Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

The Media’s Deafening Silence on Mike Bloomberg’s Ties to Epstein and Other Criminals

By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | February 28, 2020

After his late jump into the Democratic primary and, as critics argue, purchasing his way into the primary debates, former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg has received mixed coverage from corporate media, with many negative critiques of the current presidential contender’s history, conduct and connections.

Yet, despite efforts by other campaigns and more progressive-leaning media outlets to dampen Bloomberg’s chances at the nomination, one clear weakness of Bloomberg’s has thus far evaded meaningful media coverage: his ties to key players in the Epstein scandal, including Leslie Wexner, Ghislaine Maxwell and even Jeffrey Epstein himself.

Silence among outlets that largely oppose Bloomberg’s candidacy regarding his connections to Epstein and those in his close social orbit is odd, especially when reporting on an individual’s connections to the intelligence-linked pedophile are a sure-fire way to generate considerable negative attention and fodder for rival campaigns. This is particularly striking given that the numerous accusations that Bloomberg has long stoked a toxic culture of sexual harassment at his company, resulting in no small number of non-disclosure agreements over the years, have received some media attention. Yet, the fact that many of Bloomberg’s close friends have been accused of far, far worse has received hardly any coverage by comparison.

For instance, when it was announced last week that the controlling stake in the Leslie Wexner-owned lingerie company Victoria’s Secret would be sold to a private equity firm called Sycamore Partners, only one media outlet — The Intercept — revealed that Bloomberg has at least $136 million of his money in that firm. The Intercept noted in passing that Wexner — the source of most of Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed fortune, his close collaborator for decades and alleged rapist of many of his victims — had been pressured to step down following the scandal, which also hit Wexner-owned companies hard and had forced the Ohio-based billionaire to seek a buyer for his lingerie brand and its tarnished reputation. Yet, the outlet did not make the direct connection that Sycamore Partners-backer Bloomberg is a friend of Wexner’s and has attended Wexner’s personal social parties for years prior to the most recent scandal.

Yet, even well before this recent opportunity to point out Bloomberg’s ties to Leslie Wexner, there have been plenty of opportunities for the media to question Bloomberg about his now-infamous picture with Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Mossad-connected Robert Maxwell and Epstein’s alleged madam and co-conspirator.

From left to right, Tamara Mellon, Mike Bloomberg and Ghislaine Maxwell

That picture, taken in 2013 at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, has not been mentioned by mainstream media following the launch of Bloomberg’s candidacy late last November. Similarly, mainstream media have failed to question Bloomberg regarding why his name and five different telephone numbers for him appear in Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous list of contacts often referred to as his “little black book.”

Bloomberg and the Manhattan Swamp

The extent of the Maxwell-Bloomberg relationship is unknown, though Bloomberg’s deep ties to his former employer Salomon Brothers is a possible link, given that that firm served as one of the Maxwell family’s main investment bankers in the years prior to and following Robert Maxwell’s mysterious death in 1991. Similarly, Epstein had close ties to prominent figures on Wall Street, some dating back to his time at Bear Stearns, who are also close to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg and Epstein also shared close friendships with some of the same New York media executives like Mort Zuckerman. Media outlets have described Zuckerman, a former business partner of Epstein’s, as Bloomberg’s “long-time enabler.” In another example, Epstein’s former publicist Howard Rubenstein is a long-time supporter of Bloomberg and was reported to be the driving force behind Bloomberg’s controversial push to run around mayoral term limits and pursue a third term as Mayor of New York.

Another mutual Epstein-Bloomberg associate is disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein was part of an investment group with Epstein that sought to purchase New York magazine in 2003. Another member of that investment group was frequent MSNBC commentator Donny Deutsch, who has recently fervently backed Bloomberg’s candidacy.

Weinstein was recently convicted of rape and has dozens of accusers, whose decision to come forward about Weinstein’s sex crimes in recent years helped spark the “Me Too” movement. Weinstein also has ties to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was a close friend and business associate of Epstein’s, and it was Barak who personally introduced Weinstein to former Mossad spies that Weinstein hired to intimidate his accusers. In addition to being Prime Minister, Barak is also the former head of Israeli military intelligence, the foreign intelligence agency that sponsored Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation involving underage girls in the United States.

Bloomberg’s candidacy has yet to be strongly challenged over his ties to Weinstein, which are considerable. For instance, Weinstein was a major backer of Bloomberg’s mayoral campaigns and even recorded robocalls on Bloomberg’s behalf to boost his election chances. Bloomberg, in turn, appointed Weinstein to a charity board and Weinstein later praised Bloomberg for aiding his film company. While Bloomberg’s ties to Wexner, Epstein and Maxwell have gotten the silent treatment, some outlets (mostly right-leaning) have covered the Bloomberg-Weinstein ties, but there has been little pressure on Bloomberg from mainstream media to address those ties directly.

Another close Bloomberg associate who recently has been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment is hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt. Steinhardt is a long-time fixture in Bloomberg’s social circle and has long appeared at Bloomberg’s dinner parties. Steinhardt is also connected to Leslie Wexner through his membership in the so-called “Mega Group” — an exclusive group of organized-crime-linked “mega” donors to pro-Israel causes that Wexner co-founded in 1991. Steinhardt also boasts close ties to the now deceased founder of Glencore, the Mossad-linked Marc Rich, and Steinhardt — along with top Israeli politicians and spies — aggressively lobbied former President Bill Clinton to controversially pardon Rich before leaving office.

“Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are”

The oft-quoted saying “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are,” seems to hold true for Bloomberg. For instance, his eponymous media conglomerate has received no small number of lawsuits over the years alleging rampant sexual harassment and even the rape of female workers, much of its allegedly egged on by Bloomberg’s long history of comments that have been derided as sexist. Many of those lawsuits ended in female accusers being asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). More recently, The Nation reported that Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential campaign is making use of NDAs in such a way “that could prevent staffers from reporting workplace abuse.”

In addition, a 1999 profile of Bloomberg in Wired magazine quoted Bloomberg as saying “My daughter is tall and busty and blonde. We went to China together. And what’s a 16-year-old going to do on a business trip? So, I got her dates in every city in China.”

Bloomberg, not unlike Epstein and Wexner, also has a history of cozy ties to the CIA. For instance, during his tenure as Mayor of New York, Bloomberg actively promoted a controversial post-9/11 program that saw the CIA work directly with the NYPD to spy on the city’s Muslim communities. Even though the CIA is technically prohibited from spying on Americans not linked to criminal activity, one of the CIA officers working as part of the Bloomberg-backed program said he had “no limitations” on what he could do. Bloomberg has long defended this program and its merging of the CIA with local police.

In the case of Epstein and Wexner, as MintPress News reported in its viral series on the Epstein scandal last year, Epstein once claimed to have worked for the CIA during the 1980s and Epstein and Wexner were the key players behind the relocation of CIA front company Southern Air Transport to Ohio, where Wexner’s business interests have long been based.

Rudy Giuliani, left, New York Gov. George Pataki, center, and Mike Bloomberg during a “Salute to Israel Parade, May 5, 2002, in New York. Shawn Baldwin | AP

In addition, Bloomberg was also a key player in a controversial initiative regarding Israel’s intelligence-linked technology sector. For instance, Bloomberg created a $2 billion project that involved opening a Manhattan campus called “Cornell Tech” that brought together Cornell University and Israel’s Technion, which has close ties to Israel’s national security state and military-industrial complex. Bloomberg personally gave over $100 million to facilitate completion of that project. That campus is now a partner in the recent creation of two Israeli-run “cybersecurity” centers in New York City that are tied to Israeli intelligence and were recently reported on by MintPress.

Jeffrey Epstein was also involved with Israeli military intelligence-linked technology companies and, as previously mentioned, Israeli military intelligence was also the sponsor of Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation that targeted mostly U.S. politicians and public figures for the benefit of the state of Israel, whose military currently receives $3.8 billion per year from U.S. taxpayers.

While these aspects of Bloomberg’s past have received considerable media attention as of late, these same outlets have failed to note that Bloomberg’s inner circle boasts many individuals accused of harassment, rape or worse. With his clear ties to the “Epstein network,” the fact that mainstream media has declined to even question Bloomberg about his social appearances with Ghislaine Maxwell or Leslie Wexner and having five different telephone numbers of his in Epstein’s list of high-profile contacts is a damning indictment of the current landscape of both American media and American politics.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Ocasio-Cortez to Constituents on Bolivian Coup: Drop Dead

By Jacob Levich | CounterPunch | February 14, 2020

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the celebrity who moonlights as my Congressional representative, has repeatedly claimed to speak for “ordinary people,” but she refuses listen to them,  even if they are constituents.

In late November, shortly after the US-backed military coup that unseated the legitimate president of Bolivia, I together with my life companion requested a meeting with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, whose local offices are located just a short walk from our Jackson Heights apartment building. Working on behalf of a group of anti-imperialists opposing the fascist junta, we hoped to persuade her of the need to act quickly to thwart the coup and defend the lives and rights of the Bolivian people.

Although we never got past the reception desk, we were permitted to present a petition signed by leading academics and anti-imperialist organizers on behalf of the people of Bolivia. We provided all personal data and contact info requested by the office. We were promised that we would be contacted promptly to discuss scheduling a meeting.

We were not contacted. For weeks. After pressing the issue, always taking care to remain courteous and respectful of process, we were subjected to a galling and contemptuous bureaucratic runaround that sometimes felt like applying to – and being rejected by – an exclusive private school.

This three-month process involved repeated visits to her office, where our reception ranged from chilly to downright intimidating, endless emails and telephone calls, bureaucratic excuses and dissimulations, and eventually, after much persistence on our part, a half-hour vetting via conference call by a Washington staffer.

The result? As we say in Queens, bubkes.

By contrast, a group of imperialist sympathizers who had been promoting the coup for months were granted instant access. On November 16, four days after the military coup that destroyed Bolivian democracy, Ocasio-Cortez met with a group of pro-Áñez, pro-Camacho activists led by one Ana Carola Traverso. Traverso’s connections to the Bolivian coup plotters have been extensively documented online.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez symbolically embraced the coup by posing for a photo with this group as they brandished the tricolor Bolivian flag, which during that period had become a signal of support for the golpistas (as opposed to the Wiphala flag, which symbolized popular resistance to the takeover). She told them that she supports their “democratic grassroots movement” and offered them “direct lines of communication.”

In sum, a gang of coup supporters, not constituents, were granted instant access, a photo op and promises of ongoing support. Actual constituents, opposing the coup, were shown the door.

Our reception by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was radically different from that I received from her predecessor, Joe Crowley. When, in 2004, I requested a meeting on behalf of the Queens Antiwar Coalition, we were granted prompt and respectful access to the Congressman. We did not have high hopes of changing his vote on the Iraq war, but we felt it was important that he hear from his constituents.

So, apparently, did he. We were greeted warmly in his rather funky local office – a striking contrast with AOC’s soulless corporate-style digs, where underlings refer to her as “the Boss”  – and were encouraged to speak our piece. Crowley never pretended to be an opponent of US imperialism, but he gave us a respectful hearing, stated his position, and engaged in what felt like meaningful discussion of the war. At a minimum, as Twitter’s bluecheck pundits would say, we felt “seen.”

AOC, by contrast, has no time for people who cannot help her to burnish her brand as she prepares to run for higher office. As a local staffer (who declined to introduce himself) proudly informed us: “She refuses 99 percent of meeting requests from constituents.”

Meanwhile, she happily clears her schedule for interviews about her makeup routine, canned videos in which she postures as a fearless progressive, and closed-door meetings with regime-change sympathizers.

But she will not make time for residents of her district. So much for “ordinary people.”

February 21, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

“The Donald Trump I know”: Abbas’ UN Speech and the Breakdown of Palestinian Politics

By Ramzy Baroud | Dissident Voice | February 20, 2020

A precious moment has been squandered, as Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, had the chance to right a historical wrong, by reinstating Palestinian national priorities at the United Nations Security Council on February 11, through a political discourse that is completely independent from Washington and its allies.

For a long time, Abbas has been a hostage to the very language that designated him and his Authority as ‘moderates’ in the eyes of Israel and the West. Despite the Palestinian leader’s outward rejection of the US ‘Deal of the Century’ – which practically renders Palestinian national aspirations null and void – Abbas is keen to maintain his ‘moderate’ credentials for as long as possible.

Certainly, Abbas has given many speeches at the UN in the past and, every single time, he has failed to impress Palestinians. This time, however, things were meant to be different. Not only did Washington disown Abbas and the PA, it also scrapped its own political discourse on peace and the two-state solution altogether. More, the Trump administration has now officially given its blessing to Israel to annex nearly a third of the West Bank, taking Jerusalem ‘off the table’ and discarding the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Instead of directly meeting with leaders of the various Palestinian political parties and taking tangible steps to reactivate dormant but central political institutions such as the Palestinian National Council (PNC) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Abbas preferred to meet with former Israeli right-wing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, in New York, and to carry on regurgitating his commitment to a by-gone era.

In his UN speech, Abbas said nothing new which, in this instance, is worse than not saying anything at all.

“This is the outcome of the project that has been introduced to us,” Abbas said, while holding a map of what a Palestinian state would look like under Donald Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’. “And this is the state that they are giving to us,” Abbas added, referring to that future state as a ‘Swiss cheese’, meaning a state fragmented by Jewish settlements, bypass-roads and Israeli military zones.

Even the term ‘Swiss cheese’, which was reported in some media as if a new phrase in this ever-redundant discourse, is actually an old coinage that has been referenced repeatedly by the Palestinian leadership itself, starting with the onset of the so-called peace process, a quarter of a century ago.

Abbas labored to appear exceptionally resolute as he emphasized certain words, like when he equated the Israeli occupation with the system of apartheid. His delivery, however, appeared unconvincing, lacking and, at times, pointless.

Abbas spoke of his great ‘surprise’ when Washington declared Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, subsequently relocating its embassy to the occupied city, as if the writing was not already on the wall and that, in fact, the embassy move was one of Trump’s main pledges to Israel even before his inauguration in January 2017.

“And then they cut off financial aid that was given to us,” Abbas said in a lamenting voice with reference to the US decision to withhold its aid to the PA in August 2018. “$840 million are held from us,” he said. “I don’t know who is giving Trump such horrid advice. Trump is not like this. Trump that I know is not like this,” Abbas exclaimed in a strange interjection as if to send a message to the Trump administration that the PA still has faith in the US President’s judgement.

“I would like to remind everyone that we have participated in the Madrid peace conference, and the Washington negotiations and the Oslo agreement and the Annapolis summit on the basis of international law,” Abbas recounted, signaling that he remains committed to the very political agenda that reaped the Palestinian people no political rewards whatsoever.

Abbas then went on to paint an imagined reality, where his Authority is supposedly building the “national institutions of a law-abiding, modern and democratic state that is constructed on the basis of international values; one that is predicated on transparency, accountability and fighting corruption.”

“Yes,” Abbas emphasized, as he looked at his audience with theatrical seriousness, “We are one of the most important countries (in the world) that is fighting corruption.” The PA leader, then, called on the Security Council to send a commission to investigate allegations of corruption within the PA, a bewildering and unnecessary invitation, considering that it is the Palestinian leadership that should be making demands on the international community to help enforce international law and end the Israeli occupation.

It went on like this, where Abbas vacillated between reading pre-written remarks that introduce no new ideas or strategies and unnecessary rants that reflect the PA’s political bankruptcy and Abbas’ own lack of imagination.

The PA President, of course, made sure to offer his habitual condemnation of Palestinian ‘terrorism’ by promising that Palestinians would not “resort to violence and terrorism regardless of the act of aggression against us.” He assured his audience that his Authority believes in “peace and fighting violence.” Without elaborating, Abbas declared his intention of continuing on the path of “popular and peaceful resistance,” which, in fact, does not exist in any shape or form.

This time around, Abbas’ speech at the UN was particularly inappropriate. Indeed, it was a failure in every possible way. The least, the Palestinian leader could have done is to articulate a powerful and collective Palestinian political discourse. Instead, his statement was merely a sad homage to his own legacy, one that is riddled with disappointments and ineptitude.

Expectedly, Abbas returned to Ramallah to greet his cheering supporters once more, who are always ready and waiting to raise posters of the ageing leader, as if his UN speech had succeeded in fundamentally shifting international political momentum in favor of Palestinians.

It has to be said that the real danger in the ‘Deal of the Century’ is not the actual stipulations of that sinister plan, but the fact that the Palestinian leadership is likely to find a way to co-exist with it, at the expense of the oppressed Palestinian people, as long as donors’ money continues to flow and as long as Abbas continues to call himself a president.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is http://www.ramzybaroud.net

February 20, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

Crypto CIA spy op revelations makes us see US’ Huawei objections in a new light

© Global Look Press/www.imago-images.de/MANUEL GEISSE; © REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
By Neil Clark | RT | February 13, 2020

The revelation that the CIA (and German Intelligence) was in secret control of the Swiss cryptography firm Crypto AG highlights the hypocrisy of US ‘security concerns‘ over the advance of Huawei and other firms.

The very wise old saying that if you point  one finger at someone there are three fingers pointing back at you, was classically illustrated by this week’s bombshell revelations — published in the Washington Post and on ZDF and SRF – that the CIA and BND (West Germany’s secret service) secretly owned and controlled the Swiss cryptography company Crypto. The real owners of Crypto installed ‘backdoor vulnerabilities’ in its products which allowed the US and West Germany to eavesdrop on communications — from enemies and allies alike — which the senders believed had been successfully encrypted. We’re talking here about  top secret communications between leading government officials, spies, diplomats and military figures.

Just imagine that back in the 1970s or 80s you had claimed that the Crypto was a CIA front. You’d have been dismissed as a ‘crank conspiracy theorist, ’and/or ‘totally paranoid‘ by the gatekeepers of that time. But the rumours were true. Once again a ‘conspiracy theory’ has turned out  to be not as barmy as once depicted. Truth again proved to be stranger than fiction.

How much intelligence was gathered via Crypto is quite staggering. As RT has reported: “Throughout the 1980s — around 40% of all government transmissions analysed by the US National Security Agency (NSA) ran through Crypto‘s devices.”

What a neat little racket. Over 120 governments of the world, but not the former Soviet Union and Communist China who, to their great credit were distrustful, made use of Crypto’s products. These governments, which included Iran, Libya, Argentina and Egypt were effectively paying the Americans and West Germans to spy on them!

The Germans bowed out of the operation in 1993, but for the next 25 years, the CIA kept it running. Which begs the question: what other US Intelligence fronts of the past and present don’t we know about?

In her 1999 book Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders detailed how the CIA funded a whole range of publications and artistic enterprises often through the ’Congress for Cultural Freedom’.

Literary journals (who conveniently had a pop at communism) were funded by the CIA. Modern artists were funded by the CIA. Writers, poets and philosophers were funded by the CIA.

And under ‘Operation Mockingbird’ leading journalists were basically recruited to the agency.

According to Carl Bernstein, the CIA had over 400 journalists working for them in the old Cold War.

“In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations,” the American journalist writes.

The CIA‘s own records show that, by 1991, they had relationships with “every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly and television network in the country”.

Now we know they were even behind Crypto too!

Given the organisation’s modus operandi, it is scarcely believable that the CIA doesn’t have similar ‘relationships’ and control mechanisms working today. Why wouldn’t it?

Not only should the Crypto revelations make us more aware of the CIA’s very wide reach, they should also make us see the American objections to the involvement of firms from China and Russia with developing telecommunications infrastructure and new technology in a completely different light.

The Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky, has seen its software banned from use on US government networks, while the Chinese giant Huawei has been hit with sanctions — and warnings given to other countries about letting it build their 5G networks.

Taking the moral high ground (as always), US officials have said that Huawei could covertly access mobile-phone networks through ‘back doors’.

OMG! You mean like the US did with Crypto?

The Wall Street Journal cites the same US officials saying that “Huawei has had this secret capability for more than a decade.”

What ‘intelligence’ would that be I wonder? The CIA’s?

What seems to be the objection here is that China might end up doing what the US has been doing for years, namely spying on countries through ‘back doors’. How dare they! The hypocrisy as I’m sure you’ll agree is off the  scale.

The strength of the objections — and indeed the sanctions already imposed in the US against the company tell us one thing. Huawei, unlike Crypto, Encounter magazine, the ‘National Committee for a Free Europe’, and lots of organisations we probably still don’t know about, is no CIA front.

February 13, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Why Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers’ Case Against IRS May Cause US Political Dynasties to Shiver

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – February 12, 2020

While the mainstream media in the US was preoccupied with Donald Trump’s impeachment another legal drama has been unfolding since March 2019, namely Lawrence W. Doyle and John F. Moynihan v Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel has explained why the case matters more than the impeachment saga.

Lawrence W. Doyle and John F. Moynihan, both graduates of the Catholic Jesuit College of the Holy Cross and independent expert forensic investigators, came to prominence on 13 December 2018 when they testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Clinton Foundation’s alleged fraud.

According to them, the charity does not operate as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organisation and has acted as nothing short of a foreign agent “throughout its existence”. Summarising their conclusions the two Jesuit alumni suggested that the Clinton Foundation owes between $400 million and $2.5 billion in taxes and informed US lawmakers that if the IRS refuses to consider their “tax claim” they would appeal to the US Tax Court. According to Zero Hedge, the ongoing litigation is apparently related to this very case.

Multinational Charities “Perfect” Disguise for Money Laundering

Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist who has been conducting a private inquiry into the Clinton Foundation for several years opines that the aforementioned legal case may involve unprosecuted crimes by some “charities” operated by political dynasties and may even put the IRS itself under the microscope.

“I believe that Doyle and Moynihan, like most concerned citizens, want the IRS to enforce charity laws and regulations fairly, without regard to whether a given charity might be linked to a Republican, Democrat, or Independent person,” he says, specifying that the precise claim and details of the legal case in question are unknown since they’re sealed by the court.

According to Ortel, multinational charities have become “perfect” vehicles for disguising money laundering and influence peddling since regulators do not have enough resources to check their revenues and spending scrupulously especially when these non-profits are operating abroad.

“Compounding the above problems is the fact that numerous foreign actors including governments, companies, and individuals are eager to curry favour with sitting or rising politicians who, typically, are also hungry for financial support,” he suggests. “While foreign interests are barred from directly supporting or financing political candidates, they are allowed to ‘contribute’ to charities in which dynastic political families have interests or associations.”

Why IRS & FBI Turns a Blind Eye to Loosely Operated Charities

To illustrate his point Ortel referred to the Clinton Foundation that has repeatedly come under the spotlight being suspected of alleged “pay-to-play” schemes. Echoing Doyle and Moynihan, Ortel believes that the Clinton Foundation cannot be called a “charity” since its operations in the US and abroad go beyond charitable activities. Furthermore it is neither validly organised nor properly audited, he highlights. The Wall Street analyst raises the question as to why the supposed violations have remained unnoticed by the FBI and IRS for over a decade.

Referring to page 432 of the first IG Horowitz Report, Ortel notes that the FBI opened investigations into the Clinton Foundation in January 2016. By July 2016, the IRS too confirmed that they had opened a Clinton Foundation investigation, he points out. However, nothing has been heard since then about the cases.

The Washington Post reported on 10 January that John Huber, the US attorney in Utah, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November 2017 to look into the FBI handling of possible corruption at the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s alleged pay-to-play schemes during her tenure as secretary of state, “found nothing worth pursuing.” The media outlet specified, however, that “the assignment has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers”, citing knowledgeable sources.

“What I suspect is that bureaucrats and others in the IRS and Department of Justice have been reluctant to press into their investigations because high level current and former politicians and powerful donors, across the political spectrum are likely implicated in trafficking influence through these false-front charities, and others”, Ortel presumes.

US Debt is Soaring While “Charities” Sit on Trillions

The Wall Street analyst explains why financial violations and fraud on the part of charitable organisations are fraught with risks for national economies and societies.

“One hopes that the overwhelming majority of American charities abide by relevant laws”, he says. “This is likely true concerning charities that tackle local, state, or national challenges, but American charities and foreign charities that operate internationally are rife with potential for fraud and corruption.”

He points out that this is particularly true when it comes to disaster relief when “pocketbooks open instantly and large sums swarm” towards various “tax-exempt organisations” often connected to celebrities that say they are going to help.

Ortel bemoans that fact that “afterwards, too frequently as in the case of Haiti, for example, there is no rigorous accounting for the vast sums claimed as donations or expenses”. The Clinton Foundation’s role in fundraising to tackle the consequences of the 2010 Haiti earthquake is still triggering controversy and was addressed by Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign.

“In 2020, America has run up a mountain of government debt and we see little progress in paring back soaring annual government deficits that add to our monstrous debt pile”, the investigative journalist emphasises. “At the same time, loosely regulated charities, some funded by monopolists and near monopolists sit on trillions of dollars of unencumbered assets inside private foundations or public charities.”

According to him, if the IRS and Department of Justice did their best to enforce existing laws and regulations that prohibit certain tax-exempt organisations from enriching themselves “vast sums could be raised to help reverse erosion in [the US] national balance sheet”.

Ortel expresses hope that the effort spearheaded by Doyle and Moynihan will help restore confidence in the administration of justice.

February 12, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Audit Reveals The High Cost Of Toll Roads

TheNewspaper.com | February 7, 2020

Financial analysis of major toll road systems finds substantial diversion of revenue to third parties.

Of the billions of dollars collected at toll booths around the country, nearly half of the money goes to overhead costs, profit for the private companies involved and other uses that have nothing to do with the road itself. That is the finding of a financial audit released last week by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), which conducted the analysis on behalf of the trucking industry. The report examined financial records for major toll road networks that together collected $14.7 billion in revenue in 2018.

“The findings indicate that the 21 major tolling systems analyzed collect revenue in excess of the actual direct costs of operations and interest expense, with nearly 50 percent of toll revenue diverted to other uses,” the report concluded. “This excess revenue is diverted in a number of ways based upon the individual agency or state that supervises the toll entity. The magnitude of diversion and the lack of standard practice with regard to revenue diversion speaks to the disjointed control under which toll entities operate.”

The roads covered in the report represent 82 percent of all tolls collected in the country. The full nationwide toll network generates an estimated $18 billion in revenue each year. Of that revenue, 15.8 cents on every dollar goes to the cost of collecting the toll itself. Another 26.8 percent goes to the cost of interest and 20.5 percent is diverted to non-road use such as transit, undermining the “user pays” argument used by tolling advocates.

The report found tolls tend to increase far in excess of the rate of inflation — up 72 percent over the last ten years, compared to the consumer price index the went up 16.9 percent in the same period. The data show the number of individual transactions at each toll road only went up 28 percent, while traffic volume increased 2.4 percent. Toll roads received $1.1 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

The report noted that by comparison the cost of collecting the federal fuels tax was just 0.2 percent of the revenue collected. While some have argued that gas tax revenue is no longer viable because this income source is on the decline, the latest federal statistics show Americans used 147 billion gallons of gas in 2018 — an all-time high. Preliminary data for 2019 show gas tax revenue rising for an eighth straight year.

Source: PDF File Financial Analysis of Toll System Revenue (American Transportation Research Institute, 1/31/2020)

February 11, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | | Leave a comment

Claim: ‘Epstein Worked for Israel’

Pedophile, spy’s daughter were blackmailing public figures for Mossad.

By Philip Giraldi | American free press | February 5, 2020

The saga of pedophile procurer to the rich and famous Jeffrey Epstein continues to enthrall, even if the Department of Justice appears to have no interest in learning the details of what appears to be a major Israeli spy operation. There have been a number of new developments in the past several weeks, confirming that Epstein had been a longtime Israeli intelligence asset targeting prominent Americans while also suggesting that he was murdered in his prison cell in New York rather than a suicide.

Of interest to many following the story with the apparent exception of the FBI, a former Israeli intelligence officer has written a book describing how Epstein and his partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell were blackmailing prominent politicians on behalf of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad. According to Ari Ben-Menashe, the two had been working directly for the Israeli government since the 1980s and their operation, which was funded by Mossad and also by prominent American Jews, was a classic “honey-trap” which used underage girls as bait to attract well-known politicians from around the world, a list that included Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton. The politicians would then be photographed and video recorded when they were in bed with the girls.

Ben-Menashe’s soon-to-be-released book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales describes how Epstein was introduced to Maxwell originally by her father, Robert, a Czech-born British media tycoon, who was also a long-term Israeli agent. After his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.”

Ben-Menashe was Robert Maxwell’s agent handler, meaning that he was the government intelligence officer who actually met with the high-level spy. Through Maxwell, Epstein also met prominent Israelis, including Ehud Barak, prime minister from 1999-2001, who had a business relationship with the American financier and occasionally visited the Epstein mansion in New York City.

To be sure Ben-Menashe, has something of a peculiar personal history due to his Mossad connection and he wants to sell his book, but no one has stated that he is wrong on his facts, even though his claims are largely unsubstantiated. And one might also add that last year’s hidden camera undercover exposés of Israeli agents working clandestinely to bring down unfriendly politicians and government officials in both Britain and the United States suggests that Israel is particularly aggressive in its influence operations.

One would have thought that the alleged ongoing investigation of Epstein would include a questioning of possible victims of the blackmail, to include Clinton, but there is no suggestion from anyone that that has actually taken place. And what about Ghislaine Maxwell, who was certainly complicit in the crimes against the girls who were used as well as regarding those who were later blackmailed?

Ghislaine, like Clinton, has never been asked to answer any questions about what she and Epstein were up to, though there is a Reuters report that she is being “investigated.” She has meanwhile been spotted in Los Angeles sipping a coffee at an open-air café. Most recently, the Jewish Telegraph Agency reports that “Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who has been accused of helping late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is reportedly hiding out in Israel.”

A New York Post article confirms that Ghislaine sometimes travels to Britain on her UK passport but that she is currently in Israel “where her powerful contacts have provided her with safe houses and protection. Ghislaine is protected. . . . They would trade information about the powerful people caught in his net—caught at Epstein’s house.” Apart from her status as a Mossad asset and the protection it provides, generally speaking, Israel will not extradite any Jew who has been charged with a crime in another country, which is why so many Russian-Jewish organized crime figures have taken Israeli citizenship. So Ghislaine is unlikely ever to appear in an American courtroom.

And then there is the increased uncertainty about how Epstein died in jail. The authorities continue to claim it was suicide but one has to wonder how he managed to kill himself, if that is indeed the case, as he was reportedly on suicide watch at the prison and he should have been stripped of any clothing or cell furnishings that would have been usable to that end. So he is dead, but did he do it himself or was he helped? There are many prominent individuals and powerful government agencies that will be very pleased that he is gone, as most of his secrets will have gone to the grave with him.

There was certainly a warning that something might happen. Two weeks before his death, he was reportedly found unconscious in his jail cell with marks around his neck. It was suggested that he might have tried to kill himself or, alternatively, had been beaten up by another inmate. There was also considerable speculation that some aggrieved part of the Deep State was trying to assassinate him to silence him.

The recent release of a post-mortem in the jail as well as autopsy photos of Epstein on “60 Minutes” combined with the revelation that procedures in the prison were irregular have reopened the controversy over exactly how the convicted pedophile died with at least one more prominent pathologist saying that the images indicate that he was murdered, not a suicide.

The photos were reviewed by Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist and a former New York City medical examiner, who claimed that the evidence indicates that Epstein didn’t take his own life. Baden had been a witness at the original four-hour autopsy, and it was his judgement that the photos confirm that the fractures sustained by Epstein don’t suggest suicide. He also observed that the noose made from a bed sheet included in the photos of the autopsy report doesn’t appear to match the wound on Epstein’s throat because it would have created a wider “furrow mark.”

Baden also said, “There were fractures of the left, the right, thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone. I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging. Sometimes there’s a fracture of the hyoid bone or a fracture of the thyroid cartilage. And going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures.”

Per Newsweek’s reporting of Dr. Baden’s analysis. “He also wondered why Epstein would fashion a noose out of bed linen when his cell contained a long electrical cord attached to a sleep apnea machine, [saying] ‘There were other wires and cords present that it would’ve been easy to use to hang oneself within a few minutes. . . . The forensic evidence released so far, including autopsy, point much more to murder and strangulation than the suicide and suicidal hanging.’”

And then there is always the big question which remains unanswered or even unasked. Conclusive evidence that Epstein was an Israeli intelligence agent might well be derived from the former U.S. Attorney in Miami Alexander Acosta’s comments when being later cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked, “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]? . . . Acosta testified that he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”

And then there is also the continuing mystery around Epstein’s possession of a genuine Austrian passport. How did he get it? Austrian passports are highly desirable in intelligence circles because the country is neutral and its holders can travel just about everywhere without a visa.

February 9, 2020 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Gems amid garbage: What’s in the Senate Intelligence report on Obama’s response to 2016 ‘Russian meddling’

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | February 7, 2020

Much of the new Senate report about ‘Russian meddling’ in the 2016 election consists of Obama administration officials covering their posteriors – but is also unwittingly revealing about its (false) premises, sources and methods.

A day after its members voted along party lines in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee joined forces to publish yet another fan-fiction in the ‘Russian meddling in 2016 US presidential election’ saga, this time focusing on the Obama administration’s responses.

The problem obvious right from the start is that the committee presupposes the existence of said meddling, citing the intelligence community assessment commissioned by Obama and Mueller indictments as evidence rather than unproven assertions. The “geopolitical context” of events in the report is a perfect example of how rotten assumptions and circular reasoning lead to garbage conclusions.

That said, there are a few revelations in the report that deserve attention. First of all, even while the entire section on page 11 is redacted, a footnote left up reveals that the first to raise the alarm about “Russian meddling” was John Brennan, CIA director at the time. In what must be a remarkable coincidence, he has since become an outspoken TV and Twitter pundit, specializing in accusing President Trump and Republican senators of treason.

Brennan is the one that briefed the congressional “Gang of Eight” over the course of August 2016 – starting with House Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The Republicans were all briefed “individually” on September 6, along with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) who sat on the Intel Committee. No notes about any of the meetings exist, of course.

Three weeks later, on September 22, Feinstein and Schiff issued a statement that they both “concluded that Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the US election” (p. 33). The report does not record the administration’s reaction to Schiff and Feinstein getting ahead of the White House, which was supposedly still hoping to address the whole thing with a bipartisan statement.

Schiff then went on to become the leading figure in the Democrats’ efforts to impeach Trump – first citing “Russian collusion” then latching on to the Ukraine phone call.

The report also reveals that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) colluded with the Washington Post to publish the story on June 14, 2016 about the “hacking” of their network (p.5). That is supposedly the first time anyone in the Obama administration found out about the DNC “hack.” This DNC behavior – running to the media before informing the government, which was run by Democrats! – ought to raise eyebrows, but the committee just moves on.

Here is another gem: The official ODNI-DHS statement about “Russian interference” was published at 3:30 PM on October 7, 2016 – a Friday, when news tends to get buried. Exactly 33 minutes later, the Post (them again!) publishes the Access Hollywood tape, intended to be the “October surprise” that sinks Trump’s candidacy. About half an hour later, WikiLeaks drops the first batch of emails from Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta. The rest is history.

Speaking of WikiLeaks, the section pertaining to them is entirely redacted in the Senate report. Earlier, the committee concluded that WikiLeaks was a “Russian cutout” – again, an assertion without evidence.

Keep in mind that this is the same committee whose understanding of “Russia’s social media-predicated attack against our democracy” was “significantly informed” by, among others, New Knowledge – the very outfit that masterminded an entirely fake ‘Russian meddling’ disinformation campaign during the 2017 special election for the US Senate in Alabama.

Another thing that stands out in the report is how the Obama administration perceived the whole affair. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and UN Ambassador Samantha Power both compared it to secret meetings prior to the raid on Osama bin Laden, while Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates described it as “very cloak and dagger” (p.13).

Secretary of State John Kerry even wrote a memo proposing a sequel to the Warren Commission (which investigated the JFK assassination) to tackle Russian “attempts” at interference (p.42). Instead, Obama chose to create the handpicked working group that would produce the infamous Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).

Curiously, the report does not mention at all the FBI’s efforts to spy on the Trump campaign, using FISA warrants predicated on the Clinton-commissioned dossier compiled by British spy Christopher Steele. One would think it ought to, given that it’s a very specific “response” to alleged Russian meddling. Perhaps that’s somewhere in the redacted parts?

In all seriousness, by now it should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer that “Russian meddling” has been a lie all along, foisted on the American people by political operatives and hyper-partisan spies, and that its use in an attempt to de-legitimize a presidency may have done more actual harm to US institutions and the political system than anything any external actor could have hoped to achieve.

That the Senate Intel Committee insists on flogging this particular dead horse even after the impeachment hoax fell on its face suggests that the phantom “Russian” menace is still being used to pursue some other sinister political objective.

Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

February 7, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

First Morocco, then Sudan: Netanyahu Intensifies Normalization Efforts with more Arab Countries

Palestine Chronicle | February 6, 2020

Amid the ongoing Israeli efforts to normalize ties with African countries, Tel Aviv has been intensifying its diplomatic relations with Sudan and Morocco over the last week.

On February 4, Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been lobbying the United States to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the occupied Western Sahara region, in exchange for a normalization of ties with Rabat.

Although the two countries have no official diplomatic relations, “contacts between Netanyahu and the Moroccans started getting more serious after a secret meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2018,” according to American news website Axios.

Meanwhile, Sudan had agreed to allow flights to Israel to cross its airspace, Reuters news agency reported Wednesday.

This comes two days after Sudan’s top military official Abdel Fattah al-Burhan held a surprise meeting with Netanyahu in Uganda.

Burhan currently serves as the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, a transitional ruling body made up of civilian and military figures.

The visit stirred controversy in the African country, generating tensions between the military and civilian groups, with Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok declaring that “all decisions related to Sudan’s foreign affairs “should be made” exclusively by his Cabinet”, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Defiant, the Sudanese military responded with a statement Wednesday in which it described the meeting as being in “the highest interests of national security and of Sudan.”

Sudan’s military spokesman Amer Mohamed al-Hassan told Al Jazeera that “Sudan has not announced full normalization (with Israel), but it is exchanging interests”.

“From Uganda, Netanyahu declared that Israel and Sudan were working towards normalizing relations.” Haaretz also reported. “For Israel, it was a major diplomatic breakthrough with a Muslim-majority African state.”

“The continent’s rapprochement with Israel is unfortunate, because, for decades, Africa has stood as a vanguard against all racist ideologies, including Zionism – the ideology behind Israel’s establishment on the ruins of Palestine,” wrote Palestinian journalist and editor of The Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud.

“If Africa succumbs to Israeli enticement and pressure to fully embrace the Zionist state, the Palestinian people would lose a treasured partner in their struggle for freedom and human rights,” Baroud added.

February 6, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The PA will opt for losing Palestine if it means keeping its ‘authority’

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | February 4, 2020

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas continues to provide proof of his worthlessness when it comes to political decision-making. If the US “continues” with the so-called deal of the century, Abbas has threatened only the possibility of a full boycott.

The US “peace plan”, which enhances Israel’s strategies for forcibly displacing Palestinians and rendering them refugees while taking away their right to be recognised as such, is not enough for the PA to implement its threats, dependent as it is upon security coordination with the occupation for its existence and function. In May 2014, Abbas described security coordination with Israel as “sacred”, despite policy differences with the Israeli government.

This coordination facilitated the targeting of dissenting Palestinians and resistance activists. In 2014, security coordination with Israel during Operation Brother’s Keeper resulted in the re-arrest of 50 former Palestinian prisoners who had been released in the Gilad Shalit exchange deal. One of the most appalling security coordination deals involved the PA in the killing of Palestinian activist and writer Basel Al-Araj in March 2017.

Yet other logistics are dependent upon security coordination, including the movement of goods and people. The PA’s political existence depends upon security coordination, while the Palestinian people bear the brunt of the violence associated with its surveillance.

Abbas’s periodic threats to cease such coordination cannot be taken seriously. As far as quashing Palestinian political dissent and resistance, the agreement with Israel is the best that the coloniser and collaborator can get. In terms of political engagement, security coordination provides the PA with the much-needed funds to sustain its existence. The premise of state-building, albeit illusory, provides the backdrop for such funding to continue, as does the two-state compromise, also illusory.

The international community’s response to US President Donald Trump’s plan announced last week was not a complete rejection. Leaving just a slight possibility that the world might find common ground over the two-state designation by the US isolates the PA more than ever. Its constant bleating to the UN and the EU to salvage the two-state imposition upon which international consensus has been reached will not save the PA’s diplomatic endeavours now. As far as the international community is concerned, the PA is even more coerced into retaining security coordination. There is common ground between the US and the international community in this, despite the previous hype attempting to pit one side against the other for the sole purpose of extending the two-state diplomacy further.

Abbas will not be taken seriously this time (if he ever was). If anything, his empty threats will bring further ridicule upon the PA, exposing its lack of autonomy. While the dynamics of Trump’s plan are indeed a threat to the PA, especially when considering the previous action undertaken by the US to isolate it diplomatically, Abbas faces a greater threat to his power if security coordination is ended permanently. The bottom line is that the PA will risk losing what remains of Palestinian land in order to maintain the façade of its “authority. After all, it has developed a notorious reputation for granting concessions to the occupation, but it will not jeopardise the crumbs of power thrown to it by Israel and the international community.

February 4, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

UkraineGate Part 3 – A not so noble president

Les-Crises.fr

The documentary was produced by French investigative journalist Olivier Berruyer, founder of popular anti-corruption and economics blog Les Crises.

In this third episode, we publish several important testimonials, through exceptional exclusive interviews. You will thus discover the revelations of several personalities, such as the Director of the Ukrainian Action Centre against Corruption, but also a former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, a former Ukrainian diplomat, and other famous specialists on Ukraine… We are particularly grateful to Oleksandr Onyschenko for the importance of his testimony. This oligarch, a former member of parliament, was a close associate of Petro Poroshenko, whose mission included corrupting Ukrainian elected officials. Disgusted by these mafia practices, he repented by becoming a whistleblower. Since our interview, he has been arrested in Germany, where he is awaiting an extradition judgment – Interpol having refused to prosecute him since 2016…

info@ukrainegate.info

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen registers as lobbyist for Emirates in Washington

Press TV – January 30, 2020

A former US congresswoman has been registered as a foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to lobby US officials regarding “export controls and sanctions, and foreign and defense policies.”

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s registration comes as the United Arab Emirates has managed so far to stave off US congressional restrictions on arms sales over its controversial role in the deadly Saudi war on Yemen.

The former chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee was registered as lobbyist to represent Abu Dhabi earlier this month.

She will “provide outreach to US government officials and counsel on policy issues,” according to a Justice Department filing.

According to the document, she will also be counseling officials on “human rights, trade policies, foreign media registration, and strengthening trilateral relations and regional security.”

Ros-Lehtinen, who is known as a pro-Israel hawk on Iran and Latin America, has passed her one-year cooling-off period for retired lawmakers and became eligible to lobby her former colleagues.

She was registered on Jan. 21 by US lobby firm — Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld — which is one of over a dozen lobbying firms the UAE has under contract, according to al-Monitor.

Akin Gump, which has been lobbying for Abu Dhabi since 2007, campaigned last year for more US sanctions against Iran, the UAE’s role in Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen and arms sale.

The United Arab Emirates has been among the major buyers of US weapons, clinching a $1.8-billion arms deal with Washington last year.

Many countries, including Denmark, Finland, Germany and Belgium, have suspended arms exports to UAE either upon court orders or receiving evidence that the weapons were indeed used against civilians in Yemen.

According to a December 2018 report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi war has claimed the lives of more than 60,000 Yemenis since March 2015.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the Arab country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says more than 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »