News Items

The BBC Asks – What Really Happened With the Clintons in Haiti?

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When it comes to the Clintons, where there’s smoke, there’s usually a structure fire. I doubt Haiti is any different.

With that in mind, I wanted to flag an article published earlier today at the BBC, What really happened with the Clintons in Haiti?

Here are some excerpts:

Donald Trump has said the work of Bill and Hillary Clinton in Haiti was a “disgrace”. What really happened?

“The Clinton family, they are crooks, they are thieves, they are liars,” says Haitian activist Dahoud Andre.

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Must Read of the Day – The Clinton Presidency Is Going to Be a Miserable Slog

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For a long time now, I’ve felt that no matter who wins this election, the U.S. is in for extremely difficult times over at least the next 4 years. The reason is twofold. First, when you combine Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders supporters (the latter didn’t just disappear), a majority of the population is in full on revolt against the status quo. This mood isn’t going anywhere. Combine this backdrop with the very high likelihood of an economic downturn, and you have a recipe for mayhem. This isn’t even taking into account the possible end to a multi-decade secular bull market in sovereign bonds, the ramifications of which represent a financial extinction-level event for much of the Western world.

When I look at the financial markets and note that they appear totally unwilling to even flirt with the very real possibility of a Trump victory, I conclude that the current status quo assumption is not only that Hillary will win, but that after she wins, the social mood will get better. I, on the other hand, think it will get far, far worse, as disgusted Trump and Sanders supporters push back relentlessly from day one. As I noted earlier today on Twitter:

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‘Chairman Cash’ – John Podesta is Paid $7,000 a Month by Foundation Run by Banker With Ties to Financial Crisis

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Last Friday, I published a post titled, John Podesta’s Sister-in-Law Lobbied For Raytheon While Hillary Was Secretary of State, which understandably got totally buried in the madness surrounding the latest FBI news. Here’s the first paragraph of that post:

The Podesta family seems particularly adept at earning extraordinary sums of money via selling out the American public. Earlier this year, I highlighted how John Podesta’s brother Tony was paid $140,000 per month by the medieval monarchy of Saudi Arabia. After all, who cares about women’s rights when the pay is good?

Indeed, it’s not just relatives of Podesta who know how to rake in the cash. John is no slouch either, as Politico explained in an article published earlier today.

Here are a few excerpts:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, last year signed a $7,000-a-month contract with the foundation of a major Clinton donor who made a fortune selling a type of mortgage that some critics say contributed to the housing collapse, hacked emails show.

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Berkeley Professor Claims Hillary Clinton Email Investigation Nothing More Than a Sexist ‘Bitch Hunt’

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Today’s college-related article is not about safe spaces, macro aggressions and trigger warnings. Rather, it’s about a remarkably stupid claim made by Robin Lakoff (a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley), that the entire email scandal plaguing Hillary Clinton is nothing more than a vast patriarchal driven conspiracy manufactured by men for the sole purpose of taking down a strong and powerful woman. No, I’m not kidding.

Here are a few excerpts from the delusional Time published article, Hillary Clinton’s Emailgate Is an Attack on Women:

‘It’s not about emails; it’s about public communication by a woman’ 

I am mad. I am mad because I am scared. And if you are a woman, you should be, too. Emailgate is a bitch hunt, but the target is not Hillary Clinton. It’s us.

The only reason the whole email flap has legs is because the candidate is female. Can you imagine this happening to a man? Clinton is guilty of SWF (Speaking While Female), and emailgate is just a reminder to us all that she has no business doing what she’s doing and must be punished, for the sake of all decent women everywhere. There is so much of that going around.

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The Story of How the DOJ Tried to Thwart an FBI Investigation Into the Clinton Foundation

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Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a fascinating and troubling article detailing how aggressively the Department of Injustice moved to stymie efforts of FBI agents who wanted to investigate pay-to-play criminality with regard to the Clinton Foundation.

Of course, none of this should come as a surprise. The Justice Department under President Obama never met a powerful person it cared to prosecute. Indeed, under Eric Holder’s crony reign (same now with Loretta Lynch), it’s been apparent for a very long time that senior leadership at the DOJ see the institution’s primary role to be the coddling and protection of oligarch criminals, especially those in the financial sector (see: Must Watch Video – “The Veneer of Justice in a Kingdom of Crime”).

The death of the rule of law in America, otherwise known as the two-tier justice system, has been a key topic of mine since the very beginning. In fact, I think it is the number one cancer plaguing our society at this time. As I warned in the 2014 post, New Report – The United States’ Sharp Drop in Economic Freedom Since 2000 Driven by “Decline in Rule of Law”:

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Another Black Swan Hits the U.S. Presidential Election

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By now, everyone on planet earth has heard about the bombshell news just announced by the FBI that it was re-opening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Here’s the text of FBI head James Comey’s letter to Congressional leaders.

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Obviously, lots of people are out there pontificating on what, if anything, this means. As such, I’m going to add my two cents to the conversation.

I’ve prided myself on unemotionally calling this election how I see it the whole time, because I’m neither a Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump supporter. Being free of the tremendous baggage that comes with cheerleading a particular candidate in this contentious election, I had consistently predicted a Trump victory until the Access Hollywood tape emerged. At that point I penned a thought-piece titled, Donald Trump is in Trouble – Part 2, in which I changed my forecast to a Hillary Clinton victory.

Here’s some of what I wrote:

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John Podesta’s Sister-in-Law Lobbied For Raytheon While Hillary Was Secretary of State

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The Podesta family seems particularly adept at earning extraordinary sums of money via selling out the American public. Earlier this year, I highlighted how John Podesta’s brother Tony was paid $140,000 per month by the medieval monarchy of Saudi Arabia. After all, who cares about women’s rights when the pay is good?

Here’s a excerpt from the post, “Getting Things Done” – The Brother of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Chair is a Major Lobbyist for Saudi Arabia:

The kingdom employs a total of eight American firms that perform lobbying, consulting, public relations and legal work.

Five of the firms work for the Saudi Arabia Embassy, while another two — Podesta Group and BGR Group — have registered to represent the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, an arm of the government. PR giant Edelman, meanwhile, is working for the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority to encourage international investment.

The Podesta Group is billing Saudi Arabia $140,000 a month for its public relations services. During the last few months of 2015, it sent 27 emails, had two phone calls and one meeting with lawmakers and staffers, journalists, and organizations including Human Rights Watch and the Center for American Progress, disclosure forms show.

DLA Piper receives $50,000 a month from the kingdom and sent hundreds of emails to top congressional staffers between September and the end of February regarding meeting requests and, more generally, “issues affecting U.S.-Saudi Arabia national security interests.” 

Notice the firm DLA Piper mentioned above. You’ll want to remember that for later.

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More Evidence Emerges Proving What a Shameless, Crony Fraud Evan Bayh Is

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The more you look into Evan Bayh’s post-Senate “career,” the dirtier it becomes (he’s running for Senate again this year).

Earlier this week, I published a lengthy article examining Bayh’s shameless cash grab since he left Congress in the article, Democratic Senate Candidate Evan Bayh Represents Everything Broken, Corrupt and Wrong With America. I wrote:

Many of you will know the name Evan Bayh. He’s the son of three-term Indiana Senator Birch Bayh, and went on to become Governor of Indiana from 1983-1997, and then Senator himself from 1999-2011. Upon leaving “public service,” he did what most of these government prostitutes do — made millions and millions of dollars doing pretty much nothing.

As a recent article from Politico reveals, the Bayh family had assets worth $2.1-$7.7 million when he left the Senate in 2010, but it has since surged to a range of $13.8 million-$48 million. Making that kind of money isn’t easy for anyone, and it’s particularly suspicious in the hands of a man supposedly dedicated to public service.

So how did the couple make all this money? Evan, for one, joined law and lobbying firm McGuireWoods and became an advisor to private equity giant Apollo Global as upon leaving the Senate. Meanwhile, I can’t figure out for the life of me what his wife Susan does. She seems to be a “professional board member” for a variety of large companies.

Just one day after I published the above, The Huffington Post came out with a piece that adds additional pieces to the very slimy post-Senate history of Evan Bayh.

Here’s some of what we learn:

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Facebook Faces High Profile Lawsuit Regarding Facial Recognition Technology ‘DeepFace’

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As the technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous and far more accurate, facial recognition and the lack of any laws or regulations around the practice is slowly starting to enter mainstream consciousness. It’s a very important issue that isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

For example, as I highlighted in the recent post, Half of American Adults Exist in a Government Accessible Facial Recognition Network:

Half of all American adults are already in some sort of facial recognition network accessible to law enforcement, according to a comprehensive new study.

Conducted over a year and relying in part on Freedom of Information and public record requests to 106 law enforcement agencies, the study, conducted by Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, found American police use of facial recognition technology is a scattered, hodgepodge network of laws and regulations.

“Looking at the sum total of what we found, there have been no laws that comprehensively regulate face recognition technology, and there’s really no case law either,” Clare Garvie, an associate at the CPT, told Vocativ. “So we find ourselves having to rely on the agencies that are using that technology to rein it in. But what we found is that not every system — by a long shot — has a use policy.” 

With that in mind, Bloomberg published an interesting article yesterday covering a couple of lawsuits against Facebook and Google regarding their facial recognition practices.

Here’s some of what we learned:

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Must Read of the Day – Dennis Kucinich’s Extraordinary Warning on D.C.’s Think Tank Warmongers

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WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

– From Major General Smedley Butler’s War is a Rackett

Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for the American people to stop them.

The piece was published at The Nation and is titled: Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors.

Read it and share it with everyone you know.

Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves “think tanks,” and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people.

As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket.

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