- The Last Living Nuremberg Prosecutor: War Is Not The Answer
Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,
Only one lawyer who prosecuted the Nuremberg trials is still alive today, and he has an important message for the world: war is not the answer.
60 Minutes recently interviewed Ben Ferencz, a son of Romanian Jewish immigrants who found refuge in the United States. His father worked as a janitor, and Ben was the first person in his family to go to college. After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, he was driven to enlist in the military.
Due to his short stature, the Air Force rejected him, as did the Marines. He eventually finished his education at Harvard and went on to join the Army, landing at Normandy and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.
Because of his legal training, Ferencz was transferred to a new unit in General Patton’s Third Army, where he was tasked with gathering evidence from concentration camps as the U.S. Army liberated them. That information was going to be used to prosecute war crimes.
He says he is still haunted by what he saw and the stories he heard, remembering the story of a son whose father had hidden bread for him under his arm every night so other prisoners couldn’t steal it.
Though he returned home to the United States, he has soon summoned again. General Telford Taylor, who was in charge of the Nuremberg trials, requested Ferencz’ legal expertise, sending him multiple binders of top secret documents from the Nazi regime.
“He gave me a bunch of binders, four binders. And these were daily reports from the Eastern Front — which unit entered which town, how many people they killed. It was classified, so many Jews, so many gypsies, so many others,” he told 60 Minutes.
“Ferencz had stumbled upon reports sent back to headquarters by secret SS units called Einsatzgruppen, or action groups. Their job had been to follow the German army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941,” killing communists, gypsies, and Jews, the outlet reported. These murders were independent of concentration camp exterminations and occurred in the victims’ own towns.
“They were 3,000 SS officers trained for the purpose, and directed to kill without pity or remorse, every single Jewish man, woman, and child they could lay their hands on,” Ferencz recounted.
Ultimately, his findings led him to push for an additional trial, despite the previous ones already being conducted at Nuremberg.
“When I reached over a million people murdered that way, over a million people, that’s more people than you’ve ever seen in your life, I took a sample. I got on the next plane, flew from Berlin down to Nuremberg, and I said to Taylor, ‘General, we’ve gotta put on a new trial.’“
Because the prosecutors were already stretched thin and other trials were already underway, Taylor put him in charge of handling the Einsatzgruppen. At age 27, Ferencz prosecuted 22 former commanders, all of whom plead not guilty to their crimes.
But, as Ferencz proved with written evidence, they had documented their atrocities in cold, plain language. 60 Minutes noted the Nazi reports:
“Exhibit 111: ‘In the last 10 weeks, we have liquidated around 55,000 Jews.’ Exhibit 179, from Kiev in 1941: ‘The city’s Jews were ordered to present themselves… about 34,000 reported, including women and children. After they had been made to give up their clothing and valuables, all of them were killed, which took several days.’ Exhibit 84, from Einsatzgruppen D in March of 1942: Total number executed so far: 91,678.”
Otto Ohlendorf, who led Einsatzgruppen D, actually claimed the murders were carried out in self-defense. “He was not ashamed of that. He was proud of that. He was carrying out his government’s instructions,” Ferencz told 60 Minutes.
Though Ferencz was exposed to some of the worst behavior in human history, he fell short of calling the soldiers “savages,” as the 60 Minutes interviewer referred to them. Rather, he blamed the power of patriotism and soldiers ‘just doing their jobs.’
“He’s a patriotic human being acting in the interest of his country, in his mind,” he said, speaking of soldiers who commit atrocities.
“Do you think the man who dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was a savage? Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.” [emphasis added]
Ferencz successfully prosecuted the 22 commanders he put on trial, and four were hanged. He has spent his life trying to deter war crimes and delivered the closing arguments in the first case at the International Criminal Court at the Hague in the Netherlands, which was established in 1988. He has also donated his personal life savings to a Genocide Prevention Initiative at the Holocaust Museum.
When the interviewer pressed him about his optimism in the face of continued genocide in places like Sudan — asking whether he is simply naive — he maintained his positivity and rejected the claims of those who insist war is necessary:
“Well, if it’s naive to want peace instead of war, let ’em make sure they say I’m naive. Because I want peace instead of war. If they tell me they want war instead of peace, I don’t say they’re naive, I say they’re stupid. Stupid to an incredible degree to send young people out to kill other young people they don’t even know, who never did anybody any harm, never harmed them. That is the current system. I am naive? That’s insane.”
Though the interviewer also accused of him being an idealist, he insisted the opposite — that he’s a realist. He also said:
“People get discouraged. They should remember, from me, it takes courage not to be discouraged.”
He pointed out that decades ago, freedom for women, gays, and transsexuals was unthinkable, they have now come to pass, insisting it’s also possible to end mass murder and war.
“[I]t’s a reality today. So the world is changing. And you shouldn’t — you know — be despairing because it’s never happened before. Nothing new ever happened before.”
- CoMeY THe CLoWN…
- 'Anonymous' Issues Ominous World War 3 Warning: "The Citizens Will Be The Last To Know"
Using their signature Guy Fawkes character, the infamous hacktivist group Anonymous has issued an ominous new video – warning people around the world to "prepare" for World War 3 as the US and North Korea continue to move "strategic pieces into place" for battle.
All the signs of a looming war on the Korean Peninsula are surfacing… we’re watching as each country moves strategic pieces into place… but unlike past world wars… although there will be ground troops the battle is likely to be fierce, brutal and quick.
It will also be globally devastating on the environmental and economic levels.
… This is a real war with real global consequences… With three super powers drawn into the mix… Other nations will be coerced into choosing sides.
… The citizens will be the last to know…
As The New York Post reports, Anonymous – described online as a global network of hackers, intent on spreading “facts the government doesn’t want you to know” – claims the US and South Korea have been working together to keep the peace in the region, along with China and the Philippines, but their pleas have fallen “on deaf ears.”
They claim that the Trump administration has been also working closely with the Australians, sending a rotational deployment of more than 1,000 US troops to the country, along with a large fleet of military aircraft. Australia is ultimately considered to be a “strategic location in the Indian ocean,” Anonymous says.
“The citizen will be the last to know, so it is important to understand what the other nations are doing,” the group states, citing China’s warning last week to its people in the North. “The pragmatic Chinese, it seems, are starting to lose their patience.”
Another surefire sign that war is imminent, according to Anonymous, are the recent talks between President Trump and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.
The group concludes the video with an eerie message for those watching around the world.
“Prepare for what comes next,” they say. “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget.”
As SHTFplan.com's Mac Slavo points out, both China and Russia are mobilizing troops to the North Korean border, and the United States now has a Naval strike group directly off the coast of the rogue state. With the North threatening to continue testing missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and the Trump administration officially stating that past policies of “patient diplomacy” no longer apply, it appears confrontation is imminent.
North Korea has responded to President Trump’s deployment of an aircraft carrier, surveillance drones and missile tests by saying that if even a single bullet is fired they will nuke the United States.
The geo-political strain in the region could lead to any number of potential triggers. The growing concerns have not gone unnoticed in Japan, which recently saw panic buying of emergency shelters and air purifiers skyrocket.
In the United States, retailers report that the sale of NBC/CBRN gas masks and anti-radiation pills has spiked in recent weeks amid fears of impending global disaster.
Elite billionaires are building bunkers and long term preparedness plans to survive disaster, while governments around the world are positioning pieces on the grand chessboard.
All signs point to serious trouble in the very near future.
The world sits on the brink of a war unlike anything mankind has ever witnessed.
- Chinese Producer Prices Miss, Slide For Second Month As Burst Commodity Bubble Spills Over
With the entire world’s focused on the last remaining reflationary dynamo in the world, China, today’s inflation data out of Beijing, fabricated as it may be, was closely watched. After all, just one month ago, UBS declared China‘s reflationary phase over, and a dark, deflationary era of negative credit impulse-driven deflation would soon be unleashed on the world. Again.
It wasn’t quite so dramatic.
After surging to almost 8% at the start of 2017, the fastest pace in 9 years, PPI declined for a second consecutive month, slowing to just 6.4% YoY in April, down 0.4% from March, and missing expectation, confirming (as if it was needed) that China’s commodity boom is now in the rearview mirror. The accelerating producer price plunge has been all too obvious to those who have watched the recent crash (most recently previewed here) in Chinese iron ore and coal prices, which tumbled after rising sharply on a construction boom, or rather bubble, that drove China’s strongest economic growth since 2015.
At the same time consumer prices rose fractionally more than expected, although CPI remained at just 1.2% YoY, up from 0.9% in March. This was driven entirely by non-food inflation which jumped 2.4%, while food inflation plunged 3.5% from a year ago.
And in the backward logic of the “good is good and bad is great” world, the burst commodity bubble (declining PPI) and lower purchasing power (rising CPI) allowed the PBOC to be a little more generous with its liquidity, ending the three drought of no reverse repos, even if the central bank still drained a net of CNY80 billion today, and so Chinese stocks are higher… for now.
- For The First Time, You Can Track Every Dollar The Government Spends
Despite paying trillions in Federal taxes every year, Americans’ requests for a clear, detailed breakdown of where their money goes every year, have gone unanswered and been ignored by both Republican and Democrat administrations for one simple reason: transparency has an unpleasant way of mutating into accountability, which is the scariest thing imaginable for any career politician.
Not any more.
On Tuesday, the US Treasury launched a new website designed to track virtually every dollar – out of roughly $4 trillion – in federal spending. The new website, Beta.USAspending.gov, was created to put data into the hands of taxpayers by empowering them to track how their tax dollars are spent. The site is designed to follow federal agency spending and, for the first time, links spending data to awards distributed by the government.
In the statement, the Treasury said that “the new site provides taxpayers with the ability to track nearly USD in government spending from Washington, DC directly into their communities and cities,” says Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. “Furthermore, greater access to data will drive better decision making and strengthen accountability and transparency – qualities central to the Administration’s focus on a more innovative and effective government.”
Federal spending flows through hundreds of federal agencies and programs to thousands of companies and nonprofits and millions of individual citizens. Visitors to the site can search by location, federal agency or by keyword for a specific program or type of spending. They can also search for a specific recipient of federal funds, such as a business or university.
Treasury released this new version of the USAspending.gov site in accordance with Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) requirements. The DATA Act was enacted into law in May 2014 to make federal spending data more accessible, searchable, and reliable. The data on Beta.USAspending.gov is compiled by Treasury with the assistance of other federal agencies and will be updated and published on the site quarterly, with the first batch of data published in May 2017. Over the past two years, Treasury conducted extensive user research and stakeholder outreach to develop the new site.
More than just pretty charts, however, the site will likely serve as a tool for investors following along with Trump Administration proposal debates, and tracking who, where and when is set to receive several billion in excess government generosity.
The top level website can be found at the following link:
Readers eager to experiment with the website’s search can do so after the jump:
The more detailed spending breakdown by state can be found at the following link: it even lets you find spending by zip code and even recipient name.
- Stockman On The Coming Fiscal Bloodbath: "Sell Stocks, Sell Bonds, Buy Gold"
Authored by Craig Wilson via The Daily Reckoning blog,
David Stockman joined Greg Hunter of USA Watchdog to discuss what he views as a fiscal bloodbath and the biggest bond market bubble to ever hit the global economy.
To begin the discussion, the Washington insider was asked about the cash on hand in the United States federal budget and the fiscal conditions that Donald Trump faced where he unloaded, “I think it is a total calamity. They capitulated entirely.”
While speaking on what cuts Trump proposed Stockman pressed, “He wants to cut $18 billion in order to ‘balance it out’ from domestic programs like the the National Institute of Health (NIH), Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and a lot of things in between… and that’s just a down payment for the big reduction proposed for the full fiscal year that starts in October. That proposal is looking for $54 billion for defense and other domestic priorities, met with $54 billion of cuts on the domestic side… the problem is, Trump went to the Hill and they got totally fleeced. They ended up with most of the increases they wanted because that is the way Washington works. More money for the defense and border pork barrel.”
With contrarian style, David Stockman then pointed out, “He ended up with no cuts at all. He now has $30 billion in increases and a statement from Congress, that was on a bipartisan basis, allowed that we’re in control – you can have your defense and other priorities but we’ll march the budget higher together. I think that’s the opening gambit for what’s going to happen in the full year as the Congress struggles to try to pass bills for fiscal year 2018. They’re going to raise defense and all the priorities, they’ll cut nothing domestically…”
“The whole thing is headed for a real fiscal bloodbath sometime this summer or fall when they run out of debt ceiling (money) and can’t borrow any more to pay for all of this. When they use up the cash on the balance sheet right now… we’re going to be in a huge shutdown mode.”
Greg Hunter inquired with Stockman over what budget deals he would feel Trump and GOP leadership could make that would signal serious change. The former Reagan Budget Director argued, “First, he would need to rethink making defense great again. It is already far greater than we need. We don’t need that $54 billion for defense. Second, he promised he wouldn’t touch social security or medicare… A lot of people need them, I recognize that, but there are millions of affluent retirees who never earned all of the benefits they’re getting.”
When asked what his view on a Congressional budget deal is and what it could mean for jobs and the economy Stockman relayed, “There will be panic in the financial markets. This is not priced in. The market isn’t expecting anything. I think it will cause some very difficult times.” The interviewer then asked what his expectations on a government shutdown would look like with Trump.”
The author noted, “I doubt he’ll go for a shutdown by choice. The leadership is not going to stand for it. They have a false idea that Republicans can govern by keeping the Washington Monument open even if we’re bankrupting the country by piling spending. I don’t think they’re going to elect to have a shutdown. What I think is going to happen instead is they’re going to run out of borrowing authority with the debt ceiling, it is now frozen on March 15. We’re locked in at $19.8 trillion so when they run out of cash in a few months, they’ll need a majority in both houses to vote through a multi-trillion bill in both houses. They won’t have the votes.”
Stockman sounded the alarm, “This isn’t speculation, this is what is coming down the pipe. I don’t think it is even remotely anticipated by the markets. It is not priced in at all. That’s when you get huge disruptions in the financial markets. When they’re hit by surprise or black swans, that’s where we’re heading in a matter of few months.”
After the host pushed for clarity over his bubble forecast Stockman urged, “The market is insanely valued right now. They were trying to tag 2,400 points to close out last week. The point is, that represents about 25 times the trailing earnings for 2016 at a point where we’re already into a “recovery” that’s lasted 96 months. Almost the longest in history. What the market is saying is that we’ve reached a point of full employment, forever. [They appear to be behaving] as though there will never be another recession or economic surprise.”
“The market is pricing itself for perfection for all of eternity. This is crazy. We’ve got headwinds everywhere. The auto industry is now starting to roll over. The red ponzi in China has only a matter of time before it explodes. We now have debt for the household sector above where it was for the 2008 crisis. I think the market could easily drop to 1,300-1,600 by 30% or more once the fantasy ends. The government will show its true colors. We are headed for a fiscal bloodbath.”
Stockman voiced his concern for clarity remarking, “This crazy notion that there is going to be a Trump tax cut and fiscal stimulus must be put to rest once and for all. It’s not going to happen. They can’t pass a tax cut that big without a budget resolution that incorporates $10 or $15 trillion of debt over the next decade. Week by week, slowly the market is beginning to figure this out. What it means is, all of the corporate insiders are selling stock like there is no tomorrow… where institutional sales of stock have been going up since the election and what we have is the usual end of the cycle. This is the greatest suckers rally we’ve ever seen.”
When asked what he would recommend to protect yourself he urged, “The main thing is, get out of the markets. These markets are unstable. They’re rigged and unsustainable… there is no reason to own stocks at this point in the game. It is so overvalued that maybe you can get another two or three out but you’re facing a 30% or 40% down. The risk versus reward is horrible. The bond market is one giant bubble because the central bank’s have been buying bonds worldwide. They’re buying trillion and still buying a trillion or so on an annual basis. All of that is coming to a halt.”
In offering his bond market and central bank analysis he urged, “The Fed has finally run out of dry powder. They’re out of the bond buying business and even talking about initiating shrinking of their balance sheets. The European Central Bank (ECB) is near the end of its money printing spree. Even in Japan, which has gone off the deep end with quantitative easing, is beginning to have second thoughts.”
“Everywhere in the world, the central banks are finally getting to the end of the road. There isn’t going to be anymore money printing. That’s going to leave a giant mess on the doorstep of the fiscal authority. It is going to make the bond market a particularly dangerous place. Bonds are totally mispriced. If the central banks had not bought $20 trillion worth of government bonds worldwide over the last two decades, the yield on debt everywhere would be much higher.”
Stockman warned on the bond market environment that, “We have, what is roughly a $100 trillion global bond market (corporate and government) that is the biggest bubble ever seen. The advice is, get out of the bond market and stock market. Buy gold. Not all at once. When the financial system finally unwinds and the monetary authorities are discredited the one hard asset in the world is going to have another day in the sun.”
He reminded viewers, “The gold market is relatively small in comparison to the size of the equity market or bond markets. The gold markets are only a fraction of that. When the panic comes… the price of gold will rise dramatically.”
- Odds Of Trump Still Being President In 2019 Tumble
From a recent high of 75%, the last few hours – since FBI Director Comey was fired – have seen the odds of Donald Trump still being President at the end of 2018 have tumbled…
On relatively high volume, PredictIt's site shows heavy selling (with some trades crossing at 60%).
Interestingly, President Trump had just reached his highest odds of staying… and this drop is merely a one-month low…
Buy The F**king Comey Dip?
- Seattle Mayor Wants To Tax Diet Soda To Fight "White Privileged Institutionalized Racism"
Back in February, Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray called for a 2 cent per ounce tax on sugary soft drinks in order to “improve Seattle’s educational opportunities for students of color.” Per Lynx Media, the tax was expected to raise some $16 million per year.
Of course, when someone on his staff pointed out that a tax on sugary drinks would disproportionately impact the minorities that he was apparently trying to help, Murray knew that something drastic had to happen. So that’s when he decided to launch a new attack against the most recognizable symbol of “white privileged institutionalized racism” on the planet: DIET SODA!
Per the Seattle Times:
The changes were recommendations that emerged when staff from the mayor’s office and the office of Councilmember Tim Burgess studied disparate impacts the tax could have on people with low incomes and on people of color, according to Murray.
That work involved conversations with community advocates, public-health professionals and business owners, according to the mayor. After Murray’s initial announcement, some suggested the exclusion of beverages with artificial sweeteners would be unfair because affluent white people tend to consume more diet drinks.
And while we suspect that many of our readers who frequently enjoy diet sodas didn’t realize they were racist, trust Ed Murray when he says that you most certainly are…and he’s going to tax you for it.
And now that Democrats have found a way to directly tax “white privilege,” we suspect we’re going to see a whole lot more diet soda taxes.
Of course, Murray’s staffers may also want to remind him of how well Philadelphia’s soda tax has worked out for their mayor. When Philadelphia became the first US city to pass a soda tax last summer, city officials were eagerly looking forward to the surplus-tax funded windfall to plug gaping budget deficits (and, since this is Philadelphia, the occasional embezzlement scheme). Then, shortly after the tax went into effect on January 1st we showed the tax applied in practice: a receipt for a 10 pack of flavored water carried a 51% beverage tax. And since PA has a sales tax of 6% and Philly already charges another 2%, the total sales tax was 8%. In other words, a purchase which until last year came to $6.47 had overnight become $9.75.
What happened next? Precisely what most expected would happen: full blown sticker shock, and a collapse in purchases. According to Philly.com reports, just a couple of months into the city’s sweetened-beverage tax, supermarkets and distributors were reporting a 30% to 50% drop in beverage sales and – adding insult to injury – are now planning for layoffs.
Then, a month ago, PepsiCo slashed jobs, blaming the soda tax…
With sales slumping because of the new Philadelphia sweetened beverage tax, Pepsi said that it will lay off 80 to 100 workers at three distribution plants that serve the city.
The company, which employs 423 people in the city, sent out notices and said the layoffs would be spread over the next few months. The layoffs come in response to the beverage tax, which has cut sales by 40 percent in the city, PepsiCo Inc. spokesman Dave DeCecco said.
“Unfortunately, after careful consideration of the economic realities created by the recently enacted beverage tax, we have been forced to give notice that we intend to eliminate 80 to 100 positions, including frontline and supervisory roles,” DeCecco said.
Outside of the North Philadelphia plant Wednesday, Ed Langdon, a 40-year employee who shuttles products between warehouses, said the cuts are the most drastic he’s seen in his time at Pepsi. Langdon said the writing was on the wall: Some colleagues who are paid on commission were seeing drastic cuts in weekly pay. “The trucks are going out and they’re coming back with the soda on it,” he said. “No one’s buying it. It’s just not happening.”
And just a week ago, as Phily.com reported, Coke did the same…
Philadelphia’s new sweetened-beverage tax has led to the loss of 40 Coca-Cola jobs and a 32 percent drop in sales, the company said Friday.
Fran McGorry, president and general manager of Philly Coke, the local Coca-Cola bottler, said in a news release that the job losses are due to commission-based employees leaving the company, not layoffs.
“We are not able to replace those positions right now,” he said. “In total, we have fewer people working in the city while more people are now working outside Philadelphia due to increased demand there. We have also made the decision not to hire seasonal employees for the summer months due to the negative impact the tax is having on our business.”
Of course, if nothing else, Murray’s stupidity at least serves to debunk the notion that ‘soda taxes’ arise from some compassionate attempt on the part of Democrats to eradicate obesity. And, at a minimum, we can only hope that this embarrassing mishap just might prove to at least a few liberals that these taxes, like Obamacare, are nothing more than just a another money grab from an oppressive government, wrapped in clever packaging to dupe the American public.
- James Comey Learned He Was Fired From A TV News Report, Thought It Was A Joke
According to the NYT’s Michael Schmidt, today’s termination of James Comey was not an impromptu event: the “WH and DOJ had been working on firing Comey since at least last week. Sessions had been working to come up with reasons.” Still, only a handful of people got a heads up: Trump called Senators Lindsey Graham (R) and Diane Feinstein (D) before breaking the news. They are the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate committee running the Russia probe.
He did not, however, tell Comey, who according to the NYT, learned he was unemployed by hearing it on the TV.
Comey, who is three years into a 10-year term at the helm of the F.B.I., learned from news reports that he had been fired while addressing bureau employees in Los Angeles. While Mr. Comey spoke, television screens in the background began flashing the news. Shortly after, a letter was delivered to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington.
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Adding to the humiliationin his first reaction, Comey laughed, saying he thought it was a fairly funny prank. Then his staff started scurrying around in the background and told Mr. Comey that he should step into a nearby office.
Mr. Comey stopped addressing the group. He proceeded to shake hands with the employees he had been speaking to. Then he stepped into a side office, where he confirmed that he had been fired. At that point, he had not heard from the White House.
Mr. Comey’s day had begun in Florida, where he spoke to a group of police officers. He then flew to Los Angeles, where he was also scheduled to speak at a diversity meeting.
At the same time, Keith Schiller, the director of Oval Office operations at the White House, hand delivered a letter from Trump to Comey informing him of his firing late Tuesday afternoon. But Comey was not there to receive it.
In his letter, the president said he was dismissing Comey because it was time for a “new beginning” at the nation’s “crown jewel of law enforcement.”
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to lead the Bureau,” Trump wrote. The recipient of the letter would be on the other end of the country at that moment.
Meanwhile, in a separate NBC report, a senior FBI official said they “had no idea this was coming. They are in shock there.”
.@PeteWilliamsNBC on @MSNBC: Sr. FBI official just told him he “had no idea this was coming. They are in shock there.” pic.twitter.com/3bvISUgKoj
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 9, 2017
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