto the links here will be shocked. What will shock them is the evidence, because it has not been published in The West (except summarized in less than a half-dozen obscure news-media — and, even there, generally not documented, such as it is here).

The links will document and fully prove this stunning turnabout, from Russia to Ukraine. The documentation that was cited by Ukraine and Ukraine’s fellow team-member (the team’s leader) Netherlands, against Russia, on May 24th of 2018, contained previously unrecognized details (which were first pointed out in the Russian presentation on September 17th of 2018) which irrefutably convict Ukraine. Consequently, Russia’s response was ignored in The West, despite that presentation’s having been based upon the very same items of evidence that had been introduced by the Netherlands-led team on May 24th. Thus, the items of evidence, there, are the same that the Netherlands-led team had themselves provided. The items of evidence here are not in dispute

The current article will be the first-ever to hone-in on the especially shocking key data in Russia’s data-packed September 17th response, the key evidence that Russia was calling attention to there, and which prove Ukraine’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt — prove it on the basis of the very same evidence that had been introduced by Ukraine’s own team in their presentation four months earlier. Using the other side’s evidence to convict that other side is what makes this denouement the stunning turnabout that it is.

The Netherlands-headed Ukrainian team still refuses to answer the Russian presentation, which responds to the Ukrainian team’s May 24th presentation. Western ‘news’-media have likewise almost completely ignored Russia’s response. (One Dutch medium did report on it but dismissed it by focusing on a subordinate part: their report said and focused on “Russia now claims that the video images the investigators used to track the missile's transport to the Ukraine, were manipulated.” However, the part of Russia’s presentation that will be discussed in the present article was being entirely ignored in that Dutch news-report, which, as you will see here, has nothing to do with any claim of manipulated evidence. Britain’s BBC likewise focused-in on the “manipulated evidence” that Russia’s presentation had attacked. The Washington Post instead headlined “Who spread disinformation about the MH17 crash? We followed the Twitter trail”, and it focused-in on how polarized the public is over the MH17 case. The West’s ‘news’-coverage was virtually entirely misdirection and disinformation, as you will recognize from what follows here. And the evidence here is linked-to, so that you can see it for yourself.) 

Russia’s response documented beyond any question, at all, that this airliner was shot down by the Ukrainian Government, and that Western (i.e., US-allied) ‘news’media have been and are covering-up this crucial historical fact and The West’s still-ongoing lies about the downing of MH17.

Those lies are the basis of US and EU anti-Russia sanctions, which remain in effect despite the basis for those sanctions having been exposed unequivocally, on September 17th, to be based on lies. Thus, continuing to hide those lies is crucial to the liars. This is the reason why Russia’s blazingly detailed presentation on September 17th has been virtually ignored — to protect the actually guilty. The evidence here proves that those sanctions, themselves, are nothing but frauds against the public, and crimes against Russia — ongoing additional crimes, which have been, and remain, effectively hidden till now.

The reader can see and consider here all of the conclusive evidence in the MH17 case — it can be reached via the present article’s links. Unlike the ‘news’-reports in The West’s ‘news’-media, the presentation here is not presuming readers’ trust, but is instead providing to all readers access to the actual evidence — evidence that is accepted by both sides. That’s what the links here are for: examination by any skeptics

Skepticism in judging anything is not only good; it is essential to justice. Trust should never be given; it should only be earned. Otherwise, no democracy can function. Only dictatorship can function in a country that’s controlled by lies, and by liars. Liars are believed by people who have faith in them. Thus, faith in anything or anyone can poison judgment. The way to test the case that is presented here is to click onto a link wherever one wants to see and examine the evidence. Without examining (usually by spot-checking) the evidence, no reader can intelligently judge any case. Dictatorship is almost inevitable in a counry where spot-checking of the actual evidence isn’t the norm. Most ‘news’-media don’t even enable such spot-checking. This is why ‘news’-media are so often actually propaganda-media instead.

So, here’s the complete MH17 case, for any reader to judge:

The last announcement from the official investigation, the Netherlands-headed “Joint Investigative Team” (JIT), was on 24 May 2018, and it headlined “Update in criminal investigation MH17 disaster”. It said:

The JIT is convinced that the BUK-TELAR [missile and launcher] that was used to down MH17, originates from the 53rd Anti Aircraft Missile brigade (hereinafter 53rd brigade), a unit of the Russian army from Kursk in the Russian Federation. … This fingerprint has been compared with numerous images of BUK-TELARS, both Ukrainian and Russian ones. The only BUK-TELAR on which this combination of characteristics also was found, is a BUK-TELAR that was recorded several times when it joined a convoy of the 53rd brigade on 23 – 25 June 2014.

Consequently, the JIT presumes that within the 53rd brigade and within the circle around it, people have knowledge about the operation in which that particular BUK-TELAR was deployed. … Already in September 2016, the JIT disclosed that MH17 was downed with a BUK missile of the 9M38 series. …

The missile engine’s casing shows the number 9 Đ´ 1318869032.

Typical of Western ‘news’-media’s coverage of that presentation, was CNN’s report the same day, May 24th of 2018. It was headlined "Missile that downed MH17 'owned by Russian brigade’". It stated: “‘At the time this area was under control of pro-Russian separatists,’ said Fred Westerbeke, chief prosecutor of the National Prosecutor’s Office of the Netherlands. The Buk launcher of the 9M38 series ‘was transported from the territory of the Russian Federation and was returned to that territory of the Russian Federation afterwards’.”

The Ukrainian side claimed they had finally found evidence which would enable them definitively to place the blame for the MH17 shoot-down on Russia. So, the very next day, May 25th, Britain’s Telegraph bannered "Netherlands and Australia call for compensation for MH17 victims as they accuse Russia of downing plane" and reported that “Australia and the Netherlands have said they hold Russia legally responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014 and will seek reparations for relatives of the 298 people killed.” This demand against Russia was coming “the day after the Dutch-led international investigation concluded that the Russian military had deployed the Buk surface-to-air missile that shot down the plane.”

Four months later, on 17 September 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense youtubed its response, which is titled “Briefing on newly discovered evidence pertaining to the crash of the MH17 flight”. It presented the actual history of the Buk missile and launcher which Ukraine and the other Governments on the JIT said had brought down the MH17. (The JIT includes four countries, Netherlands, Ukraine, Belgium, and Australia, with a fifth, Malaysia, having been brought in only later, after it finally agreed to allow Ukraine a veto over any conclusions that the team will publish. Malaysia’s participation started on 4 December 2014; but whether Malaysia has actually been allowed to play a role in the ‘investigation’ isn’t clear.) Russia, during the intervening months after the JIT’s May 24th presentation, had tracked down all of those serial numbers, 8868720, and 1318869032, and 9M38, and found (as you can see there by clicking on each, especially onto the “Briefing” itself) that after the acquisition of the launcher and missile, by Ukraine in 1986, from Russia, that missile and its launcher had always, and constantly since their transfer to Ukraine in 1986, remained in Ukraine, and never again were located in Russia. So: if the JIT’s supplied evidence is authentic — which the Ukrainian team asserts it to be — then it outright convicts Ukraine. This is an evidentiary checkmate, against the Ukrainian side.

With the passage now of years, the precise cause of the shooting-down of the Malaysian passenger plane MH17 on 17 July 2014 has been becoming clearer and clearer, despite the rigorous continuing attempts by Western ‘news’ media to cover it up and to hide from the public the growing and by-now irrefutable evidence (presented here) that clearly shows what and who actually brought down this airliner.

In the years since I headlined on August 24th of 2014 the news, “MH-17 ‘Investigation’: Secret August 8th Agreement Seeps Out: Perpetrator of the Downing in Ukraine, of the Malaysian Airliner, Will Stay Hidden”, the key fact about the official ‘investigation’ has actually been that the Government of Ukraine was, on 8 August 2014, granted veto-power over any official finding which would be produced by the Joint Investigative Team. On 20 November 2014, Russian Television headlined “Dutch government refuses to reveal ‘secret deal’ into MH17 crash probe” and reported that Holland’s science-publishers Elsevier had filed for this information under that country’s Freedom of Information Act, and the Government simply refused to comply with that law. The leaders of Western nations apparently want the black-box and much other basic data in their possession to remain hidden, and the four nations had signed this secret agreement to allow the Government of Ukraine to block any report that incriminates Ukraine in the MH17 shoot-down. But additional evidence has nonetheless become public, and all of it confirms and adds yet further details to the explanation that was first put forth by the retired German Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko, whose independent investigation had concluded that Ukrainian Government fighter-jets intentionally shot down this civilian plane. He did not rule out the possibility that a Buk missile had simultaneously been used there, but he made clear that at least one fighter-jet had been used in this shoot-down.

However, if those parts of a Buk missile, which were the focus of the Netherlands team’s presentation on May 24th, were indeed retrieved from the crash-site as that team claims, then a Buk missile had also hit the MH17. Serious question would nonetheless exist as to whether that Buk was fired by troops who were working for Ukraine, or instead for Russia (or else for Donbas separatists who were working in conjunction with Russia, which was Ukraine’s and America’s original version of the event).

Precisely what the method was, by which the direct perpetrators brought down the MH17, has gradually become clearer, despite this continuation of Western secrecy (and Ukraine’s veto-power over the ‘findings’) regarding the contents of the black boxes, and of the US satellite images, and of the Ukrainian air-traffic-control radar recordings, and of other evidence-sources that are still being held secret by The West and not made available to their ‘news’ media nor to anyone outside a tight official circle of those Western nations’ intelligence agencies. 

But now, Russia has actually — on 17 September 2018 — exposed the outright fraudulence of the JIT’s 24 May 2018 presentation, and The West (the US Government’s allies) entirely ignored the conclusive evidence that that presentation by the JIT itself actually contained and to which Russia was pointing, so that there can no longer be reasonable doubt about The West’s intentional and still ongoing fraudulence regarding the entire MH17 matter.

Also entirely ignored in the Ukrainain team’s ‘explanation’ of the event is why Ukraine’s air-traffic control had guided the MH17’s pilot to fly over the conflict-zone where Ukraine’s civil war was being waged and where Ukraine’s war-planes were bombing. The MH17’s pilot was instructed by Ukraine’s air-traffic control to take that path instead of the one that the airline had planned and that had become normal during the civil war. This was highly abnormal, and it doomed the MH17. Clearly, only Ukraine’s Government could, and did, do that — change the route, and for only that one plane. Yet, still, the Netherlands-headed team blames Russia and is trusted in The West, but Russia is not. (Now, why would that be?)

Russia has constantly been releasing its own investigations regarding MH-17; and, in the process, Russia on September 17th not only provided further details as to how the downing actually happened (it wasn’t by mistake, as the West contends it was), but they have also, in prior presentations, exposed the absurd impossibility of the Ukrainian Government’s ‘explanation’ of this event (that only a Buk had been used), which is the ‘explanation’ that is still being parroted unquestioningly and unflinchingly by officials in Washington, Europe, and NATO, and also by Western ‘news’ media. (As my news-report on 24 August 2014 explained, that secret August 8th agreement was signed by the four governments which formed the JIT team and which had been handed by Malaysia the black boxes to study — Ukraine, Belgium, Australia, and Netherlands — and the JIT granted to the Ukrainian Government a veto over anything that the team’s official report would say. This is probably the reason why the subsequent officially released report on those black boxes said essentially nothing. It was a brazen insult to the 298 victims’ families. The presumption has been that all of them will have faith, not be skeptical, regarding the JIT team.) 

Though Russia doesn’t possess those black boxes (which, by chance, were handed by the pro-Russian separatists to the Malaysian Government’s representative, and yet that Government handed them to Netherland’s Government instead of to Russia’s — apparently trusting Netherlands more than trusting Russia or even themselves), Russia does possess, and publicly reveals, evidence that’s conclusive on its own; and it is 100% consistent with Haisenko’s reconstruction of the event, regardless whether a Buk was involved or not. Russian Television had issued in October 2014 a 25-minute documentary on the event, and it starts with people whom they interviewed in that region, who were describing their having seen at least one and perhaps two planes rising toward the airliner, and then the airliner coming down from the sky. Other witnesses told them that they saw an SU-25 fighter plane take off in that general area just minutes before the airliner came down. 

FIRST, THE MISSING BBC REPORT:

The BBC had previously posted to their website on 23 July 2014, just six days after the event itself, a news report in Russian via their Russian service (fortunately archived by Global Research), about the downing, but they quickly removed it without explanation. Fortunately, however, some Russian-speakers had managed to download it before it was yanked; and at least two of those downloads were posted to youtube, the first one having been posted there on 28 July 2014, with English subscripts, and with the headline, “UKRAINE Eyewitness Confirm Military Jet Flew Besides MH17 Airliner: BBC Censors Video 25Jul2014”. (It’s gone now, but, actually, several witnesses, and not just one, were interviewed there — there wasn’t just one “Eyewitness”.) Furthermore, Global Research posted on 10 September 2014 a transcript of it, headlining, “Deleted BBC Report. ‘Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down MHI7’, Donetsk Eyewitnesses.” (The video itself is still at youtube and it will be linked-to just below here, so that you will be able to view it.)

The interviews by the BBC were done by their reporter Olga Ivshina. (Also see http://archive.is/vFoh9.) She had filmed local residents in the crash-debris area. In one passage of her 23 July 2014 news-report, there were two residents simultaneously who described what they had seen. One of them said, “And there was another aircraft.” The other continued immediately, in order to describe the other plane, “a military one, beside it [‘it’ being the airliner]. Everybody saw it. It was proceeding underneath below the civilian one.”

Here is the second, and clearer, version of that clip. (It’s the one that’s still live at youtube.) The key portion on it is at 0:38-042 in the video:

That was the 9 September 2014 repost of it, with the same subscript-translation into English, only the visual is sharper.

And here is an apology, dated 25 July 2014, by the BBC, for their having removed their original video of this interview — and yet they still didn’t repost it; they still continue to blockade it; even today the only versions available, of these, the earliest recorded interviews of people who said they witnessed the event, are the independently posted ones, but here is the BBC’s apology:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/blogs/2014/07/140725_blog_editors_bbc_story_republished.shtml

Here, then, is that BBC apology google-translated into English: http://archive.is/kc291

So: clearly, BBC has done all that they could to remove evidence, which they had mistakenly broadcast, which had fit the retired Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of the event, and which contradicted the US-Ukrainian reconstruction of it — the reconstruction that Western ‘news’ media project, and on the basis of which US President Barack Obama won from the EU stiff increases in, and subsequent extensions of, the economic sanctions against Russia, all on the basis of lies.

(Subsequently, on 17 December 2018, South Front headlined “‘EDITORIAL BOARD DEMANDS BLOOD’: INSIDE LOOK AT HOW BBC TRIES TO FIND PROOF OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE ON YELLOW VEST PROTESTS”, and they reported that Ivshina had texted to a BBC stringer, on the streets of Paris, instructions of what story-lines were wanted by BBC management regarding the “Yellow Vests” demonstrations against French President Emmanuel Macron, ”Yes, I’m searching for the angles))) The editorial board wants blood, yo)))”. “And if you find these ultra-rightists [at the protests], will they talk about Putin and Moscow? Well, at least the Russians go to the protests, right?” Ivshina was instructing her French stringer what to look for, in order for her to be able to report the type of ‘news’ that her bosses wanted to publish. Perhaps Ivshina had been chastised in 2014 and had learned to never again be caught reporting anything that challenges the UK Government’s anti-Russia propaganda-line.)

So, this valuable eyewitness-testimony to the MH17 event is available despite Western ‘news’ media (or, more-accurately, propaganda-media), and the reason for the news-suppression is clear to anyone who views that BBC 23 July 2014 report, which presents several eyewitnesses, interviewed separately as individuals, not as a group, and yet all of whose testimonies — perhaps despite Ivshina’s wish for them not to say this — report having observed the very same basic narrative, of at least one military jet rising toward the airliner just before it came down. 

In other words: it is clear that BBC had yanked this report because it didn’t confirm the West’s story-line, which says that Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists had fired a “Buk” ground-based missile at the airliner, thinking that the civilian plane was a Ukrainian Government war-plane about to bomb them and their families. But, first of all, the Ukrainian Government was virtually admitting there that they were bombing these villagers, which means that they were perpetrating an ethnic cleansing operation there, which indeed that Government was doing; but, secondly, the Ukrainian Government’s statement also acknowledged that if the event had happened in that way, it would have been unintentional, a tragic accident on the part of the rebels there. (The JIT’s line now is that it was instead an outright Russian attack against the MH17.)

So, then, why did “the international community” respond with massive economic sanctions against Russia on account of this downing — by, as it turns out, Ukraine? The whole Western propaganda position was designed for a public of sheer fools, if not of outright psychopathic ones, who cared not a bit about the plights of the victims of an ethnic-cleansing campaign. They cared only about victims in “The West.” The West’s basic story-line doesn’t make sense without recognizing that we were financing ethnic cleansing to clear the land in southeastern Ukraine, and that any support that Russia would be providing to those separatists would have been defensive in nature, not offensive. Yet Russia gets the blame when this passenger jet goes down? Even though Ukraine’s air-traffic control had guided the pilot there? In any case, that story-line of Russian guilt is false, from start to finish. And now (at least after 17 September 2018) it is finished. But Western ‘news’-media still continue to broadcast the lies, as if it weren’t.

Here is how outright ludicrous it actually is, and sound reason in itself that anyone in the military had to have known, from the very get-go, that the “Buk” ‘explanation’ was a line of pure malarkey:

THE RUSSIAN DOCUMENTARY:

The 22 October 2014 Russian documentary was titled, “MH-17: The Untold Story,” and it presents, among much else, videos of several “Buk” missiles being fired on other occasions, just to show how utterly ludicrous the initial Ukraine-US-and-allied ‘explanation of the MH17 event was. On 5 November 2014, I summarized that, with screen-shots from the Russian documentary.

So, when even the BBC’s reporter wasn’t able to find anyone in that entire region who recounts having seen anything of the sort, just how likely would the Ukrainian Government’s line on that matter — that not only was this done by a lone Buk but it was fired by (at first) pro-Russian separatists, and (then) by the Russian army — actually be? Obviously, any person with any military knowledge whatsoever had to have recognized virtually immediately that the Ukrainian Government’s story-line on the MH-17 downing was a pile of sheer malarkey, but did anyone in the Western ‘news’ media report that it was — that the Western line there was not just a lie, but an absurd one, one that requires an ignorant public in order for it to be able to be taken seriously at all by the public? One that requires an ignorant public, to remain ignorant? This is supposed to be the Western ‘news’ media, with a free press, and a democracy, a truthfully informed citizenry, who can vote based upon truths, not on mere lies?

Here is the way that the Russian TV documentary opens:

Several of the locals there told Russian TV’s reporter that they had seen a military jet rise toward the airliner; and not a one of these individuals were any of the same ones who had testified the exact same thing to the BBC’s reporter, whose news-piece had been squelched by her managers.

HERE IS HOW MH17 WAS SHOT DOWN:

Now, to the substance of the explanation of how this plane was actually brought down:

Earlier, I had summarized the evidence for Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of the event, but I questioned his having accepted the eyewitness testimony to the effect that the planes that shot down the airliner were SU-25s. In Haisenko’s Russian TV interview, he stuck by his belief that it was probably SU-25s instead of SU-27s or Mig 29s, both of which are also in the Ukrainian Air Force, and all three of which use 30-millimeter machine-guns or “cannons.” But since the fact is that all three of those attack-plane models use machine-guns (“cannons”) with 30-caliber bullets (which is the size that clearly was used, especially on the cockpit), the effect would be identically-sized round 30-caliber entry-holes, no matter what. My last major report on that evidence, prior to the 8 August 2014 formation of the JIT and their mutual agreement to report nothing that would be incriminating to Ukraine’s Government regarding the MH17 incident, was “Systematically Reconstructing the Shoot-Down of the Malaysian Airliner: The Guilt Is Clear and Damning.” That basically fills in (and the links, in that report, document with pictures and videos that) the actual way that this plane was downed, and that why it was downed was “to get the EU to go along with stiffened sanctions against Russia”. Obama (via the regime that he had installed in a February 2014 coup in Kiev) succeeded there in getting the international sanctions against Russia that he had been wanting. Obama, and certainly not Putin — and now we know it wasn’t Russia at all (not even if a Buk was involved) — was the key person behind this. The 298 MH17 murder-victims on 17 July 2014 were murdered by Barack Obama (via his agents such as Victoria Nuland — she ran Obama’s Ukrainian operation), just as clearly as (if not even more clearly than) Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud (via his agents at the Sauds’ Istanbul Consulate) murdered Jamal Khashoggi on 2 October 2018.

International actions (such as economic sanctions) are based upon such fabrications, and ‘evidence’ taken out of its full context, as this from the far-right Forbes commentator Paul Roderick Gregory, but there are no such fakes, nor out-of-context items of evidence, in the case that has been presented here. That’s the difference between news-reporting versus propaganda; but, in the United States today, propaganda passes as if it were ‘news,’ and authentic news that doesn’t fit the regime’s cooked-up narrative is suppressed entirely. The scandal isn’t just Obama, and it’s not just Ukraine; it is also the propaganda-organs, and even (though to the least extent) their audiences who subscribe to such lying ‘news’-media.

Western governments, and their ‘news’ media, are treating their citizens, their own publics, not really as citizens, but as suckers. They are treating them as subjects, instead of as citizens. This is not authentic democracy. It is neo-feudal; it is, in fact, fascism.

The entire “Buk” ‘explanation’ of the downing of the Malaysian airliner (the idea that only a Buk missile caused the physical wreckage which was found) is for suckers only; and everyone in official circles, and in the press, who peddles it, is just as fake as the ridiculous story-line that he or she is peddling. To fall for it, after being provided all of the authentic evidence, which has been linked-to here, one would have to be a willing slave to psychopaths. In this case, the psychopath was Obama, who not only had perpetrated a bloody coup to overthrow the democratically elected President of Ukraine in February 2014 but who also was now struggling, and had a very pressing obsession, to get the EU to accept his sanctions against Russia for its having accepted the pleas of Crimeans (who had voted 75% for that President) to become restored again to Russia. The 14 July 2014 mass-murder that was set up to be blamed against Russia was Obama’s trick that enabled him to win his way on this.

CONCLUSIONS:

By no means do we know every detail about how the MH17 was shot down, but what we do now know for certain is that the narrative for that event which was supplied by Ukraine’s team on May 24th — the official account of how it happened — isn’t just false; it is outright fraudulent. Ukraine’s team supplied evidence which, if it is authentic, actually convicts Ukraine. And Western ‘news’-media hide this crucial fact.

So, now, we know why Western governments have hidden, instead of making available to the public, the black-box data and the other evidence that they still refuse to provide to the public. They are aiming to scam the public, not to inform it. Lying is their game. They might call it ‘patriotism.’ Traitors would likely do that. Traitors to any country could do it. And, so, they do. Their believers constitute their political base.

Unfortunately, anyone they fool becomes their tool, and everyone else is purely their victim — helpless to oust (much less, to replace) the tyrants who make things bad for everyone but themselves and their colleagues, the insiders at the very top.

Just the day before the MH17 shoot-down, Bloomberg News had headlined, on 16 July 2014, "EU Readies Russia Sanctions Amid US Pressure on Ukraine”, and reported that “the US urges the bloc to take a tougher stance against Moscow.” The day before that, on July 15th, Bloomberg’s headline had been “EU Leaders Weigh Sanctions Against Russia Over Ukraine”, and that report opened, “European Union leaders meeting in Brussels will consider expanded sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict, as the US urges the bloc to take a tougher stand against Moscow.” Was the July 17th event only coincidentally timed perfectly in order to achieve what Obama was determined to produce: the first Ukraine-based anti-Russia sanctions? The regime that Obama had installed in Ukraine in February 2014 needed not only his support, but also the support of the IMF (in order to obtain loans), and of the EU (which it was seeking to join). There was probably even more pressure placed upon the leaders in Ukraine than there was upon the leaders in the EU. But there was plenty upon them both. The EU was widely reported to be balking at increasing the sanctions against Russia. Obama needed the EU to approve quickly his increased sanctions, so as to keep the momentum going for his entire anti-Russian campaign, which had been the reason behind his February 2014 coup in Ukraine. Something dramatic now was needed, in order for Obama to win the EU’s full cooperation. After all, Obama had secretly started at least by 2011 his operation to take over Ukraine. This operation was, for him, one of the central objectives of his entire two-term Presidency. Ukraine — and Ukraine alone — now had within its power the capacity to deliver to him the EU’s participation. Ukraine delivered it, precisely when it was the most urgently needed. This was essential in order for Ukraine to be able to enter the EU. And entering the EU would be essential in order for Ukraine to be able to enter NATO — the next key step in the Bilderbergers’ plan. 

Continuing the sanctions is easier than originally imposing them was. On 22 December 2018, UAwire headlined “EU extends economic sanctions against Russia”, and reported that on December 14th, the EU’s sanctions against Russia, which are based upon alleged Russian aggressions in or against Ukraine, are being extended: UAwire noted “These measures were initially introduced on July 31, 2014 for one year in response to Russia's actions to destabilize the situation in Ukraine, and then strengthened in September 2014.” The EU supports, and participates in, the US regime’s lies and sanctions against Russia. These crimes and lies started as Obama’s, but continued under his successor Trump, and have been also the EU’s crimes throughout, by the EU’s joining, instead of condemning, not only those sanctions but also the lies upon which those sanctions are based. The EU thus indirectly shares the US Government’s guilt in the mass-murders that occurred on 17 July 2014. 

Perhaps the survivors’ families and Malaysia Airlines (which is owned by the Malaysian Government), and their Governments, will file both civil and criminal charges now initially against Ukraine and its President Petro Poroshenko, and ultimately against Victoria Nuland, Barack Obama, and the United States, but also against the Dutch Government, for its collusion with the United States Government in its fraudulent ‘investigation’ that had pre-established blame against Russia. (However, the secret agreement that Malaysia signed to join the JIT might prohibit Malaysia from joining such suits.) Netherlands pre-established Russian blame especially by means of its 8 August 2014 secret four-party agreement (joined later by Malaysia’s Government) to allow Ukraine, an actual suspect in this case, to hold veto power over the assignment of blame in this entire matter. However, not only the survivors of the 298 victims should be suing, but all of the victims should be represented in this case. There were also many violations of international laws. Obama’s coup against Ukraine was one such. The MH17 shoot-down resulted from that coup, couldn’t have occurred without it, and was an extension from it. That coup is thus an important part of the MH17 case.

On 20 September 2017, the now 5 countries in the JIT signed a joint “Memorandum of Understanding” saying “Arrangements for signatories and other grieving nations to make financial contributions to the national proceedings in the Netherlands will be laid down in a financial memorandum of understanding,” and that “This Memorandum will remain in effect for five years and will be automatically extended for successive five-year periods.” So, they intend to continue their ‘investigation’ into MH17 until they can present to the world evidence that Russia did it. Perhaps before that happens, however, all of the victims and their children will already have passed away and this fraud and farce will finally end, as secretly as it began, and only few people will even care, anymore, about it.

Or will victims and their families, instead, initiate whatever legal proceedings they can, right now, against all members of the JIT, for their cover-up, and against the ringleaders, in the US, who demanded this mass-murder to be done, and against the perpetrators in Ukraine, who actually ordered and did it?

Maybe they’ll even be able to get Barack Obama to return to the Nobel committee their 2009 Peace Prize.

The US regime masterminded this mass-murder in order to win the EU’s support for sanctions against Russia, and the EU knowingly complied, and continues to comply, with the American regime’s ongoing aggressions and lies against Russia. The 298 MH17 murder-victims are thus not only the US regime’s victims, but vicariously victims also of the EU — and not, at all, of Russia. Russia was instead the real intended target of the possible Ukrainian Buk missile, and of the Ukrainian fighter-jets, that brought down the MH17. The MH17 victims were merely “collateral damages” in the US regime’s secret decades-long and ongoing anti-Russia war. This is how today’s America competes in the world, by playing very dirty, and getting away with it, helped by its allies, which endorse, and join in, the US regime’s atrocities.

Now, which major news-media in The West will report these solidly documented facts? Isn’t it time, finally, that they should start doing that? Or, do they have no honor, at all?



via IFTTT

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

2019 From A Fourth Turning Persepctive | Zero Hedge

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-01/2019-fourth-turning-persepctive

"Pay The F*ck Up": Hackers Threaten To Dump Secret 9/11 Attack Files If Bitcoin Ransom Not Met

ORIGINAL LINK

A hacking collective known as The Dark Overlord announced on New Year's Eve that it had broken into the computer systems of a law firm and obtained files related to the September 11 attacks - threatening to publicly release a large cache of internal files unless a hefty ransom is paid, according to Motherboard

Dark Overlord's demands targeted several insurers and legal firms, including Lloyds of London, Silverstein Properties and Hiscox Syndicates. It is unclear what exact files were stolen by the group, however the hacking collective tweeted "We'll be providing many answers about 9.11 conspiracies through our 18.000 secret documents leak from @HiscoxComms and others." 

We'll be providing many answers about 9.11 conspiracies through our 18.000 secret documents leak from @HiscoxComms and others #thedarkoverlord #911hacked #hacking #leak #cybercrime

— thedarkoverlord (@tdo_h4ck3rs) December 31, 2018

"Hiscox Syndicates Ltd and Lloyds of London are some of the biggest insurers on the planet insuring everything from the smallest policies to some of the largest policies on the planet, and who even insured structures such as the World Trade Centers," the group's announcement reads.  

According to a spokesperson for the Hiscox Group, the hackers had breached a law firm which advised the company and had likely stolen files linked to litigation tied to the 9/11 attacks. 

"The law firm’s systems are not connected to Hiscox’s IT infrastructure and Hiscox’s own systems were unaffected by this incident. One of the cases the law firm handled for Hiscox and other insurers related to litigation arising from the events of 9/11, and we believe that information relating to this was stolen during that breach," the spokesperson told Motherboard in an email. 

"Once Hiscox was informed of the law firm’s data breach, it took action and informed policyholders as required. We will continue to work with law enforcement in both the UK and US on this matter," they added. 

The hacking group published a small set of letters, emails and other documents that mention various law firms, as well as the Transport Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Aviation Administration (The TSA could not provide a statement in time for publication, and the FAA told Motherboard in an email it was investigating.) Those documents themselves appear to be fairly innocuous, but the group says it may release more.

In its extortion note, The Dark Overlord included a link for a 10GB archive of files it allegedly stole. The group also provided a link to this archive to Motherboard before publishing its announcement. The cache is encrypted, but the hackers are threatening to release the relevant decryption keys, unlocking different sets of files at a time, unless the victims pay the hackers an undisclosed ransom fee in Bitcoin. -Motherboard

"Pay the fuck up, or we're going to bury you with this. If you continue to fail us, we'll escalate these releases by releasing the keys, each time a Layer is opened, a new wave of liability will fall upon you," reads the demand letter. 

The hacking collective is also offering to sell the data on the dark web hacking forum, and has reportedly attempted to blackmail individuals mentioned in the documents themselves. 

"If you're one of the dozens of solicitor firms who was involved in the litigation, a politician who was involved in the case, a law enforcement agency who was involved in the investigations, a property management firm, an investment bank, a client of a client, a reference of a reference, a global insurer, or whoever else, you're welcome to contact our e-mail below and make a request to formally have your documents and materials withdrawn from any eventual public release of the materials. However, you'll be paying us," reads the post. 

The breach was first alluded to by the Hiscox group, which announced in April that they may have been exposed during a hack on an "unnamed US law firm."

"Hiscox recently learned of an information security incident affecting a specialist law firm in the US that provided advice to Hiscox or its policyholders on some of its US commercial liability insurance claims. The incident involved illegal access to information stored on the law firm’s server, which may have included information relating to up to 1,500 of Hiscox’s US-based commercial insurance policyholders," reads the April announcement. 



via IFTTT

Monday, December 31, 2018

Giuliani Says Assange Should Not Be Prosecuted

ORIGINAL LINK

pdf.png

Donald Trump’s lawyer said on Monday that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange should not be prosecuted and he compared WikiLeaks publications to the Pentagon Papers. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News Donald Trump, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, said…Read more →

via IFTTT