New York Post Reports – ABC Signed a $105 Million Contract with George Stephanopoulos Last Year

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If the New York Post report is true, ABC News made a monumental financial blunder last year when it signed a $105 million contract to keep George Stephanopoulos as the face of its “news” network.

As I outlined in last week’s post, First Brian Williams, Now George Stephanopoulos Has Lost All Credibility in Latest Mainstream Media Scandal, due to his undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation, Mr. Stephanopoulos is now unable to report with any credibility on Hillary Clinton. If he isn’t capable of reporting on Hillary, then he isn’t able of reporting on any aspect of the 2016 Presidential election. So why would he be worth five dollars, let alone $105 million?

From the New York Post:

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Need a Job? Saudi Arabia is Looking for Eight Swordsmen to Keep up with Record Beheadings

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Looking for work and want to help out one of the U.S. government’s closest global allies at the same time? Well today might be your lucky day.

All you have to do is be willing to sever the heads of human beings accused of committing victimless crimes. No qualifications are necessary.

From the AFP:

Riyadh (AFP) – Saudi Arabia advertised vacancies for eight executioners Tuesday after beheading nearly as many people since the start of the year as it did in the whole of 2014.

The civil service ministry said that no qualifications were necessary and that applicants would be exempted from the usual entrance exams.

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Trade Expert and TPP Whistleblower – “We Should Be Very Concerned about What’s Hidden in This Trade Deal”

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So here are some of the things, I think, our global Over Class would like to achieve and how they intend to achieve them.

1) The Over Class must retain and consolidate their control over the global system of debt.

2) The power to regulate must be taken from nations and effectively controlled by corporations.

3) Professionalize governance. Democracy can be and must be neutered, and an effective way of doing this is to insist that amateur, elected officials MUST take the advice of professional (read corporate) advisors. Expand current law to enforce this.

4) The financial system badly needs un-encumbered ‘assets’ to feed the debt issuing system. A new way must be found to pry sovereign assets from public ownership. Such a new way is suggested.

5) In order to facilitate the political changes necessary, the public mind-set must be changed. National Treasures such as the NHS in Britain must be re-branded as evil State Monopolies.

6) Effective ways must be found to convince people that democratic rule is no longer sufficient to protect them.

7) An alternative to Democracy must be introduced and praised. That alternative must be the Rule of International Law as written and controlled by the lawyers of the 1%. People must be told that this is all that stands between them and an increasingly hostile and anarchic world. But that it can only keep them safe if it has absolute authority over democracy. People must voluntarily bow to it out of fear and its decisions must be as absolute and unquestionable.

– From David Malone’s excellent article published last year: The Next Crisis – Part two – A manifesto for the supremacy of the 1%

Obama is obsessively pushing for fast track authority on a secret trade deal written by corporate lobbyists known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. I focused on this issue last week in the post, As the Senate Prepares to Vote on “Fast Track,” Here’s a Quick Primer on the Dangers of the TPP. Here’s an excerpt:

Trying to learn about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is like trying to walk through a minefield. The only information we really have is courtesy of leaks, and those snippets are definitely not encouraging.

Pretty much every piece of major legislation passed by Congress since 9/11 is either a taxpayer giveaway to mega corporations, or a major expansion of government power. The worst pieces of legislation are always marketed with positive sounding terms and soundbites. The latest swindle is no exception. At its core, the TPP appears to be nothing more than a ceding of national sovereignty to multi-national corporations. Then again, us skeptics could be wrong about that, but chances are we’re not. We just don’t know because the text is “classified.”

The Obama administration’s primary tactic in defending this monstrosity has been to accuse critics of “not knowing what they are talking about.” Fortunately, Michael Wessel, a trade expert and “cleared advisor” on the TPP, is blowing the whistle. Here are some excerpts from his very important article published by PoliticoI’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned:

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Chris Christie Calls Snowden Supporters “Civil Liberties Extremists” in His Latest Desperate Neocon Diatribe

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Chris Christie is a uniquely American embarrassment. Only a person so completely consumed with his own bullshit and narcissism could miss the fact that he characterizes the word coward. He’s created a national presence for himself as a warrior against corruption, yet he only punches downward, and exclusively picks on the weak. While he rails against entitlements and takes particular pleasure in attacking teachers, he never dares go after the real entitlement criminals. Wall Street bailout babies, and the multi-national corporations constantly sucking on the taxpayer teat via corporate welfare are never the focus of his ire. That’s because he’s 100% completely full of shit with regard to pretty much every topic he addresses.

Chris Christie is the consummate authoritarian, and he worships at the altar of the rich and powerful. He loves war, the surveillance state and political control. He’s the type of person who would chop off the hand of a poor person caught stealing a cookie, while happily offering a deferred prosecution agreement to a financial oligarch stealing billions. The fact that anyone takes him seriously after all his scandals and previous examples of verbal diarrhea is a testament to how deranged and damaged our political system really is.

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The DEA Strikes Again – Agents Seize Man’s Life Savings Under Civil Asset Forfeiture Without Charges

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All the money – $16,000 in cash – that Joseph Rivers said he had saved and relatives had given him to launch his dream in Hollywood is gone, seized during his trip out West not by thieves but by Drug Enforcement Administration agents during a stop at the Amtrak train station in Albuquerque.

Rivers, 22, wasn’t detained and has not been charged with any crime since his money was taken last month.

That doesn’t matter. Under a federal law enforcement tool called civil asset forfeiture, he need never be arrested or convicted of a crime for the government to take away his cash, cars or property – and keep it.

Rivers was left penniless, his dream deferred.

From the Albuquerque Journal article: DEA to Traveler: Thanks, I’ll Take That Cash

In the “land of the free” you might be innocent until proven guilty, but your assets aren’t.

In one of the most uncivilized and preposterous loopholes in America, federal agents are allowed to steal citizens’ assets; cars, cash, even homes, based on suspicion alone. I’ve covered this barbaric and backward practice on many occasions, but here’s a quick refresher from the first post I wrote on the subject in 2013, Why You Should Never, Ever Drive Through Tenaha, Texas:

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Not ISIS – Saudi Arabia Prepares to Execute and Publicly Display Beheaded Body of Political Activist in “Crucifixion”

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One of the ways that the U.S. government most clearly expresses its deep dedication to global human rights, democracy and decency across the globe is via its unwavering support for the feudal, inhumane tyrannical monarchy of Saudi Arabia. A monarchy that also increasingly seems to have played a key role in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Saudis have received a lot of bad press as of late due to it consistently breaking its own records for beheadings, but sometimes a simple beheading isn’t sufficient. In a punishment known as “crucifixion,” the executed person’s beheaded body is placed on public display for three days. Currently facing this fate are three political activists, including two children. We learn from Reprieve.org that:

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First Brian Williams, Now George Stephanopoulos Has Lost All Credibility in Latest Mainstream Media Scandal

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As we turn the pages on 2015, the American mainstream media continues to unintentionally commit suicide. We all remember the NBC News mess from earlier this year when: Brian Williams was Forced to Admit His Tale of Being on a Downed Helicopter in Iraq Was Pure Fantasy. Now we have another scandal, but this one has far greater implications to the nation at large.

When I first saw the headlines that former top Clinton operative, George Stephanopoulos, had been caught donating $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, I failed to immediately recognize its importance. That’s because I don’t pay close attention to mainstream media and the roles their various muppets play in these organizations. Once you recognize how central his “reporting,” if you can call it that, on the Clinton Foundation is to ABC News, you realize how dangerous and inappropriate his conflict of interest is.

Make no mistake about it, this is a huge scandal and Mr. Stephanopoulos should be immediately fired from ABC News. He has absolutely no credibility left whatsoever. In this post, I will explain why from several different angles.

For some background, let’s take a look at the excellent article by Erik Wemple at the Washington Post:

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The Mindset of UK Prime Minister David Cameron – It’s Not Enough to Follow the Law, You Must Love Big Brother

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It’s not just those domestic extremists and crazy “conspiracy theory” kooks who took serious issue with UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent overtly fascist language when it comes to freedom of expression in Great Britain. For example, in a post published today, the UK Independent describes the quote below as “the creepiest thing David Cameron has ever said.”

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This statement, and others like it, are a huge deal. This isn’t how the leader of a major civilized Western so-called “democracy” speaks to the citizenry. It is how a master talks to his slaves. How a ruler addresses his subjects. I think the following tweet by Glenn Greenwald earlier today sums up David Cameron’s attitude perfectly well:

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Before You Buy That Rothko…How the CIA Covertly Nurtured Modern Art as a Cold War “Weapon”

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For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art – including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko – as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince – except that it acted secretly – the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were called into play. Pre-eminent among these was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called “Mummy’s museum”, Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called “free enterprise painting”). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows.

The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members’ board of the museum’s International Program. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency’s wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman. And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA’s International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of the museum in 1949.

– From the excellent Independent article published in 1995: Modern Art Was CIA ‘Weapon’

Most of you will be aware of the oligarch bidding wars for high end art at recent auctions held by Christie’s and Sotheby’s. In fact, the feeding frenzy was so extreme, the top 10 lots accounted for almost $800 million alone. Some of these paintings are breathtakingly beautiful, such as Vincent Van Gogh’s, “L’Allée des Alyscamps.” Others, not so much. Such as this one by Mark Rothko, which sold for $46.5 million.

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Unsurprisingly, the paintings which seem to be least inspiring were by artists who were covertly pushed by the CIA in the 1950’s as part of its cold war strategy. Mark Rothko, for example, was born in the Russian Empire in 1903 (modern day Latvia) and ended up in America in 1913. Being a Russian artist in America made him the perfect CIA tool, and apparently his art served that purpose unbeknownst to him. The CIA program was originally set up in 1947, under the not so covert division called the Propaganda Assets Inventory. You really can’t make this up.

In one of the most interesting articles I’ve ever read, we learn from the UK Independent in a 1995 article:

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Birth Tourism – How Tens of Thousands of Pregnant Chinese Women Travel to the U.S. Just to Give Birth

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Did you know there exists a highly lucrative business in America that consists of helping pregnant Chinese women get into the U.S. merely to give birth and get their children passports? Yep, neither did I.

From Bloomberg:

Fiona He gave birth to her second child, a boy, on Jan. 24, 2015, at Pomona Valley Hospital in Southern California. The staff was friendly, the delivery uncomplicated, and the baby healthy. He, a citizen of China, left the hospital confident she had made the right decision to come to America to have her baby.

She’d arrived in November as a customer of USA Happy Baby, one of an increasing number of agencies that bring pregnant Chinese women to the States. Like most of them, Happy Baby is a deluxe service that ushers the women through the visa process and cares for them before and after delivery.

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