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Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies

By Elizabeth Vos | Consortium News | August 23, 2019

The alleged use of sexual blackmail by spy agencies is hardly unique to the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Although the agencies involved as well as their alleged motivations and methods differ with each case, the crime of child trafficking with ties to intelligence agencies or those protected by them has been around for decades.

Some cases include the 1950s -1970s Kincora scandal and the 1981 Peter Hayman affair, both in the U.K.; and the Finders’ cult and the Franklin scandal in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Just as these cases did not end in convictions, the pedophile and accused child-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein remained at arms’ length for years.

“For almost two decades, for some nebulous reason, whether to do with ties to foreign intelligence, his billions of dollars, or his social connections, Epstein, whose alleged sexual sickness and horrific assaults on women without means or ability to protect themselves… remained untouchable,” journalist Vicky Ward wrote in The Daily Beast in July.

The protection of sex traffickers by intelligence agencies is especially interesting in the wake of  Epstein’s death. Like others, Epstein had long been purported to have links with spy agencies. Such allegations documented by Whitney Webb in her multi-part series were recently published in Mintpress News.

Webb states that Epstein was the current face of an extensive system of abuse with ties to both organized crime and intelligence interests. She told CNLive! that: “According to Nigel Rosser, a British journalist who wrote in the Evening Standard in 2001, Epstein apparently for much of the 1990s claimed that he used to work for the CIA.”

Vicky Ward, who wrote on Epstein for Vanity Fair before his first arrest, and claimed the magazine killed one of her pieces after Epstein intervened with editor Graydon Carter, said in a Tweet that one of Epstein’s clients was Adnan Khashoggi, an arms dealer who was pivotal in the Iran Contra scandal and was on the Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) payroll. This was also noted in a book “By Way of Deception” by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky.

The Times of Israel reported that Epstein was an “active business partner with former prime minister Ehud Barak” until 2015, adding: “Barak formed a limited partnership company in Israel in 2015, called Sum (E.B.) to invest in a high-tech startup…. A large part of the money used by Sum to buy the start-up stock was supplied by Epstein.”

Webb wrote he “was a long-time friend of Barak, who has long-standing and deep ties to Israel’s intelligence community.” On the board of their company sat Pinchas Bukhris, a former commander of the IDF cyber unit 8200.

Epstein’s allegedly protected status was revealed by Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who gave Epstein an infamously lenient plea deal in 2007. Acosta, who was forced to resign as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary because of that deal,  reportedly said of the case: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”

Alexander Acosta: “Told to leave it alone.” (Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

Kincora Boy’s Home

Several cases in the unsavory history linking intelligence agencies and sex scandals put the allegations against Epstein in context. Among these was the U.K. Kincora Boy’s Home, where at least 29 boys were reported to have been targeted at the Belfast, Northern Ireland, facility from the mid-1950s until the late 1970s, until it was shut in 1980. It also involved the alleged protection of child sexual abusers at the home and among their clients.

The Irish Times wrote that “destitute boys were systematically sodomised by members of Kincora staff and were supplied for abuse to prominent figures in unionist politics. The abusers – among them MPs, councillors, leading Orangemen and other influential individuals – became potentially important intelligence assets.”

The Belfast Telegraph also quoted former Labour Party MP Ken Livingstone, who said: “MI5 weren’t just aware of child abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home – they were monitoring it. They were getting pictures of a judge in one case, politicians, a lot of the establishment of Northern Ireland going in and abusing these boys.”

Three staff were eventually convicted of sexually abusing minors, which included the housemaster William McGrath, a loyalist “Orangeman” and allegedly an MI5 agent, according to the Belfast Telegraph in July 2014.

Although the U.K.’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry ultimately found  “no credible evidence” to support the allegations, two former U.K. intelligence officers maintained their claim of MI5’s involvement: Brian Gemmell says he alerted MI5 to the abuse at Kincora and was told to stop his investigation; and a former army intelligence officer, Colin Wallace, “consistently claimed that MI5, RUC special branch and military intelligence knew about the abuse at Kincora and used it to blackmail the pedophile ring to spy on hardline loyalists,” according to The Guardian.

The Irish outlet, An Phoblacht, wrote: “The systematic abuse of young boys in the Home and the part played by the British intelligence organisations to keep the scandal under wraps ensured that one side of the murky world of Unionist paramilitarism and its links to the crown forces was kept out of the public domain for years.”

In the U.S., the New York State Select Committee On Crime in 1982  investigated nationwide networks of trafficking underage sex workers and producing child pornography. Dale Smith, a committee investigator, noted that call services using minors also profited from “sidelines,” besides the income from peddling prostitution.  Smith said they sold information “on the sexual proclivities of the clients to agents of foreign intelligence.” Presumably, this information could be used to blackmail those in positions of power. Smith added that one call service sold information to “British and Israeli intelligence.”

The Hayman Affair

Another U.K. scandal included allegations that Sir Peter Hayman,  a British diplomat and deputy director of MI6, was a member of the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE).

 London headquarters of British Secret Intelligence Service.
(Laurie Nevay, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Police discovered that two of the roughly dozen pedophiles in his circle had been writing to each other about their interest in “the extreme sexual torture and murder of children,” according to the The Daily Mail.

In 2015, The Guardian reported that former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been “adamant that officials should not publicly name” Hayman, “even after she had been fully briefed on his activities…. formerly secret papers released to the National Archives shows.”

Still, Hayman was unmasked as a subscriber to PIE in 1981 by M.P. Geoffrey Dickens, who also reportedly raised the national security risk of Hayman’s proclivities, implying they were a potential source of blackmail sought by intelligence agencies.

The British tabloid The Mirror reported that intelligence agencies, including the KGB and CIA, kept their own dossiers on U.K. establishment figures involved with PIE and the abuse of minors, to blackmail the targets in exchange for information.

Hayman was never charged for his association with PIE: The U.K. attorney general at the time, Sir Michael Havers, defended the decision and denied claims that Heyman was given special treatment.

Labour Party MP Barbara Castle allegedly gave a dossier she compiled on pedophiles in positions of power to U.K. journalist Don Hale in 1984 when he was editor of the Brury Messenger. Hale alleged that soon afterward, police from the “Special Branch, the division responsible for matters of national security,” raided his office and removed the Castle dossier. They then threatened him with a “D-notice,” which prevented him from publishing the story on the threat of up to 10 years in prison.

The Finders Cult

Another group accused of trafficking children, which had links to intelligence agencies, was the “Finders” cult. In 1987, The Washington Post reported that two members were arrested in connection with the alleged abuse of six children. Investigators found materials in Madison County, Virginia, which they said linked to a “commune called the Finders.”

Besides nude photographs of children, a Customs Service memo written by special agent Ramon Martinez refers to files “relating to the activities of the organization in different parts of the world, including “London, Germany, the Bahamas, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Africa, Costa Rica, and Europe.”

Martinez’s memo notes that a Finders’ telex ordered the purchase of two children in Hong Kong. Another expressed interest in “bank secrecy situations.” The memo also documents high-tech transfers to the U.K., numerous properties under the Finders’ control, the group’s interest in terrorism, explosives, and the evasion of law enforcement.

Martinez describes the swift end to his investigation. He wrote that on April 12, 1987, he arrived at the Metropolitan Police Department and was told that all the data was turned over to the State Department which, in turn, advised MPD that “all travel and use of passports by the holders was within the law and no action would be taken. Then he was told that the investigation into the Finders had become a CIA internal matter. The MPD report was classified, not available for review” and “No further action will be taken.”

Martinez was not the only person with unanswered questions. The U.S.News & World Report wrote that N. Carolina Rep. Charlie Rose (Dem.), chair of the House Administration Committee, and Florida’s Rep. Tom Lewis (Rep.) asked “Could our own government have something to do with this Finders organization and turned their backs on these children? That’s what the evidence points to,” says Lewis, adding that “I can tell you that we’ve got a lot of people scrambling, and that wouldn’t be happening if there was nothing here.”

The leniency shown by the State Department and the fact that the CIA would designate the investigation of the Finders group as “an internal matter” raises serious questions. What motive might have driven the CIA to associate with or protect a child abuse ring?

Harry S. Truman State Department building. (Paco8191, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The Franklin Scandal

The Franklin Scandal erupted in 1988, centering on a child-trafficking ring operating in Omaha, Nebraska, by Lawrence E. King Jr., a former vice chairman of the National Black Republican Council: It was alleged that children were provided to politicians in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, among other illegal activities.

The late former state Sen. John Decamp alleged in his book “The Franklin Coverup” that a special committee of the Nebraska Legislature launched a probe to investigate the affair, which involved King being indicted for embezzling money from the Franklin Credit Union. The committee hired former Lincoln, Nebraska, police officer Jerry Lowe, whose reports  suggested that King was involved in “guns and money transfers to Nicaragua,” and was linked with the CIA.

James Flanery, an investigative reporter at The World Herald who reported on the scandal,  told associates that King was “running guns and money into Nicaragua,” and that the CIA was heavily involved.”

Like many scandals before and since, the Franklin case ended with no prosecution of the perpetrators. However, Paul Bonacci, one of the alleged victims, was indicted for perjury. He had alleged that he was sexually abused as a minor in Nebraska and around the country where he was flown by Lawrence King.

In 1999, the Omaha World Herald reported Bonacci was awarded $1 million in damages due to his lawsuit against King and other alleged perpetrators. Decamp, who was Bonacci’s attorney, told the newspaper “Obviously, you don’t award $1 million if you don’t think he (Bonacci) was telling the truth.”

Given the history of child trafficking rings that were allegedly connected with or enjoyed the protection of intelligence services, it is possible that similar claims about Jeffrey Epstein are something the authorities, though unlikely given these other instances, should investigate.

Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter and regular contributor to Consortium News. 

August 24, 2019 Posted by | Corruption | , , , , | 2 Comments

Multiple criminal investigations zero in on Poroshenko

By Padraig McGrath | August 23, 2019

As it currently stands, at least 13 different criminal investigations conducted by the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations (SBI), Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine (SAPO) and National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) are focused on recently defeated former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. The various indictments issued by these bodies allege that Poroshenko is guilty of treason (in an indictment relating to the Kerch Strait incident last November), and that he has played roles in embezzlement, illegal abuse of authority, interference in judicial proceedings, forgery of documents and of lawmakers’ signatures, tax-evasion, money-laundering, and other corruption-schemes, including playing a role in illegal acquisitions of state-owned companies.

As succinctly as possible, it is necessary to break these allegations down into digestible units.

Firstly, let’s deal with the treason-investigation. It is alleged that Poroshenko deliberately provoked the November 2018 Kerch Strait incident, when 3 Ukrainian naval vessels were captured by the Russian coastguard and their combined crews detained after attempting to gain unauthorized entry to the Sea of Azov. The wording of the indictment suggests that Poroshenko is guilty of treason on 3 distinct levels:

1. Knowing that the Ukrainian naval vessels would be captured and their crews arrested, Poroshenko sought to manipulate the incident to strengthen his own political position, perhaps as a pretext for an illegal power-grab (a postponement or suspension of the upcoming presidential election, which he knew that he was bound to lose). Martial law was declared in Ukraine following the incident.

2. Poroshenko therefore deliberately sacrificed 3 Ukrainian naval vessels and the freedom of 24 Ukrainian servicemen for his own personal political gain, most probably as a precursor to an attempted illegal usurpation of executive power.

3. In provoking the Kerch-Strait incident, Poroshenko was essentially acting in the strategic interests of another nation-state, insofar as the incident resulted in the instigation of the NATO “Sea Shield 2019” naval exercises and a more aggressive NATO posture in the Black Sea.

In addition, Poroshenko is named in criminal investigations relating to the embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars from various energy-companies in which the Ukrainian state has a controlling interest. The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine (SAPO) has revealed that it is conducting investigations relating to the embezzlement of the equivalent of $227 million from the Centerenergo company, the embezzlement of $83 million from the holdings of Nyzhnyodnistrovska Dam, the embezzlement of $48.4 million from Cherkassyoblenergy, and the embezzlement of $13 million from Zaporizhiaoblenergo. In most cases, it is alleged that Poroshenko used duress to guarantee the appointment of his associates to the Boards of Directors of these companies, thereby illegally abusing his authority, and that these appointees subsequently played key roles in the various embezzlement-schemes.

Another criminal investigation relates to the forgery of parliamentary documents and of lawmakers’ signatures to facilitate the formation of a coalition government during Poroshenko’s presidency. Relating to yet another investigation, the former head of the Kiev Court of Appeals, Anton Chernoshenko, has alleged that while Poroshenko was president, he coerced Chernoshenko into issuing legal judgments which were favourable to the president’s political and business-interests.

Then there is the scandal relating to corruption in Ukraine’s military procurement process, from which Poroshenko’s former business associates directly profited. NABU is investigating Bogdan Motors, a company formerly co-owned by Poroshenko. It is alleged that spare automotive parts smuggled from Russia were sold at radically inflated prices to UkrOboronProm, the Ukrainian state defense corporation. The son of Poroshenko’s former business-partner Oleh Hladkovsky is also named in the indictment relating to this investigation. An investigation is also being conducted into the award of a government contract to Bogdan Motors to supply military ambulances to the Ukrainian armed forces in 2016, despite the fact that Bogdan Motors had never previously produced ambulances or military vehicles of any description.

Some of the investigations pertain to the conduct of senior management of ICU, an investment-group which managed Poroshenko’s business-interests and investment-portfolio. Two weeks after Poroshenko assumed office as Ukrainian president in June 2014, ICU executive Valeria Gontareva was appointed governor of the Ukrainian National Bank, and ICU senior manager Dmytro Vovk was appointed chairman of the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities.

Then we could also itemize the investigation of the sell-off of the Kiev-based Kuznya on Rybalsky shipyard, and Poroshenko’s role in the acquisition of the “Pryamyi” television channel, which it is alleged that he now secretly owns.

Poroshenko was summoned for questioning by the SBI on July 17th in relation to money-laundering and tax-evasion investigations, but failed to appear. On July 24th, Poroshenko visited SBI headquarters and made a request to Roman Truba, the head of the SBI, for a postponement of the interrogation. This request was denied. On July 25th, Poroshenko sent a written request for a postponement to the SBI. Somewhat bizarrely, Poroshenko had previously denied receiving summonses for interrogation from the SBI, while his lawyer had simultaneously been requesting postponements of these same interrogations.

My god, if he can’t even get his story straight with his own lawyer, then what comedy of errors can we expect in future?

In the most recent development, on August 21st a Kiev court ordered NABU to open another criminal investigation against Poroshenko and former Ukrainian foreign minister Pavel Klimkin on charges of abuse of authority.

I could go on and on, itemizing yet more investigations and more sordid details, encouraging you to gorge yourself on this delicious feast of corruption-porn, but maybe we’ve had enough fun for today.

Remember the days when people said they were tired of the economic parasitism of “the Yanukovych family?”

Remember when people said that they wanted the rule of law and an independent judiciary in Ukraine?

It’s so great to see that “European Values™” came to Ukraine.

Padraig McGrath is a political analyst with BRICS.

August 23, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | | Leave a comment

Fault Lines Radio Interview with Whitney Webb

August 23, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Video | , | Leave a comment

Epstein: The Maxwell Connection

By George Galloway | RT | August 21, 2019

As Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell appears to have fallen off the face of the Earth, it’s little remembered in the media how I fought a long war against her father Robert and the part I played in his downfall.

It would be scarcely worth recalling at this distance if it did not shed light, or rather a cloud of suspicion, over Maxwell’s favourite child Ghislaine, now at the centre of a dark and fascinating story as bizarre as any which enveloped her late father.

I first met Robert Maxwell when he was an enormously powerful and fiercely intimidating media mogul in the early 1980s. It was in the green room of the BBC’s then flagship program Question Time, hosted by Sir Robin Day – then the doyen of BBC grandees.

“Ah, Mr Galway (sic),” boomed Mr Maxwell, “the PLO man.” At which point he punched me so hard in the solar plexus I doubled over, tears in my eyes. As was the wont of the British establishment at the time, my fellow participants and Sir Robin himself averted their eyes and pretended not to see.

At the time and for nearly a decade, I was closely associated with the then-British satirical magazine Private Eye, writing regularly and providing stories and leads for others, regularly attending the legendary Private Eye lunches at the Soho waterie The Coach and Horses, presided over by the founder and editor of the magazine, Richard Ingrams.

About a year after Maxwell striking his first blow, I submitted a story to Private Eye which, embellished by others, was published and upon which he sued and fought an epic court battle with us. He won.

Although the editor Richard Ingrams spent a night in the cells for refusing to name me as the source, it was soon obvious to Maxwell that it was me and we began a war of attrition which lasted until his death.

In October of 1991, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and celebrity journalist Seymour Hersh caused to be delivered to my home late one Saturday night a file of papers, a synopsis of a book he had written in which he made serious allegations against Maxwell. So fearsome was Maxwell’s power at the time, he had obtained pre-publication injunctions against anyone publishing any word of it, against anyone printing it, against anyone distributing it, against anyone selling it. In Britain, the Hersh book did not exist.

But I – as a member of the British Parliament – enjoyed the ancient right of legal privilege on anything I said in the Parliament or published on the Order Paper. Moreover, so could anyone else reporting fairly anything I said or wrote there. And so I did.

Inter-alia I accused Maxwell of being a thief, of stealing his own employee’s pension funds, of being an agent of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, and of betraying the whereabouts in London of the brave Israeli Jewish whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, causing him to be kidnapped, drugged, and delivered, his jaws wired like Hannibal Lector to ensure his silence, to Israel where he eventually served decades in solitary confinement and even now is not free to talk or travel.

My allegations exploded like a nuclear bomb in the life of Robert Maxwell.

He ordered his journalistic minions (whose pensions he had stolen) to “Piss all over Galloway” and micturate they promptly did.

On the front page of all SIX of his national newspapers, they called me “a jackal” of “scavenging in the dung-heap” a “friend of Arab terrorists” (“Ah, Mr Galway (sic) the PLO man”) and above all of having lied and lied about their proprietor.

Within weeks, the missing pensions were exposed, Maxwell was dead, having fallen, jumped, or been pushed off the back of his yacht – the Lady Ghislaine – off the Canary islands, and Maxwell was given a full Israeli-state funeral on the Mount of Olives presided over by the Israeli president, prime minister and no less than seven former and serving heads of the Mossad. In the eulogy, tribute was paid to the “extraordinary service” Mr Maxwell had given to Israel. The full story of which exact “services” he had provided were buried with him in Jerusalem.

The fateful yacht was called the Lady Ghislaine because his daughter was his favourite child (other daughters were available) and she was his favourite child for a reason. Of all her siblings, Ghislaine Maxwell was the one who was most like him.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s father’s body was lost to the deep and murky waters of international intrigue. Where she will turn up is as yet unknown. What “extraordinary service” she performed and for whom equally remains to be seen.

August 22, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | 5 Comments

Why No Congressional Investigation into Epstein’s Intelligence Connections?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 21, 2019

With convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein now dead, the Justice Department has launched an investigation into prison procedures that allowed him to commit suicide. Meanwhile, women who were sexually abused or raped by Epstein when they were minors are continuing civil actions against Epstein’s estate.

But why no congressional investigation into Epstein’s relationship, if any, to intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Mossad, or any others? Have we gotten to the point where everyone is so scared to be labeled a “conspiracy theorist” that Congress is precluded from conducting a legitimate investigation into the CIA or other intelligence agencies?

Such an investigation would not come out of the blue. It would revolve around the undeniably sweetheart deal that the U.S. Attorney in Florida, Alexander Acosta, gave to Epstein and the reasons that he gave that sweetheart deal to him.

The plea deal enabled Acosta to escape federal charges for sex trafficking and allowed him to plead guilty at the state level to the much lesser crime of soliciting prostitution, which enabled him to serve one year in a local jail, sort of. During that year, officials permitted him to leave the jailhouse on a daily basis to attend to business matters, after which he would return to spend the night in jail.

It would be extremely difficult to find a more sweetheart deal than that. But the question is, Why? We all know how tough federal prosecutors can be. We also know that sex trafficking is not something that is ordinarily countenanced at the federal level, especially when it involves underaged girls.

So, why did Acosta do it? Why did he agree to that sweetheart deal rather than prosecute Epstein in federal court for sex trafficking?

That’s what a congressional investigation would be intended to determine. And Acosta’s sworn testimony could well lead to an answer to that question.

An article that appeared in the August 19, 2019, issue of the Daily Beast by an investigative reporter named Vicky Ward points out the reason why such a congressional investigation would be warranted:

Epstein’s name, I was told, had been raised by the Trump transition team when Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who’d infamously cut Epstein a non-prosecution plea deal back in 2007, was being interviewed for the job of labor secretary. The plea deal put a hard stop to a separate federal investigation of alleged sex crimes with minors and trafficking.

Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” Acosta had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day 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,” he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about this.)

Okay, all that is hearsay. Nonetheless, it clearly provides the basis for a congressional investigation.

All that a congressional committee has to do is subpoena Acosta and ask he if actually made that statement. If he acknowledges that he did, then he can be asked who said it to him and whether that was what motivated him to give Epstein the sweetheart deal.

Then, a subpoena could issue to the person who made that statement to Epstein. When that person arrives to testify, he could be asked about the source of his information. The investigation could then proceed accordingly.

Moreover, the director of the CIA could be summoned to testify as to whether Epstein was a CIA asset, operative, or agent. If Epstein did fall into one of those categories, it is certainly possible that the CIA director would lie about it, just as CIA Director Richard Helms lied to Congress back in the 1970s when he was asked about CIA involvement in Chilean regime-change operations. Nonetheless, he would at least know that he would be subject to a perjury indictment if it were later discovered that he had lied about Epstein’s involvement in the CIA.

Moreover, the CIA could be subpoenaed to produce all of its files and records relating to Epstein, which might indicate Epstein’s possible involvement with foreign intelligence agencies, such as the Mossad.

Why would the CIA, Mossad, or other intelligence agency have been involved with Epstein and why would an intelligence agency have gone to bat for him in a federal criminal prosecution for sex trafficking? That’s something an investigation would be intended to answer.

Of course, the press could continue investigating whether Acosta actually did make that statement and, if so, whether it was true. But the ability of the press to get to the truth is limited given its inability to force people to testify under oath and then have them prosecuted for perjury if they lie. A congressional committee could both subpoena people to testify under oath and have them indicted for perjury if they lie.

Given the possibility of corruption in the federal judiciary at the hands of the CIA or other intelligence agency, the American people are entitled to such an investigation. If sex offenders are being accorded favorable treatment in the federal criminal justice system simply because they happen to work for the CIA or some other intelligence agency, then what does that say for the entire federal criminal justice system?

If Epstein did have a relationship with the CIA or other intelligence agency, then, unfortunately, there are only two chances that Congress would initiate an investigation into the matter: slim and none. That’s because an intelligence agency that is powerful enough to corrupt the judicial branch of the federal government is sufficiently powerful to do the same to the legislative branch.

August 21, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | 4 Comments

End Foreign Aid to Israel and Everyone Else

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 20, 2019

Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are calling on the U.S. Congress to reevaluate U.S. foreign aid to the Israeli government. Their reason? Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denied entry into Israel for the two of them, owing to their public support of the Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions movement, a global protest against the Israeli government’s longtime mistreatment of Palestinians.

Omar stated:

“We give Israel more than $3 [billion] in aid every year. This is predicated on them being an important ally in the region and the only democracy in the Middle East. But denying a visit to duly elected members of Congress is not consistent with being an ally, and denying millions of people freedom of movement or expression or self-determination is not consistent with being a democracy.”

Unfortunately, however, Omar and Tlaib, like the rest of their Democratic counterparts, just don’t get it. In fact, neither does their nemesis, President Trump, and his Republican cohorts. Not only should the U.S. government stop foreign aid to the Israeli regime, it should stop it for every other regime in the world.

For one thing, consider that the Trump administration is spending $1 trillion this year more than it is bringing in with taxes. The difference? He’s borrowing it, thereby adding another trillion dollars to the $22 trillion dollars in federal debt that is already hanging over American taxpayers.

In fact, just recently Trump and his Democratic cohorts in Congress struck a mutually beneficial deal in which they agree to lift the debt ceiling to permit them to saddle American taxpayers with even more debt and, even worse, agreed to extend the debt ceiling until after the presidential election so that it would not be an issue for either party.

What better place to slash spending than by ending U.S. foreign aid to every regime that is on the U.S. dole? Yet, not one single Democrat or Republican thinks on that level. They just want to use foreign aid as a way to force foreign regimes to bend to the will of the U.S. Empire.

After all, let’s face it: U.S. foreign aid has nothing to do with helping the “poor, needy, and disadvantaged” in foreign countries. Instead, it has everything to do with bribery, blackmail, and extortion. The money or military armaments (or both) is given to foreign regimes with the aim of making them dependent on U.S. foreign-aid largess, sort of like when a heroin dealer hands out free samples to prospective customers.

Then, once the regime becomes dependent on the dole, it is expected to do what the U.S. Empire wants it to do. If it refuses to do it, there is a threat of an immediate cutoff of its dole. That usually is enough to get the foreign regime in line, especially because many foreign officials use the money to line their pockets and Swiss bank accounts as well as those of their bureaucratic and military-intelligence cohorts within the regime.

A good example of this phenomenon occurred in 1990. Yemen, which was one of the Empire’s dole recipients, voted in the UN against the Empire’s request of the UN to authorize the use of military force to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Yemeni officials that their vote would be the most expensive vote they had ever cast. The Empire then proceeded to cut off its foreign aid to Yemen.

If Netanyahu suddenly relented and permitted Omar and Tlaib to be allowed to enter Israel without restrictions, there is little doubt that the two congresswomen would cease calling for a reexamination of foreign aid to Israel. And even if they persisted in calling for such a reexamination, all that they would want to do is redirect the money to their favorite regimes.

The most important argument against foreign aid is the moral one. The Empire forcibly takes money from Americans — the people who have earned it — and gives it to foreign government officials, to whom it does not belong. Americans, like everyone else in the world, have the moral right to keep their own money and decide for themselves what to do with it.

Abolish foreign aid to Israel and to everyone else. It’s the morally right and fiscally responsible thing to do.

August 20, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | 32 Comments

More than two thirds of Americans don’t believe Epstein died by suicide

RT | August 16, 2019

It appears most Americans don’t believe the official narrative on the death of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after a poll found that more people believe the financier died as a result of murder rather than suicide.

The curious circumstances surrounding Epstein’s reported suicide last Saturday raised more than a few eyebrows. Now, a poll from Rasmussen has found that only 29 percent of Americans believe he died by suicide in jail. That figure pales in comparison to the 42 percent of people who think that Epstein was murdered to prevent him from testifying against some of his powerful associates.*

The news attracted a huge level of interest with more than two thirds of people saying that they followed developments ‘closely’ and one quarter of people saying they followed it ‘very closely.’ Among Americans following the story ‘very closely’, 56 percent believe Epstein was murdered, Rasmussen found.

The survey was carried out in the days after Epstein’s death and it involved 1,000 respondents. It found that men were more likely than women to suspect that the disgraced financier was murdered. White respondents were also found to be less suspicious than people from minority backgrounds.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Epstein’s autopsy found that the 66-year old had several broken bones in his neck including his hyoid bone. Forensic experts told the paper that breaks in the bone can occur in those who hang themselves, however, they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation.

*  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

August 16, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | | 6 Comments

Why does Trump need Zelensky

By Alexander Ponomarenko | August 16, 2019

On August 9, Voice of America journalist Mikhail Komadovsky asked President of the United States Donald Trump whether he plans to invite President Vladimir Zelensky to the White House and how he would advise him to communicate with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

The US President’s response was eyebrow-raising enough: “He’s going to make a deal with President Putin. And he will be invited to the White House. He is a reasonable guy. He wants to see peace in Ukraine. I think he’ll be coming very soon.”

The sensation was that a few hours earlier, United States Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor said that a possibility of a Zelensky-Trump meeting in Warsaw and New York is only being worked out. It was clear that it was about a symbolic act, a brief meeting and a succinct conversation on the sidelines of a UN General Assembly session and arrangements timed to the 80th anniversary of the World War II outbreak.

And suddenly the American President himself says Zelensky’s visit will take place soon and pays him generous compliments. Why would he? We certainly need to take heed that Trump said not a single negative word about Russia and welcomed an early settlement. All of this sustains the hypothesis that he wants to get along with Moscow, but I do not think that this was the President’s number-one motivation. For Trump, the main thing is his re-election next year, as well as his key alleged rival, Joe Biden. And his compliments to the President of Ukraine seem to testify to his having enlisted cooperation of the new Kiev authorities in this regard.

Here it is appropriate to recall the conversation between Trump and Zelensky of July 25. The press service of the President of Ukraine reported that the US leader offered his congratulations to the former on the victory of the Servant of the People party at the parliamentary elections and expressed conviction that the new Ukrainian government proves able to quickly improve the image of Ukraine and to complete the investigation into corruption cases that hampered cooperation between Ukraine and the United States.

It is clear that the above phrase about the image and corruption cases restraining bilateral relations is a broad hint at both Kiev’s help in the 2016 struggle of the Democratic Party with Trump, which resulted in the Manafort case, and the dark Ukraine business of former US Vice President and Trump’s likely opponent Joe Biden.

But the most interesting thing is that the entire text with its transparent hints is a product of the Ukrainian President’s press service. After all, it is the only source of information in this respect, as the conversation between the two presidents has been mentioned neither on the White House website nor on Donald Trump’s Twitter. As press services traditionally provide a summary of the conversation, if both parties report on it, their messages are never identical, because each focuses on the facts considered the most fascinating to it.

In other words, it’s not just that Trump took interest in the part Hunter Biden, the son of his rival, had in the Burisma gas producing company and the role of the last Kiev administration and the Soros grant-eaters in digging up dirt while fighting against his election campaign in 2016, but that the Zelensky press service has actually voiced this. But they could have erased the hints and just report that “the US President stressed the importance of combating corruption.”

The presence of such a hint could be explained by the unsophistication of the Ukrainian President’s press service, but an explanation of this kind is out of place after Trump’s statement about his imminent meeting with Zelensky. Compliments to the President of Ukraine are a likely consequence of his willingness to help Trump in the issue key for him.

Yes, a week before the Kiev inauguration, The Washington Post reported Zelensky as afraid to be involved in the internal American conflict, as well as that he was surrounded by people who were enemies of Trump. The last phrase is an expression by attorney to the American President and former mayor of the New York City Rudolf Giuliani in justification of his planned trip to Kiev. He did not mention any names, but there could be only one person behind the transparent hint – Deputy of the eighth Verkhovna Rada convocation Serhiy Leshchenko, who was first to make a point of Manafort’s getting money from the Party of Regions. Leshchenko did really support Zelensky and attended events arranged by him, but all of this was before the inauguration.

The Zelensky team set a course for a criminal prosecution of former President Petro Poroshenko. And there is an opinion among Kiev experts that it is through the imprisonment of old team representatives that the new President will try to ensure his ratings, because succeeding here appears incomparably easier than in economy or in the Donbass region. However, with the patrons Poroshenko has in the West, the victory may be hollow. And those patrons will stand up for the ex-President even notwithstanding such skeletons in the closet as Poroshenko’s role in digging up Trump’s dirt in 2016 and the role of Yuri Lutsenko (№1 on list to the PPB in the 2014 elections), his political appointee to the post of Prosecutor General, as regards the termination of the Prosecutor’s Office’s interest in Burisma. And if probing into those “skeletons”, one can expect a favorable attitude of the White House.

But that’s not all of Zelensky’s motivation to support Trump. In exchange for such assistance one can ensure patronage in matters important. For instance, the presence of those close to Igor Kolomoyskyi in the establishment. I am primarily referring to Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine (the former Presidential Administration) Andriy Bohdan. Let me remind you that in May Giuliani hurled forth his rage upon Kolomoyskyi as a “criminal oligarch”.

However, the Ukrainian media have published leaked information that Trump refuses to meet with Zelensky while Bohdan heads the administration. But the compliments of the American President to the President of Ukraine obviously disavow such a rumor. By the way, it is quite possible that pressure on Zelensky through Kolomoyskyi has originally been a lever to persuade him to cooperate in the Biden case and other things Trump is concerned with.

Yes, getting involved in domestic political games of the United States is risky for Zelensky, because there is no guarantee that the White House will not be occupied by the Democrats in 2021. But it’s a long way off, and the situation is far from being easy under pressure coming from Washington. In addition, assistance to Trump in matters essential to him will obviously be delivered through the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, with its leadership to change after a new Rada convocation starts its work. And Zelensky will get an opportunity to say that the Prosecutor’s Office is an independent agency free from presidential interference.

Alexander Ponomarenko is a political scientist with BRICS.

August 16, 2019 Posted by | Corruption | , , | Leave a comment

Jeffrey Epstein and the Spectacle of Secrecy

By Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain | August 15, 2019

When phrases such as “the deep state” and “conspiracy theory” become staples of both the corporate mainstream media and the alternative press, we know the realities behind these phrases have outlasted their usefulness for the ruling elites that control the United States and for their critics, each of whom uses them refutably or corrobatively. These phrases are bandied about so often that they have become hackneyed and inane.

Everything is shallow now, in our faces, and by being in our faces the truth is taking place behind our backs. The obvious can’t be true since it’s so obvious, so let us search for other explanations, and when the searchers search, let us call them “conspiracy nuts.” It is a mind game of extraordinary proportions, orchestrated by the perverted power elites that run the show and ably abetted by their partners in the corporate mass media, even some in the alternative press who mean well but are confused, or are disinformation agents in the business of sowing confusion together with their mainstream Operation Mockingbird partners.  It is a spectacle of open secrecy, in which the CIA, which created the “conspiracy theory” meme to ridicule critics of the Warren Commission’s absurd explanation of the Kennedy assassination, has effectively sucked everyone into a game of to and fro in which only they win.

“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”

Only by stepping outside this narrative frame with its vocabulary can we begin to grasp the truth here in our Wonderland of endless illusions.

Death, sex, power, intrigue, murder, suicide – these are the staples of the penny press of the 19th century, Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, Hearst’s New York Journal, the tabloids, today’s mass media, and the CIA.  People hunger for these stories, not for the real truth that impacts their lives, but for the titillation that gives a frisson to their humdrum lives. It is why post-modern detective stories are so popular, as if never solving the crime is the point.

To say “we will never know” is the mantra of a postmodern culture created to keep people running in circles. (Note the commentaries about the Jeffrey Epstein case.) Elusive and allusive indeterminacy characterizes everything in the culture of postmodernity. Robert Pfaller, a professor at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria and a founding member of the Viennese psychoanalytic research group “stuzzicandenti,” put it clearly in a recent interview:

The ruling ideology since the fall of the Berlin Wall, or even earlier, is postmodernism. This is the ideological embellishment that the brutal neoliberal attack on Western societies’ welfare (that was launched in the late 1970s) required in order to attain a “human”, “liberal” and “progressive” face. This coalition between an economic policy that serves the interest of a tiny minority, and an ideology that appears to “include” everybody is what Nancy Fraser has aptly called “progressive neoliberalism”. It consists of neoliberalism, plus postmodernism as its ideological superstructure

The propagandists know this; they created it.  They are psychologically astute, having hijacked many intelligent but soul-less people of the right and left to do their handiwork. Money buys souls, and the number of those who have sold theirs is numerous, including those leftists who have been bought by the CIA, as Cord Meyer, the CIA official phrased it so sexually in the 1950s: we need to “court the compatible left.” He knew that drawing leftists into the CIA’s orbit was the key to efficient propaganda. For so many of the compatible left, those making a lot of money posing as opponents of the ruling elites but taking the money of the super-rich, the JFK assassination and the truth of September 11, 2001 are inconsequential, never to be broached, as if they never happened, except as the authorities say they did. By ignoring these most in-your-face events with their eyes wide shut, a coterie of influential leftists has done the work of Orwell’s crime-stop and has effectively succeeded in situating current events in an ahistorical and therefore misleading context that abets U.S. propaganda.

The debate over whether Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide or not is a pseudo-debate meant to keep people spinning their wheels over nothing. It attracts attention and will do so for many days to come. There are even some usually astute people suggesting that he may not be dead but might have been secretly whisked off somewhere and replaced with a dead look-alike. Now who would profit from suggesting something as insane as this? The speculation runs rampant and feeds the spectacle. Whether he was allowed to kill himself or was killed makes little difference.

It’s akin to asking who pulled the trigger that killed President Kennedy. That’s a debate that was intended to go nowhere, as it has, after it became apparent that Lee Harvey Oswald surely did not kill JFK.  John Kennedy’s murder in broad daylight in public view is the paradigmatic event of modern times. It is obvious to anyone that gives minimal study to the issue that it was organized and carried out by elements within the national security state, notably the CIA. Their message was meant to be unequivocal and clear: We can kill him and we can kill you; we are in full control; beware. Then they went on to kill others, including RFK and MLK.  It takes little intelligence to see this obvious fact, unless you wish not to or are totally lost in the neighborhood of make-believe.

As it was with Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald, so it is with Epstein. There will be no trial.  Nothing is really hidden except the essential truth. Guess, debate, wonder, watch, read to your sad heart’s content.  You will have gotten nowhere unless you step outside the frame of the reigning narrative.

A corollary example of another recent national headline grabber, the Mueller investigation, is apropos here. Douglass Valentine, expert on the CIA and author of The CIA as Organized Crime, said in a recent interview that in all the endless mass media discussions of the Mueller investigation, one obvious question was never asked: What is the CIA’s role in it all? It was never asked because the job of the corporate mass media is to work for the CIA, not to expose it as a nest of organized criminals and murderers that it is.

What is important in the Epstein case is the deep back story, a tale that goes back decades and is explored by Whitney Webb in a series of fine articles for the Mint Press. Read her articles and you will see how Epstein is just the current manifestation of the sordid history of the American marriage between various factions of the American ruling elites, whose business is sexual exploitation as a fringe benefit of being willing members of the economic and military exploitation of the world. A marriage of spies, mafia, intelligence agencies, sexual perverts, foreign governments, and American traitors who will stop at nothing to advance their interests.

It is a hard story to swallow because it destroys the fairy tale that has been constructed about American “democracy” and the decency of our leaders. Webb’s articles are not based on secret documents but on readily available information open to a diligent researcher. It’s known history that has been buried, as is most history in a country of amnesiacs and educational illiterates.  The average person doesn’t have Webb’s skill or time to pull it all together, but they can read her illuminating work. Often, however, it is the will to truth that is lacking.

While Webb places the Epstein matter in an historical context, she does not “solve” the case, since there is nothing to solve. It is another story from a long litany of sex/espionage stories openly available to anyone willing to look. They tell the same story. Like many commentators, she draws many linkages to the Israeli Mossad’s long-standing connections to this criminal under and over world in the United States and throughout the world. She writes:

Ultimately, the picture painted by the evidence is not a direct tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group [a secretive group of Jewish billionaires, including Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexner], politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.

If anything is obvious about the Epstein case, it is that he was part of a sexual blackmail operation tied to intelligence agencies. Such blackmail has long been central to the methods of intelligence agencies worldwide and many arrows rightfully point to the Mossad.

However, while throughout Webb’s articles she draws linkages that lead to the Mossad, she only suggests CIA connections. This is similar to but milder than a point made in an article written by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist, Did Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Work for Mossad? Giraldi writes that the CIA “would have no particular motive to acquire an agent like Epstein.” This makes no sense. Of course, they would. The CIA and the FBI have a long record of such activities, and to hold such a club over the heads of presidents, senators, et al to make sure they do their bidding is obviously a strong motivation.

Valentine’s point about not asking the question about the CIA’s involvement in the Mueller investigation pertains. Does Giraldi believe that the Mossad operates independently of the CIA? Or that they don’t work in tandem?  His statement is very strange.

The CIA is organized crime, and if Epstein is Mossad connected, he is CIA also, which is most likely. No one like Epstein could have operated as he did for decades without being sustained and protected. Now that he is dead there will be no trial, just as there will be no mainstream media or justice department revelations about the CIA or Mossad. There will be a lot of gibberish about conspiracy theories and the open secret that is the spectacle of secrecy will roll on. There will, of course, be much sex talk and outrage. We will anxiously await the movie and the TV “exposés.” Most people will know, and pretend they don’t, that the country is ruled by gangsters who would pimp their mothers if it served their interests.

Those of us who oppose these criminals – and there are growing numbers all over the world – must avoid being sucked into the establishment narratives and the counter-narratives they spawn or create. We must refuse to get involved in pseudo-debates that are meant to lead nowhere.  We must reject the language created to confuse.

If revolutionary change is to come, we must learn to tell a new story in language so beautiful, illuminating, and heart-rending that no one will listen to the lying words of child molesters, mass murderers, and those who hate and persecute truth tellers.

As John Berger said, “In storytelling everything depends on what follows what.  And the truest order is seldom obvious.”

August 15, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | 5 Comments

How the OPCW’s investigation of the Douma incident was nobbled

By Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason, Piers Robinson Members of Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media

The creation in 2014 of a new mechanism – the “Fact-Finding Mission in Syria” (FFM) – to investigate alleged chemical attacks allowed the OPCW to bypass the procedures laid down in the Chemical Weapons Convention for investigations of alleged use, and to set its own rules for these investigations.

The roles of the Director-General and the newly appointed director of the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) are mostly ceremonial. The effective boss of the OPCW is the Chief of Cabinet Sébastien Braha, a French diplomat, and the Principal Investigator of the IIT is Elise Coté, a Canadian diplomat. Although these individuals have obvious conflicts of interest in relation to Syria, the OPCW lacks any procedure for managing such situations.

The Technical Secretariat’s excuse for suppression of the Engineering Assessment – that evidence that the cylinders were manually placed rather than dropped from the air is “outside of the mandate and methodology of the FFM” – is fallacious and contradicts OPCW’s published reports on the Douma incident.

It was already clear from open-source evidence, as we pointed out in an earlier briefing note, that the Interim and Final Reports of the FFM on the Douma incident had been nobbled.* Our sources have now filled in some of the details of this process. Specifically:

  • By mid-June 2018 there would have been ample time to draft an interim report that summarized the analysis of witness testimony, open-source images, on-site inspections and lab results. We have learned that the original draft of the interim report, which had noted inconsistencies in the evidence of a chemical attack, was revised by a process that was not transparent to FFM team members to become the published Interim Report released on 6 July 2018 that included only the laboratory results.
  • After the release of the Interim Report, the investigation proceeded in secrecy with all FFM team members who had deployed to Douma excluded. It was nominally led by Sami Barrek who as FFM Team Leader had left Damascus before the on-site inspections began. These FFM team members do not know who wrote the document that was released as the “Final Report of the FFM”.
  • We have learned from multiple sources that the second stage of the investigation involved consultation with Len Phillips, the previous leader of FFM Team Alpha who worked in the OPCW during this period as a self-employed consultant.

From examination of three earlier FFM reports on incidents in 2015 or 2017 where Phillips was the Team Leader, it is clear that these reports also excluded or ignored evidence that these alleged chemical attacks had been staged. Specifically:

  • The FFM report on the alleged chlorine attacks in Idlib between 16 March and 20 May 2015 omitted the crucial fact, later noted by the Joint Investigative Mechanism, that the refrigerant canisters allegedly used as components of chemical munitions could not have been repurposed.
  • The FFM report on the alleged sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2017 omitted the information, later noted by the Joint Investigative Mechanism which had access to the same records, that the recorded hospital admission times of at least 100 patients were too early for them to have reached hospital if they had become casualties at the time the attack was alleged to have occurred.
  • The FFM investigation of the alleged chlorine attack in Ltamenah on 25 March 2017, reported on 13 June 2018, led it to discover a previously unrecorded sarin attack nearby the day before, and to prompt the White Helmets to provide, eleven months later, munition parts that tested positive for intact sarin. The report failed to explain or even comment on how intact sarin could have persisted for so long in the open.

This indicates that the suppression of the Engineering Assessment of the Douma incident was not an isolated aberration. In this context it is relevant that the opposition-linked NGOs on which the FFM has relied for evidence since 2014 have dubious provenance, and at least some of them have been set up under UK tutelage.

The credibility of the OPCW cannot be restored simply by finding some way to reverse what were purported to be the findings of the FFM on the Douma incident, but only by an independent re-examination of all its previous investigations of alleged chemical attacks in Syria, and a radical reform of its governance and procedures.

To resolve the discrepancy between the conclusions of the internal Engineering Assessment and those of the Final Report, a first step would be to make public the assessments of the external engineering experts on whom the Final Report relied. The engineering assessments were based on observations of the cylinders and measurements at the locations where they were found.

As the cylinders, tagged and sealed by the OPCW inspectors, are in the custody of the Syrian government, it is feasible to undertake an independent study to determine whether the conclusions of earlier engineering assessments can be replicated. For such a study to be credible, it would have to be undertaken by a panel independent of OPCW, in accordance with methods for reproducible research.

This is the Summary of a long work first published by Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media earlier this year, to read the full report click here.

*The term ‘nobbled’ is used here to describe illegal or unfair interference. The term was originally used to describe actions designed to prevent a horse from winning a race.

August 15, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , | 2 Comments

Guardian Attacks Epstein “Conspiracy Theories”

The mainstream narrative is shaping up – a story of suicide, neglect and tragic victims

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | August 14, 2019

In two different opinion pieces The Guardian has made its position on the alleged death of Jeffrey Epstein clear – he “probably” committed suicide.

The first, titled Epstein conspiracy theories are farfetched – but can you blame people?, takes the position that although “conspiracy theories” about Epstein’s apparent suicide are “understandable”, there’s no evidence to support them.

Rather, the author endorses the slowly coalescing official narrative. Namely that of complete, systemic incompetence:

The official explanation for Epstein’s death comes down to rank incompetence. And it’s probably true.

A short-sighted attitude to take, which totally ignores a cardinal rule when dealing with state agencies: They will only admit to incompetence if the truth is worse.

The author also attempts to undermine the “conspiracy theories” by pointing out that Epstein was a potential threat to important figures on both sides of the political divide:

Online, conspiracy theories now abound. Observers suggest Epstein was killed by one of the men who may have been implicated in his crimes – maybe Bill Clinton, according to the fringe right, or maybe Donald Trump, according to the fringe left.

An argument rather akin to saying “he can’t possibly have been murdered, because there were too many people who wanted him dead. There are SO MANY plausible suspects, that the only reasonable explanation is that…none of them did it.”

(Also, note the word “fringe”, a manipulative use of language designed to discredit an idea without engaging with it rationally)

However, this article – although laced through with traditional mainstream rhetoric about “conspiracy theories” – at least leaves them room to exist. The Guardian’s other Epstein piece is rather less understanding:

Epstein’s death is a victory for misogyny: it denies accusers the justice they deserve

Blares the headline (further evidence that very few people at the Guardian seem to know what “misogyny” really means), before continuing by taking aim at conspiracy theories several times in the text.

Firstly, in an almost word-for-word quote from the previous column:

Commentators on the right speculated that he had been murdered by powerful liberals; those on the left speculated that he had been murdered by powerful conservatives. These theories were not responses to evidence, of which there is little

And then later claiming conspiracy theories not only “factually wrong” (something no one can know at this stage)…

The speculations may well be factually wrong – criminal justice experts have pointed out that inmate suicides are common, and that those detained in federal jails often face startling neglect

… but also attempting to Mrs Lovejoy the public by claiming “conspiracy theories” are actually harmful:

the positing of these conspiracy theories is unhelpful, distracting from the important injustice that has been done to Epstein’s victims.

Declaring seeking the truth to be somehow unfair to the victims is a classic trope, deployed most famously against 9/11 Truthers, but common after many such incidents.

There’s also this sentence…

The conspiracy theorists also risk undermining efforts to bring Epstein’s co-conspirators to account: their suggestions that the financier was killed to cover up the rapes and assaults of powerful men who would rather he be shut up could lend suspicion to anyone pointing out the breadth of his alleged pedophilia ring, giving those who want continued investigations of men such as Dershowitz, Pritzker and Dubin the aura of a maniac in a tinfoil hat.

Which, I’ll be honest, I simply don’t understand.

I think she’s arguing that “conspiracy theorists” talking about “conspiracy theories” might discredit the very real possibility there was an actual conspiracy.

If that’s what she means – because I honestly do not understand the words – well, that’s obviously just crazy. You can’t argue we shouldn’t talk about conspiracy theories, just in case there’s a conspiracy fact.

That’s the attitude of a person so brainwashed by the idea that “conspiracy theorist = crazy person” that they can no longer think in a straight line. Total cognitive dissonance.

The articles are different in tone, but they are united in purpose, and they each hit the same three key points:

  1. Epstein “probably” killed himself. After all, inmates commit suicide all the time.
  2. Conspiracy theories might look reasonable, but they are factually incorrect and morally harmful.
  3. The real tragedy here is the poor victims who will go unavenged. We should all focus on that, not investigating the potential murder.

All this serves to demonstrate – for about the millionth time – the entire purpose of outrage culture and identity politics. Fear of being offensive used to control a conversation and dictate narrative: Don’t talk about Epstein being murdered, don’t even think about it. If you do, you’re a misogynist.

Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He used to write for fun, but now he’s forced to out of a near-permanent sense of outrage.

August 14, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | 2 Comments

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer

Israel’s man in the House of Representatives

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 13, 2019

It is astonishing that in the wake of the two mass killings in Dayton and El Paso that have been attributed both by the media and the Democrats to “racism,” a senior U.S. Congressman has led a delegation of 41 of his Democratic Party colleagues plus spouses on a week-long luxury all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, which is one of the few countries in the world that defines its full citizenship as a matter of race and religion. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland is, however, apparently tone deaf to some critics of the annual excursion, having made the pilgrimage to Israel more than fifteen times. “I am pleased to join so many House Democrats in traveling to Israel to reaffirm our support for a critical U.S. ally and to continue learning about the opportunities and the challenges facing Israel and the Middle East,” he said shortly before departing for Tel Aviv.

Hoyer did not mention how he had managed to pull together such a large group of co-conspirators in spite of critical issues that need to be confronted at home during recess in town hall meetings, which, due to the trip, will operate on a short schedule if at all. As Majority Leader, he is reported to be skilled at strong-arming new colleagues to compel them to make the trip to demonstrate the loyalty of the U.S. Congress and the Democratic Party to the Jewish state, which is his top priority. According to The Intercept, “Hoyer… uses his power over the House floor agenda to coerce participation. A member who refuses an invitation can find it difficult to have their bills brought to the floor for a vote. ‘His senior staff lock down cooperating members by getting their bills to the floor and punishing non-cooperators,’ said one former representative who rejected the invitation. ‘I was tortured for a decade because I refused to go on that trip…’”

Of course, the Israelis are themselves seasoned professionals when it comes to mass shooting, something that they do every Friday across the fence into Gaza, but they are unlikely to demonstrate their marksmanship to the visiting congressmen. They in any event know that Israel will never be condemned in fora like the United Nations Security Council because of the exercise of Washington’s veto. Hoyer and company are the reason that there is such a veto even though Israel is a serial war criminal and human rights violator, so in a sense he and his Democratic Party friends are the reason why the Jewish state believes itself empowered to behave so badly. And, lest anyone is worried about bipartisanship, the Republicans too have a delegation in Israel headed by House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy consisting of 31 congressmen. The 72 congressmen from both parties constitute one of the largest delegations ever to travel to to the Jewish state.

Hoyer is a bought and paid for Israeli puppet and a big part of his job is to make sure that new Congressmen and women are adequately brainwashed regarding what is going on in the Middle East. Maryland’s Democratic Party has long been dominated by Jews from Baltimore and Montgomery County and Hoyer has successfully cultivated Jewish congressmen to advance his career. He has benefited directly from $320,025 pro-Israel PAC donations to fund his reelection campaigns and has undoubtedly also received generous donations from individual Jews and from organizations not organized as PACs.

Steny Hoyer’s foreign policy votes in Congress have not surprisingly mirrored positions taken by the Israeli government. He supported the attack on Iraq and was in fact very possibly the most prominent promoter of the war among Democrats. When the war became a foreign policy disaster, he muted his approval of it but has continued to vote for funding of U.S. military involvement in both Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Hoyer’s support of Israel is unshakable and he has often appeared and spoken before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual summit. At his most recent appearance this past spring his keynote speech included “I stand with Israel, proudly and unapologetically. So, when someone accuses American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty, I say: accuse me. I am part of a large, bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel. I tell Israel’s detractors: accuse us.” Well, he got that right. He and many other congressmen do suffer from dual or even singular loyalty when it comes to Israel.

In 2007 Hoyer notably called out fellow Democrat Representative Jim Moran for stating correctly that AIPAC “has pushed (the Iraq) war from the beginning.” Hoyer called the statement “factually inaccurate,” which was not the case. He is a supporter of the Israeli illegal settlements, which up until recently was contrary to both U.S. official policy and a number of United Nations resolutions. In January 2017, he was a leading advocate of a House of Representatives resolution condemning the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, which called both the settlements and the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as a “flagrant violation of international law and a major obstacle to peace.” Hoyer also has supported President Donald Trump’s move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.

Israel’s enemies are also Hoyer’s enemies whether or not they threaten the United States. He has declared that an Iran with nuclear weapons is “unacceptable” and supports the use of American military force to deter such a development, ignoring the fact that Israel already has a nuclear arsenal which President John F. Kennedy tried to prevent before he was assassinated. Hoyer also supports keeping a U.S. military presence in Syria in spite of the lack of any threat to the United States from that direction, part of an Israeli plan to divide that country into its constituent tribal and religious parts.

Hoyer’s trip is paid for by the “educational” affiliate of AIPAC called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). One might reasonably ask why an organization connected to AIPAC, which describes itself on its website as having the “mission” to “… strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel,” should be able to fund the annual mass migration of congress-critters to promote Israeli interests without having to register as an agent of the Jewish state’s government? The answer is actually quite simple. Congress and the Justice Department have been so corrupted by pro-Israel money and other manifestations of Jewish power that they do not enforce the law when it comes to Israel. Steny Hoyer and venal creatures like him are a large part of why that is so.

Nevertheless, analysis provided by Josh Ruebner at Mondoweiss cites “Dr. Craig Holman, Government Affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, who drafted the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA), designed to curb the influence of lobbyist money in congressional travel” as saying that it ‘… is unequivocal that the arrangement between AIEF and AIPAC ‘defies the spirit as well as the letter of the law’.” The law itself prohibits Members of Congress from accepting from any organization with income of at least $13,000 per quarter “that retains or employs 1 or more registered lobbyists… funds earmarked directly or indirectly for the purpose of financing” travel by congressmen or women for longer than one day.

According to Holman, AIPAC, which spent $700,000 in lobbying during the second quarter of 2019 alone, gets around the prohibition by having AIEF, which is a 501(c)3 educational foundation that does no lobbying, do the funding. The loophole to permit congressional junkets beyond the one day is referred to as “the AIPAC loophole,” as its intent was clearly to permit congressional paid-for-by-lobbyists travel to Israel to continue. That the arrangement is essentially fraudulent is revealed by examination of the two entities’ tax returns, which reveals that AIPAC pays the AIEF employees.

The solution to the problem remains simple. Tighten up the Congressional travel rules to eliminate the “AIPAC exemption” while at the same time requiring AIPAC and the other prominent organizations that are part of the Israel Lobby to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which would open up their finances and lobbying to more intense scrutiny. But, of course, Steny Hoyer and his friends will never allow that to happen.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 14, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 1 Comment

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