Saturday, February 23, 2019

Human Rights Watch Appears to Be a Propaganda Organization

ORIGINAL LINK

Human Rights Watch Appears to Be a Propaganda Organization

Big Lies by Human Rights Watch on Venezuela

by Stephen Lendman stephenlendman.orgHome – Stephen Lendman

In cahoots with its corporate donors and Washington, HRW is part of the anti-Bolivarian propaganda campaign, supporting regime change – based on a litany of bald-faced Big Lies.

HRW: Last “May, President Nicolas Maduro won presidential elections against an opposition badly weakened by years of government repression, and amid widespread allegations that the polls had not met international standards of freedom and fairness.”

Fact: Alleged Venezuelan repression is a cooked up media supported US Big Lie. Whenever Venezuelan elections are held, around 25 in the Bolivarian Republic, international observers always call them open, free and fair – polar opposite the US money-controlled process. HRW lied claiming otherwise.

HRW: “No independent government institutions remain today in Venezuela to act as a check on executive power.”

“A series of measures by the Maduro and Chavez governments stacked the courts with judges who make no pretense of independence.”

“The government has been repressing dissent through often-violent crackdowns on street protests, jailing opponents, and prosecuting civilians in military courts. It has also stripped power from the opposition-led legislature.”

Fact: Venezuela is the hemisphere’s leading democracy, polar opposite growing US-led Western tyranny – at war on humanity at home and abroad, including by police state toughness.

Fact: The above claims turned truth on its head, reading like lines scripted in Washington. Reality is polar opposite HRW’s Big Lies.

Venezuela’s judicial system shares equal importance to the law of the land, supporting international, constitutional, and the country’s statute laws, operating independently of other branches of government under the nation’s Supreme Court.

The Bolivarian spirit is stated straightaway in the Constitution’s Preamble, saying:

The law of the land “establish(ed) a democratic, participatory and self-reliant, multiethnic and multicultural society in a just, federal and decentralized State that embodies the values of freedom, independence, peace, solidarity, the common good, the nation’s territorial integrity, comity and the rule of law for this and future generations.”

It “guarantees the right to life, work, learning, education, social justice and equality, without discrimination or subordination of any kind; promotes peaceful cooperation among nations and further strengthens Latin American integration in accordance with the principle of nonintervention and national self-determination of the people, the universal and indivisible guarantee of human rights, the democratization of imitational society, nuclear disarmament, ecological balance and environmental resources as the common and inalienable heritage of humanity…”

The above language is unimaginable in the US Constitution or statute laws – a self-serving government largely of men, not laws, a democracy in name only. Venezuelans have the real thing.

HRW: “Severe shortages of medicines, medical supplies, and food leave many Venezuelans unable to feed their families adequately or access essential healthcare.”

“The massive exodus of Venezuelans fleeing repression and shortages represents the largest migration crisis of its kind in recent Latin American history.”

Fact: No mass exodus of millions occurred, no repression. Numbers cited grossly distorted reality. Many who left returned home because of intolerable conditions in Colombia, Brazil and elsewhere.

HRW: “Other persistent concerns include poor prison conditions, impunity for human rights violations, and harassment by government officials of human rights defenders and independent media outlets” – more bald-faced Big Lies.

Like Western establishment media, HRW ignored the ongoing attempt by Trump regime hardliners to crush Bolivarian social democracy – waging war by other means, harming the country economically and financially, bearing most responsibility for hardships affecting millions of Venezuelans, exacerbated by low oil prices.

What’s most important to explain, HRW suppressed, operating as an imperial agent, supporting what demands denunciation – the US attempt to illegally topple a sitting government.

No “persecution of political opponents” exists. HRW lied claiming otherwise, no political prisoners, no arbitrary arrests and crackdowns, no “extrajudicial killings.”

There are no “serious abuses against detainees that in some cases amount to torture, including severe beatings, electric shocks, asphyxiation, and sexual abuse” — what goes on in US torture prisons worldwide, not in Venezuela.

A separate article discussed humanitarian conditions in the country, far short of what international law considers a humanitarian disaster – what’s going on in all US war theaters, HRW failed to explain.

Maduro’s government and the courts strictly abide by international and Venezuelan laws. HRW lied claiming otherwise – including no suppression of speech, media and academic freedoms, no civil and human rights abuses.

Actions are taken against lawbreakers, elements involved in violence, chaos, and vandalism – in cahoots with US efforts to replace democratically elected Maduro with puppet rule controlled by Washington and corporate predators.

HRW is an imperial tool, opposing principles it falsely claims to support.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

The post Human Rights Watch Appears to Be a Propaganda Organization appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.



via IFTTT

The State Expands Its Responsibilities In Order To Expand Its Power

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Aayush Priyank via The Mises Institute,

Many moviegoers might recognize the following quotation: “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Reality, however, is the exact opposite of what the quote describes.

In reality, it is responsibility that precedes power.

In a corporation, for instance, when you’re hired you are told your responsibilities and the powers granted to you are those that are necessary for you to accomplish your responsibility.

In John’s family, John’s father demands that everyone stay out of the kitchen while he cooks, lest they distract him. It is not because John’s father has the power to keep everyone out of the kitchen that he has accepted the responsibility of cooking; it is because he is responsible for cooking that he has the power to keep everyone out of the kitchen.

A vast number of self-help books focus on self-responsibility. This is no coincidence. It is only by accepting responsibility for our lives that we can acquire power over our lives. On the other hand, by blaming others for our conditions, we forfeit our responsibility, and consequently, our power.

Responsibility is important not just because it provides power but also because, as psychologist Jordan Peterson has often remarked, most people find the meaning of their lives through responsibility.

Examining American history, it is evident that the expansion of government powers has been a direct result of the government’s theft of the responsibilities of the individual.

There is a rather straightforward argument that is consistently presented by the government in order to justify its theft of responsibilities that rightfully belong to others.

The argument begins by pointing out a problem that exists. Then the argument says that our lives would be better if the problem didn’t exist. The conclusion the government reaches is that since it would be better for the problem not to exist, the government should be responsible for removing it.

Take any governmental expansion as an example.

For example, the Federal Reserve justifies itself in part by noting economic crises are bad and shouldn’t happen. It is then claimed that governments, through their central banks, must be responsible for ensuring that these crises don’t happen. Vast powers are then granted to central banks who attempt to carry out their “responsibilities.”

Similarly, Social Security resulted from the government accepting responsibility of economic security for retirees and other specific groups of people. By doing so, it appropriated to itself the responsibility that belongs to individuals, families, churches, and other private organizations.

Medicare, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and the recent attempts at universal health care, aim to do the same.

Such theft of responsibility is disguised, and often even accepted, as virtuous. After all, providing solutions to problems is something that corporations do as well, don’t they? Yet the difference lies in the conditions set forth.

On the other hand, when dealing with a corporation, one can acquire the solution to a problem (food to solve hunger, insurance to solve risk of medical issues, and so forth) at a certain specific price. Moreover, rights, responsibilities — and the powers that come with them — are specifically listed and explained.

Governments, however, take on a variety of responsibilities as a justification for greatly expanding powers - claiming these powers are necessary to fulfill these new responsibilities. These powers, however, usually become unlimited, bloated, and expensive. There is no true legal contract between the government and the individuals for whom the government is “responsible” for. Thus, there is no way of holding the government accountable should it fail to keep up its end of the bargain.

Ultimately, the list of “responsibilities” continually grows, but the list of powers grows even faster.

The unconditional manner in which the government offers ‘help’ and seizes an individual’s responsibility serves only to steal the individual’s power over his own life and erode away that which provides him meaning.



via IFTTT

Fed Tightening And Crumbling Fundamentals Expose The Recovery Lie

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

It is hard to say exactly when it startedin 2008 in the midst of the credit crisis, in the early 2000's when the Federal Reserve initiated artificially low interest rates which helped to create the vast US mortgage bubble, or maybe the root goes all the way back to 1913 when the Federal Reserve was founded, but somewhere along the line America entered severe economic decay. One certainty is that signals in the fundamentals become visible every time the Fed inflates a financial bubble to stall a crash and then tightens policy without waiting for the economy to show true alignment.

This pattern is, in my view, not about the Fed “bumbling in the dark”. In fact, I see most Fed activities as quite deliberate, including the creation and deflation of large credit and equities bubbles. Sometimes these crashing bubbles are used as an excuse by the Fed to launch an even more invasive program of stimulus, and sometimes the bubbles are allowed to collapse, allowing international banks to vacuum up hard assets for pennies on the dollar. During the most widespread collapse events, the banking elites use the chaos and distraction to not only centralize assets, but shift entire geopolitical and fiscal dynamics in order to centralize power.

There is much debate in alternative economic analysis on which type of event we are facing today. There is not much debate, though, on the fact that the fundamentals are screaming bloody murder. The cycle has started over again.

I would point out that since the 2008 credit crash a true recovery has never materialized. We have heard about in endlessly in the mainstream financial media, and to this day we hear Fed officials declare the US economy "on course" and “strong”, but the evidence has always been to the contrary. The Fed itself presents two primary factors as proof of recovery: GDP and Employment.

GDP is of course a fallacy, with a large portion of US “production” attributed to government spending, or government programs that tax the public in order to generate revenue. This is not true production as the government is not a producer. Rather, the government tends to misallocate and erase wealth instead of creating it.

Employment is another fraudulent statistic. The numbers released to the public are a gross misrepresentation of the economic picture, as they ignore the 95 million working age people no longer counted by the Bureau of Labor as unemployed because they have been removed from the rolls. The numbers also do not take into account the quality of jobs being created versus the quality of jobs that have been lost. Part time and low wage service sector jobs do not boost the economy, nor do they allow people to adequately support a family, but these are the kinds of jobs (U-6 Measurements) that make up the majority of the so-called economic recovery.

Other fundamentals have remained in poor condition for years but are rarely discussed in the mainstream media. The system has been kept barely afloat by one factor and one factor alone – Federal Reserve stimulus and low interest rate measures. It is important to note that multiple fundamentals began blaring recessionary alarms the moment the Fed began raising interest rates and cutting assets from its balance sheet. Without endless Fed stimulus, the illusion of recovery melts away.

For the past several months the housing market has been in steep decline, with sales cratering in December by 10.3%. Housing prices are falling in many areas of the country, but lag (as they tend to do) far behind the more immediate indicator of sales. The Fed's increasing interest rates have translated to higher mortgage rates across the board. Without low interest rates corporate buyers are leaving the market, resting the fate of housing on normal consumers who clearly do not have the capital or credit.

Auto sales have been comparatively dismal, posting declines through the end of 2018 into early 2019, with 2019 expected to be the worst year overall. Once again, with rising interest rates, major purchases have become less appealing to the average consumer.

Retail sales have now posted the worst December numbers since 2009. Retail sales are often presented by the mainstream media as the end all argument for economic recovery. Yet they fail to mention the problem of consumer credit, which has ballooned over the past several years to record highs. In our unstable economic environment, low interest rates fuel debt, debt fuels credit and credit (instead of savings) fuels consumer purchases. Without low interest rates, the entire house of cards comes tumbling down.

I also find it interesting that while retail sales are crumbling, consumer debt continues to rise. If consumers are taking on more debt, where is that money going if not into purchases? My suspicion is that new debt is being taken on in order to pay off old debts. If this terrible cycle is the underlying source of expanding personal credit, then retail sales indicate that we are close to the end of the game.

Credit and lending where it counts is now faltering. Small business loans have plunged the past few months, with a 9.7% drop in December. While consumer credit is inflating, lending on a broader scale to support the business sector is falling as interest rates rise.

US PMI manufacturing stats have been falling for most of the past year as well, recently posting the biggest drop in 17 months.  The decline in manufacturing globally has translated to a sharp decline in the amount of freight shipped each month across the country as well as shipped overseas.  It's beginning to look a lot like 2008 once again.

According to traditional thinking in essentially every concrete aspect of the US economy we are entering recession territory. I would amend this thinking and say that we were ALWAYS in a recession or depression; it was only the Fed's low interest rates and stimulus that allowed this fact to be hidden from the public. Now that the Fed has tightened policy, the lie of recovery has become obvious.

The question is what the Fed plan calls for next. Will they use the current downturn to reintroduce even more stimulus? This seems to be what the majority of analysts believe will happen, but I disagree. The 'Everything Bubble' was created by the Fed for a reason; it was not an accident. Such a bubble is a perfect weapon for triggering sweeping economic and political changes not just in the US but around the globe. Why would the Fed create such a weapon and then refuse to use it?

The mainstream narrative has been building for over two years now – a “populist uprising” has begun in the Western world, and it will cause great turmoil as it undermines the “stability” of globalism. With an acceptable scapegoat in place to take the blame for a crash, the Fed has pulled the plug on life support for the ailing economy. In order to cover their bases, they have now changed the vocabulary of their statements, using words like “accommodation”.

What amazes me, though, is how quickly the alternative media have bought into this rhetoric. The Fed changes a few words within their statements, and suddenly this means they have “capitulated” on interest rates and asset cuts? The Fed uses a few choice words and suddenly we are all talking about QE4? This is absurd.

The Fed has not stopped policy tightening so far.  With a week left in the month of February, the central bank has already cut approximately $58 billion from its balance sheet.  This is one of the largest asset dumps so far.  Some economists have argued that the Fed would never actually dump the announced $50 billion, and would stay below $34 billion per month.  Obviously they were wrong.

Fed dot plots still remain unchanged, with at least two more rate hikes planned for this year.

What I see is more smoke and mirrors and magical thinking, more hints at promises that were never actually promised, and a host of dangerous assumptions permeating the economic world. It is certainly possible that the damage of Fed tightening has already been done. Perhaps there is no longer any need for them to tighten further to cause the crash they obviously desire. However, asset cuts have not stopped yet, and Fed dot plots still call for at least two more rate hikes in 2019.

I wonder what will happen if, in March, the Fed does not capitulate as the majority expect? Would it come as a shock if the Fed continues dumping its balance sheet? It will certainly send markets into a spiral if it hikes interest rates yet again (or indicates future interest rate hikes), given that almost everyone is factoring in rate cuts for 2019 rather than rate hikes.

Until we see an actual reversal of asset cuts and rate hikes, I'm not buying the rhetoric from the Fed.

And what will the Fed say if this shock occurs? Well, I expect they would continue to say that the US economy is “strong”, ignoring the fundamentals as they always have. I also expect that they would say that they never promised a reversal of tightening policy (which is true), though they will probably continue to add "dovish" words into their public statements as a psychological steam valve for the crash. In fact, the markets have made an array of assumptions that were not at all in line with Fed comments on the "strong" US economy. The blame will fall on over-zealous investors, the blame will fall on the media in part for encouraging false optimism, and the establishment will blame the "populist menace" and the trade war for any negative consequences.

This is why it is important to expose the direct relationship between Fed bubbles, Fed tightening and the collapse of the fundamentals. The central bank is deliberately creating economic crisis conditions.  When chaos strikes, the Fed will attempt to obscure their dominant role in economic decline. It is our job to grab hold of their neck like pitbulls and never let them free.

* *  *

If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations page here.  We greatly appreciate your patronage.



via IFTTT

10 Common-Sense Amendments To The U.S. Constitution

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

These are my suggested loophole-closing amendments.

Unfortunately, my recent essay Let's Face It: The U.S. Constitution Has Failed deeply offended readers whom I had no intent to offend. One reader even decided to stop reading my work, which is extreme in the polite and cordial little world of Of Two Minds, where differences of opinion are expected and welcomed as long as they add to our shared understanding of the great issues of our era.

The key point of offense is my suggestion that the Constitution itself is wanting, when it is obvious to all that it's those who have been entrusted to administer the Constitution who are wanting. My error was in not stipulating this self-evident truth at the outset.

But I also think many readers misunderstood my point, which is that the Constitution was devised as a living document that could be amended as needed. It was not intended as a text that could not be updated as conditions change. This is why the method of amendment is spelled out very precisely.

The founders feared exactly what has come to pass: a government that no longer represents the interests of the citizenry. They did their best in a fractious debate to stipulate safeguards, but it's clear that many of the Founders understood that no document could completely safeguard the Republic against a leadership that sought to undermine the Republic at every turn for personal gain.

It is also constructive to recall Jefferson's observations on the need for dissent to maintain liberty:

When Jefferson said, “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion,” he was expressing the idea that “liberties are ensured by the spirit of resistance” and that all great nations had rebellions (again justifying that liberty shouldn’t be sacrificed by conservative worry). (source)

It seems to me that adding strict limits to the government's powers and closing the loopholes that now threaten the Republic are forms of dissent that deserve an open airing. I offer these proposed amendments as a start. I consider them common-sense ways to limit the abuses of power and rank corruption that are undermining the Republic. The penalties have to be severe enough to thwart all who seek to exploit the government's many powers for their private enrichment and gain.

1. No branch of the government may create an agency or entity, public or private, that is not expressly authorized and defined by the Constitution.

No more Federal Reserve, CIA, etc. unless the authorization is added to the Constitution.

2. No agency or entity, public or private, may issue United States currency, or substitute forms of currency, other than the Treasury.

No more Federal Reserve or Federal Reserve notes.

3. The Treasury is authorized to issue loans of one year or less duration to public and private entities in response to financial crisis.

Resolving liquidity crises is the sole justifiable function of central banks. This amendment gives those powers to the Treasury, so there's no need for a central bank.

4. No government may restrict the citizens' enjoyment of the civil liberties defined in the Bill of Rights on all public and private land, with the sole exception being activities that restrict or disrupt the normal flow of commerce.

No more "free speech zones" situated 5 miles from the political hack giving a hackneyed speech.

5. No personnel, paid or unpaid, of the government, government contractors or entities receiving direct or indirect funding from the government may set foot on any foreign soil for the purposes of hostilities or actions preparing for hostilities except as authorized by a Declaration of War by Congress.

No more "wars of choice" or Imperial meddling / over-reach. You want military or mercenary operations in 20 countries? Then get 20 Declarations of War from Congress.

6. No person or entity, living, robotic or digital, may contribute more than one day's pay of the average American laborer to any person seeking elected office in any one election cycle, in currency, goods, services or labor, paid or unpaid. Any person seeking elected office who accepts more than this sum in any form, and anyone who seeks to circumvent this statuary limit on campaign contributions, shall be barred from holding office for their lifetime and will serve a minimum prison sentence of 5 years.

This is about $100 in today's money.

6A. No person or entity which has received funding, favors or contracts from the government, directly or indirectly, within the previous 5 years is allowed to contribute to any elective office campaign, under the penalties described in Amendment 6. Additionally, any entity that seeks to bypass this restriction shall be fined 5 years of annual revenues, payable upon conviction.

6B. Every contribution, direct or indirect, in currency, goods, services or labor, paid or unpaid, made to a person seeking elected office, must be published publicly within 48 hours of receipt. Every entity's contribution must carry the name of the person or persons responsible for the entity's management. Any entity that seeks to bypass this restriction shall be fined 5 years of annual revenues, payable upon conviction.

A corporation with annual revenues of $1 billion would pay a $5 billion fine, or be liquidated. Its shareholders and bondholders would be wiped out.

6C. No individual may spend more than one month of the average laborer's monthly pay on their own campaign for elective office. Anyone who seeks to circumvent this statuary limit on campaign contributions shall be barred from holding office for their lifetime and will serve a minimum prison sentence of 5 years.

This is about $4,500 in today's money.

7. The civil rights of citizens cannot be extended to legal entities, and are reserved solely for living individual citizens.

8. No government employee may accept a position in any private entity that has accepted funding, favors or contracts from the government in the previous 5 years for a period of 10 years after leaving government office.

No more revolving doors, no more corporate capture, no more campaign contributions beyond trivial sums. Campaigns of volunteers will face off against each other.

9. Every agency and office of the government, and every entity or person that has received funding, favors or contracts, directly or indirectly, from the government, shall be independently audited every 4 years, and the results of these forensic audits are to be made public on the day of their issuance. Any entity that seeks to bypass or evade this requirement shall be fined 5 years of revenues, payable upon conviction. Any person who seeks to bypass or evade this requirement shall serve a minimum prison sentence of 5 years.

No more unaudited agencies and government contractors.

10. The government is restricted solely to the powers explicitly stipulated in the Constitution. No additional powers may be assumed unless authorized by an amendment to the Constitution.

This won't stop all mischief, but it at least provides a constitutional barrier and a bulwark of dissent to governmental over-reach.

These are my suggested loophole-closing amendments. You undoubtedly have others and / or improved versions of these. Let's put them on the table for debate and discussion.

*  *  *

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 ebook, $12 print, $13.08 audiobook): Read the first section for free in PDF format. My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF). My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.



via IFTTT

Judge Rules Plea Deal For "Orgy Island Billionaire" Broke Federal Law

ORIGINAL LINK

In an opinion that was 11 years in the making, a federal judge has ruled in a lawsuit brought by victims of disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein - who infamously served 13 months in prison on state prostitution charges after scoring a plea deal with prosecutors led by now-Labor Secretary Alex Acosta - that Acosta and other attorneys with whom he worked at the US attorneys office of South Florida violated federal law when they sealed Epstein's plea deal, preventing any of his victims from challenging the deal, the Miami Herald reported.

Epstein

 

The lawsuit was originally brought in 2008 after Epstein started serving his term. He was released in 2009. But is only now being resolved following renewed interest in the case following a series of reports in the Herald about how the wealthy and well-connected Epstein - who allegedly ferried Bill Clinton and actor Kevin Spacey to his "Orgy Island" aboard his plane, which has been termed "the Lolita Express" - received such a lenient sentence for offenses that some said should have elicited federal sex trafficking charges.

Marra agreed, saying that while prosecutors had the right to resolve the case in any way they saw fit, they violated the law by hiding the agreement from Epstein’s victims. Marra’s decision capped 11 years of litigation — which included the release of a trove of emails showing how Acosta and other prosecutors worked with Epstein’s high profile lawyers to conceal the deal — and the scope of Epstein’s crimes — from both his victims and the public.

"Particularly problematic was the Government’s decision to conceal the existence of the [agreement] and mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility," Marra wrote. "When the Government gives information to victims, it cannot be misleading. While the Government spent untold hours negotiating the terms and implications of the [agreement] with Epstein’s attorneys, scant information was shared with victims.’"

Given that the determination was made in a civil court opinion, Acosta won't be facing any charges. But the ruling is certainly a black eye for his legacy as US attorney. But White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration would be "looking into" Acosta's role in the plea deal.

In the opinion, the judge determined that Epstein helped recruit underage girls "for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of others".

The lawyer who brought the civil suit said he was relieved to read the opinion, and blasted the government attorneys for appearing to side with Epstein over his victims.

Brad Edwards, the Fort Lauderdale attorney who brought the case, said he was elated at the judge’s ruling, but admitted he is bitter that the case took 11 years to litigate, blaming federal prosecutors for needlessly dragging out the case when they could have remedied their error when it was brought to their attention in 2008.

"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years," Edwards said. "Yes, this is a huge victory, but to make his victims suffer for 11 years, this should not have happened. Instead of admitting what they did, and doing the right thing, they spent 11 years fighting these girls."

Still, Epstein will likely live out his life as a free man (unless new offenses are committed, or if other victims of his sex trafficking in different jurisdictions come forward. There's no statute of limitations on sex trafficking). The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI.



via IFTTT

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Dr. Brian Hooker's bombshell testimony before Congress reveals how MMR vaccines INCREASE deaths from measles

ORIGINAL LINK

Baby_Asian_Vaccine_Polio_Docto.jpg

Via Children's Health Defense , headed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is perhaps the only prominent Democrat in America that's actually fighting to protect children from toxic vaccines, 5G electromagnetic radiation and dangerous fluoride chemicals in the water supply: (Testimony from Dr. Brian S. Hooker) There is a problem with measles in Washington State, but it's not low vaccination rates, it's actually high vaccination rates with a vaccine product unable to provide lifetime immunity or vigorous passive maternal protection to infants during the first year of life. When the measles vaccine was first introduced, most people over the age of 15 who had wild measles had lifetime immunity. In developed nations, like other communicable infections, measles was no longer dangerous except in rare circumstances because of inadequate nutrition, poor sanitation, and / or lack of healthcare. Because having the measles was a routine part of childhood, teens, adults, parents, and grandparents...

via IFTTT

China Bans Millions From Flights, Trains In Social-Credit Crackdown

ORIGINAL LINK

china%20train.png

China has banned millions of people from any number of activities for being labeled as 'untrustworthy' on the country's Orwellian social credit system. Banned from things such as air and train travel, blacklisted individuals are being punished in a broad effort to boost "trustworthiness" among the 1.4 billion Chinese citizens tracked by the massive system - which assigns both positive and negative scores to various metrics, reports SCMP.  



via IFTTT

Chase Bank De-Platforms Conservative Performance Artist Martina Markota

ORIGINAL LINK

Two weeks after Chase Bank announced that it would no longer do business with Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio, Conservative performance artist and Rebel Media personality Martina Markota has become the latest conservative media figure to be targeted by the bank which has made no secret of its support for liberal causes (see its decision to cut ties with the gun industry).

Markota

In an interview with Big League Politics, Markota explained that the account that was shuttered had been linked to an Indiegogo campaign that Markota had used to raise more than $34,000 for a graphic novel that she had been working on, which made the decision to shut down the account more of a financial burden for her.

Markota was mailed a letter form the bank, which she shared on twitter.

Chase

When she contacted the bank to try and figure out why the account had been shut down, Markota said they refused to give her a reason. She believes that the decision was politically motivated due to her support for President Trump.

Upon getting notice of her account shutdown, Markota contacted Chase Bank by phone to ask why her account was shut down.

"They refused to tell me why," Markota stated. "They said they have the right to end our relationship and not tell me why."

She began to believe that her bank account shutdown was was politically motivated after reading Big League Politics‘ story on Tarrio. This suspicion is well warranted considering the fact that her outspoken support for President Trump has exposed her to a torrent of harassment in recent years.

Markota added that she has been the victim of harassment from former coworkers when she was a burlesque dancer.

Markota’s former co-workers from her burlesque days have been on a crusade to make her life miserable ever since she came out as a Trump supporter.

Their harassment got so bad that Markota is pursuing legal action against the most vicious tormentor.

If political motivations were in fact behind her de-platforming, that would make Markota the latest in a string of conservatives including Alex Jones, Laura Loomer and Jordan Peterson who have been financially targeted for their political views by what are still perceived as unbiased, apolitical organizations, when in reality financial isolation and boycotts is precisely how outspoken, ideologically opposing voices get silenced.



via IFTTT

Conspiracy Researcher David Icke Banned From Speaking In Australia

ORIGINAL LINK

Today the Australian government banned conspiracy researcher David Icke from entering the country for his multi-city speaking tour. Although he has spoken in Australia several times in the past decade, the government cited Icke’s skeptical views of vaccinations and global warming as the reason for the ban. Icke learned about the ban mere hours before his flight. Apparently Australians are no longer free to hear opposing points of view.



via IFTTT

#Nest was purchased by #Google (#GSA) for $3.2B in 2014 because Nest's thermostats are advanced HOME #SURVEILLANCE DEVICES. Today's revelation that Google added a MICROPHONE to Nest's other sensors - WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE - should surprise no one. businessinsider.fr/us/nest-microp…

ORIGINAL LINK
Vm5IB7Vn_normal.jpg Dr. Robert Epstein
@DrREpstein
#Nest was purchased by #Google (#GSA) for $3.2B in 2014 because Nest's thermostats are advanced HOME #SURVEILLANCE DEVICES. Today's revelation that Google added a MICROPHONE to Nest's other sensors - WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE - should surprise no one. businessinsider.fr/us/nest-microp…

via IFTTT

Let's Face It: The U.S. Constitution Has Failed

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Elections provide the bread-and-circuses staged-drama that is passed off as democracy.

Despite the anything-goes quality of American culture, one thing remains verboten to say publicly: the U.S. Constitution has failed. The reason why this painfully obvious fact cannot be discussed publicly is that it gives the lie to the legitimacy of the entire status quo.

The Constitution was intended to limit 1) the power of government over the citizenry 2) the power of each branch of government and 3) the power of political/financial elites over the government and the citizenry, as the Founders recognized the intrinsic risks of an all-powerful state, an all-powerful state dominated by one branch of government and the risks of a financial elite corrupting the state to serve their interests above those of the citizenry.

The Constitution has failed to place limits on the power of government, on the emergence of unaccountable states-within-a-state agencies and on the political power of financial elites.

How has the Constitution failed? It has failed in three ways:

1. Corporations and the super-wealthy elite control the machinery of governance. The public interest is not represented except as interpreted / filtered through corporate/elite interests.

2. The nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve, has the power to debauch the nation's currency and reward the wealthy via issuing new currency and buying Treasury bonds in whatever sums it deems necessary at the moment. The Fed is only nominally under the control of the elected government. It is in effect an independent state-within-a-state that dominates the financial well-being of the entire nation.

3. The National Security State--the alphabet agencies of the FBI, CIA, NSA et al.--are an independent state-within-a-state, answerable only to themselves, not to the public or their representatives. Congressional oversight is little more than feeble rubber-stamping of the Imperial Project and whatever the unelected National Security leadership deems worthy of pursuit.

The Constitution's core regulatory element--the balancing of executive, legislative and judicial power--has broken down. The judiciary's independence is as nominal as the legislative branch's control of the central bank and National Security state: the gradual encroachment of corporate and state power is rubber-stamped and declared constitutional.

The secret power of the National Security agencies was declared constitutional early in the Cold war, when unleashing unaccountable and secret agencies was deemed necessary.

The bizarre public-private Federal Reserve was deemed constitutional at its founding in 1913, and the Supreme Court famously declared that corporations have the same rights to free speech (including loudspeakers that cost millions of dollars) as living citizens.

The powers of the Imperial Presidency also continue expanding, regardless of which party is in office or the supposed ideological tropisms of Supreme Court justices.

Every step of this erosion of public representation and the elected government's power is declared fully constitutional, in classic boiled-frog fashion. The frog detects the rising temperature of the water but isn't alarmed as the heat is increased so gradually.

Since the rise of unaccountable states-within-a-state are constitutional, as is the dominance of corporate / private-wealth elites, on what grounds can citizens protest their loss of representation?

Elections provide the bread-and-circuses staged drama that is passed off as democracy. The key goal of the corporate/state media coverage, of course, is to foster the illusion that elections really, really, really matter, when the reality is they don't. The National Security State grinds on, the Federal Reserve grinds on and the dominance of corporate-wealth elites grinds on regardless of who's in office.

Every emergency is met by the ceding of more power to unelected elites in positions to serve their own interests. The Cold War, financial panics, Cold War Redux--every crisis is an excuse to expand the powers of the unaccountable, opaque states-within-a-state.

The media is already gearing up with 24/7 coverage of the 2020 elections. The constant churn of drama-trauma serves to mask the impotence and powerlessness of the citizenry and the unaccountability of the states-within-a-state that rule the nation.

*  *  *

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 ebook, $12 print, $13.08 audiobook): Read the first section for free in PDF format. My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF).  My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.



via IFTTT

Same Old, Same Old: Business Cycle Aging, Credit Standards Falling, Default Crisis Dead Ahead

ORIGINAL LINK

The ultra-low interest rates which central banks have facilitated since 2008 have lowered borrowing costs and lending standards, allowing companies to pursue risky and long-term projects by taking on more debt than they otherwise would have found possible, while at the same time making creditors more eager to lend to high-risk companies in pursuit of their accompanying slightly higher returns. When the threat of inflation finally forces central banks to raise interest rates again, as they are already beginning to do, many of these borrowers will be forced to default on their increasingly expensive debts, and the crash will have begun. The greater the extent to which global financial institutions have exposed themselves to these junk debt CDOs by that point, the more quickly will the crisis spread throughout the financial system.

 

 

 

 

 

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/?p=283459&preview_id=283459&preview_nonce=3e1d23a9f2&preview=true

 



via IFTTT

RussiaGate In Flames: Senate Finds No Collusion, DNC Hack Narrative Implodes

ORIGINAL LINK

In the last few weeks, we have witnessed two pillars of the Russiagate narrative continue to disintegrate and erode. First, we heard that a bipartisan inquiry by the Senate Intelligence Committee admitted that they have yet to find evidence indicating that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in the run-up to the 2016 US Presidential election. Secondly, new light was shed on the process by which the DNC Emails published by WikiLeaks may have been sourced, thanks to two reports: one authored by former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney and former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, with the other work penned by Disobedient Media’s Adam Carter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://disobedientmedia.com/2019/02/russiagate-in-flames-no-evidence-of-collusion-new-findings-challenge-dnc-hack-narrative/

 

 

 



via IFTTT

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

‘End of free speech’: Maffick CEO, host slam Facebook’s unprovoked ‘censorship’ after CNN report

ORIGINAL LINK

Via RT…


Facebook blocking several pages operated by Maffick Media is nothing short of outright censorship, the company’s CEO Anissa Naouai said, after a US-funded think tank pointed them out to CNN for a ‘hit-piece’.

The actions of the social media giant, which suspended the accounts of In the Now, Soapbox, Back Then and Waste-Ed last Friday without providing any explanation or even contacting the company that ran the pages, is nothing but a simple attempt to get rid of dissenting voices critical of Washington’s policies, Naouai told RT.

It is blatant censorship. What else can you call it?

Unexplained ban

The ban came literally out of the blue even though Maffick did not violate any existing Facebook regulations. “There is no rule that you have to post anything about your funding or personal funding. No one does it, not any of the US-sponsored outlets,” Naouai said. However, that was apparently the stated reason for the blocking as a Facebook spokesperson said the social media giant wanted the pages to become more transparent by disclosing their funding and “Russian affiliations.”

Facebook never contacted Maffick Media directly, though. In fact, it did not even answer the company’s emails and stayed conspicuously silent about the ways that would allow the accounts to be reinstated. “We have not heard a word from Facebook and it has been over three days now,” Naouai said.

The whole situation makes one think that the suspension is in fact connected to the pages’ popularity as well as their critical stance towards US policies, the Maffick CEO said. “We have hosts that talk about things that are not allowed to talk about on other networks like CNN,” she explained.

Our official response to being censored by @facebook via @CNN @AtlanticCouncil and other partners https://t.co/4evznWXlvK pic.twitter.com/1XU1umG27c

— Anissa Naouai (@AnissaNow) February 16, 2019

“If a video that says that gets hundreds of thousands of views on a page that has millions of views, people [in Washington] start to notice that and they get upset. I believe that is why we were targeted: because of our success and because of, as CNN said, high quality of our videos,” Naouai added.

The Maffick CEO also assumed that a recent piece on the US-sponsored coup attempt in Venezuela might have become a trigger for this drastic measure taken by Facebook. “There is a very … divisive and obnoxious policy taking place right now against Venezuela,” she said, “we do not know if this was the segment that triggered [the suspension] but the timing is convenient.”

“When someone calls out what is happening in Venezuela as a blatant coup it ruffles the feathers of think tanks that spent millions if not billions of dollars to persuade [the audience otherwise] and lobby their interests.”

‘Interrogation’ by CNN

Some details of this whole case may indeed seem odd. Just about an hour after the pages were blocked, CNN published a report on the issue as if they broke the news. “CNN knew that we were going to be blocked before we did,” Naouai said, explaining that, when she found out her company’s pages were suspended, CNN had already published its piece.

.@CNN contacted Maffick for a response to our pages being blocked within the same hour our pages, including @IntheNow_tweet were blocked by @facebook. This is a coordinated attack on free speech. pic.twitter.com/hj2wAyfU7L

— Anissa Naouai (@AnissaNow) February 16, 2019

Weeks before the blocking, CNN sought to interview some freelancers working with Maffick in an apparent attempt to “dig up some dirt,” Rania Khalek, the American host of Soapbox – one of the video shows Maffick ran on Facebook – recalled.

When the company’s leadership “got wind of it” and offered CNN an interview, it all ended up with a 45-minute “interrogation” loaded with “unethical” questions that “almost any other media organization would even think to answer.”

It felt like a police interrogation: very invasive questions about Maffick and our editorial policies. It was clear that they were doing a hit-piece.

“A CNN journalist repeatedly asked me about my political viewpoints. He was in complete disbelief that I have editorial control over my scripts. He could not understand how it was possible,” Khalek, who was one of those, who gave the interview to CNN, said.

Maffick Media assumed that CNN might in fact pressure Facebook into blocking the accounts. “It is a very competitive market existing in a very political atmosphere that is toxic right now in the US,” Naouai said.

Loophole for state censorship?

CNN itself admits in its piece that it did not just stumble upon the Facebook pages in question independently. Instead, this issue was brought to its attention by the Alliance for Securing Democracy – a part of the German Marshall Fund. This fund is a think tank, which is financed by the US and German governments and has such people as Michael Morell, the former CIA deputy head, and Jacob Sullivan, former Vice President Joe Biden’s top security aide, on its advisory board.

Now, CNN, which stepped on a slippery slope by scrutinizing other media outlets’ funding, had to go to some extraordinary lengths to persuade its audience that the Alliance for Securing Democracy “does not receive any funding” from the German Marshall Fund, while still being a part of it at the same time. However, all these facts just added a new layer to the story.

CNN obviously worked in concert with Facebook and the German Marshall Fund (progenitor of the phony "Hamilton 68" dashboard, which has fueled so much panic about Russian online trolls) to purge an outlet they don't like. Craven and chilling https://t.co/8rCW2Vd58S

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 18, 2019

“You have this US-funded think tank prompting CNN to pressure Facebook to ban our pages. That is an act of censorship,”Khalek said. She thinks the whole scheme was used to circumvent the First Amendment banning the US authorities from directly censoring free speech. “So, they use a middleman to pressure private companies to censor us,” she added, calling it a “legal loophole.”

‘Beginning of an end’

Regardless of who is really behind the ploy, Facebook banning some media pages without any explanation sets a tremendously dangerous precedent, Maffick Media believes. “We had a verified page, which had billions of views, just disappear from online without any kind of comment, any kind of requirement, without breaking any rules. That is unprecedented,” Naouai said.

You have Facebook dictating what people can and cannot see and judging what is good content and bad content. And it is all based on the accusations and criticism coming from a government-funded outlet. If Facebook does it to us, it can do it to anyone,” Khalek warned.

This is because of the political content that challenges the US wars. It is absolutely an act of censorship.

The US establishment apparently seeks to suppress the outlets that “offer a platform to alternative voices that can speak out against US wars and the corporate control over our government in a way that you just do not hear in our corporate media,” the Soapbox host believes.

However, if the social media giant and the likes of it will just continue to randomly block media resources while having “no grounds” to do so, it could create very serious problems for society, Naouai believes.

That would be the beginning of an end of free speech.

 

The post ‘End of free speech’: Maffick CEO, host slam Facebook’s unprovoked ‘censorship’ after CNN report appeared first on The Duran.



via IFTTT

The 'Disappearing Democrat' Scandal - Part 2

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Tim Donner via Liberty Nation,

This is the second of a two-part series on a massive scandal which has gone largely unreported, based on an interview on Liberty Nation Radiowith Luke Rosiak, author of Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect the DemocratsIn part one, Mr. Rosiak described how the scandal unfolded and jeopardized the security of more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress.

The media, the DOJ, and the Democrats: A powerful axis with the ability to shape what we perceive as the issue of the day...

It was a scandal that threatened to metastasize and blow up in the face of Democrats in a presidential election year like no other. But with the Hillary Clinton email scandal growing by the day, Democrats willing to do almost anything to avoid the specter of a Donald Trump presidency, the FBI burying their findings and a drive-by media behaving with a distinct lack of curiosity, few people took notice.

Imram Awam, an IT specialist and Pakistani national with a checkered past, yet unvetted by the many congressional Democrats who employed his services, took advantage of the unfettered access he was granted to their computer files to hack, steal, blackmail – and even threaten to kill his wife’s family – in the process placing national security in distinct jeopardy.

We were joined on Liberty Nation Radio by Luke Rosiak, an investigative reporter at the Daily Caller, who has just released the definitive book on this scandal, Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect the Democrats.

Tim Donner: This scandal went relatively unnoticed, because it came to a head in the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign. Do you think it would have been in the headlines and stayed there for some time if it happened at another time? Or would it have been written off like all the revelations about the FBI’s covert investigation of Trump, which we now know began before the presidential election?

Luke Rosiak: That’s an interesting question because the media is a big part of this story, isn’t it? I mean, and what I basically learned through the reporting of this is I approached it first as what I just said. It’s a remarkable national security story that I thought surely everyone would be interested in. I had The Washington Post right behind me following my leads.

Soon, I saw that no one was looking. I would write these stories, and I would say, “Look at the court documents from civil court. Look at these government records, these photographs, all this proof, and all this evidence.” There was basically just a campaign of concealment. And the media gladly went along with it, and they kind of bought the idea of fake news. You can just kind of say that now whenever it’s convenient. Politicians can get away with a lot by just saying, “It’s fake news.” And they do that on both sides, of course.

The other thing is really just the lack of investigative reporting, especially when it’s not something that a lot of the media is interested in. It just turned out that, as you said, there was a much bigger appetite for this Russia story that is really kind of running on fumes here. No one can tell us exactly who was … the Trump campaign did what with Russia? But the media is very, very interested.

Meanwhile, we’ve got direct evidence, and this is investigators on Capitol Hill. The Capitol police wrote a memo saying that after they caught this guy hacking Congress and actually hacking a particular server called the House Democratic Caucus server, the Capitol police wrote a memo saying that that server disappeared. It’s like holy cow, an important Democratic server disappeared while it’s evidence in a hacking probe. This is huge stuff. It’s documented by government investigators. And the media had no appetite for it. So ultimately, the Democrats kind of worked the FBI, and the FBI goes along with making this thing go away despite all the evidence. Then the media says, “No need to look into this. The FBI says there’s nothing there.”

So my book documents, and the readers can see for themselves and judge for themselves, what happened on Capitol Hill with this Pakistani hack and the frightening ties to foreign governments and the track record of blackmail, and then the FBI basically conspiring to rig a political case.

But the other thing that’s really important for people to learn from it is it shows you how they work behind the scenes to manipulate what we hear about and manipulate the system of justice here in America.

Tim: What conclusions have you personally drawn from your extensive research about the pervasiveness of official corruption in Washington?

Luke Rosiak: I’m shocked by how corrupt Congress is. I’ve been an investigative reporter here in Washington for a decade, and I’ve seen a lot. But the cynicism on Capitol Hill and the willingness to put personal reputation above all else. This may not sound … maybe everyone’s saying, “Yes, we already know that.” But this particular case, it kind of underscored. I saw things with my own eyes that were shocking.

So this guy was taking all this equipment from Congress, for example, and sending it over to Pakistan. In one congresswoman’s office, a tenth of her budget disappeared. That’s enough for ten computers for every staff. They had invoices and so on proving this on Capitol Hill. They put out the statements, and we’re not going to seek any charges in this case.

There is no way to justify it. They want to act like, “That one reporter. He must be doing fake news.” But it’s documented. So it’s remarkable to see the people we trust, and in other words, okay, you’ve got this Pakistani guy. He’s a horrible guy. Things happen. There are always bad people out there in the world. But what really shook me is to see the people that we trusted, the ones we elected and also the ones that we task with enforcing the law with the FBI and the DOJ, to see those people letting us down, it really shook my faith in some of the fundamental institutions that we count on in America.

I think anyone who reads the book is going to see that it’s actually a remarkably sympathetic and empathetic portrait of what happened in Capitol Hill and a lot of people who were struggling with the decision of, “Should I do the right thing even if it puts my job at risk?” So this is a story about human beings, that a lot of times who chose convenience over speaking out. Then there’s also a few heroes in that mix who came forward and tried to do the right thing despite all the retaliation. They retroactively try to spin it as partisan, but when you read the book, it’s all Democratic whistleblowers who first were calling attention to the wrongdoing that they had witnessed on Capitol Hill.

Tim: What lesson should be learned? What should voters take away from what you’ve uncovered in this book?

Luke Rosiak:  I think that to question everything is really one of the lessons, I think, because the techniques that they use, the Democrats working with the DOJ and the media, that’s a powerful axis right now. That trifecta, the three of them working together have the ability to shape a lot of what we perceive as being the main issues of the day or the biggest things. It turns out that it’s kind of a big PR operation with a lot of very savvy people. I call them puppeteers on Capitol Hill, and I go into how they’re manipulating us. So identifying the ways in which we are being manipulated, I think, is key for Americans. Because these kind of tricks are going on all the time, and it’s important for us to be able to see what they’re doing to us.



via IFTTT

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Vanessa Beeley: BBC 'Trying to limit damage' of fake news on Syrian chemical attack

ORIGINAL LINK

1Douma_Syria_after_liberation_.jpg

BBC Syria producer Riam Dalati tweeted on Wednesday that the video of people treated after an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Syrian city of Douma had been fabricated. Sputnik has discussed the development with Vanessa Beeley, an independent investigative journalist who specialises in the Middle East and Syria in particular. Sputnik: This doesn't really look good though, does it, for Mr. Dalati. Why do you think he decided to speak up now? He is now contradicting himself basically. Vanessa Beeley: Well, yeah, and effectively this is a damage limitation operation. One of their own, so to speak, James Harkin, who is a mainstream journalist, he writes in the Internet and he also writes for the Guardian, and the Guardian's Simon Tisdall I believe it was, almost immediately after the alleged attack in Douma, which has, of course, been largely discredited by the OPCW report that has told us that no organic phosphates were used, there is still an element of doubt over whether...

via IFTTT