News Items

Leading Turkish Journalists Face Life in Prison

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Hundreds of Turkish academics are waiting to find out whether they will be prosecuted or sacked for spreading “terrorist propaganda”, after they signed a petition calling for violence to end in Turkey’s southeast, where government forces have been fighting Kurdish separatists.

After the petition provoked a furious response from Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, several universities in the country have begun investigations into signatories among their faculty — which could lead to their dismissal if accusations of unlawful political agitation hold up. On 15 January, police arrested and later released 27 academics, according to local media reports, including economists, physicians and scientists.

Turkey’s government has previously clamped down on scientists and students who question its policies, imprisoned scientists charged with terrorism offenses, and restricted the freedom of funding agencies and scientific academies. But the number of arrests and investigations makes the current episode one of the larger Turkish attacks on freedom of expression in recent years, prompting outrage among human-rights advocates.

– From the post: U.S. Ally Turkey Arrests Academics for the Crime of Signing a Peace Petition

Over the past several months, the nation of Turkey has rapidly devolved into a tyrannical, rogue regime under an increasingly despotic president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It’s a disturbing reality I’ve highlighted frequently in recent months, particularly since the country remains a close U.S. government ally and is actively attempting to join the EU.

Well the hits just keep on coming. From the AFP via Yahoo News:

Istanbul (AFP) – Two Turkish journalists went on trial in Istanbul Friday facing possible life terms on controversial espionage charges, with the court immediately barring the public from a case seen as a test of press freedom under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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The World’s Most Famous Economic Hitman Confesses – They’re Coming for Your Democracy

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Allen Dulles, the CIA director under presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, the younger brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and the architect of a secretive national security apparatus that functioned as essentially an autonomous branch of government. Talbot offers a portrait of a black-and-white Cold War-era world full of spy games and nuclear brinkmanship, in which everyone is either a good guy or a bad guy. Dulles—who deceived American elected leaders and overthrew foreign ones, who backed ex-Nazis and thwarted left-leaning democrats—falls firmly in the latter camp. 

But what I was really trying to do was a biography on the American power elite from World War II up to the 60s. That was the key period when the national security state was constructed in this country, and where it begins to overshadow American democracy. It’s almost like Game of Thrones to me, where you have the dynastic struggles between these power groups within the American system for control of the country and the world…

Absolutely. The surveillance state that Snowden and others have exposed is very much a legacy of the Dulles past. I think Dulles would have been delighted by how technology and other developments have allowed the American security state to go much further than he went. He had to build a team of cutthroats and assassins on the ground to go around eliminating the people he wanted to eliminate, who he felt were in the way of American interests. He called them communists. We call them terrorists today. And of course the most controversial part of my book, I’m sure, will be the end, where I say there was blowback from that. Because that killing machine in some way was brought back home.

– From the post: How America’s Modern Shadow Government Can Be Traced Back to One Very Evil Man – Allen Dulles

Most readers will be familiar with John Perkins and his best-selling novel Confessions of an Economic Hitman. What you may not know, is he’s currently making the rounds warning us that all the corporatist mercenary tactics employed against third-world nations to financially benefit U.S. conglomerates are now being turned inward on American communities.

He discussed some of this in a recent interview with Yes. Here are a few excerpts:

Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations.

If economic pressure and threats didn’t work, Perkins says, the jackals were called to either overthrow or assassinate the noncompliant heads of state. That is, indeed, what happened to Allende, with the backing of the CIA.

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America’s Top Rogue Mercenary – Blackwater’s Erik Prince is Under Federal Investigation

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Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports.

–  From the post: New York Times Reports – Blackwater Threatened to Kill a State Dept. Official and the U.S. Government Did Nothing

A little over two years ago, I published a post titled, How Erik Prince, Founder of Blackwater, Will Help China Subjugate Africa. Here’s what we learned at the time:

Shares of DVN Holdings, controlled by Hong Kong businessman Johnson Ko Chun-shun and state-owned Citic Group, surged 7.3 per cent after it appointed Erik Prince – former owner of controversial US security firm Blackwater – as chairman, and granted him more share options.

Prince last November sold to DVN a company that plans to build a pan-Africa provider of aviation, logistics, risk management, security services and exploration support services, needed by many Chinese businesses active in Africa. He received US$3 million plus the first batch of options.

Prince has logistics, aviation, manufacturing, resources and energy business interests in Africa, the Middle East and North America, and is the founder of Frontier Resource Group, a private equity firm active in African aviation, exploration, mining and logistics, DVN said.

The firm subsequently paid US$42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of US export rules, to avoid criminal charges, The New York Times reported.

The writing was on the wall back then, and it appears the Department of Justice has finally picked up on the shadiness of it all.

Earlier today, The Intercept published a detailed account of the ongoing investigation into America’s number one mercenary, Erik Prince. Here are a few excerpts:

Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

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Excellent Interview – A Brief History of Corporate Immunity

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Like so many other cases of egregious financial fraud over the past several years, regulators used softball tactics to go easy on the banks. No bank was even forced to admit wrongdoing in the orders by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Regulators avoided court and settled for cash, which the traders won’t pay – the bank’s shareholders will. Officials presented a minimal amount of evidence, lacking the full details of the traders’ misconduct. They sought no judicial review.

In short, banks got away with their crimes for a pittance; their stocks even rose on the news of the settlements because the market believes the trouble is over. 

The DoJ has increasingly used a relatively new and declawed method to deal with the aftermath of the financial crisis: the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA). 

No one goes to jail and no one ever gets prosecuted. Under a deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department allows corporations to pay a fine, then agree to some enhanced supervision and monitoring. The Justice Department appears to admit this in the US Attorney’s manual, when they describe these deals as “agreements not to enforce the law under particular conditions”.

Each deferred prosecution agreement is negotiated individually. There is no thought to creating a future record: no trials, no jury verdicts, no appellate court decisions, no case law and no binding precedent. This makes it impossible to determine the boundaries of the law. The same conduct can be treated differently, depending on the prosecutor.

–  From the post: The U.S. Department of Justice Handles Banker Criminals Like Juvenile Offenders…Literally

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jesse Eisinger is currently on leave from his day job as he finishes a book about “white collar crime & (non)punishment.” He recently sat down with ProMarket to discuss some of what he’s learned.

What follows are some choice excerpts, but I also suggest reading the entire thing here:

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The Health Insurance Scam – “Coverage” Doesn’t Mean Affordability or Access

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An architect of the federal healthcare law said last year that a “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” helped Congress approve ObamaCare.

He suggested that many lawmakers and voters didn’t know what was in the law or how its financing worked, and that this helped it win approval. 

– From the post: Video of the Day – Obamacare Architect Credits “Lack of Transparency” and “Stupidity of the American People” for Passage of Healthcare Law

Politicians, particularly those of the Democratic persuasion, love to throw around statistics about how many additional people have healthcare coverage without ever talking about the cost of such coverage, or whether it actually translates into actual access in the real world.

While a greater number of Americans having health insurance is a good thing when it comes to protecting against unexpected catastrophic events or extended hospital stays, it doesn’t tell you anything about two very important variables: 1) How much does it cost? 2) What kind of access does it provide? As usual, the devil is in the details.

We’ve all seen headlines about higher monthly premiums, but that’s just the tip of iceberg. Once you’ve paid your premium, you’re far from off the hook. Another one-two punch of deductibles, copays and out of pocket maximums appear which can collectively run into the thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars for families.

Meanwhile, it appears insurance companies may have recognized the politically toxic nature of higher premiums, so their focus has turned to deductibles as the most efficient way to suck more money from the public for no comparable increase in service.

As the Daily Caller reported earlier this month:

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The New “Middle Class” – Making $250,000 a Year in Palo Alto Qualifies for Housing Subsidies

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Luke Iseman has figured out how to afford the San Francisco Bay area. He lives in a shipping container.

The Wharton School graduate’s 160-square-foot box has a camp stove and a shower made of old boat hulls. It’s one of 11 miniature residences inside a warehouse he leases across the Bay Bridge from the city, where his tenants share communal toilets and a sense of adventure. Legal? No, but he’s eluded code enforcers who rousted what he calls cargotopia from two other sites. If all goes according to plan, he’ll get a startup out of his response to the most expensive U.S. housing market.

Iseman collects $1,000 a month for each of the 11 structures parked in the 17,000-square-foot warehouse he rents for $9,100. Tenants include a Facebook Inc. engineer, a SolarCity Corp. programmer and a bicycle messenger.

– From last year’s post: The Rent is Too Damn High – San Fran Residents Pay $1,000 a Month to Live in Shipping Containers

Welcome to the new normal, where in bubble communities, $250,000 per year is now a middle class income.

Nothing to see here.

From CBS News:

PALO ALTO (CBS SF) — Palo Alto is seeking housing solutions for residents who are not among the region’s super-rich, but who also earn more than the threshhold to qualify for affordable housing programs.

The city council has unanimously passed a housing plan that would essentially subsidize new housing for what qualifies as middle-class nowadays, families making from $150,000 to $250,000 a year.

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Donald Trump’s Speech at AIPAC Demonstrates Why He Will Be America’s Next President

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In addition to the 21% of responses in the “dishonest/don’t trust her” category, another 7% of Americans use even stronger words in a similar negative vein, including “criminal,” “crooked” and “thief.” Nine percent say they dislike her. Smaller percentages (shown at the end of this article) associate her with Bill Clinton, with the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server while secretary of state and with the Benghazi terrorist attack.

The perceptions of Hillary Clinton as dishonest are not new. When Gallup asked the same question in 2008, “dishonest” was Americans’ most frequent response. 

– Results of a recent Gallup poll

Before I get into this post, I want to make one thing clear — I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m neither a Hillary Clinton nor a Donald Trump supporter; in fact, I’ve spent quite a bit of time sharply criticizing both of them here on these pages.

Donald Trump checks none of my important boxes when it comes to policy. He’s horrible on civil liberties, shows no real interest in reining in Wall Street criminals, and is unlikely to view the Constitution any more respectfully than Barrack Obama or George W. Bush before him. I simply cannot support such a man. With Trump, one has to hope he’s the anti-Obama, i.e., says all the wrong things but then does the right thing. In this sense it is possible that Trump could be a decent president, but he could also be an unmitigated nightmare. He’s the ultimate wildcard, potentially far worse than even Hillary, but also conceivably far better. There’s simply no way to know for sure.

Hillary Clinton on the other hand is a guaranteed disaster. She will take the oligarch-controlled U.S. Banana Republic institutionalized by Obama and embrace it like no one else could or would. She won’t begrudgingly acquiesce to plutocrat demands, she will enthusiastically and shamelessly push forward their agenda without the slightest hesitation or passing thought regarding the wellbeing of the peasantry. Every single negative trend in American society we’ve seen develop over the past several decades will be thrust into overdrive, from neocon militarism to Wall Street criminality. I’ll put the odds at her being a decent president in terms her donors can understand, 0.0001%.

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The Dangers of New York City’s Public Wi-Fi

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If you’re a NYC resident and find yourself excited about the city’s public Wi-Fi network known as LinkNYC, you may want to think again.

As the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) notes:

March 16, 2016 —  The city’s new public Wi-Fi network LinkNYC raises several privacy concerns for users, the New York Civil Liberties Union announced today after sending a letter to the Office of the Mayor on Tuesday. CityBridge, the company behind the LinkNYC kiosks that have begun replacing phone booths in Manhattan, retains a vast amount of information about users – often indefinitely – building a massive database that carries a risk of security breaches and unwarranted NYPD surveillance. 

“New Yorkers’ private online activities shouldn’t be used to create a massive database that’s within the ready grasp of the NYPD,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “Free public Wi-Fi can be an invaluable resource for this city, but New Yorkers need to know there are too many strings attached.”

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Clinton Emails Reveal Google’s Role in Attempting to Oust Syria’s Assad

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Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, will head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday.

Carter unveiled the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board with Schmidt during the annual RSA cyber security conference in San Francisco, saying it would give the Pentagon access to “the brightest technical minds focused on innovation.”

– From the Reuters article: Former Google CEO Schmidt to Head New Pentagon Innovation Board

It’s been observed for quite some time that Google isn’t just a private corporate behemoth, but that its executives are often times more intricately involved in U.S. foreign policy than most people would find appropriate.

It’d be one thing if this support was for a sane and humanitarian foreign policy, but we all know it’s precisely the opposite. In fact, certain Google executives have demonstrated a particular interest in overthrowing governments throughout the Middle East, which has achieved nothing but sow chaos and result in the creation of powerful new terrorists groups such as ISIS.

Two days ago, Wikileaks announced the following to the world via Twitter:

This sounds like a pretty huge deal, so you’d think the American media would be all over it. Not quite. In fact, the only story I’ve seen emanating from the U.S. press was published by the Washington Examiner.

Here are a few excerpts from the story titled, Clinton Email Reveals: Google Sought Overthrow of Syria’s Assad:

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Must Watch Video – “The Veneer of Justice in a Kingdom of Crime”

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All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him…The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.

– H.L. Mencken

It does not take a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

– Samuel Adams

Fiat justitia ruat caelum
“Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

I believe it is the duty of every single American citizen to sit down and watch the following mini-documentary. In just 45 minutes, you will learn more about the state of the union and the the world around you than decades of schooling and mainstream media could ever provide. Ignorance is not bliss, and if it weren’t for the blinding levels of ignorance pervasive in modern society, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this current deplorable state — on a knife’s edge between manageable serfdom and intolerable tyranny.

No one in American society is supposed to be immune from criminal prosecution, yet the Justice Department within the Obama administration took it upon themselves to grant such immunity to the mega banks and their employees. This is a tale of the traitors operating within the highest levels of U.S. government, and it is a saga of how the rule of law was openly torched in front of our very eyes.

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