As IMF Default Looms & Tax Revenues Plunge, Greek Stocks & Bonds Tumble

Zero Hedge

As the rest of the world appears happy to assume everything is fixed in Europe (and if it's not, Draghi will buy it back to being awesome), Greece is looking unwell once again. Initial exuberance has faded dramatically in the last 3 days as IMF default warnings and a 22.5% plunge in tax revenues has sparked concerns about Greece's sustainability once again. Default (or restructuring) risk is soaring, Greek bond yields are surging, stocks sliding, and Greek banks (bonds and stocks) are getting hammered. As The Guardian's Helena Smith notes, "the country is in a strategic vacuum," and next week's T-Bill auction could be a major catalyst.

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The National-Security State’s ISIS Racket

Jacob G. Hornberger

The Future of Freedom Foundation

 

The official enemy de jour that has everyone all riled up and scared is ISIS. If U.S. forces don’t bomb ISIS, the argument goes, ISIS will take over Iraq, and Syria, and Lebanon, and Europe, and Asia, and Latin America, and then the United States. If the bombs don’t fall on ISIS, before long Americans will be speaking Arabic and their children will be studying the Koran in America’s government schools.

 

It’s all just one great big racket — a racket based on “national security,” a term that isn’t even found in the Constitution and that doesn’t even have an objective meaning. The only way that the U.S. national-security state apparatus — i.e., the vast military establishment and military empire, the CIA, and the NSA — can justify its continued existence is by ginning up crisis after crisis with the aim of keeping the citizenry filled with fear, anxiety, and depression. The apparatus then becomes people’s sedative, assuring them that everything is going to be okay because the apparatus is the only thing keeping them safe.

Never mind that the national-security apparatus produces the very threats it then uses to scare people with. After all, did anyone hear of ISIS before the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq, a country that had never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so?
No. That’s because there was no ISIS before the apparatus invaded and occupied Iraq. It was the invasion and occupation, along with other interventions by the apparatus, such as in Syria and Libya, that has produced ISIS, the new, scary enemy of the day.

But of course, no statist wants to hear that. The national-security state is akin to a god, one that is keeping them safe from all those scary creatures thousands of miles away from American shores, creatures that are brought into existence by the very policies of the apparatus itself.

With its ongoing, perpetual crises and wars, the apparatus is also serving as a fount of taxpayer-funded largess for the vast armies of “defense” contractors who are feeding at the public trough on a permanent basis.

As an aside, have you noticed that while some young people are traveling to the Middle East to join ISIS, hardly any Americans are traveling to Iraq to join up with the Iraqi army to fight ISIS. I suppose one possibility is that most everyone is a coward and won’t fight to protect our “national security.” Another possibility, the more likely one in my opinion, is that deep down everyone knows that this is all a crock.

The perpetual crises and fear-mongering are not a new phenomenon. We saw it throughout the Cold War, when the same fear-mongering was being done about communists that is now being done about ISIS, terrorists, and Muslims.

If we don’t stop the communists from infiltrating Latin America, we were told, it won’t be long before Americans are speaking communist. Cuba is a communist beachhead, they repeatedly said, one that was determined to turn the rest of Latin America and then the United States Red.

That’s why the national-security state installed and supported brutal military dictatorships in Guatemala and Chile, entered into a partnership with the Mafia to assassinate Cuba’s president Fidel Castro, participated as a partner in the international torture and assassination ring based in Latin America known as DINA, and much more — all to ensure that the communist-socialist infection didn’t spread to Latin American countries, especially by democratic means. Democracy had to be destroyed, we were told, in order to save democracy.

The tens of thousands of people who were rounded up, tortured, raped, disappeared, executed, and assassinated, were considered an societal inoculation — like a vaccine — to ensure that Latin American regimes and then the United States didn’t go Red.

That’s what arming the Contras and starting an extremely brutal, deadly, and destructive civil war in Nicaragua was all about — to oust the communist-socialist regime of Daniel Ortega. It was also what the invasion of Grenada was all about.

The idea was that if the radical leftists were to gain the reins of power in Latin American countries, especially through democratic elections, the United States as we know it would cease to exist.

It was all a Cold War, national-security state, fear-mongering racket, one that was keeping the national-security state apparatus in existence and, equally important, keeping all those “defense” looters and plunderers in high cotton.

The fact is that it wouldn’t have made any difference at all, insofar as the United States was concerned, if every Latin American country went Red.

How do we know that? Because after the national-security state lost communism as its official enemy, many of those Latin American regimes have ended up with socialist presidents, many of them duly elected by their citizenry. Consider: Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, and more.

In fact, check out this Wikipedia entry entitled “Pink Tide.” It states “In 2005, the BBC reported that out of 350 million people in South America, three out of four of them lived in countries ruled by ‘left-leaning presidents’ elected during the preceding six years.”

Yet, as everyone knows, the United States is still standing. The United States wasn’t the final domino that fell to the communists. Oh sure, we’ve got our own welfare state, which is no different in principle from the socialism that all those Latin American socialist regimes believe in, but that’s just because Americans believe in socialism as much as Latin Americans do, not because Latin American regimes have gone socialist.

It won’t make any difference to the freedom and well-being of the American people if ISIS takes over Iraq, Syria, Libya, or any other area of the Middle East, any more than it has made a difference that socialists and communists have taken over countries in Latin America. It’s all just a fear-mongering racket, one designed to keep the cancerous tumor known as the national-security state, along with its vast army of “defense” plunderers and looters, attached to the body politic, where it is sucking the lifeblood out of the American people.

What a racket. It’s amazing that so many Americans continue to fall for it.

Hestia: Taking on Corporate Tobacco

Comment: For those who like a great smoke, this is a great cigar/cigarette - and genuinely organic. 

-------------------

hestiatobacco.com/

James Petras: The assassination of Greece

"The European economic crash of 2008/09 resounded worst on its weakest links – Southern Europe and Ireland. The true nature of the European Union as a hierarchical empire, in which the powerful states – Germany and France – could openly and directly control investment, trade, monetary and financial policy was revealed. The much vaunted EU “bailout” of Greece was in fact the pretext for the imposition of deep structural changes. These included the denationalization and privatization of all strategic economic sectors; perpetual debt payments; foreign dictates of incomes and investment policy. Greece ceased to be an independent state: it was totally and absolutely colonized."

James Petras
Voltaire Network

The Greek government is currently locked in a life and death struggle with the elite which dominate the banks and political decision-making centers of the European Union. What are at stake are the livelihoods of 11 million Greek workers, employees and small business people and the viability of the European Union. If the ruling Syriza government capitulates to the demands of the EU bankers and agrees to continue the austerity programs, Greece will be condemned to decades of regression, destitution and colonial rule. If Greece decides to resist, and is forced to exit the EU, it will need to repudiate its 270 billion Euro foreign debts, sending the international financial markets crashing and causing the EU to collapse.

The leadership of the EU is counting on Syriza leaders abandoning their commitments to the Greek electorate, which as of early February 2015, is overwhelmingly (over 70%) in favor of ending austerity and debt payments and moving forward toward state investment in national economic and social development [1]. The choices are stark; the consequences have world-historical significance. The issues go far beyond local or even regional, time-bound, impacts. The entire global financial system will be affected [2].

The default will ripple to all creditors and debtors, far beyond Europe; investor confidence in the entire western financial empire will be shaken. First and foremost all western banks have direct and indirect ties to the Greek banks [3]. When the latter collapse, they will be profoundly affected beyond what their governments can sustain. Massive state intervention will be the order of the day. The Greek government will have no choice but to take over the entire financial system . . . the domino effect will first and foremost effect Southern Europe and spread to the 'dominant regions' in the North and then across to England and North America [4]. 

To understand the origins of this crises and alternatives facing Greece and the EU, it is necessary to briefly survey the political and economic developments of the past three decades. We will proceed by examining Greek and EU relations between 1980 - 2000 and then proceed to the current collapse and EU intervention in the Greek economy. In the final section we will discuss the rise and election of Syriza, and its growing submissiveness in the context of EU dominance, and intransigence, highlighting the need for a radical break with the past relationship of 'lord and vassal'.

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In 1967, the CIA Created the Label "Conspiracy Theorists" ... to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the "Official" Narrative

washingtonsblog.com/ 

 

Conspiracy Theorists USED TO Be Accepted As Normal

 

Democracy and free market capitalism were founded on conspiracy theories.
The Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and other  founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories. Greek democracy and free market capitalism were also based on conspiracy theories.

But those were the bad old days …Things have now changed.

The CIA Coined the Term Conspiracy Theorist In 1967

 

That all changed in the 1960s.

Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories.  The dispatch was marked “psych” –  short for “psychological operations” or disinformation –  and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit.

The dispatch was produced in responses to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times in 1976.

The dispatch states:

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization.

***

The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:

a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by …  propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories.

***

4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:

a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider.

***

b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent–and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) …

***

c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc.

***

d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other.

***

f. As to charges that the Commission’s report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.

g. Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” can always be explained in some natural way ….

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission’s Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

Here are screenshots of part of the memo:

 

Summarizing the tactics which the CIA dispatch recommended:

• Claim that it would be impossible for so many people would keep quiet about such a big conspiracy

• Have people friendly to the CIA attack the claims, and point back to “official” reports

• Claim that eyewitness testimony is unreliable

• Claim that this is all old news, as “no significant new evidence has emerged”

• Ignore conspiracy claims unless discussion about them is already too active

• Claim that it’s irresponsible to speculate

• Accuse theorists of being wedded to and infatuated with their theories

• Accuse theorists of being politically motivated

• Accuse theorists of having financial interests in promoting conspiracy theories

In other words, the CIA’s clandestine services unit created the arguments for attacking conspiracy theories as unreliable in the 1960s as part of its psychological warfare operations.

But Aren’t Conspiracy Theories – In Fact – Nuts?

 

Forget Western history and CIA dispatches … aren’t conspiracy theorists nutty?
In fact, conspiracies are so common that judges are trained to look at conspiracy allegations as just another legal claim to be disproven or proven based on the specific evidence:

Federal and all 50 state’s codes include specific statutes addressing conspiracy, and providing the punishment for people who commit conspiracies.

But let’s examine what the people trained to weigh evidence and reach conclusions think about “conspiracies”. Let’s look at what American judges think.

Searching Westlaw, one of the 2 primary legal research networks which attorneys and judges use to research the law, I searched for court decisions including the word “Conspiracy”. This is such a common term in lawsuits that it overwhelmed Westlaw.

Specifically, I got the following message:

“Your query has been intercepted because it may retrieve a large number of documents.”

From experience, I know that this means that there were potentially millions or many hundreds of thousands of cases which use the term. There were so many cases, that Westlaw could not even start processing the request.

So I searched again, using the phrase “Guilty of Conspiracy”. I hoped that this would not only narrow my search sufficiently that Westlaw could handle it, but would give me cases where the judge actually found the defendant guilty of a conspiracy. This pulled up exactly 10,000 cases — which is the maximum number of results which Westlaw can give at one time. In other words, there were more than 10,000 cases using the phrase “Guilty of Conspiracy” (maybe there’s a way to change my settings to get more than 10,000 results, but I haven’t found it yet).

Moreover, as any attorney can confirm, usually only appeal court decisions are published in the Westlaw database. In other words, trial court decisions are rarely published; the only decisions normally published are those of the courts which hear appeals of the trial. Because only a very small fraction of the cases which go to trial are appealed, this logically means that the number of guilty verdicts in conspiracy cases at trial must be much, much larger than 10,000.

Moreover, “Guilty of Conspiracy” is only one of many possible search phrases to use to find cases where the defendant was found guilty of a lawsuit for conspiracy. Searching on Google, I got 3,170,000 results (as of yesterday) under the term “Guilty of Conspiracy”, 669,000 results for the search term “Convictions for Conspiracy”, and 743,000 results for “Convicted for Conspiracy”.

Of course, many types of conspiracies are called other things altogether. For example, a long-accepted legal doctrine makes it illegal for two or more companies to conspire to fix prices, which is called “Price Fixing” (1,180,000 results).

Given the above, I would extrapolate that there have been hundreds of thousands of convictions for criminal or civil conspiracy in the United States.

Finally, many crimes go unreported or unsolved, and the perpetrators are never caught. Therefore, the actual number of conspiracies committed in the U.S. must be even higher.

In other words, conspiracies are committed all the time in the U.S., and many of the conspirators are caught and found guilty by American courts. Remember, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was a conspiracy theory.

Indeed, conspiracy is a very well-recognized crime in American law, taught to every first-year law school student as part of their basic curriculum. Telling a judge that someone has a “conspiracy theory” would be like telling him that someone is claiming that he trespassed on their property, or committed assault, or stole his car. It is a fundamental legal concept.

Obviously, many conspiracy allegations are false (if you see a judge at a dinner party, ask him to tell you some of the crazy conspiracy allegations which were made in his court). Obviously, people will either win or lose in court depending on whether or not they can prove their claim with the available evidence. But not all allegations of trespass, assault, or theft are true, either.

Proving a claim of conspiracy is no different from proving any other legal claim, and the mere label “conspiracy” is taken no less seriously by judges.

It’s not only Madoff. The heads of Enron were found guilty of conspiracy, as was the head of Adelphia. Numerous lower-level government officials have been found guilty of conspiracy. 

See this, this, this, this and this.

Time Magazine’s financial columnist Justin Fox writes:

Some financial market conspiracies are real …

Most good investigative reporters are conspiracy theorists, by the way.

And what about the NSA and the tech companies that have cooperated with them?

But Our Leaders Wouldn’t Do That

 

While people might admit that corporate executives and low-level government officials might have engaged in conspiracies – they may be strongly opposed to considering that the wealthiest or most powerful might possibly have done so.

But powerful insiders have long admitted to conspiracies. For example, Obama’s Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein, wrote:

Of course some conspiracy theories, under our definition, have turned out to be true. The Watergate hotel room used by Democratic National Committee was, in fact, bugged by Republican officials, operating at the behest of the White House. In the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency did, in fact, administer LSD and related drugs under Project MKULTRA, in an effort to investigate the possibility of “mind control.” Operation Northwoods, a rumored plan by the Department of Defense to simulate acts of terrorism and to blame them on Cuba, really was proposed by high-level officials ….

But Someone Would Have Spilled the Beans

 

A common defense to people trying sidetrack investigations into potential conspiracies is to say that “someone would have spilled the beans” if there were really a conspiracy.
But famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg explains:

It is a commonplace that “you can’t keep secrets in Washington” or “in a democracy, no matter how sensitive the secret, you’re likely to read it the next day in the New York Times.” These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn’t in a fully totalitarian society. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public. This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy. The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.

History proves Ellsberg right. For example:

• One hundred and thirty thousand (130,000) people from the U.S., UK and Canada worked on the Manhattan Project. But it was kept secret for years

• A BBC documentary shows that:

There was “a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen . . . . The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression”

Moreover, “the tycoons told General Butler the American people would accept the new government because they controlled all the newspapers.” Have you ever heard of this conspiracy before? It was certainly a very large one. And if the conspirators controlled the newspapers then, how much worse is it today with media consolidation?

• 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980′s during the “Latin American Crisis”, and the government’s response was to cover up their insolvency. That’s a cover up lasting several decades

• Banks have been involved in systematic criminal behavior, and have manipulated every single market

• Governments have been covering up nuclear meltdowns for fifty years to protect the nuclear industry. Governments have colluded to cover up the severity of numerous other environmental accidents. For many years, Texas officials intentionally under-reported the amount of radiation in drinking water to avoid having to report violations

• The government’s spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this.) But the public didn’t learn about it until many years later. Indeed, the the New York Times delayed the story so that it would not affect the outcome of the 2004 presidential election

• The decision to launch the Iraq war was made before 9/11. Indeed, former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change one month after Bush took office. Dick Cheney apparently even made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11. And it has now been shown that a handful of people were responsible for willfully ignoring the evidence that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction. These facts have only been publicly disclosed recently. Indeed, Tom Brokaw said, “All wars are based on propaganda.” A concerted effort to produce propaganda is a conspiracy

Moreover, high-level government officials and insiders have admitted to dramatic conspiracies after the fact, including:

• Supporting terrorists to promote geopolitical goals

• Supporting false flag terror

The admissions did not occur until many decades after the events.

These examples show that it is possible to keep conspiracies secret for a long time, without anyone “spilling the beans”.

In addition, to anyone who knows how covert military operations work, it is obvious that segmentation on a “need-to-know basis”, along with deference to command hierarchy, means that a couple of top dogs can call the shots and most people helping won’t even know the big picture at the time they are participating.

Moreover, those who think that co-conspirators will brag about their deeds forget that people in the military or intelligence or who have huge sums of money on the line can be very disciplined. They are not likely to go to the bar and spill the beans like a down-on-their-luck, second-rate alcoholic robber might do.

Finally, people who carry out covert operations may do so for ideological reasons — believing that the “ends justify the means”. Never underestimate the conviction of an ideologue.

Conclusion

 

The bottom line is that some conspiracy claims are nutty and some are true. Each has to be judged on its own facts.

Humans have a tendency to try to explain random events through seeing patterns … that’s how our brains our wired. Therefore, we have to test our theories of connection and causality against the cold, hard facts.

On the other hand, the old saying by Lord Acton is true:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.

Those who operate without checks and balances – and without the disinfectant sunlight of public scrutiny and accountability – tend to act in their own best interests … and the little guy gets hurt.

The early Greeks knew it, as did those who forced the king to sign the Magna Carta, the Founding Fathers and the father of modern economics. We should remember this important tradition of Western civilization.

Postscript: The ridicule of all conspiracy theories is really just an attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful.

The wealthy are not worse than other people … but they are not necessarily better either. Powerful leaders may not be bad people … or they could be sociopaths.
We must judge each by his or her actions, and not by preconceived stereotypes that they are all saints acting in our best interest or all scheming criminals.
And see ...

The Troll’s Guide to Internet Disruption

 

 

Bush family ties to terror suspects re-opened by 9/11 '28 pages'

Digital Journal

As pressure builds to make public 28 pages of a joint congressional inquiry on 9/11 which was classified by President George W. Bush, the Bush family's well-documented relationships to Saudi and other foreign terror suspects are again coming to the fore.

North Carolina Republican Congressman Walter Jones told the New Yorker last September, of the what is now commonly known as the “28 Pages”: 

“There’s nothing in it about national security...It’s about the Bush Administration and its relationship with the Saudis.”

Prominent in the rise of the political fortunes of both the 41st and 43rd presidents is the support of figures listed by the US government as terrorist financiers, as well as some connected to the now closed, Saudi-controlled criminal enterprise known as BCCI. Of special interest to independent researchers is the failure of the nation's air defenses on 9/11, and the reliance of these defenses on the company formerly known as Ptech, which was founded with funding partly from Saudi financiers with ties to designated terrorist organizations, which employed a mix of foreign nationals and Americans with ties to Israeli software companies with possible links to Israeli Mossad. Now renamed Go Agile, Ptech is a purveyor of software which is critical to the security of major software systems embedded throughout the FAA and the US Department of Defense. A small number of congressmen have been allowed to read the classified pages, and are pushing to have them declassified. During a press conference in March of 2014, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, Republican, said: 

“As I read it, and we all had our own experience, I had to stop every couple of pages and just sort of try to absorb and try to rearrange my understanding of history. “It challenges you to re-think everything. I think the whole country needs to go through that.”

The effort to declassify the pages is being spearheaded by 9/11 families. A website has been started named 28pages.org. Two major investors in the 43rd president's early business ventures, Arbusto Energy and Harken Energy, were Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, a 20% stakeholder in BCCI, who was himself accused and investigated for financing terrorism. Mahfouz, who died in 2009, was known as the personal banker of the Saudi royal family. In 1992 then-Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator Hank Brown, Republican of Colorado, in a widely-lauded Senate Foreign Policy Committee investigation of BCCI, found that BCCI's “criminality” included: 

“support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies; its management of prostitution; its commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling, and illegal immigration; its illicit purchases of banks and real estate; and a panoply of financial crimes limited only by the imagination of its officers and customers.”

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Dershowitz blames 15-year old victim in child trafficking case; a 'prostitute' who 'made her own decisions'

Phillip Weiss
Mondo Weiss
via Sott.net

Dershowitz’s comments are ‘shockingly vicious and sexist,’ says Harvard Law Record

Dershowitz’s comments are ‘shockingly vicious and sexist,’ says Harvard Law Record article - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/02/dershowitzs-comments-shockingly?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=c27dcfdfdd-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-c27dcfdfdd-398519477#sthash.1aekpdqe.dpuf

We have picked up news about the sexual allegations against Alan Dershowitz because Dershowitz is such an outspoken defender of Israel and the matter has inevitably affected his influence in the foreign-policy arena. And Dershowitz will surely always get a forum, this piece on the case in the Harvard Law Record that came out yesterday, titled "Harvard Law Professor Blames Victim in Child Trafficking Case," is another sign that the Harvard Law professor emeritus is being criticized in venues that he might once have considered home turf.

An excerpt from the article by Kerry Richards and Anna Joseph:

Dershowitz denies abusing the child trafficking victim; yet instead of acknowledging the gravity of the crime and showing compassion - even while denying involvement - Dershowitz's response has been shockingly vicious and sexist. In a recent interview, Dershowitz said his accuser was "a prostitute," and questioned her fitness as a mother. He went on to admit he had no qualms about calling a 15-year-old girl a prostitute, claiming "[s]he was not victimized ... she made her own decisions in life." Those are decisions that the law says no 15-year-old is old enough to make. One day after that interview, 38 Harvard Law School professors joined the many well-connected people who have tried to protect Dershowitz and [convicted sex offender Jeffrey] Epstein, releasing an open letter lauding Dershowitz's "courage."
Where is the focus on the plaintiff's courage? On her horrifying experience, and on the experiences of the millions of other minors bought and sold for sex each year? When rape victims do come forward, where is the focus on ensuring we don't re-victimize them in the media?

Brutalized by Epstein, betrayed by federal prosecutors who refused to pursue justice, Jane Doe #3 was then publicly shamed by Dershowitz. Shaming rape and human trafficking victims compounds injustice, violating those who report and discouraging others from doing so.

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WHO: Ebola virus death toll in West Africa reaches 9,442

ITAR-TASS

The death toll from the current Ebola outbreak has reached 9,442. As many as 23,371 are infected, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on Friday.

These cases were reported from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In line with statistics, the maximum number of Ebola-related deaths and cases has been registered in Liberia — 3,947 cumulative deaths and 9,096 cumulative cases. Liberia is followed by Sierra Leone (3,423 deaths and 11,155 cases) and Guinea (2,072 deaths and 3,120 cases).

The number of Ebola deaths in these three countries rose by 189 and the number of cases rose by 372 since February 13.

Separate cases have also been registered in Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, Great Britain and the United States. In most of these countries the number of Ebola-related cases does not exceed ten, with the only exception of Nigeria, where 20 people are infected by Ebola virus and eight have died.

The World Health Organization describes Ebola virus disease (formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever) as "a severe, often fatal illness, with a case fatality rate of up to 90%." Symptoms include sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. The infection is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals or people. People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. The incubation period is 2 to 21 days. There is no known cure or vaccine for the disease. The only treatment offered is "supportive intensive care."  

Peace? Ukraine "Preparing For Full-Scale War" With Russia, Demands The West Supply Lethal Weapons

Zero Hedge

"We don't want to scare everybody, but we are preparing for full-scale war," warns Vadym Prystaiko - Ukraine's deputy foreign minister - telling CBC during a stunning interview that "what we expect from the world is that the world will stiffen up in the spine a little." Demanding that West provide 'lethal weapons' Prystaiko rages "everybody is afraid of fighting with a nuclear state. We are not anymore." Coming just a week after the Minsk Summit 'peace' deal and with Germany having warned they are likely unable to stop arms being supplied to Ukraine, Prystaiko concludes, "we would like [The West] to send lethal weapons to Ukraine... weapons to allow us to defend ourselves."

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9/11 - The Anatomy of a Great Deception ~ Full Documentary

General Wesley Clark: Our friends and allies created ISIS

Zero Hedge

Not that it was really a conspiracy 'theory' but with General Wesley Clark (ret.) now openly admitting "ISIS got started through funding from our friends and allies... to fight to the death against Hezbollah" it appears the 'angel investors' cat is out of the bag. Adding that "they recruited the zealots and religious fundamentalists" Clark says 'we' create "Frankenstein." He is careful not to name names, but we ask (rhetorically of course), which of our (oil-bearing) allies has the biggest bone to pick with Hezbollah (apart from Israel of course)?

Clark on creating Frankenstein...

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The most common nutrition myths ever told

Jeff Roberts
collective-evolution.com

With the advent of the internet came a superabundance of available information regarding personal health. However, with this deluge of available information also came a hefty downfall - a massive amount of misguided and unreliable information.

Out of all fields of discussion, it's safe to say that no other topics are more dangerous to have misinformation spread about than diet and nutrition. If a nutrition myth is continually repeated, it can soon become a culturally accepted truth, something that is dangerous to the general public. So for that matter, this article will address some of the most common and misguided nutrition 'facts' out there today.  

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Data black market: New free platform lets whistleblowers sell secrets for Bitcoins

RT

Whistleblowers have got a new place to leak sensitive data anonymously and even get money for it. DarkLeaks, the free platform for sharing secrets where sellers and buyers never meet, makes it possible for users to legally avoid the long arm of the law.

"There is no identity, no central operator and no interaction between leaker and buyers," the developers’ statement says. 

The DarkLeaks service is free software, which can be downloaded from the Internet together with its source code, and where all operations with files take place. 

The service uses the technology developed for secure Bitcoin payments, where users can make transactions directly without needing an intermediary. 

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Jeb Bush claims 'I'm my own man', but he has a very familiar foreign policy team

Comment: The Bush dynasty is back (though in truth they never left) and it's Jeb's turn to enter the revolving door of  that quaint idea we wistfully call "elections." 

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" Perhaps the most controversial name on Mr Bush’s team sheet is Paul Wolfowitz, who worked for Reagan and for both Bush administrations, and who, as George W Bush’s deputy defence secretary, was a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq."

The Independent 

In his first major foreign policy speech since mooting a 2016 presidential run, Jeb Bush sought to distance himself from the legacy of his brother, admitting mistakes were made in Iraq, and called for the world to “take out” Isis.

Noting the inevitable comparisons between himself and presidents George HW and George W Bush, the former governor of Florida said: “I love my father and my brother. I admire their service to the nation and the difficult decisions they had to make. But I am my own man – and my views are shaped by my own thinking.”

He has previously backed the Iraq War but today he admitted that “there were mistakes made in Iraq for sure”. However, he credited his brother with sending a surge of troops that helped quell the insurgency at the time.

Mr Bush made the remarks at an event hosted by non-partisan think-tank the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He was “lucky”, he said, to have a father and brother who both “shaped America’s foreign policy”. But, he went on, “every president inherits a changing world… and changing circumstances”.

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Nuclear Specter Returns: 'Threat of War Is Higher than in the Cold War'

Marcus Becker
Spiegel Online

The scientists had no idea that their experiment could spell the end of civilization. On Jan. 25, 1995, Norwegian and American researchers fired a rocket into the skies of northwestern Norway to study the Northern Lights. But the four-stage rocket flew directly through the same corridor that American Minuteman III missiles, equipped with nuclear warheads, would use to travel from the United States to Moscow.

The rocket's speed and flight pattern very closely matched what the Russians expected from a Trident missile that would be fired from a US submarine and detonated at high altitude, with the aim of blinding the Russian early-warning system to prepare for a large-scale nuclear attack by the United States. The Russian military was placed on high alert, and then President Boris Yeltsin activated the keys to launch nuclear weapons. He had less than 10 minutes to decide whether to issue the order to fire. 

Yeltsin left the Russian missiles in their silos, probably in part because relations between Russian and the United States were relatively trusting in 1995. But if a similar incident occurred today, as US arms expert Theodore Postol warned recently, it could quite possibly lead to nuclear catastrophe.

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1yr in US custody as ‘civilian detainee’: Declassified files shed light on mysterious ISIS leader

Comment: And this is where he signed on the dotted line and was "talked" into working for the Empire...

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RT

The leader of ISIS jihadist group and self-proclaimed “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, spent nearly a year in US custody in Iraq in 2004 as a “civilian detainee,” declassified military documents have revealed.

The files were obtained by Business Insider through a Freedom of Information Act request, revealing new details about the mysterious jihadist leader. The Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL ) chief was identified by his birth name, Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Al Badry, in the detainee information records, viewed by the website. 

The documents helped determine the time, spent by Baghdadi in US custody, more precisely as there had previously been conflicting reports on the issue. 

According to the records, his “capture date” was February 4, 2004, with the detention taking place in Fallujah in central Iraq. Baghdadi was then held in several prison facilities in the country, including Camp Bucca and Camp Adder, with the date of his “release in place” being December 8, the same year. 

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See also: Leader of Islamic State is fictional character whose voice is played by an actor, says U.S. military

ISIS Confirmed as CIA puppet

Something Huge Is Happening! Over 40 Bankers Dead Since 2014: Latest Banker Death Connected To JP Morgan VP

Susan Duclos All News PipeLine Since the beginning of 2014, over 40 bankers have died, and while the reports of the circumstances of their deaths, suicides, accidents, natural causes, etc... do not imply any wrongdoing, the sheer number over a 14 month span, seems to contradict the official story line. The list just got longer with this report showing that investment banker, 32 year-old Kate Matrosova, was found dead in the New Hampshire mountains on Monday. Matrosova was dropped off on Sunday night by her husband, whom the Daily Mail names as Charlie Farhoodi. According to a LinkedIn profile for the name Charlie Farhoodi, he is listed as a Vice President of JP Morgan. (Screen shot shown below) The connection is solid as on Matrosova's Facebook page, there is a photo album titled "Charlie and my girls," which provides pictures of Mr. Farhoodi, one of which is shown below. The prior 36 banker deaths from 2014, found at ZeroHedge, shown below:   1) David Bird, 55, long-time reporter for the Wall Street Journal working at the Dow Jones news room 2) Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG   3) William Broeksmit, 58, former senior manager for Deutsche Bank 4) Ryan Henry Crane, age 37, JP Morgan 5) Li Junjie, 33, Hong Kong JP Morgan 6) Gabriel Magee, 39, age JP Morgan employee 7) Mike Dueker, 50, who had worked for Russell Investments 8) Richard Talley, 57, was the founder and CEO of American Title (real estate titles)   9) James Stuart Jr. 70, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO was found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz   10) Jason Alan Salais, 34 year old IT Specialist at JPMorgan since 2008   11) Autumn Radtke, 28, CEO of First Meta, a Singapore-based virtual currency trading platform   12) Eddie Reilly, 47, investment banker, Vertical Group, New York   13) Kenneth Ballando, 28, investment banker, Levy Capital, New york   14) Joseph A. Giampapa, 55, corporate bankruptcy lawyer, JP Morgan Chase   15) Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, voormalig topbestuurder ANB/AMRO, Laren, Nederland   16) Juergen Frick, 48, CEO Bank Frick & Co AG, Liechtenstein   17) Benoît Philippens, 37, directeur BNP Parisbas Fortis Bank, Ans, België.   18) Lydia…, 52, bankier Bred-Banque-Populaire, Parijs   19) Andrew Jarzyk, 27, bankier, PNC Bank, New York   20) Carlos Six, 61, Hoofd Belastingdienst en lid CREDAF, België   21) Jan Winkelhuijzen, 75, Commissaris en Fiscalist (voormalig Deloitte), Nederland. 22) Richard Rockefeller, 66, achterkleinzoon elitebankier John D. Rockefeller, Amerika   23) Mahafarid Amir Khosravi (Amir Mansour Aria), 45, bankeigenaar, zakenman en derivatenhandelaar, Iran   24) Lewis Katz, 76, zakenman, advocaat en insider in de bancaire wereld, Amerika   25) Julian Knott, Directeur Global Operations Center JP Morgan, 45, Amerika   26) Richard Gravino, IT Specialist JP Morgan, 49, Amerika   27) Thomas James Schenkman, Managing Director Global Infrastructure JP Morgan, 42, Amerika   28) Nicholas Valtz, 39, Managing Director Goldman Sachs, New York, Amerika   29) Therese Brouwer, 50, Managing Director ING, Nederland   30) Tod Robert Edward, 51, Vice President M & T Bank, Amerika   31) Thierry Leyne, 48, investeringsbankier en eigenaar Anatevka S.A., Israël  32) Calogero Gambino, 41, Managing Director Deutsche Bank, Amerika  33) Shawn D. Miller, 42, Managing Director Citigroup, New York, Amerika  34) Melissa Millian, 54, Senior Vice President Mass Mutual, Amerika   35) Thieu Leenen, 64, Relatiemanager ABN/AMRO, Eindhoven, Nederland   36) Geert Tack, 52, Private Banker ING, Haaltert, België Since the beginning of 2015, the bank deaths have continued, with  1) Michael Flanagan, 45, head of Foreign Exchange, National Australia Bank, London, England 2) Omar Meza, 33, Vice President, AIG, Los Angeles, America 3) Chris van Eeghen, 42, Head of Syndicate and Corporate Finance Markets, ABN / AMRO, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Those were as of January 24, 2015. On February 6, 2015, yet another two bankers were killed, reported here at ANP. Those two were   1) Aditya Tomar   2)  Eric Vandercar. By February 9, 2015, another banker and his wife were dead, supposedly Michael A. Tabacchi, 27, listed as a JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee strangled and stabbed his wife to death before turning the knife on himself. According to some, that list is even longer than those named above. Even for those that believe that a stream of coincidences such as well over 40 bankers all dying in such rapid succession, when you add to that knowledge that back in February 2014, when there were less than a handful of deaths, Steve Quayle brought to our attention that there was a hitlist and it included over 3 dozen names, a larger, more disturbing picture emerges. Something huge is happening here and as the first video below asks, could this all have to do with an upcoming economic collapse and the chaos that would assuredly follow?