How Donations to the Clinton Foundation Led to Tens of Billions in Weapons Sales to Autocratic Regimes

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Another day, another Clinton Foundation related scandal. In the latest expose by International Business Times’ David Sirota, we learn about the explosion in weapons sales to certain nations during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. Billions of dollars in sales went to autocratic regimes notorious for human rights abuses who donated generously to the Clinton Foundation. Should we be surprised? No. Should we be outraged and disgusted? Absolutely. Of all the Clinton scandals, the following is the most dangerous to peace on earth.

Here are some excerpts from the IBT article detailing how taxpayer money is being used to arm the world into oblivion:

Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle East.

Israeli officials were agitated, reportedly complaining to the Obama administration that this substantial enhancement to Saudi air power risked disrupting the region’s fragile balance of power. The deal appeared to collide with the State Department’s documented concerns about the repressive policies of the Saudi royal family.

In the event you want a highlight reel of heinous Saudi behavior, click here.

These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing — the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 — contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.

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When a Russian Billionaire Gets Ripped Off – A Peak Inside the Opaque World of High End Art

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It’s hard to feel bad when a guy worth $10 billion gets ripped off, but the story of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev being taking for a ride by his “trusted” art dealer, Yves Bouvier, is certainly fascinating. There are two aspects of the story I find particularly interesting. First, the increased use of “freeports” around the world by the super rich in order to buy, sell and hold assets tax free. This is merely another example of how billionaires often avoid taxes entirely, while the nine-oligarch wealthy, the middle class and the poor are nickel and dimed for virtually everything. Liberty Blitzkrieg covered freeports back in 2013 in the article, Introducing “Freeports” the Latest Way for Oligarchs to Store Their Assets. Here’s an excerpt:

Passengers at Findel airport in Luxembourg may have noticed a cluster of cranes a few hundred yards from the runway. The structure being erected looks fairly unremarkable (though it will eventually be topped with striking hexagonal skylights). Along its side is a line of loading bays, suggesting it could be intended as a spillover site for the brimming cargo terminal nearby. This new addition to one of Europe’s busiest air-freight hubs will not hold any old goods, however. It will soon be home to billions of dollars’ worth of fine art and other treasures, much of which will have been whisked straight from collectors’ private jets along a dedicated road linking the runway to the warehouse. 

The world’s rich are increasingly investing in expensive stuff, and “freeports” such as Luxembourg’s are becoming their repositories of choice. Their attractions are similar to those offered by offshore financial centers: security and confidentiality, not much scrutiny, the ability for owners to hide behind nominees, and an array of tax advantages. This special treatment is possible because goods in freeports are technically in transit, even if in reality the ports are used more and more as permanent homes for accumulated wealth. If anyone knows how to game the rules, it is the super-rich and their advisers.

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Martin Armstrong Reports on a Secret Meeting in London to Ban Cash

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At this point, anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to the central planning economic totalitarians running the fraudulent global financial system is aware of the blatant push in the media to acclimate the masses to accepting a “cashless society.”

In the mind of an economic tyrant, banning cash represents the holy grail. Forcing the plebs onto a system of digital fiat currency transactions offers total control via a seamless tracking of all transactions in the economy, and the ability to block payments if an uppity citizen dares get out of line.

While we’ve all seen the idiotic arguments for banning cash, i.e., it will allow central planners to more efficiently centrally plan economies into the ground, Martin Armstrong is reporting on a secret meeting in London with the aim of getting rid of any economic privacy that remains by ending cash.

From Armstrong Economics:

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Adult FriendFinder Hacked – Accusations Emerge that Federal Employees Used it from Government Emails

Before I get into the meat of this story, let’s briefly cover the background of the Adult FriendFinder hack. From CNN:

More than 3.5 million people’s sexual preferences, fetishes and secrets have been exposed after dating site Adult FriendFinder was hacked.

Already, some of the adult website’s customers are being identified by name.

Adult FriendFinder asks customers to detail their interests and, based on those criteria, matches people for sexual encounters. The site, which boasts 64 million members, claims to have “helped millions of people find traditional partners, swinger groups, threesomes, and a variety of other alternative partners.”

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FBI Confirms No Major Terrorism Cases Cracked via Unconstitutional Patriot Act Phone Spying

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FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations.

– From the Washington Times article: FBI Admits No Major Cases Cracked with Patriot Act Snooping Powers 

Back in 2013, as debate about the Snowden revelations was at its zenith, I published a post titled NSA Chief Admits “Only One or Perhaps Two” Terror Plots Stopped by Spy Program. Here’s an excerpt:

The Obama administration’s credibility on intelligence suffered another blow Wednesday as the chief of the National Security Agency admitted that officials put out numbers that vastly overstated the counterterrorism successes of the government’s warrantless bulk collection of all Americans’ phone records.

Pressed by the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing, Gen. Keith B. Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist plots foiled by the NSA’s huge database of every phone call made in or to America was only one or perhaps two — far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration.

“One or perhaps two.” Or perhaps zero. The guy has the nerve to say “perhaps.” How do you not know? What a bunch of lying assholes. How the heck does 54 turn into “one or two,” and I’ll tell you something else, I don’t believe the one or two figure for a minute. I mean there’s no way he would say “zero” when he is fighting to keep his petty little Stasi state intact. Furthermore, how about some details here. What was the one plot the NSA foiled? Some teenager throwing firecrackers on the White House lawn? These guys need to get lost already. From the Washington Times:

As time has passed and the years have gone by, it has become increasingly clear that the phone records collection program hasn’t stopped a single terror attack. In fact, a recently published report by the Justice Department’s inspector general admitted as much. This takes on increased significance with parts of the Patriot Act set to automatically sunset on June 1st.

The Washington Times reports:

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Congress Moves to Eliminate Labels Showing Consumers Where Meat Comes from Following WTO Ruling

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A House committee has voted to get rid of labels on packages of meat that say where the animals were born, raised and slaughtered.

The House Agriculture Committee voted 38-6 to repeal a “country-of-origin” labeling law for beef, pork and poultry Wednesday — just two days after the World Trade Organization ruled against parts of the law. The labels tell consumers what countries the meat is from: for example, “born in Canada, raised and slaughtered in the United States” or “born, raised and slaughtered in the United States.”

From the Washington Post article: House Panel Votes to Repeal Country-Origin Meat Labeling Law

The following article should take on an increased significance given the Obama administration’s current desperate and aggressive push to receive “fast-track” authority to pass the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. If you aren’t up to speed on the topic, see:

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Number of NYC Apartments for Rent Above $50k/Month Triples Since ’08; 82% of U.S. Construction = Luxury Units

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Here is good news for the plutocrat who wants to try out Manhattan’s ritziest neighborhoods before taking the multimillion-dollar plunge. The market for super-high-end rentals is booming, with plenty of enticing options for tenants of every taste.

In all, 82 apartments renting for at least $50,000 a month were listed on StreetEasy during the first three months of the year, more than triple the number listed in the first quarter of 2008. At lower thresholds, luxury listings are also on the rise. Apartments renting for more than $25,000 a month made up 0.95 percent of total inventory in the first quarter of 2015, up from 0.46 percent in the first quarter of 2008…

Of 370,000 multifamily rental units completed from 2012 to 2014 in 54 U.S. metropolitan areas, 82% were in the luxury category, according to CoStar Group Inc., a real-estate research firm. The firm defines luxury buildings as those that command rents in the top 20% of the market. In some places, including Denver, Tampa, Baltimore and Phoenix, virtually all new apartment construction has been targeted to high-end renters. In Atlanta, about 95% of new apartments have been in the luxury category.

– From Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal:

The oligarch recovery marches forward with reckless enthusiasm, despite extremely disturbing underlying trends which are all but guaranteed to result in significant societal unrest in the years ahead. The U.S. economy, and indeed the global economy, is much more similar to pre-1789 France than any other historical period I can think of.

You have a handful of super wealthy people, completely disconnected from any sense of reality, running around telling governments what to do. All the same characters who created the global financial crisis remain in charge of the world’s most powerful institutions, and continue to benefit handsomely from its aftermath. While claiming to have “saved the global economy,” the only things they really saved were their own positions of power and wealth. The only thing that was saved, was the very thing that should have been completely discarded, the global status quo. 

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This is How the Clowns at the DEA Screen for Drug Dealers on Amtrak

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It’s been a rough couple of years for the DEA. We’ve heard about the agents who got caught having orgies with prostitutes, paid for by both drug cartels and the U.S. taxpayer. We’ve heard about the agents who wrongly locked up a California student and forgot about him for days, forcing him to drink his own urine for survival. Most recently, we heard about the DEA agent who robbed a man of his life’s savings via civil asset forfeiture as he travelled from Michigan to Los Angeles on Amtrak to start a music company.

Unsurprisingly, what happened to the man on Amtrak appears to be a regular occurrence, as DEA agents and Amtrak officials basically assume all human behavior to be deemed “suspicious.”

We learn from the Atlantic that:

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Saudi Arabia is Making a Play to Head the U.N. Human Rights Council

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The fact that Saudi Arabia is on the U.N. Human Rights Council at all is more than sufficient to make a mockery out of the entire body. Nevertheless, it appears this ridiculous membership isn’t enough for the Saudis, and the Washington Free Beacon is reporting that the medieval desert monarchy is angling to take over the head position when the leadership position becomes available after 2016.

Apparently the whole thing is funny to Saudi Arabia, which has already beheaded as many people in 2015 as it did in all of 2014.

Now we learn from the Washington Free Beacon:

Saudi Arabia is making a bid to head the United Nations’ Human Rights Council (HRC) just days after it posted a slew of new job openings for executioners who would help carry out beheadings amid a massive uptick in state-sanctioned killings in the country.

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How UCLA Tried to Negotiate a Lower Speaking Fee, but Hillary Clinton Refused and Demanded $300,000

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Before Hillary Clinton spoke at the University of California at Los Angeles in March, her representatives had a few specifications to negotiate with school officials.

And of course, there was the matter of Clinton’s $300,000 speaking fee. When officials asked for a price reduction on behalf of the public university, Clinton’s representatives didn’t budge, saying $300,000 was already the “special university rate”…

Disclosure documents filed by Hillary Clinton last week revealed that the couple have earned about $25 million for delivering 104 paid speeches since January 2014.

In some cases, organizations that had once paid Bill Clinton to speak now paid even more to lure his wife.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization paid Bill Clinton $175,000 in 2010. Four years later, the group paid $335,000 — nearly twice as much — to hear from Hillary Clinton. Likewise, the Advanced Medical Technology Association paid Bill Clinton $160,000 to speak in 2009 and paid Hillary Clinton $265,000 to speak in 2014.

– From CBS News and the Washington Post

Hillary Clinton is not only incredibly corrupt, she’s a fraud and a phony of gigantic proportions. One could say she truly sold out to corporate interests back in the mid-1970s, something I highlighted in the post, This is How Hillary Does Business – An Oil Company, Human Rights Abuses in Colombia and the Clinton Foundation. Here’s an excerpt and a little walk down Clinton memory lane:

After Bill was elected governor of Arkansas in 1976, Hillary joined the Rose Law Firm, the first woman partner in an outfit almost as old as the Republic. It was all corporate business, and the firm’s prime clients were the state’s business heavyweights ­ Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart, Jackson Stevens Investments, Worthen Bank and the timber company Weyerhaeuser, the state’s largest landowner.

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