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Was There Another Reason for Electricity Shutdowns in California?

By Richard Trzupek | The Epoch Times | November 1, 2019

According to the official, widely reported story, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) shut down substantial portions of its electric transmission system in northern California as a precautionary measure.

Citing high wind speeds they described as “historic,” the utility claims that if they didn’t turn off the grid, wind-caused damage to their infrastructure could start more wildfires in the area.

Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps. This tale presumes that the folks who designed and maintain PG&E’s transmission system are unaware of or ignored the need to design it to withstand severe weather events, and that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) allowed the utility to do so.

Ignorance and incompetence happens, to be sure, but there’s much about this story that doesn’t smell right—and it’s disappointing that most journalists and elected officials are apparently accepting it without question. […]

… if badly designed and poorly maintained infrastructure is not the reason PG&E cut power to millions of Californians, what might have prompted them to do so? Could it be that PG&E’s heavy reliance on renewable energy means they don’t have the power to send when an “historic” weather event occurs?

Wind Speed Limits

The two most popular forms of renewable energy come with operating limitations. With solar power the constraint is obvious: the availability of sunlight. One does not generate solar power at night and energy generation drops off with increasing degrees of cloud cover during the day.

The main operating constraint of wind power is, of course, wind speed. At the low end of the scale, you need about a 6 or 7 mph wind to get a turbine moving. This is called the “cut-in speed.” To generate maximum power, about a 30 mph wind is typically required. But, if the wind speed is too high, the wind turbine will shut down. This is called the “cut-out speed,” and it’s about 55 mph for most modern wind turbines. […]

Now consider how California’s power generation profile has changed. According to Energy Information Administration data, the state generated 74.3 percent of its electricity from traditional sources—fossil fuels and nuclear—in 2001. Hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass-generated power accounted for most of the remaining 25.7 percent, with wind and solar providing only 1.98 percent of the total.

By 2018, the state’s renewable portfolio had jumped to 43.8 percent of total generation, with wind and solar now accounting for 17.9 percent of total generation. That’s a lot of power to depend on from inherently unreliable sources. Thus, it would not be at all surprising to learn that PG&E didn’t stop delivering power out of fear of starting fires, but because it knew it wouldn’t have power to deliver once high winds shut down all those wind turbines. – Read full article

November 3, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , | Leave a comment

Brexit: Soros Insists His ‘Stay’ Campaign Contributions Were ‘Educational’, Not Partisan

Sputnik – November 2, 2019

Hedge fund billionaire and convicted insider trader George Soros believes his involvement in the UK’s Brexit debate is just “political philanthropy,” and told The Guardian that Britain’s continued membership in the European Union would make a defence of ‘European values’ easier to accomplish.

“Brexit is a process of disintegration that hurts both sides. It hurts Britain more on a pro rata basis and Europe more in absolute terms. Most importantly, European values can be better defended if the two of them are united,” Soros said.

“My contributions were not used for partisan or electoral purposes. They were used to educate the British public,” he added, brushing off concerns expressed by numerous politicians that his Open Society Foundations were engaging in meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

Soros made headlines in the run-up to the Brexit vote in 2016 when he warned that a vote to leave the bloc might cause a Europe-wide economic meltdown and make the EU’s disintegration “practically unavoidable.”

Two years later, the financier garnered controversy in the UK after making a £400,000 donation to ‘Best of Britain’, a group aimed at stopping Britain’s exit from the bloc. Pro-Brexiteers slammed the donation as a “secret plot” and an attempt to stage a “coup… against the democratic will of the people.”

Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party and member of the European Parliament, has been one of the most outspoken UK-based critics of Soros, once describing him as the “biggest danger to the entire Western world.”

Britons voted to leave the EU on June 23, 2016, with approximately 52 percent voting in favour of exiting the bloc, while 48 percent sought to remain.

30+ Years of Political Interference

Soros has been spending his fortune on trying to bring forth political and social change for at least three decades, providing cash to anti-communist movements spreading in Eastern Europe in the 1980s in countries including Hungary and Poland, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on efforts to institute political, economic and institution reforms across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union starting in the early 1990s, including over $100 million in Russia alone. Since then, his activities have spread to over 60 countries around the world.

Soros was convicted of insider trading by a French court in 2002 and forced to pay a fine of €2.2 million. His conviction was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in 2011.

On September 16, 1992, Soros successfully staged a run on the pound, forcing the British government to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and leading to an estimated  billion pounds in losses to Britain’s economy. Soros earned his first billion dollars from the day’s events.

Russia banned Soros’s Open Society Foundations in 2015, when the OSF was listed as an organisation whose activities pose a threat to the country’s national security.

November 2, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

London Times runs fake Browder story by acolytes Ben Brandon & Alex Bailin

By Lucy Komisar | The Komisar Scoop | October 25, 2019

Ben Brandon and Alex Bailin are London lawyers who have co-authored a fake story based on fabrications by William Browder about Russia’s legal action against his tax evasion and the death of his accountant, Sergei Magnitsky. The writers of this London Times op ed managed to put eight lies into just five opening lines.

Co-author Brandon is the lawyer representing the U.S. in its request to extradite war-crimes whistleblower- publisher Julian Assange. This raises questions about the connection between the U.S. and the U.K. in the promotion of the Browder/Magnitsky hoax and the attack against Assange.

Here is their story. And my proof of their fabrications.

Their Story

Screen shot of the London Times op ed.

The Times, October 24 2019

By Ben Brandon and Alex Bailin

We must not lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to holding human rights abusers and corrupt regimes to account.

Sergei Magnitsky, a young lawyer, was hired in 2008 by Bill Browder, the chief executive of Hermitage Capital, to investigate a tax fraud on his fund. Having diligently uncovered a large scale embezzlement by influential Russian officials, Mr Magnitsky was arrested and mistreated in prison in an attempt to pressure him into withdrawing his testimony.

He refused to retract and was beaten to death.

My Response

Dear Messrs Brandon and Bailin, I assume that as lawyers you think it’s a good idea to check out what people claim, since even clients lie. Therefore, please consider the evidence below, not what convicted fraudster William Browder apparently told you.

[1] Lawyer: Magnitsky was an accountant. Browder acknowledges in his deposition in US federal court 2015 that Magnitsky didn’t have a law degree or go to law school. See him say it in a video clip. In his own interrogations, Magnitsky is identified as an auditor.

[2] Hired in 2008: Magnitsky worked for the accounting/law firm Firestone Duncan which Browder hired in 1997 to handle his company accounts and tax filings. The Russian court found that Magnitsky in the interests of Browder in 1997-2002 implemented an illegal tax evasion scheme using firms registered in Kalmykia and managed by Hermitage Capital. (See article) Browder claims he hired Magnitsky in 2007, so Brandon and Bailin get even that fabrication wrong.

[3] To investigate a tax fraud: See above. He was hired in 1997, ten years before the 2007 tax refund fraud. Magnitsky’s 2006 interrogation was about Browder’s company tax evasion. See his testimony and the cited article. And the fraud wasn’t on his fund, it was on the Russian Treasury. Fraudsters scammed the Russian Treasury by obtaining a $230mil tax refund based on fraudulent lawsuits.

[4] Uncovered embezzlement: The tax fraud, which is not properly described as an embezzlement as it was a fraud on the Russian Treasury, not on a company, was first reported by Rimma Starova in April 2008. The Russian newspaper Vedomosti and the New York Times reported it in July 2008. Magnitsky mentioned in testimony only in his October 2008 interrogation.

[5] Influential Russian officials: There are no Russian officials accused in any of the reports, by Starova, the newspapers or by Magnitsky. Read the documents.

[6] Mistreated: He suffered the same poor conditions as other inmates.

[7] pressure him into withdrawing his testimony: There is no evidence he was pressured to withdraw testimony. Or do you have any?

[8] Beaten to death: There is no evidence he was beaten to death. Or do you have any?

The only on-site independent report, by the Moscow Public Oversight Commission, indicates terrible prison conditions and failure to provide needed medical care. The Physicians for Human Rights (Cambridge Mass) report, cites the POC report and is addressed to Browder, who gave PHR 44 documents to back up his claims. It reached the same conclusion.

Browder’s initial statements about Magnitsky’s death, in 2009 and 2010, mention no beatings.

Check out his talk at Chatham House, in your home town. “I don’t know what they were thinking. I don’t know whether they killed him deliberately on the night of the 18th, or if he died of neglect.”

How Browder changed his stories about Magnitsky’s death. (Graphic by Michael Thau)

And the video of his address to the San Diego Law School the next year. “They put him into a straight-jacket, put him into an isolation room and waited outside the door for 1hr18 minutes until he died.”

He invented the beating death in 2011 when he decided to create and lobby for the Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Congress to stop Russian authorities from pursuing him for $100 million in evaded taxes and illicit stock buys.

Ironically, though he uses the U.S. to build a wall against Russian tax collectors, he gave up his American citizenship in 1998 to avoid paying taxes. He is listed by CBS News as a “tax expatriate.”

If you are serious lawyers and investigators, you will examine the evidence and respond. (And change your story.)

The rest of the op ed is to support unspecified steps to hold to account those who benefit from human rights abuses and corruption. No mention of the persecutors of Julian Assange or the beneficiaries of the U.K.’s worldwide system of tax havens. The real purpose appears to be to repeat the Browder hoax in the lede.

I sent copies of the article to Brandon and Bailin. No response.

I also sent a complaint to IPSO the British Independent Press Standards Organization.

It calls itself “the independent regulator of most of the UK’s newspapers and magazines.” It says: We hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press.

Clauses breached
1 Accuracy
This op ed article is based on egregiously fake facts. See this story and the links for the evidence. I have sent it to the authors. They should retract the story. https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2019/10/london-times-runs-fake-browder-story-by-acolytes-ben-brandon-alex-bailin/

Lucy Komisar is an investigative reporter who writes about financial corruption and won a Gerald Loeb award, the most important prize in financial journalism, for breaking the story about how Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford got the Florida Banking Dept to allow him to move money offshore with no regulation. Her stories about William Browder focus on tax evasion.  Find out more on The Komisar Scoop and on Twitter, @lucykomisar.

November 2, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

The Clinton-Silsby Trafficking Scandal And How The Media Covered It Up

By William Craddick – Disobedient Media – January 25, 2017

Contrary to reports in the media, the crowd sourced investigation labeled by some as “Pizzagate” did not begin with internet sleuths digging through the Wikileaks Podesta Files releases looking for pizza parlors and encoded language discussing human trafficking. It began with the shocking discovery that Hillary and Bill Clinton provided assistance to convicted child trafficker, Laura Silsby, resulting in a reduced sentence for child trafficking.

Silsby was arrested at the Haitian border attempting to smuggle 33 children out of Haiti without documentation. Her sentence and charges were reduced after an intervention by Bill Clinton. In the aftermath of Silsby’s arrest, her originally retained lawyer Jorge Puello was arrested in connection with an international smuggling ring accused of trafficking women and minors from Central America and Haiti. The revelation of this news in November was either ignored by the Western media or attacked by Clinton controlled publications.

I. Hillary Clinton Intervened Politically on Behalf of Laura Silsby

Laura Silsby is the former director of The New Life Children’s Refuge. Emails from her organization can be found in Wikileaks’ Hillary Clinton Email Archive discussing the NGO before her arrest. Silsby’s organization also appears in Clinton’s emails, soliciting donations for their “ministry.” The Refuge was founded by Silsby and Charisa Coulter, both attendees of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho. Silsby was reported to have a history of bad debts and unpaid wages.

Laura had claimed she planned to build an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, but a State Department diplomatic cable revealed that authorities in the country said she never submitted an application for this purpose. They instead located to Haiti.

On January 29, 2010, Silsby was arrested with nine other American nationals attempting to steal 33 children from the country, most of whom were not even orphans and had families according to some reports. CNN reported on February 9, 2010 that this was not the first time Silsby had attempted to traffic children out of Haiti. Haitian police acting on a tip had intercepted Silsby in an earlier, separate attempt to remove 40 children out of the country. She was turned back at the Haitian border. For a brief period, Haitian authorities were considering adding a new kidnapping charge based on this evidence.

Hillary and Bill Clinton took an extraordinary interest in Silsby’s case from the moment she was arrested and almost immediately stepped in on her behalf. The Harvard Human Rights Journal stated that one of Bill Clinton’s first acts as special envoy for the United Nations in Haiti “was to put out the fire of a child abduction scandal involving American citizens.” On February 7th, 2010, The Sunday Times reported that Bill Clinton had intervened to strike a deal with the Haitian government, securing the release of all co-conspirators except for Silsby. Prosecutors ultimately sought a six-month sentence in Silsby’s case, reducing charges for conspiracy and child abduction to mere “arranging irregular travel.” A shockingly light penalty given the circumstances of her arrest, which would likely not have been possible but for the intervention of the Clintons in Silsby’s case.

On February 9th, 2010 Hillary Clinton consulted with Counselor Cheryl Mills and other attorneys in an email discussing the U.S. Government’s “options” regarding the arrested Americans. The heavily redacted memo attached to that email does not reveal what these “options” consisted of. However, the State Department’s American Citizens Services is only authorized to offer lists of local, English speaking attorneys to Americans arrested or detained abroad. To go beyond that authorization is a severe violation of protocol and is illegal. Additional emails reveal that the State Department was involved with making statements on the Silsby scandal and preparing to assist Silsby’s co-conspirators with their return to the United States, although this is consistent with State Department protocol in these situations.

II. Silsby’s Lawyer and His Wife Were Both Arrested For Involvement in Human Sex Trafficking of Minors and Women

On February 11th, the New York Times reported that Silsby’s original lawyer, Jorge Puello, was suspected of leading an international human trafficking ring involving women and minors. According the the Harvard Human Rights Journal Puello was ultimately arrested in an investigation being lead by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in connection with the ring. He was wanted in the United States, El Salvador and Costa Rica for his involvement with a network trafficking Central Americans and Haitians. 

At the time of his arrest, his wife was already imprisoned in El Salvador and “faced charges of presumed sexual exploitation of minors and women.” Puello was ultimately sentenced to three years in federal prison for “alien smuggling.” Another surprisingly light sentence given the original charges he was sought for. It is not known at this time whether or not Laura Silsby was associated with Puello’s criminal enterprise.

III. The Daily Beast Engaged in an Illicit Cover Up Operation of the Above Information

On November 3rd, 2016, this author made a post to Reddit containing preliminary research and information on the above story. The post was made to the pro-Trump subreddit r/the_donald due to the forum’s reputation as the only outlet on Reddit where news was not being censored during the U.S. Presidential Election. The same day, Wikileaks tweeted a link to the Reddit post labeling it as a “significant, if partisan, find.”

On November 4th, 2016 The Daily Beast wrote a non-factual and intentionally misleading article covering the Clinton-Silsby scandal. They accused Wikileaks of publicizing a “Reddit conspiracy theory” which was “riddled with incorrect information.” The author, Ben Collins neglected to do basic research on the totality of the links presented in the post as evidence. Mr. Collins attacked the policies of r/the_donald towards freedom of speech and accused the forum of being racist without citing extensive or definitive proof. At no point did The Daily Beast provide proof that the allegations were not true, and did not disprove any of the evidence submitted. A link to an extensive study of the case by the Harvard Human Rights Journal which clearly linked Bill Clinton to the scandal was totally ignored. They similarly failed to acknowledge or address emails published by Wikileaks between Hillary Clinton and her legal counsel which may potentially indicate that she violated State Department policy for the treatment of U.S. citizens arrested or detained abroad.

The Daily Beast is a holding of American media conglomerate InterActiveCorp. Chelsea Clinton, Vice President of the Clinton Foundation and daughter of Hillary and Bill Clinton, sits on InterActiveCorp’s Board of Directors. The proximity of the Clinton family to the organization responsible for oversight and direction of The Daily Beast raises questions about the publication’s journalistic independence and their commitment to factual and ethical reporting on current events and topics of public interest. Given their slanderous and incorrect reporting on the Clinton-Silsby scandal, it seems clear that they do not hold these values in high regard.

Since her release from detention in Haiti, Laura Silsby has returned to Idaho. In 2015, she married and took the last name Gayler. Silsby is currently employed by software company AlertSense as their Vice President of Marketing. AlertSense works with the Federal Government on FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS). One of IPAWS functions is to issue Amber Alerts during kidnapping events.

Update: It appears that since the time of publication, Laura Silsby-Gayler is no longer listed as a member of Alert Sense’s Leadership Team.

November 1, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Malaysia Rejects Goldman’s Offer Of “Less Than $2 Billion” To Settle 1MDB Suit

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 11/01/2019

In an interview with the Financial Times, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said he’s not ready to kneel down and accept Goldman Sachs’s first offer in its attempt to settle a civil case stemming from the bank’s involvement in the 1MDB scandal, one of the biggest financial frauds to rock the region in modern history.

As was rumored in earlier reports, Goldman offered Malaysia “less than $2 billion” to settle the suit. In a series of three bond offerings, Goldman raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB, a sovereign wealth fund that was supposed to finance major public works projects across Malaysia.

But the money never made it that far.

A group of senior government officials, including former Prime Minister Najib Razak, led by shadowy financier Jho Low, looted billions from 1MDB and hid it from the people of Malaysia. How much did they take? The DoJ put the number at $4 billion; Malaysia believes its closer to $6 billion.

Mohamad said that Malaysia’s negotiators (led by AG Tommy Thomas) are still talking with Goldman.

“Goldman Sachs has offered something like less than $2bn,” Mahathir Mohamad told the Financial Times in an interview on Friday. “We are not satisfied with that amount so we are still talking to them… If they respond reasonably we might not insist on getting that $7.5bn.”

And he’s not stopping there. Mohamad said Malaysia has also reached out to DB and UBS over their involvement with 1MDB, as it strives to work with whatever banks it can to recoup any money stolen from 1MDB. DB has also found itself caught up in the criminal end of the scandal: Malaysia is investigating the recidivist German lender over whether it violated AML statutes while raising $1.2 billion for 1MDB back in 2014 (a deal that came after offerings underwritten by Goldman). UBS has been reprimanded by the Swiss government over transactions related to 1MDB that the bank helped facilitate.

Goldman earned more than $600 million in fees from the 1MDB deal, and Malaysia has made it clear that it wants every cent of that money returned.

But US prosecutors have already seized billions of dollars in assets pertaining to the case. On Thursday, reports emerged claiming that Low, now a fugitive believed to be hiding in China under the Communist Party’s protection, has settled a flurry of civil suits with the DoJ, agreeing to hand over more than $900 million. Mohamad said Malaysia isn’t in contact with Low, who admitted no guilt in his deal with the US. Malaysia doesn’t know where Low is: “He’s not staying in any one place.”

“The amount [Mr Low embezzled from 1MDB] is much bigger,” said Mr Mahathir. “If he had the full amount we would be very happy…We are still going after the rest of the money.”

“The DoJ has indicated that, if we can prove claim of ownership, then we will be able to get the money for ourselves.”

Goldman’s strong earnings over the past two quarters have helped ease investors’ worries about 1MDB, and the scandal has largely faded into the background since late last year, when revelations that senior Goldman execs, including Lloyd Blankfein, had personally intervened to greenlight the 1MDB deals despite numerous red flags from compliance. But we imagine that many insiders are waiting for the next shoe to drop. Right now, prosecutors have the leverage. Goldman just might get stuck paying the bulk of Malaysia’s ask.

Both Malaysia and the US have accused senior Goldman bankers of bribing corrupt Malaysian politicians to secure the bond deal business for the bank.

November 1, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | | Leave a comment

State Department Accuses ‘Russian Trolls’ of Meddling in Chile Protests

Sputnik – November 1, 2019

The US State Department claims it has seen evidence of Russian attempts to “influence” the recent unrest in Chile.

The South American country has been rocked by massive anti-government protests for over three weeks now, with demonstrations and violence leading to a temporary curfew, soldiers in the streets and the cancellation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, expected to have taken place in Santiago in mid-November.

Speaking to reporters in Washington on Thursday, a senior State Department official told reporters that Russia was trying to ‘take advantage’ of the unrest in the country “and skewing it through the use and abuse of social media trolling and seeking –rather than allowing the citizens of Chile to have their own debate about how their country and the courses their country should take… to exacerbate divisions, foment conflict, and all around act as a spoiler to responsible democratic debate.”

The official pointed to alleged “Russian activity supporting this negative course of the debate,” but did not elaborate on what this entailed.

Pressed on the claims, and whether the alleged Chile meddling also included efforts by Venezuela or Cuba, the official said they were “not a digital analytical wizard,” but that they “saw organisations such as [Latin American news agency] Telesur exacerbating those debates.”

The official did not expand on his claims of Russia’s alleged meddling, noting only that “in recent years we’ve seen an increase of Russian engagement in the Americas, in South America in particular – very little of it positive.”

Commenting on the claims on Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov dismissed the State Department’s allegations outright.

“The US administration is using the difficult internal situation in Chile to continue its efforts to blacken our country’s foreign policy. This isn’t news,” Ryabkov said in a statement.

The official added that Russia “has never meddled, does not meddle and will not meddle in any electoral or other internal political processes in any country.”

Chilean officials did not comment on the State Department’s claims.

Arguably the best-known case of confirmed meddling in Chile’s internal affairs took place on September 11, 1973, when the CIA-backed Chilean armed forces led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in a coup.

Violent protests erupted in Chile last month over authorities’ decision to increase subway fares. The protests have spread to violent clashes between protesters, police and the military, with over 2,400 people reported injured and 21 people killed, and over 5,400 others detained. Last week, over a million people marched in the streets, demanding the resignation of President Sebastian Pinera.

November 1, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

‘Thank God for Deep State’, ex-CIA boss says. Still think it’s a conspiracy theory?

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | November 1, 2019

In just a few short months, the US political establishment has gone from denying the existence of the ‘Deep State’ and calling it a conspiracy theory, to praising it as the bulwark of the Republic against President Donald Trump.

“Thank God for the ‘Deep State,’” declared former CIA director John E. McLaughlin at an event this week, describing the diplomats and intelligence officers testifying before the congressional impeachment inquiry as “people who are doing their duty or responding to a higher call.”

Lavishing praise on the ‘whistleblower’ intelligence officer whose complaint about Trump’s phone call launched the impeachment probe, McLaughlin said the intelligence community is “institutionally committed to objectivity and telling the truth.”

One would think this might be a bit rich, coming from the former deputy director of the CIA at the time of the infamous ‘Iraqi WMDs’ fiasco – and acting director for a time in 2004 – but McLaughlin’s comments were met with applause by the crowd at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

He wasn’t the only one to praise the Deep State either. Sitting right next to him was John Brennan, the CIA director under President Barack Obama, whose fingerprints are all over the so-called ‘Steele dossier’ and ‘Russiagate’, and who is now enjoying a rewarding career as a TV pundit accusing Trump of treason.

Brennan argued that the reason Trump “has a contentious relationship with the Deep State people… is because they tell the truth,” and praised the unelected intelligence and law enforcement officials for continuing to “do their work irrespective of what he’s going to do or say.”

Under normal circumstances, these admissions would be rather earth-shattering. It isn’t every day that former bosses of the intelligence apparatus basically admit that yes, they are meddling in the country’s politics, because they feel they have a “higher loyalty” – to borrow a phrase from ex-FBI boss James Comey, another member of this merry cabal – than to the chief executive elected by the American people.

Yet the response has been muted at best, with a silent shrug and the implicit “nothing to see here, move along” from the major outlets. That’s not particularly surprising, given the media’s role in the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy. Why, just a couple weeks ago, the New York Times published an opinion piece praising the Deep State along the very same lines Brennan and McLaughlin would.

When Trump and his defenders talked about the Deep State during the ‘Russiagate’ hysteria, the very same outlets pooh-poohed them as insane, paranoid, and delusional. Now they say the Deep State is real, it’s always been real, and it’s acting in the best interests of the American Republic – and if you don’t believe it, you’re the one who’s insane, paranoid and delusional. Sense a pattern?

Whatever one may think of Trump, it beggars belief that the very people who cry the loudest about “our democracy” are elevating an unelected bureaucracy, spies and counter-spies as the arbiters of it. It almost makes you think the people responsible for pushing the ‘Russian meddling’ conspiracy theory may have done it as a smokescreen for their own (mis)deeds.

Oh, wait.

November 1, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Questions Remain Over Alleged Death of Islamic State Leader

Strategic Culture Foundation | November 1, 2019

Russia’s Ministry of Defense this week said it had not seen any credible evidence that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (IS) terror group, had been killed in northern Syria last weekend, allegedly in a daring US military operation.

US President Donald Trump boasted last Sunday that American Special Forces raided a base in Idlib Province, which purportedly led to al-Baghdadi’s death from a suicide explosion. The Pentagon said six other people were killed in the operation. In addition, two of al-Baghdadi’s children were killed when the IS leader blew himself up as American troops were closing in, according to Trump’s own dramatic telling of the event.

Curiously, Trump gave prominent thanks to Russia for its help in the logistics of carrying out the attack.

However, Russian MOD spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov has subsequently stated that Russia was not involved in the raid, as Trump had claimed. He said that Russian flight data indicated that there were no US air strikes in the vicinity of the declared raid. The spokesman went further and remarked that there were doubts as to whether the assassination mission even took place in the way that Washington is publicly claiming.

Another anomaly in the official US account is that the base where al-Baghdadi was purportedly hiding out is in a location known to be a stronghold for another al-Qaeda affiliate that is a sworn enemy of their perceived rival jihadists belonging to IS. Why and how then was the IS leader able to maintain a base surrounded by enemy jihadists?

According to the New York Times, it is claimed that al-Baghdadi paid $67,000 to the rival terror group, Hurras al-Din, for protection. Somehow that sounds a dubious explanation.

A glaring omission in US media coverage of the alleged killing of al-Baghdadi is the historical background as to who he was and how his former so-called caliphate came into being straddling Iraq and Syria.

There is copious evidence that Iraqi-born al-Baghdadi was recruited by American intelligence while imprisoned during the US war on Iraq in the mid- to late-2000s. He was held in the notorious Abu Ghraib US-run torture prison, but subsequently was released by the Americans despite his known jihadist past. It was around 2012 that the Obama administration was covertly mobilizing and weaponizing jihadi assets to carry out its clandestine war for regime change against the Syrian government. It is believed that al-Baghdadi was a key CIA asset for the US dirty war in Syria, even though Washington was proclaiming its involvement in Syria was to “defeat IS” and other terror groups.

It is entirely plausible that US intelligence assets are “terminated” whenever it is politically convenient and when it is calculated that their usefulness has expired.

Trump and the mainstream US media depiction of a spectacular success in exterminating a feared terror chief is almost certainly a distortion of reality and events.

The way Trump in particular has crowed about the purported operation suggests he is seeking a boost to his re-election chances next year. The thuggish rhetoric of killing the IS leader “like a dog” smacks of Trump trying to project an image of a tough president.

More generally, the event has afforded US media to proclaim the virtue of American military power in apparently bringing a notorious renegade “to justice”.

The timing could not be more important. The nearly eight-year war in Syria has exposed the criminality of Washington and its NATO partners for fueling carnage. By contrast, the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies have been vindicated in their long-held claims that a criminal US-backed aggression using terrorist proxies has been thwarted.

When Trump abandoned the Kurdish militants last month, the move was condemned for throwing Syria into further turmoil. It was Russia’s deft diplomacy which managed to contain the situation. At that point, Washington’s international credibility was scraping the barrel of duplicity and malign responsibility for conflict and chaos in Syria.

Hence, a sensational operation resembling “a movie” – as Trump put it – was a timely public relations remedy for Washington’s badly tarnished image. Ostensibly, “taking out” a terrorist leader gives the US the means to renew its propaganda narrative that it is “fighting against terrorism” rather than the reality of using terrorism for its regime-change wars and other imperialist objectives.

Was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed last weekend? It is not the first time his “death” has been reported by US forces who have made similar claims in past years. There are too many questions and discrepancies to take Washington’s version of events as accurate. More plausibly, it was a carefully contrived propaganda stunt to burnish Washington’s disgraced image.

One thing for sure, however, is that the US will continue to use terror proxies and assets into the future in order to achieve its pernicious geopolitical aims. There are plenty more “al-Baghdadis” to be cultivated and orchestrated by Washington as it sows chaos and destruction in the Middle East and beyond for its selfish interests.

November 1, 2019 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | Leave a comment

Assad casts doubt on ISIS leader’s death, draws parallels with Bin Laden’s killing

‘Americans will RESPAWN al-Baghdadi’

RT | October 31, 2019

Take any words from US politicians with a grain of salt, Syria’s Bashar Assad has urged, as he cast doubt on the story of the Islamic State leader being killed in US a raid, and compared it to the shady killing of Osama Bin Laden.

The widely publicized US special forces raid that allegedly killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group, left more questions than answers and it should not be taken at the face value, the Syrian President cautioned, during a lengthy interview with state media on Thursday.

Damascus did not participate in the raid by any means, Assad stated, adding that he’d learned about the claim only through media reports. Adding imaginary participants into the operation is likely supposed to give it credibility, he added, while countries on such a list would likely be flattered to be a “part of a ‘great’ operation.”

“We do not need such credit. We are the ones fighting terrorism. We have no relations and have had no contact with any American institutions.”

Washington’s loud praise of its own actions, a picture of the ‘hero dog’ that took part in the raid and footage purportedly of the aerial strikes have not convinced Assad if it “actually took place or not.” Moreover, he thought the whole affair suspiciously resembled the 2011 killing of another notorious terrorist – Al Qaeda’s head Osama Bin Laden.

“Why were the remains of Baghdadi not shown? This is the same scenario that was followed with Bin Laden. If they are going to use different pretexts in order not to show the remains, let us recall how [former Iraqi] President Saddam Hussein was captured and how the whole operation was shown from A to Z; they showed pictures and video clips after they captured him.”

The killing of Saddam’s sons was also well-documented and widely publicized, Assad went on to add, suggesting that the Americans “hide everything” about both the killing of bin Laden and that of al-Baghdadi for a reason.

“This is part of the tricks played by the Americans. That is why we should not believe everything they say unless they come up with evidence. American politicians are actually guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around.”

All in all, it’s unlikely that death of the IS leader – if he really was killed – and even the ultimate destruction of the terrorist group would change anything, Assad said. The root of the problem – the Wahhabi ideology that is “more than two centuries old” would not disappear at once. The radical Islamist thought and al-Baghdadi were merely US tools all along, Assad claimed, adding that those tools could easily be re-purposed elsewhere.

“I believe the whole thing regarding this operation is a trick. Baghdadi will be recreated under a different name, a different individual, or ISIS in its entirety might be reproduced as needed under a different name but with the same thought and the same purpose. The director of the whole scenario is the same, the Americans.”

October 31, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

Leaked document reveals Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto plans

Private taxation, private roads, charter schools, corporate cops and judges, and punishment for people who choose privacy.

BoingBoing | October 30, 2019

Tomorrow, Toronto’s City Council will hold a key vote on Sidewalk Labs’s plan to privatize much of the city’s lakeshore in the name of creating a “smart city” owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

Today, the Globe and Mail published a summary of Sidewalk Labs’s leaked “yellow book,” a 2016 document that lays out Sidewalk Labs’s vision for Toronto and future projects in Detroit, Denver, and Alameda.

The plan lays out a corporate-owned city similar to Lake Buena Vista, the privately owned municipality established by the Walt Disney Company on a massive tract of central Florida land that contains the Walt Disney World resort.

The plan calls for the creation of privately owned and regulated roads, charter schools in place of publicly administered schools, the power to levy and spend property taxes without democratic oversight, a corporate criminal justice system where the cops and judges work for Sidewalk Labs, and totalizing, top-to-bottom, continuous surveillance.

Torontonians who decline to “share” information with Sidewalk Labs will not receive the same level of services as those who do.

Sidewalk Labs says that the document does not reflect its current ambitions.

Sidewalk Labs previously grossly understated the scope of its ambitions. When we revealed that the company had secretly secured the right to build across virtually the city’s entire waterfront, they lied to us before finally admitting it.

Those choosing to remain anonymous would not be able to access all of the area’s services: Automated taxi services would not be available to anonymous users, and some merchants might be unable to accept cash, the book warns.

The document also describes reputation tools that would lead to a “new currency for community co-operation,” effectively establishing a social credit system. Sidewalk could use these tools to “hold people or businesses accountable” while rewarding good behaviour, such as by rewarding a business’s good customer service with an easier or cheaper renewal process on its licence.

This “accountability system based on personal identity” could also be used to make financial decisions.

“A borrower’s stellar record of past consumer behaviour could make a lender, for instance, more likely to back a risky transaction, perhaps with the interest rates influenced by digital reputation ratings,” it says.

Sidewalk Labs document reveals company’s early plans for data collection, tax powers, criminal justice [Tom Cardoso and Josh O’Kane/Globe and Mail]

October 31, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The Failed FBI Plot to Paint Trump Doing Deals with Putin

Felix Sater
By Larry C. Johnson | Sic Semper Tyrannis | October 31, 2019

To appreciate the lies and corruption that are the foundation of the conspiracy to destroy the Presidency of Donald Trump by the FBI, the CIA and the DNI, one need only look at how Robert Mueller lied about FBI informants who were targeting the Trump team.

Let us look specifically at Felix Sater. Felix Sater has been a fully signed up Confidential Human Source for the FBI since 1998. His original plea deal was signed off on by Mueller’s deputy, Andrew Weismann. But you would not know any of this if you relied solely on the Mueller Report.

Here is how Mueller portrays Sater:

In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater, a New York based real estate advisor, contacted Michael Cohen, then-executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Donald J. Trump. Sater had previously worked with the Trump Organization and advised it on a number of domestic and international projects. Sater had explored the possibility of a Trump Tower project in Moscow while working with the Trump Organization and therefore knew of the organization’s general interest in completing a deal there.

This is fundamentally dishonest. Sater was more than a mere “real estate advisor” who had previously worked with Trump. He was and is a fully signed up FBI Confidential Human Source. Not my opinion. It is a fact.

An excellent article by Newsweek reporter Bill Powell, Donald Trump Associate Felix Sater Is Linked to the Mob and the CIA—What’s His Role in the Russia Investigation?, provides an excellent review of Sater’s history and involvement with the FBI. One of the surprising revelations from Powell is that Felix Sater was a childhood friend of Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer. Let that sink in for a moment. The FBI informant, Felix Sater, was a long time friend of Cohen.

Sater was playing a role scripted by the FBI and deliberately designed to feed the meme that Trump was dealing with the Russians.

The covert op to paint Trump as a Russian stooge was not left to Sater alone. Christopher Steele, a British spy who was hired by Fusion GPS, conveniently produced a report insisting that the Russians were working overtime to get Trump in bed with them on “lucrative real estate deals.” The Steele report dated 20 June 2016 makes the following claims:

Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively, the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP for at least 5 years. . . .

In terms of specifics, Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years (see more below). . . .

The Kremlin’s cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia, especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. How ever, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.

Pay attention. Who offered Trump the deal in Moscow? FELIX SATER. Was he a Russian agent? No. He was the FBI’s Joe.

If the Steele Dossier was true, Trump should have had multiple offers for projects on in Russia, especially Moscow. Steele claims Putin’s people were feeding Trump information and opportunity. So where is the evidence of such activity? There is none. Just Felix Sater, FBI snitch.

Robert Mueller tried in vain to advance the lie that Trump was doing deals in Moscow. His report states:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov’s purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Who was pushing the project in Moscow? FELIX SATER. Not Michael Cohen and certainly not Donald Trump. Sater was the instigator. At no time did he testify that he was directed by Trump or anyone else in the Trump organization to reachout to the Russians. And don’t forget what Christopher Steele claimed—the Russians were in a frenzy supposedly to offer Trump lucrative deals. That was and is a monumental lie.

Sater was and is an FBI informant. Sater was not just a private entrepreneur looking to make some coin. We know without a doubt that Sater was a fully signed up FBI informant. Sater’s status as an FBI snitch was first exposed in 2012 (you can read the letter confirming Sater’s status as an FBI snitch here). Another inconvenient fact excluded from the Mueller report is that one of Mueller’s Chief Prosecutors, Andrew Weissman, signed the deal with Felix Sater in December 1998 that put Sater into the FBI Informant business. Sater was used multiple times in the next decade by the FBI to make cases against Russian spies and mobsters.

How could Robert Mueller neglect to mention this critical fact? This was not the oversight of a senile old man. It was deliberate obfuscation.

The question that prosecutor Robert Durham needs to ask is who directed Sater to pitch the Trump team in September 2015 to pursue a deal in Moscow? The answer probably lies in Sater’s FD-1023s. A 1023 is a report that an FBI agent must file every time he meets with a Confidential Human Source. This was an orchestrated attempt to set up Donald Trump as a Russian stooge. But it did not start in July 2016 as the FBI falsely claims. It started in September 2015. Who authorized this?

October 31, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Killing Julian Assange: Justice Denied When Exposing Official Wrongdoing

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 31, 2019

The hideous treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange continues and many observers are citing his case as being symptomatic of developing “police state” tendencies in both the United States and in Europe, where rule of law is being subordinated to political expediency.

Julian Assange was the founder and editor-in-chief of the controversial news and information site WikiLeaks. As the name implies, after 2006 the site became famous, or perhaps notorious, for its publication of materials that have been leaked to it by government officials and other sources who consider the information to be of value to the public but unlikely to be accepted by the mainstream media, which has become increasingly corporatized and timid.

WikiLeaks became known to a global audience back in 2010 when it obtained from US Army enlisted soldier Bradley Manning a large quantity of classified documents relating to the various wars that the United States was fighting in Asia. Some of the material included what might be regarded as war crimes.

WikiLeaks again became front page news over the 2016 presidential election, when the website released the emails of candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta. The emails revealed how Clinton and her team collaborated with the Democratic National Committee to ensure that she would be nominated rather than Bernie Sanders. It should be noted that the material released by WikiLeaks was largely documentary and factual in nature, i.e. it was not “fake news.”

Because he is a journalist ostensibly protected by the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, the handling of the “threat” posed by journalist Assange is inevitably somewhat different than a leak by a government official, referred to as a whistleblower. Assange has been vilified as an “enemy of the state,” likely even a Russian agent, and was initially pursued by Swedish authorities after claims of a rape, later withdrawn, were made against him. To avoid arrest, he was given asylum by a friendly Ecuadorean government seven years ago in London. The British police had an active warrant to arrest him immediately as he had failed to make a bail hearing after he obtained asylum, which is indeed what took place when Quito revoked his protected status in April.

As it turned out, Julian Assange was not exactly alone when he was in the Ecuadorean Embassy. All of his communications, including with his lawyers, were being intercepted by a Spanish security company hired for the purpose allegedly by the CIA. There apparently was also a CIA plan to kidnap Assange. In a normal court in a normal country, the government case would have been thrown out on constitutional and legal grounds, but that was not so in this instance. The United States has persisted in its demands to obtain the extradition of Assange from Britain and London seems to be more than willing to play along. Assange is undeniably hated by the American political Establishment and even much of the media in bipartisan fashion, with the Democrats blaming him for Hillary Clinton’s loss while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has labeled him a “fraud, a coward and an enemy.” WikiLeaks itself is regarded by the White House as a “hostile non-government intelligence service.” Sending Julian Assange to prison for the rest of his life may be called justice, but it is really revenge against someone who has exposed government lies. Some American politicians have even asserted that jail is too good for Assange, insisting that he should instead be executed.

The actual charges laid out in the US indictment are for alleged conspiracy with Chelsea Manning to publish the “Iraq War Logs,” the “Afghan War Logs” and the US State Department cables. On May 23rd, the United States government further charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which criminalizes any exposure of classified US government information anywhere in the world by anyone. Its use would create a precedent: any investigative journalist who exposes US government malfeasance could be similarly charged.

Assange is currently incarcerated in solitary confinement at high-security Belmarsh prison. It is possible that the Justice Department, after it obtains Assange through extradition, will attempt to make the case that Assange actively colluded with the Russian government, a conspiracy to “defraud the United States” to put it in legalese. Assange is unlikely to receive anything approaching a fair trial no matter what the charges are.

Assange’s prison term ended on September 22nd, but an earlier procedural hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court had already decided that a full hearing on extradition to the US would not begin until February 25th, 2020. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange would not be released even though the prison term had ended, because he was a flight risk. His status in the prison system was duly changed from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition and his final hearing would be at the high security Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court rather than in a normal civil court. Belmarsh is where terrorists are routinely tried and the proceedings there permit only minimal public and media scrutiny.

Most recently, on October 21st, 2019, Assange was again in Westminster Magistrates’ Court for a “case management hearing” regarding his possible extradition to the US, Judge Baraitser denied a defense team request for a three-month delay so that they could gather evidence in light of the fact that Assange had been denied access to his own papers and documents in order to prepare his defense. British government prosecutor James Lewis QC and the five US “representatives” present opposed any delay in the extradition proceedings and were supported by Judge Baraitser, denying any delay in the proceedings.

Another procedural hearing will take place on December 19th followed by the full extradition hearing in February, at which time Assange will presumably be turned over to US Marshalls for transportation to the Federal prison in Virginia to await trial. That is, of course, assuming that he lives that long as his health has visibly deteriorated and there have been claims that he has been tortured by the British authorities.

Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, who knows Julian Assange well, was present when he appeared in court on the 21st. Murray was shocked by Assange’s appearance, noting that he had lost weight and looked like he had aged considerably. He was walking with a pronounced limp and when the judge asked him questions, to include his name and date of birth, he had trouble responding. Murray described him as a “shambling, incoherent wreck” and also concluded that “one of the greatest journalists and most important dissidents of our times is being tortured to death by the state, before our eyes.”

The British court was oblivious to Assange’s poor condition, with Judge Baraitser telling the clearly struggling prisoner that if he were incapable of following proceedings, then his lawyers could explain what had happened to him later. Objections to what was happening made by both Assange and his lawyers were dismissed by the Crown’s legal representatives, often after discussions with the American officials present, a process described in full by Murray, who, after describing the miscarriage of justice he had just witnessed observed that Julian Assange is being “slowly killed in public sight and arraigned on a charge of publishing the truth about government wrongdoing.” He concluded that “Unless Julian is released shortly he will be destroyed. If the state can do this, then who is next?” Indeed.

October 31, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

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