Spanish Supreme Court Sentences Former IMF Chief for Financial Fraud
teleSUR | October 3, 2018
Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced the former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Rodrigo Rato to four-and-a-half years imprisonment Wednesday on charges of misusing funds.
In February 2017, Rato was found guilty by Spain’s Supreme Court of paying for personal expenses with company credit cards when he was the chief of Caja Madrid and the state-owned lender Bankia during a time when both the banks faced financial difficulties.
Rato was an economy minister in Spain between 1996 and 2004 and a prominent politician in the ruling People’s Party before becoming the IMF chief. He was free on bail since 2017 pending an appeal, but was found guilty alongside 64 former executives and board members for embezzling a total of US$13.8 million between 2003 and 2012.
Spanish political party Podemos welcomed the court decision, saying Spaniards had long demanded justice, tweeting, “the citizens demanded justice for those who robbed public money, ripped off thousands of families, and burdened us with debt for life.”
The embezzlment — famously known as the “black-cards” scandal — broke in 2014 resulting in public outrage. It was discovered that the cards were used to buy jewelry and clothes, and pay for vacations, according to documents filed with Spain’s high court.
Thousands of small-scale investors lost their money after they were persuaded to convert their savings to shares ahead of the flotation of Bankia in 2011, with Rato at the reins. Less than a year later, he resigned when it became public knowledge that Bankia was in dire straits.
FBI documents detail Clinton and Mueller’s own ‘Russiagate’ – but they’re classified
RT | October 3, 2018
The FBI is facing new calls to declassify documents relating to the sale of US uranium to a Russian company, documents that could implicate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and ‘Russiagate’ witch-hunter Robert Mueller.
While Clinton and crew relentlessly push the idea that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the run-up to the 2016 election, and while Special Counsel Robert Mueller searches with a magnifying glass for any sign of this collusion, all parties involved are much quieter when it comes to the Uranium One scandal.
Among a trove of documents relating to the controversial deal, the FBI has identified 37 pages that could shine a light on why then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration approved the deal.
The pages were recently added to the agency’s Freedom of Information Act online vault. The only problem – they’re classified.
The reasons given for the classification will sound familiar to anyone following President Trump’s recent struggle to declassify another set of FBI documents: doing so would violate the privacy of individuals involved, would place national security at risk, would disclose secret law enforcement techniques, and would reveal confidential inter-agency communication, among others.
What we do know about Uranium One reads like a Cold War spy thriller.
The debacle began in 2009 when state-owned Russian atomic energy firm Rosatom was in talks to buy part of Canadian-based mining company Uranium One, and with it control over 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.
As the deal was being hashed out, the FBI planted a spy posing as a consultant, businessman William Douglas Campbell, in Rosatom. Campbell uncovered evidence that Rosatom’s main executive in America, Vadim Mikerin, was involved in bribery, extortion, and money laundering, as he sought to gain “improper business advantages” for US firms that worked with a Rosatom-owned firm he chaired.
The FBI compiled Campbell’s evidence, and Mikerin was charged and deported, but not until summer 2018. Back in 2010, the Obama administration approved the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom anyway.
The sale needed to be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CIFUS), which was chaired by Hillary Clinton. Campbell told three separate Congressional committees that Moscow had hired lobbying firm APCO Worldwide to use its influence with Clinton to negotiate the deal, for which the Clinton Foundation would receive generous kickbacks.
Democrats dismissed the scandal as the stuff of right-wing conspiracy theory, and Clinton herself called accusations of wrongdoing “baloney.” Still, Republicans held that something was amiss, citing Bill Clinton’s $500,000 fee for a speech in Moscow in 2010 as proof the Clintons were peddling influence for Russian money. At the same time, Mrs. Clinton was pushing for a great “reset” in US-Russia relations. The plot thickens.
The FBI director at the time? None other than Robert Mueller, currently the Witch-Hunter-in-chief, leading the crusade against the Trump team. What a difference eight years make.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in March that a federal prosecutor from Utah, John Huber, would look into both the Uranium One deal and FBI misconduct in the Clinton email investigation. Trump too seemed eager to get to the bottom of the scandal, and has regularly bashed Clinton for her alleged role in facilitating the sale.
The Justice Department’s probe has largely taken place on the sidelines, has generated few headlines, and has not made its findings, if any, public. Why then, are the FBI’s documents, clearly of critical importance to understanding the whole debacle, still secret?
“Either the United States, eyes wide open, approved giving uranium assets to a corrupt Russia, or the FBI failed to give the evidence of criminality to the policymakers before such a momentous decision,” wrote The Hill’s John Solomon. If the second option were true, the next step would be establishing whether the agency withheld this evidence knowingly, or through simple negligence.
According to Solomon, an investigative reporter who first disclosed Campbell’s involvement in Rosatom as an FBI informant, Campbell maintains that both then-President Obama and then-Director Mueller were briefed by agents about Rosatom’s shady activities, but the sale was allowed to go through because of “politics.”
According to another of Solomon’s sources, “There is definitely material (in the 37 pages) that would be illuminating to the issues that have been raised… somebody should fight to make it public.”
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) has called on the FBI to “stop investigating high school yearbooks and start declassifying Uranium One,” and has urged Senate Republicans to pressure the agency into declassifying the documents. Failing that, Huckabee suggested that Trump order the declassification, which he is well within his power to do so.
Doing so would not only bring the truth that much closer to being revealed, but could also give Trump the opportunity to score some political points against his old nemeses: surely a tempting prospect.
The US Military-Industrial Complex’s Worst Nightmare: The S-300 May Destroy and Expose the F-35
By Federico Pieraccini | American Herald Tribune | September 30, 2018
The tragic episode that caused the death of 15 Russian air force personnel has had immediate repercussions on the situation in Syria and the Middle East. On September 24, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed allies and opponents that the delivery of the S-300 air-defense systems to the Syrian Arab Republic had been approved by President Vladimir Putin. The delivery had been delayed and then suspended as a result of Israeli pressure back in 2013.
In one sense, the delivery of S-300 batteries to Syria is cause for concern more for Washington than for Tel Aviv. Israel has several F-35 and has claimed to have used them in Syria to strike alleged Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah. With the S-300 systems deployed in an updated version and incorporated into the Russian command, control and communications (C3) system, there is a serious risk (for Washington) that Israel, now incapable of changing the course of events in Syria, could attempt a desperate maneuver.
It is no secret that Greece purchased S-300s from Russia years ago, and that NATO and Israel have trained numerous times against the Russian air-defense system. Senior IDF officials have often insisted that they are capable taking out the S-300s, having apparently discovered their weaknesses.
Tel Aviv’s warning that it will attack and destroy the S-300 battery should not be taken as an idle threat. It is enough to look at the recent downing of Russia’s Il-20 surveillance aircraft to understand how reckless a desperate Israel is prepared to be. Moreover, more than one IDF commander has over the years reiterated that a Syrian S-300 would be considered a legitimate target if threatening Israeli aircraft.
At this point, it is necessary to add some additional information and clarify some points. Greece’s S-300s are old, out of maintenance, and have not had their electronics updated. Such modern and complex systems as the S-300s and S-400s require maintenance, upgrades, and often replacement of parts to improve hardware. All this is missing from the Greek batteries. Secondly, it is the operator who uses the system (using radar, targeting, aiming, locking and so forth) that often makes the difference in terms of overall effectiveness. Furthermore, the system is fully integrated into the Russian C3 system, something that renders useless any previous experience gleaned from wargaming the Greek S-300s. No Western country knows the real capabilities and capacity of Syrian air defense when augmented and integrated with Russian systems. This is a secret that Damascus and Moscow will continue to keep well guarded. Yet two years ago, during the operations to free Aleppo, a senior Russian military officer warned (presumably alluding to fifth-generation stealth aircraft like the F-35 and F-22) that the range and effectiveness of the Russian systems may come as a surprise.
The following are the words of Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu concerning the deployment of the S-300 to Syria and its integration with other Russian systems:
“Russia will jam satellite navigation, onboard radars and communication systems of combat aircraft, which attack targets in the Syrian territory, in the Mediterranean Sea bordering with Syria. We are convinced that the implementation of these measures will cool hotheads and prevent ill-considered actions threatening our servicemen. Otherwise, we will respond in line with the current situation. Syrian troops and military air defense units will be equipped with automatic control systems, which have been supplied to the Russian Armed Forces. This will ensure the centralized management of the Syrian air defense forces and facilities, monitoring the situation in the airspace and prompt target designation. Most importantly, it will be used to identify the Russian aircraft by the Syrian air defense forces.”
If the Israelis will follow through with their reckless attempts to eliminate the S-300 (if they can find them in the first place, given that they are mobile), they will risk their F-35s being brought down. The US military-industrial complex would suffer irreparable damage. This would also explain why Israel (and probably the US) has for more than five years put enormous pressure on Moscow not to deliver the S-300 to Syria and Iran. The US State Department’s reaction over the future purchase by Turkey and India of the S-400 confirms the anxiety that US senior officials as well as generals are experiencing over the prospect of allies opting for the Russian systems. This would allow for a comparison with weapons these allies purchased from the US, leading to the discovery of vulnerabilities and the realization of the US weapons’ relative inferiority.
Given Tel Aviv’s tendency to place its own interests above all others, it would not be surprising to find them using the possibility of attacking the S-300 with their F-35s as a weapon to blackmail Washington into getting more involved in the conflict. For the United States, there are two scenarios to avoid. The first is a direct involvement in the conflict with Russia in Syria, which is now unthinkable and impractical. The second – much more worrying for military planners – concerns the possibility of the F-35’s capabilities and secrets being compromised or even being shown not to be a match against air-defense systems nearly half a century old.
An illuminating example of how the United States operates its most advanced aircraft in the region was given in eastern Syria around Deir ez-Zor. In this part of Syria, there is no threat from any advanced air-defense systems, so the US is often free to employ its F-22 in certain circumstances. The Russian military has repeatedly shown radar evidence that unequivocally shows that when Russian Su-35s appear in the same skies as the F-22, the US Air Force simply avoids any confrontation and quickly withdraws such fifth-generation assets as the F-22. The F-35 is not even ready in its naval variant, and has yet to be deployed on a US aircraft carrier near the Middle Eastern theater or the Persian Gulf; nor is it present in any US military base in the region. The US simply does not even consider using the F-35 in Syria, nor would it risk its use against Russian air defenses. Israel is the only country that so far may have already used these aircraft in Syria; but this was before the S-300 came onto the scene.
The F-35 program has already cost hundreds of billions of dollars and will soon reach the exorbitant and surreal figure of over 1 trillion dollars. It has already been sold to dozens of countries bound by decades-long agreements. The F-35 has been developed as a multi-role fighter and is expected to be the future backbone of NATO and her allies. Its development began more than 10 years ago and, despite the countless problems that still exist, it is already airborne and combat-ready, as the Israelis insist. From the US point of view, its employment in operations is played down and otherwise concealed. The less data available to opponents, the better; though the real reason may lie in a strong fear of any revelation of potential weaknesses of the aircraft damaging future sales. At this time, the Pentagon’s marketing of the F-35 is based on the evaluations provided by Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer, and on the tests carried out by the military who commissioned it to Lockheed Martin. Obviously, both Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force have no interest in revealing any weaknesses or shortcomings, especially publicly. Corruption is a big thing in Washington, contrary to common assumptions.
The combination of Israel’s ego, its inability to change the course of events in Syria, coupled with the loss of its ability to fly throughout the Middle East with impunity due to Syria now being equipped with a superior air defense – all these factors could push Israel into acting desperately by using the F-35 to take out the S-300 battery. Washington finds itself in the unenviable position of probably having no leverage with Israel over the matter ever since losing any ability to steer events in Syria.
With the Russian air-defense systems potentially being spread out to the four corners of the world, including China, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and who knows how many other countries waiting in the queue, Russia continues to increase its export capacity and military prestige as it demonstrates its control of most of the Syria’s skies. With the introduction of the the S-500 pending, one can imagine the sleepless nights being spent by those in the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin’s headquarters worrying about the possibility of an F-35 being taken down by an S-300 system manufactured in 1969.
Israel Lobbying for $900Mln in US Financial Aid – Document
CC BY 2.0 / zeevveez / Unites States of Israel
Sputnik – 29.09.2018
WASHINGTON – The Israeli government is lobbying in Washington, DC for $900 million in US financial aid, a lobbying registration form revealed.
“We will lobby the United States federal government, including the White House, the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, the United States Department of State, the United States Department of the Treasury, the United States Department of Commerce and the USAID to provide more than $900 million in financial aid to Israel,” the registration form by the Israeli government said on Friday.
The Israeli government said it has hired the American Federal Lobbying Firm to lobby on its behalf and protect its interests in Washington DC, according to the form.
US President Donald Trump during his address to the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday said the United States will be reviewing all of its foreign assistance programs and will only be contributing aid to countries that are respectful and friendly.
Israel gets far more than $38 billion under the new deal
By Nicole Feied | If Americans Knew | September 19, 2018
The AIPAC sponsored bill that guarantees $38 billion to Israel over the next ten years is a dramatic departure from the deal offered under President Obama’s 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).[1] Passed by the House of Representatives on September 12, 2018, the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018 effectively rolls back every limitation that President Obama placed on the amount of aid we give to Israel.
In addition, the House version provides Israel even more perks than the version passed by the Senate on August 11.
Most dramatically, this new act would eviscerate the ability of President Trump and his successors for the next ten years to withhold United States aid to Israel. Historically, almost every president since Eisenhower has attempted to withhold such aid at one time or another in order to force Israel to the peace table or to stop Israel from committing human right abuses or illegal acts such as taking Palestinian land and giving it to Israeli settlers.
In an unprecedented gift of our executive power to Israel, the House has passed for the very first time a law that forces the American president to give Israel a minimum of $3.8 billion per year. We have, in effect, crippled our ability to promote US interests in the Middle East.
President Eisenhower was the last American President who managed to use this threat effectively, when he forced Israel to withdraw from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in 1957.
Notably, President George Bush Senior failed miserably to make good on his threat to delay aid to Israel when their actions threatened a possible peace agreement with the neighboring Arab countries, complaining that he was “just one little lonely guy” in his battle against pro-Israel lobbyists. (New York Times, 1991 article, Bush Urges Delay On Aid For Israel; Threatens A Veto.)
Aid to Israel likely to increase even more
The second most important effect of this act is in Section 103. While the MOU limits the amount of aid we give Israel to the amount agreed upon, in this case $38 billion over 10 years, Section 103 of the current bill removes all limitations on how much we give Israel. Under the new act, instead of 38 billion being the cap, as Obama stipulated in his 2016 MOU, we must now give Israel a minimum of $3.8 billion per year until 2028.
Without a cap, and with incessant lobbying by Israel and her proxies in the United States, the amount we give could conceivably double over the next 10 years. This is a huge coup for Prime Minister Netanyahu and quite a slap in the face to the Obama administration.
Section 106 will increase Israel’s access to a war-reserve stockpile by completely removing the limits on how many precision guided missiles we can give Israel. The existing law set a maximum of $200 million worth of arms from the stockpile per year, to be charged against the agreed aid package.
An Israeli official gloated that the package was obtained “despite budget cuts, including defense cuts, in the U.S.”
The House version of the bill differs from the Senate version, replacing the words “sell” and “sale” to “transfer,” which appears to open the door for more gifts in excess of the $38 billion. To put this in context, a Tomahawk Missile currently costs about $1 million. The media recently lambasted President Trump for using 60 such missiles in Syria because of the high cost.
Section 107 calls on the President to prescribe procedures for the rapid acquisition and deployment of precision guided munitions. The House text differs from the Senate version in that it removes all the detailed requirements for Israel to have such rapid acquisition. In the version just passed by the House, there is only one, extremely broad requirement, that Israel is under direct threat of missiles (in Israel’s opinion).
Israel can export U.S. arms
Section 108 of the Act authorizes Israel to export arms it receives from the U.S., even though this violates U.S. law. The Senate version included a provision calling on the President to make an assessment of Israel’s eligibility before adding Israel to the exemption list.
The House version deleted that requirement, and simply orders the American President to grant Israel the privilege. In fact, Israel is ineligible, having repeatedly made unauthorized sales in violation of this Act. The Export Act further forbids granting such an exemption to any country that is in violation of International Nuclear Non-proliferation Agreement, which Israel has refused to sign. Israel is known to be in possession of nuclear weapons, and hence in violation and ineligible for the export exemption. Congress thus reiterates the message that it will force the President to continue funding Israel even when that violates our laws.
NASA
Section 201 orders NASA to work with the Israel Space Agency, even though an Israeli space official has been accused of illegally obtaining classified scientific technology from a NASA research project. U.S. agencies periodically name Israel as a top espionage threat against the United States. The section also states that United States Agency for International Development (USAID) must partner with Israel in “a wide variety of sectors, including energy, agriculture and food security, democracy, human rights and governance, economic growth and trade, education, environment, global health, and water and sanitation.”
Israel eludes usual military aid requirement
All countries except Israel are required to spend US military aid on American goods. This ensures that the American economy benefits to some degree from these massive gifts. (Of course, if americans wished to subsidize these U.S. companies, money could be provided directly to them, and Israel and other countries left to buy their equipment with their own money.)
In the past, Israel has spent 40 percent of U.S. aid on Israeli companies, at the expense of U.S. industry. Under Obama’s 2016 MOU, this percentage was to be decreased over the 10-year span, and eventually Israel’s unique right not to spend use U.S. military aid to purchase items from American companies was to be ended. The new Act eliminates this requirement, putting Israeli economic interests before our own.
Many in Israel criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu for his aggressive attempts to undermine President Obama’s Iran deal, fearing that it would anger the White House and result in a less favorable aid offer. Analysts were particularly worried about what might happen if Trump were elected, since in 2016 he had said that he expected Israel to pay back the security assistance it receives from the US.
Yet just two years later it looks like the Israeli Prime Minister will obtain everything he sought and more. This is not surprising, since Trump, under extreme political pressure, is increasingly pandering to hardcore Israel supporters like billionaire Sheldon Adelson and South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham. (Graham is a top recipient of pro-Israel campaign donations.[2])
Sheldon Adelson is known as the casino mogul who drives Trump’s Middle East policy
Lindsay Graham (R-SC) with pro-Israel billionaires Sheldon Adelson on his right and Haim Saban on his left. LobeLog reported: Over a glass of Riesling Graham described how to finance his campaign: “If I put together a finance team that will make me financially competitive enough to stay in this thing… I may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding. [Chuckles.] Bottom line is, I’ve got a lot of support from the pro-Israel funding.”
Netanyahu has demonstrated to the world that Israel can continue to act contrary to U.S. interests and still manage to get ever more military aid and greater concessions, greater access to U.S. secrets and technology, and greater control of U.S. foreign policy. An Israeli spokesperson crowed: “The landmark deal was reached despite budget cuts, including defense cuts, in the U.S.”
The bill now will go back to the Senate for approval, and then to Trump to be signed into U.S. law.
The $38 billion package amounts to $7,230 per minute to Israel, or $120 per second. And that’s before Israel advocates and ambitious politicians in our own country push it even higher.
Nicole Feied is an American writer and former criminal defense attorney, currently based in Greece. Alison Weir also contributed to the article.
Americans who wish to object, may contact their Congressional representatives here.
Informational cards to distribute about the bill, containing the top image, can be downloaded here.
1. The bill was timed to be introduced just before AIPAC’s 2018 annual conference in Washington D.C., so that delegates could lobby their representatives while they were in D.C.
2. Lobelog reported in 2015:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke bluntly about his plans for raising campaign funds for his prospective presidential campaign in an interview published today on “Washington Wire,” a Wall Street Journal blog. Over a glass of Riesling, according to the account, he answered a series of questions, including how he plans to finance his campaign.
He described “the means” as the biggest hurdle facing his potential campaign, adding:
If I put together a finance team that will make me financially competitive enough to stay in this thing… I may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding. [Chuckles.] Bottom line is, I’ve got a lot of support from the pro-Israel funding.
The House renamed the bill to honor Miami Congresswoman Ilean Ros-Lehtinen’s long service to Israel. The new name is now officially the “Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018.”
Paul Manafort and LBJ, Influence Peddlers
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | September 18, 2018
The mainstream press and the progressive movement are shocked — shocked! — over Paul Manafort’s influence peddling and political corruption schemes. Their reaction to Manafort’s conviction and guilty plea remind me of the scene in the movie Casablanca, where the police chief is “shocked” to learn that there is gambling in Rick’s establishment, followed by someone bringing the police chief his gambling winnings.
The fact is that influence peddling, political corruption, and being on the take have always been an inherent part of the welfare-warfare state way of life. With trillions of taxpayer dollars flooding into the federal government’s coffers, there will always be people who are doing their best to get their sticky little fingers on a part of all that welfare-warfare largess. Why do you think the Pentagon has long refused to permit a financial audit of its operations? It’s because lots of people are on the warfare-state take in one way or another.
Paul Manafort brings to mind Lyndon Johnson, another influence peddler par excellence. The only reason Johnson is hailed as a hero by the mainstream press while Manafort is condemned as a crook is because Johnson had the good fortune of becoming president, which, in the eyes of the mainstream press and the Washington establishment, put a halo around his head.
Despite the fact that he became president, Johnson was one of the most crooked politicians in U.S. history. If Kennedy had not been assassinated, there is little doubt that Johnson would not have been his running mate in the 1964 presidential election, not only because JFK had expressed to close friends his intention to dump Johnson from the ticket but, more important, because of the strong likelihood that Johnson was going to be indicted for influence peddling and corruption, just like Paul Manafort.
In 1948, Johnson was running for U.S. Senate against Coke Stevenson, the governor of Texas, who was one of the most admired and respected governors in the history of the state. Johnson knew that he stood a good chance of losing the race. He instructed a powerful political crony in South Texas named George Parr, who ran his county like a personal fiefdom, to keep his ballot station open until all the others statewide had closed.
As detailed in a New York Times review of Robert Caro’s biography of Johnson, after all the other ballot stations had closed, Johnson had lost the election. His South Texas crony Parr proceeded to manufacture thousands of bogus votes, which put Johnson over the top by 87 votes statewide. When Stevenson sent the Texas Rangers to seize the voting signatures sheets, which were all in the same ink and same handwriting, the courthouse mysteriously burned down, along with all the fraudulent voting records.
Johnson also became a multimillionaire while in public office. How did he do that? By having his wife purchase a television station in Austin, which had a monopoly on broadcasting in that area because Johnson used political influence to ensure that television broadcasting licenses weren’t given to competitors. The resulting monopoly poured millions of dollars in advertising money into the pockets of Johnson and his wife Lady Bird. Caro stated, “It was a case study of political influence.”
At the time of the assassination of President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson was in grave danger of being removed from office and being sent to the penitentiary. It was only because of the assassination that he was spared such ignominy.
One scandal in which LBJ was embroiled involved a man named Billie Sol Estes, a fellow Texan who was ultimately sent to jail for agricultural fraud. When a federal agent went down to Texas to investigate Estes’s agriculture schemes, he was found dead on a Texas ranch, his body riddled with several bullets. The local authorities ruled it a suicide.
Another scandal involved Bobby Baker, who had been LBJ’s right-hand man when Johnson was Senate Majority Leader. Baker had been caught in an influence-peddling, corruption scheme involving vending machines on military bases. As the noose was being tightened around Baker’s neck, it was also indirectly being tightened around Johnson’s neck, owing to the strong suspicion that Baker would, under pressure, disclose Johnson’s role in the fraudulent scheme.
In fact, there was a congressional hearing on the Baker scandal that was very likely to implicate Johnson going on at the very moment of the JFK assassination. The assassination caused the hearing to be shut down immediately and, once Johnson became president, it was never resumed.
Moreover, Life magazine had planned a big expose of Johnson’s corruption for an issue in late November. It got replaced by coverage of the Kennedy assassination and was never published after Johnson became president.
As Caro details in his most recent volume on Johnson, there were two newspapers in Texas where investigative reporters were delving into Johnson’s role in these scandals. After he became president, Johnson telephoned the principals at both papers and threatened them with IRS or regulatory retaliation if they didn’t shut down their investigations into his corruption. Both papers shut down their investigations and never resumed them.
Paul Manafort’s mistake was obviously not being elected president. If he had been, he would be hailed as a giant hero, just as Lyndon Johnson is, rather than labeled as a run-of-the mill, corrupt white-collar criminal.
No bad reviews? Amazon employees might have deleted them for bribes
RT | September 17, 2018
Some Amazon employees have reportedly been bribed by sellers to remove bad reviews of products sold through the online retail giant. The average bribe is around $300 per review, with most of the demand coming from China.
The retail giant has launched an internal investigation into the shady practice, with a probe ongoing since May, when Eric Broussard, Amazon’s vice president, was reportedly notified of the problem, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
The transactions were facilitated by middlemen who used the messaging service WeChat in China.
Citing people familiar with the scheme, the WSJ reported that it costs around $300 to delete one review. However, brokers prefer to trade wholesale, with the minimum number of reviews for removal standing at five.
Depending on the type of data and its volume, the brokers also charge between $80 and $2,000 for coveted data.
Up for grabs are internal sales statistics, including keywords, as well as an option to delete reviews or buy customers’ email addresses.
One of the incentives prompting Amazon workers to go down this slippery slope and violate strict internal regulations that ban sharing sales and customer data, is the relatively low wages they receive in China, the publication notes.
Amazon has come under fire in the past for underpaying its employees and forcing them to work in harrowing conditions not only in China, but also across Europe and in the US. An undercover journalist working at an Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire, UK reported that workers are forced to pee in bottles so as not to miss work targets. In the US, a group of employees recently complained of exhaustion, dehydration and fatigue, as they were working without air-conditioning in the company’s warehouse in Minnesota.
At the moment, several suspected bribery cases, including one in the US, are reportedly being investigated by Amazon.
A spokesperson for the company has confirmed that the probe is ongoing, noting that it has been taking steps to avert the malpractice happening in the future by installing systems that would restrict workers’ access and monitor their actions.
While the trustworthiness of online reviews is crucial for businesses like Amazon, since online buyers are not able to examine a product themselves, it has long been plagued by the problem of fake reviews.
FakeSport.com founder Saoud Khalifah has recently estimated that some 30 percent of Amazon reviews are probably fake, with the number nearing 95 percent for “Chinese no-name companies.”
Read more:
Stakes Rise in Browder-Gate – EU Threatens Cyprus with Article 7
By Tom Luango | September 15, 2018
It’s been quite a week for Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty. First Hungary and now Cyprus. And all because of some guy named Bill Browder?
Despite numerous warnings and obstacles, Cyprus continues to assist Russia in investigating the finances of Bill Browder. This has resulted in letters of warning to Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades as well as lawsuits by Browder citing the investigation violates his human rights.
Like everything else in this world, just ask Browder.
Last fall Browder and 17 MEP’s launched a two-pronged assault on Cyprus to end their assisting Russia’s investigation into Browder. Browder with the lawsuit. The MEP’s with a letter of warning.
The lawsuit has failed, however. The Nicosia District Court handed down a ruling recently which allowed for Browder to sue for damages to his reputation but not putting an injunction on the investigation.
More than a month ago the Nicosia District Court said that the cooperation with Russia in its politically motivated probe would violate the human rights of Bill Browder and his associate Ivan Cherkasov and the two would have good prospects in claiming damages from the government. Still, the court rejected Browder’s application for an order preventing Cypriot authorities from cooperating with Russia in its proceedings against him on the grounds that any damage would not be irreparable.
And this is where this gets interesting.
Because now in light of this ruling the stakes have been raised. Four of those original 17 MEP’s, many of whom are on the infamous “Soros List” as being in the pay of Open Society Foundation, sent a more serious letter of warning to Anastasaides threatening Cyprus with censure via Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty for not upholding the European Union’s standards on human rights.
Now this is a dangerous escalation in service of an investigation into someone who, agree or not, Russia has a legitimate interest in pursuing. Dismissing all of Russia’s concerns about Browder as ‘politically motivated’ is pure grandstanding. It carries no weight of law and stinks of a far deeper and more serious corruption.
Because if Browder was as pure as the driven snow as he presents himself to the world then he would have no issue whatsoever in Cyprus opening up his books to Russia and put his question of guilt to rest once and for all.
The ruling from the court stated that Cypriot officials are not barred from helping Russia get to the bottom of Browder’s web of offshore accounts, all of which, according to Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya, run through Cyprus.
“He [Browder] is afraid of the Russian probe that has conclusive evidence of his financial crimes and proof that his theory of Magnitsky’s death is an absolute fake. That’s why Browder is ready to stage any provocation,” Veselnitskaya said. She went on to say that the investor’s decision to intervene was particularly “influenced by the fact that the entire network of offshore companies that make up his organized criminal group is located on the territory of Cyprus.”
The incident that Veselnitskaya was referring to took place in late October 2017. At that time, 17 members of the European Parliament appealed to Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades in an open letter, in which they called on him to stop assisting Russia in its investigation against Browder.
Remember, Veselnitskaya was the woman who met with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 campaign. She was adamant she had information that was pertinent to them. The Mueller probe and the media tried to spin that meeting as her giving Trump access to Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.
But what she was really trying to give them was the low-down on Browder, the Magnitsky Act and the whole rotten, sordid history of him, Edmund Safra of Republic National Bank and the raping of Russia by them and others in the 1990’s.
And to show Trump that the Magnitsky Act was built on a lie and the sanctions against Russia should be lifted because of this.
Some of this I covered in an earlier article.
The Real Browder Story
And this is the whole point. Browder’s story is fiction.
Magnitsky was his accountant and not his lawyer, who knew all about his dealings and could convict Browder of a raft of crimes far greater than the ones Russia already has in absentia.
Putin had no interest in having Magnitsky executed or beaten to death in prison. If anyone had an incentive to keep Magnitsky alive it was Vladimir Putin. If anyone had incentive to have Magnitsky die in prison it was Browder. And so, the whole story that Browder has woven, the myth around himself is so insane that it bears repeating over and over.
Browder’s story is fiction.
Because when you stop and put all the pieces together you realize a number of things and none of them are good.
First, Browder was deeply enmeshed in the plot to frame Yeltsin for stealing $7 billion in IMF money which created the conditions for bringing Putin to power.
Second, he, Mihail Khordokovsky and others have systematically lobbied Congress and the European Parliament to peddle this false story of the brave freedom fighter Magnitsky against the evil Putin to get revenge, in Khordokovsky’s case, on Putin for deposing him from power in Russia and stealing back the wealth Khordokovsky stole during the Yelstin years, namely Yukos.
And for Browder it was the culmination of years of work to destroy Russia from within and stay one step ahead of the hangman’s noose. His 2015 book Red Notice is a work of near fiction as outlined by Alex Krainer in his book The Grand Deception: The Truth About Bill Browder, The Magnitsky Act and Anti-Russia Sanctions.
And the Magnitsky Act was the way everyone interested who can prove this could be silenced through sanctions.
But, it’s bigger than that.
This was policy.
The Magnitsky Act is a lynchpin of American and European foreign policy to destroy Russia and subjugate the world.
It was enacted alongside other legislation to take back control of the political narrative of the world; rein in free speech on the internet by tying any activity not approved of by The Davos Crowd to be subject to sanctions on the nebulous basis of ‘human rights violations.’
The Magnitsky Act has weaponized virtue-signaling and, in my mind it was intentionally done to open up another path to protect the most vile and venal people in the world to arrogate power to themselves without consequence.
Today we stand on the brink of an open hot war between the U.S. and Russia because of the lies which have been stacked on top of each other in service of this monstrous piece of legislation.
With each day it and its follow-up, last year’s Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), are used as immense hammers to bring untold misery to millions around the world.
People like Browder are nothing by petty thieves. It is obvious to me he started out as a willing pawn because he was young, hungry and vaguely psychopathic. The deeper he got in it the more erratic his behavior became.
Browder is being protected by powerful people in the U.S. and EU not because he’s so important but because exposing him exposes them.
This is why another country is being threatened with the stripping of what few rights sovereign nations have within the EU, Cyprus, over his books.
Poland stood up for Hungary the other day over ideological reasons. No one seems ready to stand up to the conspiracy surrounding Browder, Khordokovsky and the Magnitsky Act.
But, if someone in power finally does, it could change everything we think we know about geopolitics.
Congress today sneaking through $38 billion to Israel
If Americans Knew | September 12, 2018
Israel partisans are sneaking through 2 Congressional bills today! Voters need to phone Congress about them now!
- The largest aid package in U.S. history.
- A bill for a special envoy who will monitor criticism of Israel world wide.
Phone the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your Congressional rep. (If you don’t know who that is, put your zip code in here.)
1) VOTE NO ON S.2497
S. 2497 – Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018. The House number is H.R.5141
This gives Israel $33 billion on top of the $5 billion that was recently voted.
It also mandates that NASA work with the Israeli space agency, despite accusations that Israel stole classified information.
More information here.
2) VOTE NO ON H.R. 1911
“Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act of 2018”
This “special envoy” works to monitor criticism of Israel.
More information here.
PDFs of the bills that are before Congress today are here and here.
By the way, U.S. media have not informed American citizens about these current bills – while groups like AIPAC have told their members to pressure Congress for them.
Despite History of Israeli Espionage, Bill Would Force NASA Cooperation with Israel Space Agency
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | September 5, 2018
A bill that was passed by the U.S. Senate in early August and is currently under consideration by the House would mandate that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) work closely with the Israel Space Agency (ISA) despite the fact that such cooperation in the past was used by Israel to steal U.S. state secrets.
The provision is tucked within the bill titled the “United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018,” which would also provide Israel with $38 billion in U.S. military aid over a ten-year period, the largest military aid package in U.S. history. MintPress News previously reported that this massive aid package translates into approximately $23,000 every year for every Israeli family. However, the provision pertaining to NASA, which was first identified by the website If Americans Knew, has largely gone unreported.
According to the current text of the bill, NASA and the Israel Space Agency are mandated to work together “to identify and cooperatively pursue peaceful space exploration and science initiatives in areas of mutual interest, taking all appropriate measures to protect sensitive information, intellectual property, trade secrets, and economic interests of the United States.” The text also references past agreements established between NASA and the ISA such as the first mutual cooperation agreement, signed in 1996, and the 2015 “Framework Agreement for Cooperation in Aeronautics and the Exploration and Use of Airspace and Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes” as the basis for this “continuing cooperation.”
Absent, however, from the bill’s text is the fact that the ISA has used this cooperation in the past to steal classified U.S. information and to conduct espionage. For instance, a lawsuit filed in November 2014 by physicist Dr. Sandra Troian detailed how an Israeli postdoctoral student at Caltech, Amir Gat, blatantly violated U.S. law by illegally transmitting to Israel classified information on NASA technology.
According to court documents, the theft of classified information took place at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an important NASA research and development center. Gat now lives in Israel and works at ITT, an Israeli government institution.
Yet, instead of attempting to stop the espionage, Caltech administrators sought to silence Troian, in violation of the school’s whistleblower policy, and retaliated against her for speaking up, including engaging in efforts to have her fired.
Troian maintains that the school was afraid of taking her concerns seriously, as it would have put the university’s $8 billion contract with NASA at risk and cast the institution in a bad light. Also of note was the fact that the Obama administration showed no interest in the case despite its repeated use of the Espionage Act to target legitimate government whistleblowers.
Thus, the Caltech incident — and the lack of accountability and the effort to silence whistleblowers that ultimately ensued — greatly weaken the bill’s claim that “all appropriate measures to protect sensitive information, intellectual property, trade secrets, and economic interests of the United States” will be followed. Despite the gravity of this incident, the inclusion of this NASA-related provision in the pending bill leaves an open door for such espionage to again take place, to the detriment of U.S. “national security.”
However, as the Trump administration has shown, the “national security” of the U.S. and of Israel have become profoundly intertwined, as President Trump’s campaign promises of “America First” quickly devolved into “Israel First” — thanks largely to the influence of Trump’s largest donor, Zionist billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Thus, concerns about Israeli espionage seem to be of little import to the current administration as well as to many members of Congress — particularly those greatly influenced by powerful organizations of the Israel lobby, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
A long-standing double standard
Yet, failure to prevent or punish Israeli espionage in the United States has long been a common policy in Washington that significantly predates the Trump administration. With the notable exception of former U.S. government contractor and Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, the Israel lobby and pro-Israel billionaire donors have been largely successful in obtaining presidential pardons or lenient sentences for alleged Israeli spies.
A clear illustration of this double standard is the case of Colonel Lawrence Franklin, a case that clearly illustrates that espionage, when conducted by Israel, is not treated as seriously by the U.S. government as other cases of espionage. Franklin, a former employee at the U.S. Department of Defense, pled guilty to espionage in 2006 for giving classified information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as well as directly to Israeli officials, in an attempt to pivot U.S. military forces engaged in Iraq towards Iran.
The Bush administration successfully pushed the Justice Department to pardon Franklin’s co-conspirators and then pushed Justice to reduce Franklin’s 13-year prison sentence to 10 months of house arrest. Subsequently, members of U.S. Congress asked Obama to pardon Franklin in 2016, asserting that “his [Franklin’s] intentions were to save lives and protect this great country” despite the fact that Franklin had sought to involve the U.S. in a war with Iran in order to benefit Israel.
Thus, the current NASA provision in the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018 would ostensibly continue this practice of “turning a blind eye” to Israeli interference and espionage in the United States if the bill is passed in the coming weeks.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
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Israel’s recurring use of terror on civilians
By Bob Finch | January 26, 2009
Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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