JFK Assassination: The Tell-Tale Brain Keeps on Telling — What Is It Saying?

https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/04/25/jfk-assassination-the-tell-tale-brain/

Media outraged over Pruitt's plans for EPA transparency

ORIGINAL LINK

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt

President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, proposed a transparency rule Tuesday that would ban from agency use any studies that bar public access to the underlying data.

The proposal, subject to a 30-day comment period, promptly sent establishment media and the left into a tirade.

The Washington Post complained his proposal to use only studies that can be fully accessed by the public would “block the agency from relying on long-standing, landmark studies linking air pollution and pesticide exposure to harmful health effects.”

Forbes started with the headline “EPA Chief Scott Pruitt: Delete Decades of Science In the Name of ‘Transparency'” and went on from there.

The story quoted Andrew Rosenberg of the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS saying: “With false claims about transparency, the political appointees at the EPA are drastically restricting the ability of the agency to rely on science. They are ordering EPA employees to put on blinders and only see the science that they want them to see.

“They are sacrificing the health of Americans in favor of special interests, a disturbing pattern for this administration,” he continued, “It’s no coincidence that the same people calling for this change have been funded by the petrochemical and tobacco industries for years. Priott has turned his back on the American people to stick his snout deep in the trough of corruption.”

The rule proposed by Pruitt would simply set new standards for any scientific studies used for writing regulations and rules. It would allow the EPA to consider studies “for which the underlying data are made available publicly.”

The Heartland Institute, which promotes transparency in government, said the rule would require the “underlying data of scientific studies used to make federal environment and energy policy be open to public inspection and possible criticism.”

“Another week at the EPA, another victory for transparency by Scott Pruitt. For decades, the EPA has improperly claimed massive power to regulate nearly every aspect of our economy and lives. It is long overdue that the EPA should make such data and collection methods available for public review and analysis,” said Tim Huelskamp, the president of the institute.

Huelskamp represented Kansas’ first congressional district from 2011 to 2017.

The EPA in recent years has been aggressive in expanding its power, even changing rules and regulations to claim authority over mud puddles in farm fields across America. The Obama administration tried to use the agency to make it too expensive for coal power plants to operate and much more.

Freedom-oriented organizations who have been critical of Obama’s EPA are pleased that some of its aggressive tactics are being walked back.

Environmental activists, on the other hand, are enraged.

Reported Forbes: “Nearly 1,000 scientists signed and sent a letter to Scott Pruitt urging him not to move forward … they wrote, ‘There are ways to improve transparency in the decisionmaking process, but restricting the use of science would improve neither transparency nor the quality of EPA decisionmaking.'”

The report didn’t address the fact that any study scientists want the government to use could be opened to the public.

They claimed Pruitt’s move would “negatively impact EPA public protections that reduce levels of leads, harmful chemicals, and fine particle pollution.”

The Forbes report charged: “Ever wonder if that GMO vegetable in the grocery store is safe to eat, whether your city’s water contains poisonous lead like in Flint, Michigan, or if that nearby nuclear power plant is safe to live by? All of these health risks are regulated by the EPA, much of which relies on underlying students containing personal information.

“After throwing out any science that contains personal information, what is left to keep Scott Pruitt from allowing industries to deregulate their commitment to operate under safe practices?”

Forbes explained the data in some studies must remain secret because they were done with a promise to the participants to that effect.

Opponents of the new rule argue any “qualified scientist” can access the data, implying that the public has no need to see the foundation for EPA decisions.

Pruitt, in his announcement, said it was “a banner day.”

“The science that we use is going to be transparent. It’s going to be reproducible,” he said.

Liberals charged that Pruitt already has barred scientists who are getting paid by the EPA from serving on EPA advisory committees but is “still allowing those funded by industry.”

Former EPA administrator Gina Mc Carthy, who now is at the Center for Climate, Health and Global Environment at Harvard, said the best studies “follow individuals over time,” but nobody will participate if their “private information” is revealed.

Steve Milloy, a member of the Trump EPA transition team, said: “During the Obama administration, the EPA wantonly destroyed 94 percent of the market value of the coal industry, killed thousands of coal mining jobs and wreaked havoc on coal mining families and communities, all based on data the EPA and its taxpayer-funded university researchers have been hiding from the public and Congress for more than 20 years.”

Joseph Bast, senior fellow at Heartland, said Pruitt’s announcement “marks the beginning of the end of one of the biggest scandals in the history of public health research and of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“Badly flawed research on the human health effects of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) conducted during the 1980s and 1990s was used to justify regulations forcing thousands of corporations and hundreds of coal-powered electricity generation plants to close,” he said.

“Subsequent research shows ambient levels of PM2.5 have little or no adverse effects on human health, yet the regulations remain in place, like zombies, killing jobs and endangering public health and well-being by unnecessarily raising the cost of energy and causing unemployment. The Obama administration exploited this corrupt science to wage its war on fossil fuels, a war now thankfully being brought to an end by President Trump.”

Bast said that demanding “the end of reliance on secret science may be the most consequential decision made by EPA since the election of Donald Trump.”

The Heartland’s science director, Jay Lehr, said, “It is amazing that the public ever allowed a government agency supported by their taxes to hide the information used to restrict their lives through regulation. It is only surprising that the leftist EPA and our court system allowed this to take place for so long. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is finally reining in the out of control regulatory process.”

Bette Grande, the Institute’s energy policy research fellow, said the end of “secret science” at EPA “is very big news and you know it’s an important step by the volume and hysteria of Administrator Pruitt’s critics.”

“The critics of this move understand that the Endangerment Finding and other over-reaching regulations are based on black box ‘secret science’ that cannot stand up to prudent review,” she said.

“Requiring all underlying data to be made public before a study can be used to set policy is just common sense. My junior high algebra teacher made me show my work to get credit for a test answer. If it’s good enough for junior high, we should hold EPA to at least that level of transparency.”

via IFTTT

Finland Abandons Universal Basic Income Experiment After Two Years

ORIGINAL LINK

"I felt a great disturbance in the farce, as if millions of socialist voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something rational has happened."

With high-profile champions such as Richard Branson, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, backing the idea of governments giving non-working people money (from working people) to do nothing - what could go wrong?

Well, two years after enthusiastically beginning its experiment with a universal basic income - in which people are paid an unconditional salary by the state instead of benefits - Finland is abandoning the project as government enthusiasm wanes and additional funding requests are rejected.

As a reminder, The Telegraph explains Universal basic income is a form of cash payment given to individuals, without means testing or work requirements. In some models this is at a rate sufficient to cover all living expenses.

Proponents argue that:

• The lack of expensive means-testing leads to a higher proportion of the budget going to recipients. This would be more efficient

• The transparency of universal payments would drastically reduce the need to detect benefits fraud

• One scheme could replace the current complex arrangement of government benefits, rebates and tax rebates

• Work will always benefit recipients of this welfare, rather than the ‘benefits trap’ that leaves part-time workers

Critics argue that:

• Universal income may be inflationary and, in attempting to move all individuals out of poverty, it may simply raise the level of the poverty line

• It may reduce the incentive to work and studies have found some evidence to support this.

• A reduction in taxable income would reduce the government’s ability to cover other expenses, such as healthcare

Universal income as a policy dates from at least Thomas Paine’s 1795 Agrarian Justice. It is currently more closely aligned with left-wing politics, where it would be funded through income from nationalised assets.

Several countries have experimented with a universal basic income, including Finland, Canada, Kenya and the Netherlands.
And now Finland has killed the plan...  (via The Guardian)

Since January 2017, a random sample of 2,000 unemployed people aged 25 to 58 have been paid a monthly €560 (£475) , with no requirement to seek or accept employment. Any recipients who took a job continued to receive the same amount.

Furthermore, the government has also imposed stricter benefits plans, introducing legislation making some benefits for unemployed people contingent on taking training or working at least 18 hours in three months.

“The government is making changes taking the system away from basic income,” Kela’s Miska Simanainen told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

Of course, the liberal socialist gliterrati are up in arms over Finland's decision.

Olli Kangas, an expert involved in the trial, told the Finnish public broadcaster YLE:

“Two years is too short a period to be able to draw extensive conclusions from such a big experiment. We should have had extra time and more money to achieve reliable results.”

However, as we previously noted, as automation and AI destroy millions of middle-income jobs, permanently forcing (primarily male) workers from the workforce, Americans are beginning to reconsider their attitudes toward a radical policy tool that's popular among some segments of the left: Universal Basic Income.

According to CNBC, a recent poll conducted by Northeastern University and Gallup found that 48% of Americans support the measure. In an association that's hardly a coincidence, the poll also showed that three-quarters of Americans believe machines will take away more jobs than they'll generate...

Unsurprisingly 65% of Democrats want to see a universal basic income and 54% of people between the ages of 18 and 35 do. In comparison, just 28% of Republicans support UBI.

While proposals for universal basic income programs vary, the most common one is a system in which the federal government sends out regular checks to everyone, regardless of their earnings or employment. That system is being tested in Canada as well as Stockton, California, which recently emerged from bankruptcy but remains mired in poverty.

Perhaps Finland's failure will wake some of the free shit army up that it can't end well.

via IFTTT

Ten Irrefutable, Devastating 9/11 Facts

ORIGINAL LINK

Ten Irrefutable, Devastating 9/11 Facts

https://www.globalresearch.ca/ten-irrefutable-devastating-911-facts/5637525

The post Ten Irrefutable, Devastating 9/11 Facts appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.

via IFTTT

By US Standards, America Should’ve Been Bombed for What Happened in Texas, 25 Years Ago Today

ORIGINAL LINK

(TFTP) When reports claimed that a chemical attack killed 70 civilians in Syria earlier this month, the Trump administration was quick to place the blame on the Syrian government—despite having no evidence—and they claimed that the horror of such an atrocity deserved retaliation in the form of targeted airstrikes.

While the United States military maintained that the 120 missiles launched in the attack destroyed a facility that was used to produce chemical weapons, witnesses on the ground in Douma, Syria, claimed that the airstrikes actually destroyed a cancer research facility.

U.S. intelligence officials have since admitted that the attack was carried out despite the fact that the United States had no proof that the Syrian government had carried out a sarin gas attack. Instead, the U.S. acted before an investigation could be conducted, and as is usually the case with reported gas attacks in Syria, proof has yet to be found to show that President Bashar al-Assad was responsible.

If the idea that a government would use chemicals to kill dozens of its own citizens is so abhorrent that the U.S. would risk World War 3 to take a stand against it, then it must mean that the U.S. would never do the same thing to its own citizens, for fear that it could be subjected to a similar response from another country—right?

However, on April 19, 1993, there was a government that used chemical weapons on its own people, and nearly 80 men, women, and children died as a result. But the attack was not carried out by the Syrian government and it did not happen in the Middle East. It took place in Waco, Texas, and it was perpetrated by the United States government.

It all started as the government began looking for ways to obtain a warrant to search the 77-acre plot occupied by a group called the Branch Davidians when they heard rumors that the mysterious cult was stockpiling weapons and modifying them with illegal parts in preparation for the end of the world.

Branch Davidian leader David Koresh was accused of having multiple underage wives, sexually abusing the young daughters of his members, and ultimately holding cult members against their will. But an investigation conducted by Child Protective Services in 1992 concluded that no one was being held against their will and there were no signs of child abuse.

The case against the Branch Davidians continued to grow, and as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) looked for more evidence against them, Koresh was also accused of running a meth lab on the property. Although no evidence of this was ever found, it served as a legal pretext for ATF agents to receive military training, in order to initiate a raid on the property.

ATF agents attempted to serve a search warrant at the property on Feb. 28, 1993, and they were met with gunfire from the Branch Davidians. They returned fire, and four ATF agents and six Davidians were killed as a result. After the shootout, the FBI joined in and the agencies launched a standoff for the next 51 days.

During the siege, federal agents cut off water and electricity to the compound, and in their attempt to get Koresh to surrender, the Houston Chronicle reported that the agents tortured the remaining members by “using tanks to crush vehicles in front of the compound, playing loud music and flooding the area with bright lights at night to increase pressure on the Davidians.” 

Despite weeks of efforts to get the Davidians to surrender, the government learned that the group was, indeed, prepared for the apocalypse. The Clinton Administration decided that the siege was taking too long, and Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the use of CS gas, even though it was known that the Davidians did not have gas masks for the two dozen children who were still inside the compound.

Early on the morning of April 19, federal agents brought in heavy equipment to break down the walls of the building and they spent hours filling it with a dangerous mix of CS gas and methyl chloride that has been shown to be potentially flammable.

When the compound engulfed in flames, killing 76 men, women and children, who were trapped inside, the government insisted that the fire was set by the Branch Davidians as a way to commit suicide. However, in 1999, the FBI admitted its agents had fired pyrotechnic tear gas grenades at the Davidian compound, which could have sparked a fire.

As The Free Thought Project has reported, researchers investigating the incident “concluded federal agents were observed shooting from the compound’s grounds into the building already set ablaze by fire. While the official government narrative is those individuals committed suicide, the researchers were able to demonstrate they were likely killed by automatic weapons fired by federal agents, possibly killed as they were attempting to flee their burning compound.”

Following the massacre, there are also a number of glaring problems associated with attempts to investigate the events surrounding it. According to reports, the corpses of the victims liquefied weeks after they were autopsied, and the door to Mount Carmel, which Davidians believed would show that the ATF fired first, went missing.

The Waco Siege is just one example of the overwhelming hypocrisy exerted by the U.S. government regarding the use of chemical weapons on civilians.

As The Hill noted, the horrific massacre occurred three months after the U.S. signed a treaty promising not to use chemical weapons on enemy soldiers, which just happened to leave a loophole that would let the U.S. torture its own citizens:

“Shortly before the Waco showdown, U.S. government officials signed an international Chemical Weapons Convention treaty pledging never to use nerve agents, mustard gas, and other compounds, including tear gas against enemy soldiers. But the treaty contained a loophole permitting governments to gas their own people. On April 19, 1993, the FBI pumped CS gas and methyl chloride, a potentially lethal, flammable combination, into the Davidians’ residence for six hours, disregarding explicit warnings that CS gas should not be used indoors.”

---

Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Instagram | Steemit | Patreon

 

via IFTTT

The CIA Democrats vs. Julian Assange

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/04/23/pers-a23.html

No Official Intel Used To Launch Russia Probe According To Controversial DOJ Document: Nunes

ORIGINAL LINK

After waiting eight months for the DOJ to turn over the "electronic communication" (EC) - the document which the FBI used to launch the original counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) told Fox News that upon review - the EC reveals that no intelligence was used to launch the probe. 

Nunes also touched on the fact that Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal pushed anti-Trump memos to the Obama State Department, written by Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer and passed to Jonathan Winer, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.

“We now know that there was no official intelligence that was used to start this investigation. We know that Sidney Blumenthal and others were pushing information into the State Department. So we’re trying to piece all that together and that’s why we continue to look at the State Department,” Nunes told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

,@DevinNunes: "We do know that longtime associates of @HillaryClinton, including Sidney Blumenthal and another person named, I think, Cody Shearer, were actively giving information to the @StateDept that was somehow making its way to the @FBI." #SundayFutures @MariaBartiromo pic.twitter.com/nUw5gIHCB7

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 22, 2018

Nunes noted that no intelligence was shared with the U.S. from any of the members of the "Five Eyes" agreement - that being Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

“We are not supposed to spy on each other’s citizens, and it’s worked well,” he said. “And it continues to work well. And we know it’s working well because there was no intelligence that passed through the Five Eyes channels to our government. And that’s why we had to see that original communication.”

This is relevant because the FBI says that the Trump investigation was kicked off after Australian diplomat Alexander Downer told the FBI that Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted in a London pub that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The New York Times reported last December that "Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role."

This was clearly not true according to the EC, which states that no intelligence passed through Five Eyes official channels.

Many have also raised questions over the fact that Alexander Downer, the source of the intelligence which launched the Trump investigation (and not through official channels) is absolutely a friend of the Clintons. 

According to information provided by Australian policeman-turned investigative journalist, Michael Smith - the Clinton Foundation received some $88 million from Australian taxpayers between 2006 and 2014, reaching its peak in 2012-2013 - which was coincidentally (we're sure) Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's last year in office. Smith names several key figures in his complaints of malfeasance, including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Alexander Downer. 

The materials Smith gave to the FBI concern the MOU between the Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDs Initiative (CHAI) and the Australian government. 

Smith claims the foundation received a “$25M financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception” as a result of actions by Bill Clinton and Downer, who was then Australia’s minister of foreign affairs. 

Also included in the Smith materials are evidence he believes shows “corrupt October 2006 backdating of false tender advertisements purporting to advertise the availability of a $15 million contract to provide HIV/AIDS services in Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian government after an agreement was already in place to pay the Clinton Foundation and/or associates.”-Lifezette

And during the various Russia probes, Congressional investigators weren't told about Downer's connection to the Clinton Foundation.  

"Republicans say they are concerned the new information means nearly all of the early evidence the FBI used to justify its election-year probe of Trump came from sources supportive of the Clintons, including the controversial Steele dossier," reports The Hill. 

“The Clintons’ tentacles go everywhere. So, that’s why it’s important,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chairman of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. “We continue to get new information every week it seems that sort of underscores the fact that the FBI hasn’t been square with us.”

State Department in the Crosshairs

Nunes then told Fox's Maria Bartiromo that the House Intel Committee is now honing in on the State Department due to signs of "major irregularities" in how the alleged Papadopoulos comments reached U.S. intelligence agencies. 

“We know a little bit about that because of what some of the State Department officials themselves have said about that,” Nunes said, adding that “We have to make sure that our agencies talk and they work out problems. We have to make sure that they don’t spy on either Americans citizens or that we’re not spying on British citizens.”

Still, Nunes doesn’t know whether former secretary of state, and then-Democratic challenger to Trump in the election, was pulling the strings of the investigation launched against her political opponent. However, he said it is known that two long-time Clinton associates – including Sidney Blumenthal – were “actively” giving information to the State Department, which “was somehow making its way to the FBI.” -Fox Business

Meanwhile, as we reported in February, a former official in President Obama's State Department has confirmed a claim by the Senate Judiciary Committee, that former British spy Christopher Steele and Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal gave him intelligence reports claiming that President Trump had been compromised by the Russians.

Jonathan Winer, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, confirmed the Judiciary Committee's claims in an op-ed for the Washington Post titled "Devin Nunes is investigating me: Here's the Truth." 

"While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele’s reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature," writes Winer.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier.”Steele’s sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

Winer's op-ed corroborates the series of events outlined in a criminal referral for Steele issued by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), which asks the DOJ to investigate Steele for allegedly lying to the FBI about his contacts with the media. 

Winer then gave Steele various anti-Trump memos from Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal, which originated with Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer. Winer claims he didn't think Steele would share the Clinton-sourced information with anyone else in the government.

“But I learned later that Steele did share them — with the FBI, after the FBI asked him to provide everything he had on allegations relating to Trump, his campaign and Russian interference in U.S. elections,” Winer writes. 

Comey Memos

Nunes then said that the release of the Comey memos was significant in that they would seem to exonerate President Trump of collusion. 

The mainstream media and the dems have been running around talking about collusion, collusion, collusion. when they realized there was no collusion, they moved on to obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice. 

"Once you read all of the Comey memos, it becomes Exhibit A in the defense that there was no obstruction of justice."

The Chairman also noted that the Comey memos reveal Trump actually wanted his campaign investigated, telling Bartiromo "when you have the President of the US saying "Look, investigate all of my people. If anyone in my campaign was colluding with the Russians, I wanna know and they need to be brought to justice," Adding "Something of that nature is in the Comey memos."

Nunes also pointed out that Comey and Andrew McCabe are probably both in quite a bit of trouble: 

Nunes: When you match up Mr. Comey's memos with what's in his book, with the interviews that he's giving I think he's got a lot of problems coming in the future as it relates to what the IG is looking at into his behavior during the Clinton email investigation.

Bartiromo: What kind of problems? We know that the IG has recommended criminal charges against his former deputy Andrew McCabe.

Nunes: "His lawyer has said no, Mr. Comey is lying - is essentially what Mr. McCabe is saying, that Comey did give him the right to go to the press... Clearly the IG believed Mr. Comey that he did not give Mr. McCabe the ability to go to the press.

Nunes then went into Comey's conduct - positing that the former FBI Director "laundered" classified memos to a friend, who leaked them to the New York Times - and that others may have received them as well.

The memos that he wrote - the seven memos that he wrote on President Trump, noting that Comey hadn't written memos on anyone else - four of them were classified. He decided to then launder them to a friend, who leaked them to the New York Times. If those memos contained classified information, he purposely did that, he purposely leaked them to get a Special Counsel started after he was fired. He leaked pieces of these, so we need to figure out exactly what is it he leaked. Who did he give these memos to? Was it just the friend that leaked them to the New York Times, or were there others? I believe there were others, I believe these Comey memos were actually given to several people - that contained classified information. The irony is - the very thing that Mr. Comey cleared Mrs. Clinton of. 

All of that said - whether or not the noose is actually tightening around anyone's neck is up to the DOJ, as they can simply ignore the various criminal referrals made against McCabe and others. What can't be denied, at this point, is that both the Mueller investigation and the original counterintelligence investigation launched against Donald Trump and his campaign - and the complicit narrative-shaping performed by the MSM - appear to have been a highly coordinated effort to prevent Hillary Clinton from losing the White House.

Trump advisors Joe diGenova and Alan Dershowitz discussed just Hannity Saturday - with Dershowitz somehow coming to the conclusion that the entirety of the ongoing against Trump are nothing more than coincidence.

via IFTTT

Bad Bankers Drive Out Good Bankers: Wells Fargo, Wall Street, And Gresham’s Law

Greshams-law-wells-fargo-bad-bankers | DollarCollapse.com: "Bad Bankers Drive Out Good Bankers: Wells Fargo, Wall Street, And Gresham’s Law"



'via Blog this'

IRD: "The System Will Have To Collapse"

ORIGINAL LINK

Via InvestmentResearchDynamics.com,

The public pension fund system is approaching apocalypse.  Earlier this week teachers who are part of the Colorado public pension system (PERA) staged a walk-out protest over proposed changes to the plan, including raising the percentage contribution to the fund by current payees and raising the retirement age.   PERA backed off but ignoring the obvious problem will not make it go away.

Every public pension fund in the country is catastrophically underfunded, especially if strict mark-to-market of the illiquid assets were applied. Illinois has been playing funding games for a few years to keep its pension fund solvent.  In Kentucky, where the public pension fund is on the verge of collapse, teachers are demanding a State bailout.

If the stock market were sustain a extended decline of more than 10% – “extended” meaning several months in which the stock market falls more than 10% – every public pension in the U.S. would collapse.  This is based on an in-depth study conducted by a good friend of mine who works at a public pension fund.  He has access to better data than “outsiders” and I know his work to be meticulous.   Please note that the three big market declines since August 2015 were stopped at a 10% draw-down followed by big moves higher.  The current draw-down was stopped at 10% but subsequent outcome is to be determined. My friend and I are not the only ones who understand this:

The next phase of public pension reform will likely be touched off by a stock market decline  that creates the real possibility of at least one state fund running out of cash within a couple of years. – Bloomberg

I know a teacher in Denver who left her job that was connected to PERA in order to take a lump-sum payout rather than risk waiting until she retired to bankrupt pension plan. She took a job in the Denver school system, which is not part of the PERA system. She’s actually thinking about teaching in Central America, where there’s high demand for English-speaking teachers and the pay relative to the cost-of-living is much higher:

“Teaching sucks right now.  Teachers are underpaid for the work we’re doing.  After all of these years, I’m making about $60,000. That’s BS! I have a masters. Truthfully, the classroom is burning me out right now. The f#cked up world is spilling into kids’ lives. They’re largely defiant and off-track. I don’t have the energy to try to streamline whole classrooms.”   

In reference to the pension system: “When the mother f#cking-f#ck is any of this going to be corrected?!?! I am beyond mad.  Ecuador has become an option, because this country is beyond f#cked up.”

Unfortunately, I was compelled to answer with the truth – a truth she already knows: 

“It won’t be corrected. The system will have to collapse and then who knows what will happen. Criminals run everything now and the people who are supposed to enforce Rule of Law are well paid to look the other way. This has been building for at least 2 decades. It doesn’t help when the President is caught shoving a cigar up a staff interns vagina and then a joke is made of it in Congress. “Is oral sex, sex?” Answer: “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is,’ is.”

Now the corruption and fraud is out in the open and there’s nothing that can be done about it. The system will have collapse – its the final solution.

via IFTTT

Beware Of White Helmets Bearing News

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Ann Wright via ConsortiumNews.com,

The celebrated White Helmets of Oscar fame appeared to have made their own feature film in Duma on the night of the alleged chemical attack...

At the center of the controversy over an alleged chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Duma on April 7 are the White Helmets, a self-described rescue operation about whom an Oscar-winning documentary was made.

Reporter and author Max Blumenthal has tracked the role of the White Helmets in the Syrian conflict. He reported that the White Helmets were created in Turkey by James Le Mesurier, a former British MI5 agent. The group has received at least $55 million from the British Foreign Office and $23 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development as well as millions from the Kingdom of Qatar, which has backed a variety of extremist groups in Syria including Al Qaeda. 

Blumenthal writes, “When Defense Secretary James Mattis cited ‘social media’ in place of scientific evidence of a chemical attack in Duma, he was referring to video shot by members of the White Helmets. Similarly, when State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert sought to explain why the US bombed Syria before inspectors from the OPCW could produce a report from the ground, she claimed, ‘We have our own intelligence.’ With little else to offer, she was likely referring to social media material published by members of the White Helmets.”

The reference to social media as evidence in the most serious decision a leader can make—to engage in an act of war—is part of a disturbing trend. Then Secretary of State John Kerry pointed to “social media” as evidence of the Syrian government’s guilt in a 2013 chemical attack in the same Damascus suburb. But as Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of this site, pointed out in numerous reports, Syrian government guilt was far from a sure thing.

Rather than wait for the arrival of a team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to assess whether chemicals had even used in this latest incident, Trump gave the order to bomb.

Gas!    

The possible role of the White Helmets in the latest alleged chemical attack was first revealed by veteran Middle East reporter Robert Fisk, writing for The Independent. In “The Search for Truth in the Rubble of Douma-And One Doctor’s Doubts Over the Chemical Attacks,”  Fisk reported that he tracked down 58-year-old Syrian doctor Assim Rahaibani.

A White Helmet (Photo: whitehelmets.org)l

The doctor told Fisk that he learned from fellow physicians who were on duty at the clinic the night of the attack. Rahaibani said patients were brought in by “jihadi gunmen of Jaish el-Islam [the Army of Islam]” in Duma and that the patients appeared to be “overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm.”

Rahaibani told Fisk, “I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Duma at night – but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss.”

Rahaibani continued:

“Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet,’ shouted ‘Gas!’, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”

Fisk writes that, “There are the many people I talked to amid the ruins of the town who said they had ‘never believed in’ gas stories – which were usually put about, they claimed, by the armed Islamist groups. These particular jihadis survived under a blizzard of shellfire by living in other’s people’s homes and in vast, wide tunnels with underground roads carved through the living rock by prisoners with pick-axes on three levels beneath the town. I walked through three of them yesterday, vast corridors of living rock which still contained Russian – yes, Russian – rockets and burned-out cars.”

Significantly, Fisk reported that locals told him that White Helmets left with jihadists bused out of Duma in a deal made with the Syrian government and Russia, which provided security for the transfer.  

Other Reports

Other reporters have corroborated what Fisk found. Reporter Pearson Sharp of One America News, a conservative Christian TV network and supporter of President Trump, interviewed doctors and witnesses at the clinic. They also said there was no chemical attack and that strangers came into the clinic and shouted “Gas!” and filmed the reaction.

RT’s Arabic service also tracked down an 11-year old boy filmed in the “attack,” and found him in completely good health and able to answer questions of the RT reporter. He told her he was with his mother when they were urged to enter the clinic. “We were outside,” the boy said, and they told all of us to go into the hospital. I was immediately taken upstairs, and they started pouring water on me.”

*  *  *

Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel.  She was also a US diplomat and was in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia.  She resigned from the US government in March 2003 in opposition to the lies the Bush administration was stating as the rationale for the invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq.  She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”

via IFTTT