- Hillary Clinton's Axis Of Evil
Authored by Pepe Escobar, originally posted op-ed via SputnikNews.com,
Let’s cut to the chase; Hillary Clinton is ready to go to war against Russia in Syria – with inbuilt, potentially terrifying, thermonuclear consequences.
Anticipating an outcome of the US presidential election as a remix of the 1972 Nixon landslide, Hillary has also coined, George “Dubya” Bush-style, a remixed axis of evil: Russia, Iran and “the Assad regime”.
That’s not even counting China, which, via “aggression” in the South China Sea, will also feature as a certified foe for the Founding Mother of the pivot to Asia.
And if all that was not worrying enough, Turkey now seems on the path to join the axis.
President Putin and President Erdogan met in Istanbul. Moscow positioned itself as ready to develop large-scale military-technical cooperation with Ankara.
That includes, of course, the $20 billion, Rosatom-built, four-reactor Akkuyu nuclear power plant. And the drive to “speed up the work” on Turkish Stream – which will de facto strengthen even more Russia’s position in the European gas market, bypassing Ukraine for good, while sealing Ankara’s position as a key East-West energy crossroads.
In addition, both Moscow and Ankara back UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura’s position that “moderate rebels” (the Beltway’s terminology) holding eastern Aleppo hostage must be eradicated.
The geopolitical game-changer is self-evident. As much as Erdogan may be a whirling political dervish, impossible to fathom and trust, while Putin is a master of the strategic long game, Moscow’s and Ankara’s interests tend to converge in the New Great Game; and that spells out closer integration in the dawn of the Eurasian Century.
Quite a cup of hemlock for Hillary Clinton, who has already equated Putin with Hitler.
Regime change or hot war?
In the appalling spectacle that turned out to be round two of the interminable Trump/Clinton cage match, Donald Trump once again made a rational point – expressing his wish for a normalized working relationship with Russia. Yet that is absolute anathema for the War Party, as in the neocon/neoliberalcon nebulae in the Beltway-Wall Street axis.
The Clinton (Cash) Machine-controlled Democrats once again condemned Trump as a tool of Putin while bewildered Republicans condemned Trump because he goes against “mainstream Republican thinking”.
Here’s what Trump said; “I don’t like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS and Iran is killing ISIS.”
Trump’s outlook on Southwest Asia relies on only one vector; destroy ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. That’s what adviser and former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has been infiltrating into Trump’s notoriously short attention span.
Flynn may have admitted on the record that ISIS/ISIL/Daesh’s progress was a “willful” decision taken by the Obama administration. Yet in his disjointed book Field of Fight, Flynn insists that, “the Russians haven’t been very effective at fighting jihadis on their own territory”, are “in cahoots with the Iranians”, and “the great bulk of their efforts are aimed at the opponents of the Assad regime.”
This is a neocon mantra; unsurprisingly, the co-author of Flynn’s book is neocon Michael Ledeen.
From dodgy American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) armchair “experts” to former counselors at the State Department, they all subscribe to the laughable view that the remixed axis of evil – now fully adopted by Hillary – is useless against jihadis; the good guys doing the difficult work are “the US-led coalition”. And damn those who dare criticizing the “relative moderates” backed by the CIA.
What Trump said is anathema not only for establishment Republicans who despise Obama for not fighting against the Hillary-adopted remixed axis of evil. The real mortal sin is that it “disregards” core US foreign policy bipartisan assumptions held to be as sacred as the Bible.
Thus the success of the neocon Ash Carter-led Pentagon in bombing the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal which would imply coordinated airstrikes against both ISIS/ISIL/Daesh and the Front for the Conquest of Syria, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. al Qaeda in Syria.
Neocons and mainstream Republicans blame lame duck Team Obama for the “unholy reliance” on Russia and Iran, while neoliberalcons blame Russia outright. And high in the altar of righteousness, hysteria rules, with the neocon president of the NED http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45643.htm calling for the US government to “summon the will” to pull a Putin regime change.
Ready to go nuclear?
Hillary Clinton continues to insist the US is not at war with Islam. The US is de facto at war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan’s tribal areas; involved in covert war in Iran; and has totally destroyed Libya. It’s not hard to do the math.
In parallel, the deafening talk about Washington now advancing a Plan C in Syria is nonsense. There has never been a Plan C; only Plan A, which was to draw Russia into another Afghanistan. It did not work with the controlled demolition of Ukraine. And it will not work in Syria, as Moscow is willing to supply plenty of air and missile power but no boots on the ground of any consequence. That’s a matter for the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Iran and its Shi’ite militias, and Hezbollah.
Ash Carter has threatened Russia with “consequences”. After blowing up the ceasefire, the Pentagon – supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff – now is peddling “potential strikes” on Syria’s air force to “punish the regime” for what the Pentagon actually did; blow up the ceasefire. One can’t make this stuff up.
Major-General Igor Konashenkov, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman, sent a swift message to “our colleagues in Washington”; think twice if you believe you can get away with launching a “shadow” hot war against Russia. Russia will target any stealth/unidentified aircraft attacking Syrian government targets – and they will be shot down.
The only serious question then is whether an out of control Pentagon will force the Russian Air Force – false flag and otherwise – to knock out US Air Force fighter jets, and whether Moscow has the fire power to take out each and every one of them.
So in this three-month window representing the “death throes” of the Obama era, before the likely enthronization of the Queen of War, the question is whether the Pentagon will risk launching WWIII because “Aleppo is falling”.
Afterwards, things are bound to get even more lethal. The US government is holding open a first-strike nuclear capacity against Russia. Hillary firmly supports it, as Trump made clear he “would not do first-strike”. The prospect of having axis of evil practitioner Hillary Clinton with her fingers on the nuclear button must be seen as the most life-and-death issue in this whole circus.
- The Psychology of Trading: Learning How to Handle Success (Video)
By EconMatters
In this video we discuss the Psychology of trading, learning how to handle success and failure in a more reasoned, rational manner. It really boils down to good decision making in Financial Markets.
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- What Exactly Is Agenda 21?
When most folks hear the words “Agenda 21” they have one of three responses:
1. Huh? What’s that?
2. Oh yay! It’ll turn the world into Utopia and global warming will stop and life will be rainbows and unicorns again!
3. It’s a plan to remove personal liberty and move us closer to a one-world government. Where the heck is my tinfoil?
Some folks don’t even believe it exists, others think it exists but is a good thing turned into a nasty conspiracy theory, and the majority are blissfully oblivious. Even though many people don’t realize it, we’re all being nudged toward an Agenda-21 ruled world. It’s easy, too, because it promises a green world of lollipops and rainbows and most of it will be “free.”
To put it as simply as possible, Agenda 21 is world domination with a warm, fuzzy glow. Once you understand it, you’ll never look at “regulations” the same way again.
Here’s how it all started.
In 1992, peace-loving tree huggers at the UN devised a plan for the world. That’s right – the friendly folks at the UN’s Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) created a master plan for ALL of us.
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.
So, let’s see if we understand this correctly.
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A plan of action. Got it.
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To be taken globally…okay – everyone must participate.
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In every area in which human impacts on the environment….yep, that covers everyone and everything in the entire world.
It’s a warm fuzzy way to take over the world! Group hug, anyone?
Agenda 21 is a 350-page action plan divided into 40 chapters. It was developed at a summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The “21” in Agenda 21 refers to the 21st Century. You can read the entire unsettling plot HERE but the general idea is that the group of “leaders” intends to have a collective finger in every pie on the planet.
I. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS
The first section of the
pactplan deals with the people of the world. Particularly, the DSD wants to “help” those in Third World countries live “better”. They’ll be taught:-
How to make more money by putting everyone to work in perfect accordance with the goals of the Agenda
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How to maintain their health through vaccinations and modern medicine
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How to govern themselves in accordance with the plan
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How to control their populations
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All in all, they’ll learn how to make decisions that will concur with the ideals of the Agenda.
II. CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT
This section includes protection of the atmosphere, land, mountains, oceans, and fresh waters – everything in the environment of a given country. This means that historical ways of using these resources could be outlawed – changing the basic ways of life for the indigenous people to make way for “progress” and “sustainability”. This gives control of all natural resources to the good folks of the DSD.
Section 2 (specifically Chapter 9, subsection #8) also uses the unproven science of global warming to further the controls placed on the acquisition and use of resources. This section of the articles of Agenda 21 confers vast taxation on resources while allowing huge companies to use the green ideology to receive carbon credits, reallocating money from the power to the rich under a cloak of green hypocrisy.
….the United Nations is demanding $76 trillion from the first world over the next 40 years to encourage the development of “green” technologies in the third world. The defense of such a reckless agenda has rested on the unwarranted claim that the globe was hovering on the precipice of environmental devastation. “Green” ideology has become the bulwark of older agendas: The nations of the West must end their own prosperity, because that is only “fair” — and it necessary to save the world from Capitalist greed. from The New American
By specifically outlining the management of all natural resources, it disallows the use of them for any but the 1% in power, effectively keeping people from farming, fishing, mining, or otherwise harvesting the innate supplies provided by their environments.
III. STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF MAJOR GROUPS
The language in this section implies empowerment of women, children, unions, farmers, and indigenous peoples. However, if you dig deeper you’ll discover that all of this equality actually means
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the abolition of personal property
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the demise of rural living
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mandatory birth (population) control
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the “redevelopment” of cities
So, basically, Communism 101.
They intend to warehouse people in small areas for a multi-fold goal. It will make them easier to control, easier to poison and/or chemically sterilize through managed food and water supplies, and will remove personal ownership of natural resources.
The sleight-of-hand empowerment will actually take away the rights of families by disallowing ownership of personal property, curtailing their physical liberty by making all transportation public, and providing a pro-Agenda education/brainwashing for all.
IV. MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION
This section describes how to get the whole world on board the happy train to Agenda 21-land.
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Redistribution of financial resources (i.e., taking it away from some and sharing it with others)
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Technology (public transit, “equal” distribution of energy usage, monitoring of behaviors through big brother technologies)
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Science and environmentalism (removing people from rural areas to “save” the natural resources from pollution and mismanagement)
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Re-education (brainwashing with propaganda)
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Restructuring of local governments (installing puppet leaders)
This will be presented as Utopian, but really, it will turn everyone into carefully warehoused slaves with just enough food and supplies to make those who don’t think too deeply, content.
Agenda 21: Not Just for 3rd World Countries
All of this peace and love isn’t just for developing countries. The principles of Agenda 21 are insinuating themselves into the lives of North Americans and Europeans at warp speed. I’ll bet when you read this list, you can see dozens of ways this plan has begun to take root right in your own backyard.
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With the decline of the American farm, people are being funneled into the cities in search of work.
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With the decline of the economy, fewer people can afford private transportation and are therefore limited to the places that public transit will take them.
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Support of the local down-trodden is geared to further incite class warfare.
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Separation of families through child protection agencies, Big Brother parenting, mandatory public schools at younger and younger ages, and the dumbing down of our education system is planned to break down our society even further.
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Publicly funded health care (cough*Obamacare* cough) will dictate toxic vaccinations, secretive sterilization, eugenics of the elderly and less-productive members of society, and mandated birth control.
AGENDA 21 IS FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINATION BY THE 1%.
Nothing has been left out.
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It guarantees both birth control and death control.
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It promises the basic essentials of life in return for submission.
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It exchanges critical thinking for re-education and brainwashing.
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It destroys the epicenter of the family, society, and culture, allowing only one way to live. It groups the population into small contained areas to be more easily controlled.
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It takes away from some to give to others who will be more easily managed by the promise of a full belly and a warm shelter.
It’s a parasitical representation of the 1%, feeding on the 99.
Agenda 21.
Divide.
Dumb down.
Conquer.And it’s only going to get worse.
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- An Inside Look At Two "Unrelated" Banker Suicides Reveals A Fascinating Rabbit Hole
It has been nearly four years since one of the most infamous, and still largely unexplained, banker “suicides” took place, the first in a series of many: we are talking about the death of the director of communications at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, David Rossi, who allegedly jumped to his death on March 6, 2013.
Since this event has largely faded away from the public consciousness here is a quick recap: David Rossi, who was the head of communications for Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank, which was founded in 1472 and which is currently seeking to finalize its third bailout since the financial crisis, died after falling – or being pushed – from a third floor window of the bank’s headquarters in a 14th century palazzo in the Tuscan city of Siena.
His death in March 2013 came at a time when the bank was pushed close to the brink of collapse over a scandal involving the loss of hundreds of millions of euros through risky investments.
While a quickly cobbled together post-mortem found that Rossi, 51, had killed himself, his family strongly suspected that he was murdered because he knew too much about the bank’s shady financial deals. As a result, earlier this year, prosecutors in Siena, where the bank is based, ordered his body to be exhumed and for the trajectory of his fall to be simulated, in an attempt to discover exactly how he died.
The death itself was suspicious: while Rossi fell, or was pushed, from his office at exactly 7:59:23 pm on March 6, 2013, and landed in a darkened alleyway, he did not die immediately – he was alive for 22 minutes, investigators believe.
What made Rossi’s death even more puzzling is that security camera footage, released years after his death, showed two shadowy figures appear at the end of the alley, apparently checking that there was no chance he would survive.
The scandalous video emerged in public this June, when the Post’s Michael Gray used it as the basis for an article asking “Why are so many bankers committing suicide?” For those who have not seen the 4 minute clip, we present it below in its entirety.
Among the oddities revealed at the site of the alleged suicide is that the executive had bruises and scratches on his arms and wrists which suggested that he may have been gripped forcibly by one or two assailants before being pushed out of the window. On the back of his head was a deep, L-shaped gash suggesting he may have been hit with a blunt object before falling from the window.
Three apparent suicide notes were found crumpled in a bin in his study, but Antonella Tognazzi, his widow, said they contained phrases that her husband would never have used. One of them said: “Ciao, Toni, my love. I’m sorry.”
“He never called me Toni, he always called me Antonella,” his widow, who has long contended that her husband did not kill himself but was murdered, said. The recent reopening
A handwriting expert who analyzed the notes said they seemed to have been written under duress. Another unexplained element is the fact that 33 minutes after Mr Rossi fell from his office window, a call was made on his mobile phone.
At exactly the same moment, the CCTV footage showed an object falling onto the ground and landing a few feet from the body; it was later found to be Mr Rossi’s watch, minus the strap.
To be sure, the recent emergence of the video has somehwat placated Rossi’s widow, Antonella Tognazzi, who got her wish for a re-examination into the circumstances surrounding Rossi’s death: “We’ve been waiting a long time for the investigation to be reopened,” said Ms Tognazzi early this year quoted by the Telegraph. “It’s what we had been hoping for – it’s an important sign on the part of the judiciary. I have never believed he committed suicide.”
The plot thickens when one digs into the details revealed by the footage captured on the surveillance video.
The footage shows the three-story fall didn’t kill Rossi instantly. For almost 20 minutes, the banker lay on the dimly lit cobblestones, occasionally moving an arm and leg. As he lay dying, two murky figures appear. Two men appear and one walks over to gaze at the banker. He offers no aid or comfort and doesn’t call for help before turning around and calmly walking out of the alley.
Two minutes into the clip, Gray also notes that “Italian authorities have yet to identify these two men.”
Following the Post article, there was a scramble by the Italian press to explain that the two men had indeed been identified, and to suggest that the local police knew, all along who they were. In a statement, the prosecutor of Siena said that the video on the fall of David Rossi “being circulated on the internet corresponds to the one already acquired during the investigation”. Moreover, the two men seen near Rossi’s body in the video footage were already interviewed in the first phase of the investigation.
“For final confirmation and to avoid any further speculation, we have decided to re-interview the two men in the video as part of the new investigation,” wrote the prosecutor. The two people in question are Giancarlo Filippone and Bernardo Mingrone. “The first, seen wearing a padded jacket, was a colleague and friend of David Rossi, while Mingrone, who is wearing a coat and remains in the background, was at the time a senior executive in the MPS finance department.”
Courtesy of the police inquest into the suicide can confirm the two individuals seen in the back alley where Rossi died, were indeed his former coworkers Giancarlo Filippone a manager at Monte Paschi and a friend of Rossi, and Bernardo Mingrone, the CFO of Monte Paschi.
The police report notes the following testimony from Filippone, as recounted by Il Fatto Quotidiano: “I came from work at 18 and later I was contacted by the wife of Rossi who had not heard from her husband and begged me to go and call him. I sent him a text message at 19:41 (…) and got no response, so after waiting a bit I went to the office at 20:30 and when I entered the room I saw the window open, I looked below and saw David’s lifeless body.”
Mingrone’s testimony was also recorded: “At 20:40 on my way out I was talking on the phone, and just as I was in the hallway on the ground floor of the building heading towards the main exit, I met another man (Filippone) gesticulating dramatically and confused. The concierge mouthed the following words: “David Rossi” then “window”, then after hanging up the phone i met with Rossi’s colleague (Filippone, ed) who told me that David Rossi was thrown from the window. I asked the two where Rossi’s office was located and to accompany me there asking if they had called an ambulance. I entered the office and I looked out the window seeing the body on the ground; at that point I called 118 (emergency sevices) since I had been told that no one had called previously.”
That’s the official version; the actual video evidence demonstrates no panic, and no distressed among the two individuals, who calmly walk up to the dying body and then calmly walk away. The public prosector found little in the circumstances suspect, and as he detailed on June 17, there was no mystery as to the presence of the two men in the alley, where Rossi was either pushed or had jumped on his own.
Where some confusion does emerge, however, is that according to a different recount of events that night, Rossi did in fact speak to his wife Antonella whom he called at 19:02, one hour prior to the deadly fall, in which he did not speak as like someone who is going to commit suicide. To the contrary they were making dinner plans: “I will be home at 19.30. I already bought everything you need. But first I need to take the meatballs that I ordered for dinner. See you later.” He would never make it home as he was dead shortly after. Adding to the confusion is that after his death a number was typed on his cell: 409909 which, according to his lawyer, may have been a computer access code. It is unclear what was being accessed or who typed in the code.
But the question about the presence of the Monte Paschi CFO at the crime (or suicide) scene, is just one part of the mystery.
Two days prior to Rossi’s death, the communications director sent a cryptic
email to the bank’s CEO, Fabrizio Viola according to Rossi’s wife. “I want guarantees of not being overwhelmed by this thing,” he wrote. “We would have to do right away, before tomorrow. Can you help me?” As the post previously asked,”it remains a mystery what specifically Rossi thought could “overwhelm” him just before his death, but many have speculated that he was referring to Monte Paschi’s troubled financial position.”Incidentally, Fabrizio Viola stepped down as Monte Paschi CEO just one month ago, as the bank was deep in the middle of its latest, third, bailout process which however according to press reports has met substantial procedural hurdles and may not be completed, with speculation a debt for equity swap may be required to facilitate the bank’s rescue.
Furthermore, Rossi was a close confidant of former bank Chairman, Joseph Mussari, who was the driving force behind Monte Paschi’s 2008 $13 billion purchase of Banca Antonveneta from Spain’s Santander. Many banking analysts agreed at the time that Monte Paschi had overpaid for the acqusition, which incidentally was financed by Deutsche Bank.
Giuseppe Mussari poses at the ABI headquarters in Rome July 27, 2010Adding to the mystery, in October 2014, an Italian court sentenced Mussari to three years and six months in jail for misleading regulators in relation to a 2009 derivative trade with Nomura that prosecutors said was used to conceal losses. The court in Siena, where Italy’s third-biggest lender is based, also sentenced former chief executive Antonio Vigni and ex-finance boss Gianluca Baldassarri to the same jail term. Prosecutors had asked for a seven-year jail sentence for Mussari and six years for Vigni and Baldassarri.
Prosecutors had accused Mussari, Vigni and Baldassarri of hiding a document known as a mandate agreement, which prosecutors and regulators said made clear that the derivative, called Alexandria, was linked to the acquisition of 3 billion euros worth of long-term Italian government bonds by Monte dei Paschi. The link between the two trades meant they should have received different accounting treatment, which would have shown heavy losses. Alexandria and two other derivatives trades ultimately forced Monte Paschi to restate its accounts and book a loss of 730 million euros on its 2012 results.
New management at the bank, now working on a plan to fill the 2.1-billion-euro capital hole, has said it only discovered the existence of the mandate agreement when it was found in a safe in Vigni’s former office in October 2012, more than three years after it was signed.
If so far this all appears very confusing, is because it indeed is.
Where it gets even more confusing is that in January of this year, three executives from Deutsche Bank, which as we now know was very intimately involved with some of the illegal derivative transactions undertaken by Monte Pasci, were also implicated civilly, including Michele Faissola, the head of Private & Asset Wealth Management at Deutsche Bank— charged by Italian authorities with colluding with the troubled Monte Paschi in falsifying accounts, manipulating the market and obstructing justice.
Prosecutors have been reconstructing how Monte Paschi’s former managers misrepresented the lender’s finances in the years before it sought a government bailout. The misrepresentation first came to light in January 2013 when Bloomberg reported that Monte Paschi used a transaction with Deutsche Bank, the infamous Santorini (profiled here), to mask losses from an earlier derivative contract. The bank the same year had to restate its accounts
Faissola denied the charges.
Michele Faissola, head of Private & Asset Wealth ManagementFaissola, whose roles included overseeing rates and commodities, was put in charge of Deutsche Bank’s combined asset and wealth management division in 2012 when Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen took over as co-chief executive officers of the Frankfurt-based lender. Deutsche Bank on Oct. 18 said Faissola would leave after a transition period; his departure came just a few months after the sudden resignation of Co-CEOs Anshu Jain and Jurgen Fitschen in June 2015; it is said that Faissola was their close protege.
As a reminder, earlier this month, the recently troubled Deutsche Bank was itself charged by Italy for market manipulation and creating false accounts. Additionally, the name Faissole emerged once again, when as Bloomberg reported, six current and former managers of Deutsche Bank, including Michele Faissola, Michele Foresti and Ivor Dunbar, were charged in Milan for colluding to falsify the accounts of Italy’s third-biggest bank, Monte Paschi and manipulate the market.
Here is where things get interesting.
Michele Faissola was a coworker of one William S. Broeksmit. By way of background, Broeksmit had two stints at Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, first from 1996 to 2001, then from 2008 until his retirement in September 2013, having previously worked at Merrill Lynch. When he rejoined the bank in 2008 it was in a newly created position, head of portfolio risk optimization. In 2012, as Jain and Fitschen prepared to take over as CEOs, the duo advanced Broeksmit’s name to become the new chief risk officer. The bank retreated on his nomination after German financial regulator BaFin raised concerns that Broeksmit’s lack of experience managing a large number of employees.
Broeksmit worked as a consultant from his retriement until Janury 28, 2014… when the body of the 58 year old was found hanging in his London flat from a dog leash tied to the top of a door. He had just commited suicide..
As we reported at the time, financial papers had been strewn about the scene of his suicide, and on a dog bed near the body were a number of notes to family and friends. One was addressed to Deutsche Bank CEO Anshu Jain, with an apology. That note offered no clue as to the reason he was sorry.
And this is where the story gets even more fascinating: the abovementioned Michele Faissola, who was instrumental in helping Monte Paschi arrange its various derivative deals with Deutsche Bank, was the first to arrive at the gruesome scene of Broeksmit’s suicide in 2014.
When he arrived at the South Kensington home, he immediately began going through the bank papers and read the suicide notes.
The west London home of William S. Broeksmit where he was found dead in 2014We know all this because it was recounted to us by Val Broeksmit, the son of the deceased high-ranking Deutsche Bank banker. Val also who provided us the police report of David Rossi’s death, and various other key notes as he has tried to piece together over the years how and why his father committed suicide.
While there is no evidence Faissola was involved in any misconduct related to Broeksmit’s death, Val wonders what, if anything, Faissola had been searching for.
So do we.
The reason why this story, which has seen bits and pieces float around over the past 3 years, is reemerging is because now that both the insolvent Monte Paschi is in the news for its ongoing third bailout, not to mention the significantly troubled Deutsche Bank is also a daily source of market stress, the fact that two bankers who were intimately familiar and certainly involved in many of the transactions between Deutsche Bank and Monte Paschi, and which have been deemed illegal and are being prosecuted by the Italian state, have committed suicide, is worth bringing to the public’s attention.
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What is fascinating, is not only how interconnected the fates of Deutsche Bank and Monte Paschi have been over the years – two banks that have each seen a dramatic, high ranking suicide in recent years – but also how far the political process has pushed to preserving a cone of silence surrounding these events: recall that on September 1, Milan prosecutors filed a request to shelve a probe for alleged market manipulation and false accounting against the chief executive of Monte Paschi, Fabrizio Viola, and the bank’s former chairman, Alesandro Profumo; a probe that was launched just several weeks prior. As noted above, Viola quietly resigned from his post shortly after the announcement.
Most importantly, while investigators on both the UK and Italian side have been quick to dismiss the banker deaths as open and shut cases of suicide, courtesy of Broeksmit’s son we have access to certain documents which we are confident will reveal not just how deep the rabbit hole truly goes, linking the oldest and biggest European banks through two still largely unexplained suicides, but also what is hidden behind Deutsche Bank’s mirrored facade.
- Leaked Emails Reveals Clinton Campaign Plotted Supreme Court Threat Over Obamacare
Remember back in 2012 when the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the Obamacare mandate with a 5-4 decision but only after Judge Roberts, a Bush appointee, seemingly parted with his conservative counterparts on the bench to effectively, single-handedly preserve perhaps the most destructive piece of legislation in American history (if not, we wrote about it here)? Many people were shocked by Judge Roberts’ decision and subsequently alleged that it was driven more by politics than his interpretation of the Constitution.
Turns out those people were proven right today as a new Podesta email confirms that the Obama administration applied political pressure on Roberts to sway his decision: “it was pretty critical that the President threw the gauntlet down last time on the Court…that was vital to scaring Roberts off.”
While it’s fairly disturbing that the Clinton team would flippantly admit such things, what’s even worse is that they plotted to use Obama’s same strategy of applying political pressure on the Supreme Court in 2015 to overturn “King v Burwell” which also threatened Obamacare’s future.
The email below from Neera Tanden, clearly shows Clinton staffers colluding with the President of the Center for American Progress on a scheme to apply political pressure on the Supreme Court to overturn the challenge.
Subsequently, both Palmieri, Clinton’s Communications Director, and Fallon, Press Secretary, agreed with the strategy.
Of course, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the Obama administration with Justice Roberts writing the majority opinion. Meanwhile, the late Justice Scalia wrote the dissenting opinion in which he said the following:
“Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State.” It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words “established by the State.” And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words “by the State” other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.”
In hindsight, aren’t we all so lucky that Justice Roberts sold his soul to uphold such an amazing piece of legislation? For his efforts, we’ve all received the benefits of worse healthcare coverage for twice the price.
- Obama To Decide Friday On Military Action In Syria
Two weeks ago when the US broke off bilateral relations with Russia over the ongoing Syrian proxy war, we reported that as part of America’s “next steps” would be a discussion on military options. As Reuters reported then, the “discussions were being held at “staff level,” and have yet to produce any recommendations to President Barack Obama, who has resisted ordering military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s multi-sided civil war. “The president has asked all of the agencies to put forward options, some familiar, some new, that we are very actively reviewing,” Blinken said. “When we are able to work through these in the days ahead we’ll have an opportunity to come back and talk about them in detail.”
Fast forward to today, when as Reuters once again reports, the time has come for the US to make a decision: on Friday President Barack Obama and his top foreign policy advisers are expected to meet to consider their military and other options in Syria as Syrian and Russian aircraft continue to pummel Aleppo and other targets.
The tensions here are well known: some of the more hawkish “top officials” told Reuters that the United States must act more forcefully in Syria or “risk losing what influence it still has over moderate rebels and its Arab, Kurdish and Turkish allies in the fight against Islamic State.” Naturally, this means that one set of options includes direct U.S. military action such as air strikes on Syrian military bases, munitions depots or radar and anti-aircraft bases.
That is also the scenario which General Joseph Dunford warned may lead to war with Russia. Indeed, the quoted said one danger of such action is that Russian and Syrian forces are often co-mingled, “raising the possibility of a direct confrontation with Russia that Obama has been at pains to avoid.” This is also known as the “world war” scenario.
Luckily, there are options.
One alternative, U.S. officials said, is allowing allies to provide U.S.-vetted rebels with more sophisticated weapons, although not shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, “which Washington fears could be used against Western airliners.” Like, for example, what happened above the Donestk region during the peak of the Ukraine proxy war in 2014.
As Reuters adds, Friday’s planned meeting is the latest in a long series of internal debates – which have so far achieved nothing but escalate the situation which fast approaches a point of no return – about what, if anything, to do to end a 5-1/2 year civil war that has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced half the country’s population. According to insiders, the ultimate aim of any new action could be to “bolster the battered moderate rebels so they can weather what is now widely seen as the inevitable fall of rebel-held eastern Aleppo to the forces of Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.” The question is whether it was also “bolster” al-Qaeda linked jihadists whom the US has been supporting for the past several months as a result of the perverse merger of “moderate” rebel forces in Syria.
Apparently, there is also an element of pride:
It also might temper a sense of betrayal among moderate rebels who feel Obama encouraged their uprising by calling for Assad to go but then abandoned them, failing even to enforce his own “red line” against Syria’s use of chemical weapons.
This, in turn, might deter them from migrating to Islamist groups such as the Nusra Front, which the United States regards as Syria’s al Qaeda branch. The group in July said it had cut ties to al Qaeda and changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
In other words, having started the proxy war in Syria, with every passing day that Obama fails to resolve it – while ideally avoid a world war with Russia – is a day that more and more “moderate rebels” are likely to openly “migrate” to jihadist extremists, with all of the latest US military equipment so generously provided to them by the administration.
There is also hope that just like in 2013, Kerry and Lavrov will somehow cobble together another last minute peace agreement. The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers will meet in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday to resume their failed effort to find a diplomatic solution, possibly joined by their counterparts from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran, but U.S. officials were said to have voiced little hope for success.
Complicating matters, however, is that as we reported this morning, the US is now officially engaged in another regional conflict, after US warships fired ballistic missiles targeting Yemen radar stations in proximity to the critical Bab al-Mandab Straight.
Earlier Thursday the United States launched cruise missiles at three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said.
There is also the question of what to do in Iraq, where officials are debating whether government forces will need more U.S. support both during and after their campaign to retake Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in the country. Some officials argue the Iraqis now cannot retake the city without significant help from Kurdish peshmerga forces, as well as Sunni and Shi’ite militias, and that their participation could trigger religious and ethnic conflict in the city.
* * *
For now, the best news is that according to Reuters, US officials said they consider it unlikely that Obama will order U.S. air strikes on Syrian government targets, and they stressed that he may not make any decisions at the planned meeting of his National Security Council. However, that will only be the case should the US not be further humiliated in Syria, and – of course – all bets are off if and when Obama is replaced, especially if his successor is a well-known warmonger, directly and indirectly responsible for much of the unstable geopolitical situation across most of the region.
- Global Elites Are Getting Ready To Blame You For The Coming Financial Crash
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Those people that have any doubts about where the narrative is headed for global economic stability simply have not been paying attention lately.
As I pointed out in my pre-Brexit referendum article, Brexit: Global Trigger Event, Fake Out Or Something Else?, the story being scripted by the globalists is one of the “failures and crimes" of conservative movements. I predicted that the Brexit would pass based on this language used by international financiers and elites leading up to the vote.
The vast majority of analysts in the mainstream and in the alternative media refused to acknowledge the possibility that a successful Brexit actually works in FAVOR of the globalists, because it provides them a perfect scapegoat for a financial crisis that has been broiling for years and is now ready to burst into flames. I find still that many people will not dare to consider the idea that a successful conservative resurgence is actually part of the plan for globalist institutions. Many argue that the elites just don’t have that kind of pervasive control over the system, or that I am attributing “too much power and ability” to them.
I find this argument rather naive but also interesting, because many of the people that claim the elites do not have such influence were also the same people that argued before the Brexit that the elites would “never allow” the U.K. referendum to pass. So, do they have extensive influence, or don’t they? This kind of selective blindness to the game being played prevents a whole host of otherwise intelligent people from grasping reality.
These folks need to finally admit to themselves that they were half right; the globalists would not allow the passage of the Brexit, UNLESS, a successful Brexit actually works in their favor.
In my post-Brexit analysis I said that the meme of bumbling and destructive conservatives and “populists” would continue into the U.S. election, and so far it would seem this is exactly the case. In numerous mainstream articles globalists have been openly telling us exactly what is about to happen.
I find that the same naivety that developed during the Brexit campaign has also developed around the Trump campaign. Too many in the liberty movement will not entertain the idea that a Trump win is in the cards. Yet, the elites are using the same language in reference to the Trump campaign that they used before and after the Brexit.
Bloomberg’s latest report on the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank showcase numerous warnings by the elites:
“The global economy has benefited tremendously from globalization and technological change,” the IMF’s top advisory panel said in a communique released on Saturday after meeting in Washington. “However, the outlook is increasingly threatened by inward-looking policies, including protectionism, and stalled reforms.”
“The IMF warned in its latest economic outlook that rising political tensions over open markets and free trade could undermine a recovery already lacking a growth engine.”
“In a rebuke to those advocating a turn away from trade, the members of the IMF panel redoubled their commitment to “maintain economic openness and reinvigorate global trade as a critical means to boost global growth.”
Barron’s reiterates the predictive programming, insinuating that a loss of faith in globalism and the financial elites will lead to disaster.
“Leaders gathered at the International Monetary Fund/World Bank annual meeting didn’t mention Donald Trump by name this week, but they warned the anti-trade and populist movements fueling his presidential campaign, as well as Brexit, could further slow already anemic economic growth.”
“…Populist movements have not fallen on deaf ears, with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble noting during a panel on the global economy that: “More and more, people don’t trust their elites. They don’t trust their economic leaders, and they don’t trust their political leaders.”
Globalists are telling us what is about to happen.
I continue to hold to the position I always have — that Donald Trump is going to be ALLOWED into the White House, and that this will be a prelude to economic crisis. The stage is being set for a grand finale to our ongoing financial collapse. The great villain behind the whole disaster will be revealed, and we will be told that the villain is us.
By “us" I mean conservative movements in general, though, the mainstream media and globalist spokesmen refer to us more often today as “populists", or maybe "deplorables". Those people who think this brand of “conspiracy” is too far fetched because it requires an inordinate level of political and economic control have not really thought the situation through.
Fact – central banks and international financiers have already created the conditions necessary for economic instability. Fact – these same elites have staved off a larger or more immediate collapse over the past eight years through the use of fiat stimulus measures, market rigging and the manipulation of public perception. Fact – the elites can easily initiate an immediate collapse if they wish by simply refusing to prop up the system any longer. Fact – the elites have showcased the ability to stifle conservative movements in the past through interference and co-option (Tea Party, anyone?). Fact – they can also give conservative movements an opportunity to gain momentum by removing some of this interference.
The truth is, at this point globalists do not need expansive or intricate control over the system in order to cause a crisis or to place conservatives in the historical hot seat. All they have to do is step aside and let the train wreck happen. And, of course, they have to position themselves as prognosticators and saviors once the crisis event occurs.
The argument also arises that “people would never take the bait;” that the masses will not be fooled by the banking cabal into scapegoating conservatives for a crash the elites created. One can only hope. However, possession is nine-tenths of the law in the minds of many, and the mainstream has already conditioned the public with the notion that the mere presence of anti-globalist conservatives in positions of political authority will negatively affect market psychology.
Of course, this notion relies on the admission of certain truths. For example, the globalists would have to admit that the fiscal system they have held together is so tenuous and fraudulent that it depends solely on false public perception and false investor assumptions. In order to blame conservatives for the destruction of the global economy, the elites will have to tell the truth about the frailty of the system before they can lie about who broke it.
This may not matter. When people are facing national or international calamity with the potential to hurt them personally, critical thinking and logic tend to go out the window.
There is also the power of distraction to occupy the minds of the masses while a crisis is taking shape, and what could be more distracting than the Trump vs. Clinton U.S. election? I have to say, I don’t think I have ever witnessed or seen a historical accounting of an election more psychotic than the election of 2016. It is truly the most divisive event in over a century, and this is why I consistently compare it to the Brexit referendum.
The tone is very much the same, with citizens on the Left side of the political spectrum being lured into rallying in support of globalism as if it is a prerequisite to peace and harmony, while citizens on the Right side of the spectrum are portrayed as knuckle dragging isolationist barbarians hell-bent on urinating in the punch bowl and ruining everyone’s global prosperity party.
Brexit supporters were painted as older, selfish, potentially racist and out of touch with the changing times. Brexit opponents were painted as young, educated and victimized by older generations taking away the supposed future benefits of globalism.
Trump supporters are labeled as older, mostly white-centric, uneducated and fearful of the changing times. They just “don’t get” that it’s 2016. Trump opponents are elevated as the academic and worldly class battling to prevent another Hitler.
During the lead up to the U.K. referendum, polls indicated a wide margin in favor of the anti-Brexit crowd and the assumption by almost everyone was that the Brexit would fail.
The lead up to the U.S. election is also rife with polls indicating in most cases a margin of victory for Clinton over Trump. Of course, only a complete idiot would take polling numbers seriously in light of what happened during the Brexit.
The Brexit campaign witnessed what appeared to some to be an unrecoverable black swan event – the killing of British MP Jo Cox. Almost everyone claimed that the murder of Cox by an apparently pro-Brexit assailant meant that the Brexit was doomed (I actually argued that the murder would be forgotten in a week and that the Brexit would pass anyway).
The Trump campaign has witnessed its own kind of “black swan” event with the release of recordings from eleven years ago in which Trump is heard making “lewd remarks” about women. It is surprising to me how many conservatives (let alone liberals) have been declaring Trump’s candidacy effectively “over” due to the scandal. These people are dupes.
Once again, I argue that the Trump tapes will be forgotten in a week and that they have no bearing whatsoever on the election. They are nothing more than bread and circus. Beyond the fact that really, almost no one cares what Trump said a decade ago, I argue that this election has already been decided. I argue that the globalists want Trump in office, just as they wanted the passage of the Brexit. I argue that they need conservative movements to feel as though we have won, so that they can pull the rug out from under us in the near future. I argue that we are being set up.
Again, the elites are openly telling us what is about to happen. They are telling us that if “populists” (conservatives) gain political power, the system will effectively collapse. To what extent is hard to say, but let’s assume that the situation will be ugly enough to influence the masses to reconsider the ideal of globalism as a possible solution. The elites are fond of the Hegelian dialectic and the philosophy of “order out of chaos,” after all.
The only way to counter this developing lie is for liberty champions to first accept the idea that our political victories might be ultimately meaningless and that we are being allowed to take charge of a ship that is already sinking. Only then can we distance ourselves from an exponential fiscal disaster by distancing ourselves from the narrative.
Perhaps I am wrong, and in November we see a dismal Trump performance and a Clinton victory. But if we see a “surprise” Trump election win, just as we saw a surprise Brexit win, then it may be time to consider that the surface of this situation is not what it appears.
- Trump Attacks FBI & DOJ For Corrupt Hillary Investigation – “It Was Crime At The Highest Level”
After what clearly seems like a coordinated, multi-day attack by the mainstream media on the Trump campaign, culminating with the most recent New York Times article alleging sexual assault, the campaign has officially opened up new fronts in its war on the Washington establishment. After attacking members of his own party, mostly Paul Ryan, earlier in the week for withdrawing their support, Trump has now directed his wrath towards the FBI and DOJ calling for an “investigation into the investigation” conducted by the FBI of Hillary’s private server.
The latest Trump “hit”, as the Hillary team referred to them in the Podesta emails, started at Sunday’s debate when Anderson Cooper, in the first question of the night, manipulated Trump’s now infamous “lewd” comments to Billy Bush to imply they were an admission to actual sexual assault. As can be seen in the video below, Trump acknowledged the comments and apologized for them, but Cooper refused to moved on until he forced Trump to respond to a completely fabricated allegation that his words were necessarily an admission of actual sexual assault.
Then, not terribly surprisingly, within a couple of days, the New York Times released a follow-up “hit” in which they revealed women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by the Donald a couple of decades ago. And, of course, Clinton spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, immediately called out Trump for “lying” about the scandal at the debate.
But Trump has used the coordinated “hits” against his campaign to declare an all out war on everyone from the mainstream media to Congressional leaders, on both sides of the aisle, and now the FBI and DOJ. Per the Wall Street Journal, in statements at a rally in Florida yesterday, Trump furiously alleged corruption in the FBI’s investigation of Hillary’s email server describing it as “crime at the highest level.”
Mr. Trump on Wednesday condemned the Washington establishment for letting Mrs. Clinton off without punishment for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
“I am so disappointed in Congress, and I mean both sides,” he said at a rally here. “What do you do when you hand it over to the FBI and the Justice Department and that’s the end of it?”
The GOP nominee complained that Mr. Ryan didn’t congratulate him for his Sunday performance in the debate against Mrs. Clinton. “Wouldn’t you think that Paul Ryan would call and say, ‘Good going…Let’s go, Don, let’s beat that crook,’” he said. “There’s a whole sinister deal going on.”
He repeated and built upon his threat to name a special prosecutor to investigate Mrs. Clinton if he becomes president, suggesting he would also probe the FBI and Justice Department for failing to bring charges against her for her handling of classified material and use of a private computer for email while secretary of state. “We have to investigate the investigation,” he said. “It was crime at the highest level.”
Faulting Congress for not pressing more on the issue, he portrayed Capitol Hill and the political parties as a bipartisan back-scratching club that allows ethics problems to slide: “Did they make a deal where everybody protects each other in Washington?”
Trump also directed his wrath at the “fraudulent” media which he called out for giving Hillary an advance look at debate questions and failing to report on the WikiLeaks emails.
Wow, @CNN Town Hall questions were given to Crooked Hillary Clinton in advance of big debates against Bernie Sanders. Hillary & CNN FRAUD!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2016
Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2016
Meanwhile Trump also launched a new media ad blitz that will target key swing states with ads like the following.
PAY TO PLAY POLITICS. #CrookedHillary pic.twitter.com/wjsl8ITVvk
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2016
So buckle up folks, something tells us the next three weeks are going to be surreal.
- THe YouNG DouCHe…
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