Feb 17

Today’s News 17th February 2018

  • Falsehoods And Lies: Inciting War Is A War Crime

    Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The torrent of reckless false accusations against Russia made by the US and its NATO allies is hitting warp speed.

    This week saw more baseless allegations of Russian cyber attacks on American elections and British industries.

    There were also crass claims by US officials that Russia was behind so-called sonic attacks on American diplomats in Cuba.

    Then a Dutch foreign minister was forced to resign after he finally admitted telling lies for the past two years over alleged Russian plans for regional aggression.

    Elsewhere, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed this week during a tour of the Middle East that “the primary goal” of his nation’s involvement in Syria is “to defeat” Islamic State (Daesh) terrorism.

    This is patently false given that the US forces illegally occupying parts of Syria are launching lethal attacks on Syrian armed forces who are actually fighting Islamic State and their myriad terrorist affiliates.

    Meanwhile, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley accused Russia of blocking peace efforts in Syria – another audacious falsehood to add to her thick compendium of calumny.

    Perhaps the most barefaced falsehood transpired this week when French President Emmanuel Macron candidly admitted that his government did not have any proof of chemical weapons being used in Syria.

    “Today, our agencies, our armed forces have not established that chemical weapons, as set out in treaties, have been used against the civilian population,” said Macron to media in Paris.

    His admission follows that of US Defense Secretary James Mattis who also fessed up earlier this month to having no evidence of chemical weapons being deployed in Syria.

    “We have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s been used,” said Mattis to reporters at the Pentagon. “We do not have evidence of it.”

    Yet, only a few weeks ago, the French and US government were condemning Syrian President Assad for alleged use of chemical weapons by his forces. France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also accused Russia of bearing responsibility because of its alliance with Damascus.

    But now we are told that the French and US governments do not, in fact, have any evidence concerning chemical weapons in Syria.

    This is in spite of US President Donald Trump unleashing over 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles on the Arab country last April in purported reprisal for the “Syrian regime” dropping chemical munitions on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib Province on April 4 2o17.

    Macron went on to make the absurd declaration this week that “if” chemical weapons were found to be used then he would order military strikes on Syria.

    Both Syria and Russia have categorically and repeatedly rejected claims of using chemical weapons, pointing out that Syria’s stockpile was eliminated back in 2014 under a UN-brokered deal.

    When Mattis said “we have reports from the battlefield” he was referring to groups like the CIA covertly-sponsored terrorist outfit Al Nusra Front and their media outlet, the so-called White Helmets.

    Western news media footage over the past two weeks seemingly depicting Syrian and Russian air strikes on civilian areas is sourced from the White Helmets. This group is embedded with Al Nusra.

    The same warped narrative claiming Syrian and Russian violations during the liberation of Aleppo from the terrorists at the end of 2016 is being played out again in East Ghouta and Idlib. And again the Western news media are amplifying the dubious propaganda from the likes of the White Helmets as if it is independent, verified information.

    This week in Paris Abdulrahman Almawwas, the so-called vice president of the White Helmets, which also go by the name of Syria Civil Defense, told the Reuters news agency that France and other NATO powers must intervene in Syria.

    “It’s time to take real action and not just talk about red lines,” said Almawwas, who was clearly disappointed after hearing Macron’s admission of no evidence for chemical weapons.

    Tellingly, the White Helmets’ envoy was hosted by senior French government officials while in Paris, including Macron’s chief diplomatic advisor, according to Reuters.

    He also went on to complain – unwittingly – that the White Helmets have received less funding from foreign governments this year compared with last year.

    Reuters reported: “Almawwas said the group’s financing for 2018 from foreign governments [sic] had dropped to $12 million from $18 million a year earlier.”

    According to the White Helmets’ own website, the foreign governments whom they receive financing from include: the United States, Britain, France, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Canada, among others.

    In other words, this so-called humanitarian relief organization is a NATO-sponsored entity, which evidently operates freely in areas of Syria controlled by Al Nusra and other internationally proscribed terror groups.

    And this is the same “source” which has been used by the NATO governments and Western news media to disseminate claims about Syrian state forces using chemical weapons against civilians – claims which senior US and French officials are now belatedly negating.

    What we have here is demonstrable peddling of falsehoods and lies by Western governments and their news media.

    Not just with regard to the war in Syria, but on a range of other international incendiary issues, as noted above.

    Accusing Russia of aggression, nuclear threats, sabotaging elections, targeting civilian infrastructure which could  “kill thousands and thousands” (British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson last month), or any number of other wild allegations, is symptomatic of sociopathic lying by Western governments.

    The reckless falsehoods and lies espoused by the US and its European allies are made possible because of the reprehensible servility of Western media not holding to account the wild claims that they willfully disseminate.

    This relentless propagation of lies is an appalling incitement to tensions, conflict and war.

    Engaging in war fever is not only irresponsible. It is in fact a war crime, according to Nuremberg legal standards.

  • Assange Hits Back At The Intercept – Claims "Obsessive And Obscenity-Laden" Campaign Against Him

    Julian Assange hit back at The Intercept over a February 14 article claiming he backed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in leaked group chats from a disgruntled former WikiLeaks associate who set up the chat room. 

    [I]n the fall of 2015, Trump was polling at less than 30 percent among Republican voters, neck-and-neck with neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Assange spoke freely about why WikiLeaks wanted Clinton and the Democrats to lose the election.

    “We believe it would be much better for GOP to win,” he typed into a private Twitter direct message group to an assortment of WikiLeaks’ most loyal supporters on Twitter. “Dems+Media+liberals woudl then form a block to reign in their worst qualities,” he wrote. “With Hillary in charge, GOP will be pushing for her worst qualities., dems+media+neoliberals will be mute.” He paused for two minutes before adding, “She’s a bright, well connected, sadistic sociopath.” –The Intercept

    In a series of rebuttals over Twitter, Assange notes that The Intercept’s Micah Lee failed to do basic fact checking, such as noting that the WikiLeaks account has a rotating staff (i.e. anyone could have written the controversial messages), and used “messages from late Oct 2016 when I infamously had no internet access.”

     

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    Assange also notes Lee’s long-standing grudge against the WikiLeaks co-founder, which he called “obsessive” and “obscenity laden.” 

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  • America: A Military Nation

    Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    Americans like to think of their country as different from those run by military regimes. They are only fooling themselves. Ever since the federal government was converted into a national-security state after World War II (without a constitutional amendment authorizing the conversion), it has been the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA that have run the government, just like in countries governed by military dictatorships.

    Oh sure, the façade is maintained – the façade that is ingrained in all of us in civics or government classes in high school and college: that the federal government is composed of three co-equal, independent branches that are in charge of the government.

    But just a façade. It’s fake. It’s a lie.

    It’s true that the federal government used to consist of three branches. But that quaint notion disintegrated when the federal government was converted to what is known as a “national-security state” after World War II. Even though it was done without a constitutional amendment, that conversion effectively added a fourth branch of government to the federal government — the national-security branch, which consists of the NSA, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

    The addition of that fourth branch fundamentally altered the original three-branch concept, especially because the fourth branch quickly became the most powerful branch. The reason is because ultimately government is force, and the fourth branch is where the most force was concentrated within the new, altered governmental structure.

    As law professor Michael Glennon has pointed out in his book National Security and Double Government, the result is a federal government in which the military, the CIA, and the NSA are in charge. They are the ones actually calling the shots. But they permit the other three branches to maintain the façade that they are in charge, including periodically going along with decisions in the other three branches to keep Americans thinking that everything is the same as it always has been.

    Consider the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s torture center, prison, and kangaroo tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They set that up with the aim of establishing a place to hold people and do whatever they wanted to them, without any judicial interference. Guantanamo was a dream-come-true for the military and the CIA. Like most conservatives, they had long lamented those “constitutional technicalities” that let people go free. If only America stopped coddling criminals, we could finally establish order and stability in our land. Guantanamo was going to be their showcase, their model for the United States and the world for dealing with criminals.

    That model, as we now know, entailed kidnappings, bounties, torture, indefinite detention, no criminal defense attorneys, denial of speedy trial, kangaroo military tribunals, use of hearsay evidence, use of evidence acquired through torture, denial of due process of law, and other violations of long-established criminal-justice procedures that stretch back to Magna Carta in 1215.

    Contrary to what the Pentagon and the CIA and their acolytes within the mainstream press have long maintained, terrorism is a criminal offense, not an act of war. If you don’t believe me, go look up the U.S. Code. That’s where all federal crimes are listed. You’ll see that terrorism is in fact a federal criminal offense.

    Alternatively, go into any federal courtroom in the land where a federal criminal prosecution for terrorism is being held. Ask the judge why he’s hold such a trial. He will tell you that it’s because terrorism is a federal criminal offense.

    The Pentagon-CIA torture-prison-tribunal center in Cuba didn’t change that fact. It simply meant that the CIA and the Pentagon were now getting into the law-enforcement business, which would enable them to punish people they were certain were guilty of terrorism.

    Now, let’s turn to President Obama, the president who vowed to shut down this Pentagon-CIA model torture-prison-military tribunal facility. He made that vow at the very start of his presidency, if not before.

    Obama was a two-term president. That meant 8 years in office. When Obama left office, he still had not fulfilled his vow. The Pentagon-CIA torture, indefinite detention, and kangaroo center at Guantanamo was still open. It still is.

    The reaction of Obama supporters and the mainstream press? “Oh, poor President Obama. He meant well. He really wanted to shut down Guantanamo. He just wasn’t able to pull it off before his 8-year term ended.”

    What?

    Hey, this guy was commander-in-chief. No, not of the American people but of the federal government’s military and para-military forces. That means that he is supposedly the head honcho. As such, he gives the orders to everyone below him. In a military structure, the superior officer gives the orders and the subordinate officers obey and carry out the orders.

    That means that all that President Obama, as commander in chief, had to do was issue an order to his military subordinates: “Close it down. Now!”

    But that’s not what happened. The Pentagon and the CIA obviously would not let Obama issue that order. And he understood that if he did, it was a virtual certainty that they wouldn’t have obeyed it.

    Then what?

    Some Obama supporters say it was all Congress’s fault because Congress passed a law that forbade the president from bringing any Gitmo prisoners to the continental United States.

    But Obama is president. He could have vetoed that law. And even if the veto was overridden, he didn’t have to bring any prisoners to the United States. As commander-in-chief of the military and the CIA, he could have simply said, “Close it down and release them all.”

    After all, that’s how our regular constitutional system — the one whose principles the CIA and the Pentagon rejected — works. Government officials have to charge a person with a crime and try him within a reasonable period of time or they are required to release him.

    The real question is: Why was Congress so intent on keeping Gitmo open, over the president’s objections? After all, keeping a U.S. kidnapping-detention-torture-kangaroo tribunal center in place in a foreign country, over the president’s vehement objections, is not the type of thing that we would ordinarily expect from the elected representatives of the American people.

    There is only one explanation that makes sense: That the national-security establishment told Congress that it wanted Gitmo to be kept open. We know that the CIA has assets in the mainstream press. We know they have assets in state and local governments, including police departments. It would stand to reason they would have assets in Congress, ones that they can call upon whenever necessary to protect the interests of the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA.

    And there is also the matter of military bases, programs, and projects in the district of every member of Congress. Congressmen knew what would happen to them if they bucked the Pentagon and the CIA on Guantanamo. All that the Pentagon would have to do is announce a closure of major military bases or other facilities in that Congressman’s district. Immediately, the press would denounce him as an “ineffective congressman,” one who was incapable of bringing home the political bacon to his district.

    What about the Supreme Court? Early on, they rejected the Pentagon’s arguments that they had no jurisdiction over Guantanamo. The Court held it did and said that the federal courts would entertain habeas corpus cases brought by Gitmo prisoners. The Pentagon acceded to the ruling but it was all part of the façade.

    After all, given that there is no constitutional authorization for the federal government to have a bifurcated judicial system — one run by the federal courts and the other run by the military — the Court should have ordered an immediate closure of the facility and a termination of the kangaroo judicial system that the Pentagon and the CIA established.

    Instead, unwilling to cross any red lines when it came to the national-security branch of the government, the Supreme Court has left Gitmo standing. That’s why dozens of prisoners have been held there for more than 10 years without trial and without the hope of a trial, much less a fair one.

    Look at the people who surround President Trump: U.S. “Defense” Secretary: A general. National Security Council advisor: A general. Trump’s chief of staff: a general.

    Think about those flyovers and all other glorification of the military and U.S. sporting events and in U.S. airports and churches and most everywhere else. Think about how so many Americans profusely thank the troops for protecting our rights and freedoms by killing people abroad who aren’t threatening our rights and freedoms. Think about how Trump wants to have “patriotic” military parades, which would undoubtedly feature the latest missiles, rifles, tanks, and planes.

    Remember President Trump before the election? He was criticizing the Pentagon’s forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He was criticizing NATO and the UN. He was fighting a political war against the CIA. He was all for making friends with Russia.

    Today? Trump is expanding the Pentagon’s forever wars. He let the CIA continue its decades-long secrets in the JFK assassination. He’s extolling NATO. And he’s imposing sanctions on Russia. Trump has been absorbed into the national-security establishment blob.

    Consider Egypt or, for that matter, Chile under Pinochet. In Egypt, the military-intelligence establishment runs the government. Same for Chile under Pinochet. America’s system is not much different, at least not in principle. The only difference is that in Egypt, the military-intelligence role is overt, just like it was in Chile. Here in the United States, the role is more disguised, with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches being permitted to have a fig leaf of ostensible control.

    Welcome to America, one of the world’s premier military nations.

  • "Highly Unusual" Enriched Uranium Particle Detected Over Alaska

    Scientists found a “highly unusual” particle containing enriched uranium-235 during a routine sampling of the air above the Aleutian Islands in August 2016. The source of the material, typically used in nuclear fuel and bombs, remains unclear – while the particle itself is unique in that it’s the first of its kind to be detected in 20 years of plane-based observations. 

    While uranium normally occurs in the ground as the moderately radioactive isotope U-238 – and typically not floating in the air, it must be refined using various methods – typically centrifuges, in order to produce U-235. Particles containing 3-4% U-235 are considered “low enriched” for civilian reactors, while anything north of 90% is considered “weapons grade.” 

    “During 20 years of aircraft sampling of millions of particles in the global atmosphere, we have rarely encountered a particle with a similarly high content of 238U [uranium-238] and never a particle with enriched 235U [uranium-235],” reads an abstract from the study. 

    The mystery particle – the bulk of which consisted of “material consistent with combustion of heavy fuel oil” and a “very small amount of enriched uranium” was discovered at an altitude of 7km (4.3 miles) – lower than Mount Everest.

    Researchers involved in the joint project between NOAA ESRL Chemical Sciences Division, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, and UC Irvine say they were making no special attempts to sample radioactive material during the routine flight to sample the atmosphere.

    “One of the main motivations of this paper is to see if somebody who knows more about uranium than any of us would understand the source of the particle,” scientist Dan Murphy from NOAA told Gizmodo reporter Ryan F. Mandelbaum. After all, “aerosol particles containing uranium enriched in uranium-235 are definitely not from a natural source,” he writes in the paper, published recently in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity.

    They were not intending to look for radioactive elements. “The purpose of the field campaign was to obtain some of the first global cross-sections of the concentration of trace gases and of dust, smoke, and other particles in the remote troposphere over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans,” according to the paper. –Gizmodo

    The precise origin of the radioactive particle remains a mystery, however the abstract suggests it could have originated “from a variety of areas across Asia,” and researchers are noting its existence “in case it indicates a novel source where enriched uranium was dispersed.” 

    “It’s not a significant amount of radioactive debris by itself,” said Dan Murphy of NOAA. “But it’s the implication that there’s some very small source of uranium that we don’t understand.”

    But where the particle came from is a mystery. It’s pretty clear it came from recently made reactor-grade uranium, the authors write (aka, not from Fukushima or Chernobyl). Perhaps from burnt fuel contaminated with uranium, they thought. They tried to trace it to a source using the direction of the wind—but their best estimate pointed vaguely to Asia. Higher probability areas include some parts of China, including its border with North Korea, and parts of Japan. –Gizmodo

    The NOAA scientists are hoping that other experts in the field will chime in with an answer. “We’re hoping that someone in a field that’s not intimately associated with atmospheric chemistry can say ‘a-ha!’ and give us a call.”

  • Mueller Indicts 13 Russians For Interfering In US Election

    Shortly after noon on Friday, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced an indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities, accusing them of interfering in the 2016 presidential election and operating fake social media accounts.

    In the indictment announced on Friday – the first criminal case to accuse Russians of seeking to influence the outcome of the U.S. election and support Donald Trump – Mueller describes a sweeping, years-long, multimillion-dollar conspiracy by hundreds of Russians aimed at criticizing Hillary Clinton and supporting Senator Bernie Sanders and Trump. He charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities and accused them of defrauding the U.S. government by interfering with the political process.

    Mueller charges “defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to  the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.”

    The indictment adds that the Russians “were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them)’.”

    It gets better: the defendants reportedly worked day and night shifts to pump out messages, controlling pages targeting a range of issues, including immigration, Black Lives Matter, and they amassed hundreds of thousands of followers. They set up and used servers inside the U.S. to mask the Russian origin of the accounts.

    Ultimately, and this is the punchline, the goal was to disparage Hillary Clinton and to assist the election of Donald Trump.

    In other words, anyone who was disparaging Clinton, may have “unwittingly” been a collaborator of the 13 Russian “specialists” who cost Hillary the election.

    The Russian organization named in the indictment – the Internet Research Agency – and the defendants began working in 2014 – so one year before the Trump candidacy was even announced – to interfere in U.S. elections, according to the indictment in Washington. They used false personas and social media while also staging political rallies and communicating with “unwitting individuals” associated with the Trump campaign, it said.

    The Russians “had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system,” according to the indictment in Washington.

    The Russians also reportedly bought advertisements on U.S. social media, created numerous Twitter accounts designed to appear as if they were U.S. groups or people, according to the indictment. One fake account, @TEN_GOP account, attracted more than 100,000 online followers.

    The Russians tracked the metrics of their effort in reports and budgeted for their efforts. Some, as described below, traveled to the U.S. to gather intelligence for the surreptitious campaign. They used stolen U.S. identities, including fake driver’s licenses, and contacted news media outlets to promote their activities.

    The full list of named defendants in addition to the Internet Research Agency, as well as Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering, include:

    • MIKHAIL IVANOVICH BYSTROV,
    • MIKHAIL LEONIDOVICH BURCHIK,
    • ALEKSANDRA YURYEVNA KRYLOVA,
    • ANNA VLADISLAVOVNA BOGACHEVA,
    • SERGEY PAVLOVICH POLOZOV,
    • MARIA ANATOLYEVNA BOVDA,
    • ROBERT SERGEYEVICH BOVDA,
    • DZHEYKHUN NASIMI OGLY ASLANOV,
    • VADIM VLADIMIROVICH PODKOPAEV,
    • GLEB IGOREVICH VASILCHENKO,
    • IRINA VIKTOROVNA KAVERZINA,
    • VLADIMIR VENKOV
    • YEVGENIY VIKTOROVICH PRIGOZHIN

    Mueller’s office said that none of the defendants was in custody.

    So how is Trump involved? Well, he isn’t, as it now seems that collusion narrative is dead, and instead Russian involvement was unilateral. Instead, according to the indictment, the Russian operations were unsolicited and pro bono, and included “supporting Trump… and disparaging Hillary Clinton,’ staging political rallies, buying political advertising while posing as grassroots U.S. groups. Oh, and communicating “with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.“

    Defendant ORGANIZATION had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities. Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

    Furthermore, the dastardly Russians created fake accounts to pretend they are Americans:

    Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and creating false U.S. personas, operated social media pages and groups designed to attract U.S. audiences. These groups and pages, which addressed divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S. activists when, in fact, they were controlled by Defendants. Defendants also used the stolen identities of real U.S. persons to post on ORGANIZATION-controlled social media accounts. Over time, these social media accounts became Defendants’ means to reach significant numbers of Americans for purposes of interfering with the U.S. political system, including the presidential election of 2016

    Mueller also alleges a combination of traditional and modern espionage…

    Certain Defendants traveled to the United States under false pretenses for the purpose of collecting intelligence to inform Defendants’ operations. Defendants also procured and used computer infrastructure, based partly in the United States, to hide the Russian origin of their activities and to avoid detection by U.S. regulators and law enforcement.

    Mueller also charges that two of the defendants received US visas and from approximately June 4, 2014 through June 26, 2014, KRYLOVA and BOGACHEVA “traveled in and around the United States, including stops in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas, and New York to gather intelligence, After the trip, KRYLOVA and BURCHIK exchanged an intelligence report regarding the trip.”

    * * *

    The indictment points to a broader conspiracy beyond the pages of the indictment, saying the grand jury has heard about other people with whom the Russians allegedly conspired in their efforts.

    Stocks are not happy.

    Stocks

     

    Rosenstein is expected to hold a briefing at 1:30pm ET. Watch it live below:

    Read the indictment below (link):

  • Playboy Model Details 9 Month Covert Affair With Trump: New Yorker

    In a bombshell New Yorker report from Ronan Farrow, who was the first reporter to expose Democratic donor Harvey Weinstein for his decades-long history of sexual assault, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Model who first met President Trump in 2006 during a pool party at the Playboy mansion, shared details about her alleged relationship with the president, and his relationship with National Enquirer owner David Pecker (and holding company American Media Inc), a longtime “personal friend” who once reportedly paid her $150,000 for the exclusive rights to her story, only to let it never see the light of day.

    In the world of tabloid journalism, this process is called “catch and kill“. Though McDougal’s story was first reported in 2016 by the Wall Street Journal, Farrow’s account is the first time she’s shared her story – which she “corroborated with an eight-page handwritten account taken at the time of the affair” – in full detail.

    McDougal

    The two first met after a taping of Trump’s show, the Apprentice, at the Playboy mansion. Trump was reportedly “all over her” and one of the show’s producers even remarked “you could be his next wife.” According to the New Yorker, McDougal kept handwritten notes about the affair, which she said began in 2006, after the taping of “The Apprentice” episode.

    Over a period of nine months, Trump ferried her to meet him both in LA and around the country, taking care not to leave a paper trail. During their meetings, McDougal said she would first be led to meet Trump by Keith Schiller, his former bodyguard.

    Pecker’s relationship with Trump is an advantageous one for him, because Pecker is likely one of the few people who knows where “all the bodies are buried” for the most powerful man in the world. Trump has denied the affair.

    McDougal, in her first on-the-record comments about A.M.I.’s handling of her story, declined to discuss the details of her relationship with Trump, for fear of violating the agreement she reached with the company. She did say, however, that she regretted signing the contract. “It took my rights away,” McDougal told me. “At this point I feel I can’t talk about anything without getting into trouble, because I don’t know what I’m allowed to talk about. I’m afraid to even mention his name.”

    A White House spokesperson said in a statement that Trump denies having had an affair with McDougal:

    “This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal.”

    American Media said that an amendment to McDougal’s contract—signed after Trump won the election—allowed her to “respond to legitimate press inquiries” regarding the affair. The company said that it did not print the story because it did not find it credible.

    Six former A.M.I. employees told me that Pecker routinely makes catch-and-kill arrangements like the one reached with McDougal. “We had stories and we bought them knowing full well they were never going to run,” Jerry George, a former A.M.I. senior editor who worked at the company for more than twenty-five years, told me. George said that Pecker protected Trump. “Pecker really considered him a friend,” George told me. “We never printed a word about Trump without his approval.” Maxine Page, who worked at A.M.I. on and off from 2002 to 2012, including as an executive editor at one of the company’s Web sites, said that Pecker also used the unpublished stories as “leverage” over some celebrities in order to pressure them to pose for his magazines or feed him stories. Several former employees said that these celebrities included Arnold Schwarzenegger, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, and Tiger Woods. (Schwarzenegger, through an attorney, denied this claim. Woods did not respond to requests for comment.) “Even though they’re just tabloids, just rags, it’s still a cause of concern,” Page said. “In theory, you would think that Trump has all the power in that relationship, but in fact Pecker has the power – he has the power to run these stories. He knows where the bodies are buried.”

    While there’s no evidence Pecker has ever used his leverage over Trump, several of his former employees said he would often use “killed” stories as leverage to get celebrities like Tiger Woods to feed him stories.

    During their relationship, McDougal noted that Trump would always order the same meal (steak and potatoes with no alcohol) and that he often would send her press clippings about himself or his children. McDougal’s account shared some amusing similarities with an account of an affair with Trump offered by former adult film actress Stormy Daniels. For instance, both Daniels and McDougal said Trump watched Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” programming with them. Daniels famously revealed that Trump told her he hates sharks.

    After their first sexual encounter, McDougal said Trump offered to pay her – to which she declined.

    As the pool party at the Playboy Mansion came to an end, Trump asked for McDougal’s telephone number. For McDougal, who grew up in a small town in Michigan and worked as a preschool teacher before beginning her modelling career, such advances were not unusual. John Crawford, McDougal’s friend, who also helped broker her deal with A.M.I., said that Trump was “another powerful guy hitting on her, a gal who’s paid to be at work.” Trump and McDougal began talking frequently on the phone, and soon had what McDougal described as their first date: dinner in a private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. McDougal wrote that Trump impressed her. “I was so nervous! I was into his intelligence + charm. Such a polite man,” she wrote. “We talked for a couple hours – then, it was “ON”! We got naked + had sex.” As McDougal was getting dressed to leave, Trump did something that surprised her. “He offered me money,” she wrote. “I looked at him (+ felt sad) + said, ‘No thanks – I’m not ‘that girl.’ I slept w/you because I like you – NOT for money’ – He told me ‘you are special.’

    The New Yorker also described the elaborate system that was created to conceal Trump’s alleged affair:

    Afterward, McDougal wrote, she “went to see him every time he was in LA (which was a lot).” Trump, she said, always stayed in the same bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and ordered the same meal—steak and mashed potatoes—and never drank. McDougal’s account is consistent with other descriptions of Trump’s behavior. Last month, In Touch Weekly published an interview conducted in 2011 with Stephanie Clifford in which she revealed that during a relationship with Trump she met him for dinner at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Trump insisted they watch “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel. Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” alleged that Trump assaulted her at a private dinner meeting, in December of 2007, at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Trump, Zervos has claimed, kissed her, groped her breast, and suggested that they lie down to “watch some telly-telly.” After Zervos rebuffed Trump’s advances, she said that he “began thrusting his genitals” against her. (Zervos recently sued Trump for defamation after he denied her account.) All three women say that they were escorted to a bungalow at the hotel by a Trump bodyguard, whom two of the women have identified as Keith Schiller. After Trump was elected, Schiller was appointed director of Oval Office Operations and deputy assistant to the President. Last September, John Kelly, acting as the new chief of staff, removed Schiller from the White House posts. (Schiller did not respond to a request for comment.)

    Over the course of the affair, Trump flew McDougal to public events across the country but hid the fact that he paid for her travel. “No paper trails for him,” she wrote. “In fact, every time I flew to meet him, I booked/paid for flight + hotel + he reimbursed me.” In July, 2006, McDougal joined Trump at the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, at the Edgewood Resort, on Lake Tahoe. At a party there, she and Trump sat in a booth with the New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, and Trump told her that Brees had recognized her, remarking, “Baby, you’re popular.” (Brees, through a spokesman, denied meeting Trump or McDougal at the event.) At another California golf event, Trump told McDougal that Tiger Woods had asked who she was. Trump, she recalled, warned her “to stay away from that one, LOL.”

    Trump promised to buy McDougal a condo – which he never did – and also introduced her to members of his family.

    McDougal, who had earlier kept quiet for fear of reprisal, said she ended the affair in April 2007 because she felt “tremendously guilty” (though Trump had revealed to her that he and his wife Melania maintained separate bedrooms).

    McDougal ended the relationship in April, 2007, after nine months. According to Crawford, the breakup was prompted in part by McDougal’s feelings of guilt. “She couldn’t look at herself in the mirror anymore,” Crawford said. “And she was concerned about what her mother thought of her.” The decision was reinforced by a series of comments Trump made that McDougal found disrespectful, according to several of her friends. When she raised her concern about her mother’s disapproval to Trump, he replied, “What, that old hag?” (McDougal, hurt, pointed out that Trump and her mother were close in age.) On the night of the Miss Universe pageant McDougal attended, McDougal and a friend rode with Trump in his limousine and the friend mentioned a relationship she had had with an African-American man. According to multiple sources, Trump remarked that the friend liked “the big black dick” and began commenting on her attractiveness and breast size. The interactions angered the friend and deeply offended McDougal.

    Speaking carefully for fear of legal reprisal, McDougal responded to questions about whether she felt guilty about the affair, as her friends suggested, by saying that she had found God in the last several years and regretted parts of her past. “This is a new me,” she told me. “If I could go back and do a lot of things differently, I definitely would.”

    Trump also hooked up with McDougal at the Lake Tahoe golf tournament in 2006 where he also met Daniels. While McDougal said she voluntarily sold her story to the Enquirer, she insists that the way the deal was done was “exploitative.”

    She sold the story during the 2016 presidential election, after a friend suggested it, and brokered the transaction – though she was fearful of going public for fear that Trump’s supporters might harass her. McDougal says she is a Republican. She signed her agreement with the Enquirer on Aug. 5, 2016, about a month before the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape broke, and while Daniels was also trying to negotiate selling her story to “Good Morning America” and Slate.

  • Trump Is Disposable, He's The Doorman – "The Deep State Runs The Show"

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    Picture this: A tribal leader from a distant country visits the US. He’s brought to a large apartment building in New York City. When he gets out of the car, he looks up at the great building and is quite impressed. A uniformed doorman exits the foyer and comes out on the sidewalk. The tribesman sees the gold braiding and brass buttons of his coat and immediately decides that this is a very important person. Again he looks up at the building and says to the doorman, “This is a very great home you have. You must be very important indeed.”

    Of course, if we were present, we might chuckle at the tribesman’s naiveté. The owners of such a great building would never greet people at the entrance. They leave such trivial tasks to hired servants, whilst they run the real business without ever needing any direct contact with visitors as they enter the building. And, in addition, doormen come and go – they are, after all, disposable. The owners – those who control what happens in the building – retain their positions over the long term… and may remain anonymous, if they so choose.

    We find this simple concept easy enough to understand, and yet we chronically have difficulty in understanding that, in most countries, the president, or prime minister, is not by any means the man who makes the big decisions in the running of the country.

    We assume that, because we were allowed to vote for our leader, he must actually be our leader. But, as Mark Twain has at times been credited as saying, “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”

    Similarly, the man whose family took over the financing of Europe, Meyer Rothschild, said, “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.” His family has been calling the shots for centuries, but like the owners of the apartment building, they keep a low profile.

    Remarkably, most people will nod their heads at the above quotes, yet somehow still imagine their elected leader to be in charge.

    Most anyone will accept that the voting system in their country has been corrupted in one way or another and it’s even more likely that they’ll acknowledge that the central banks control the flow of money. Yet, they persist in believing that, even if elections are financed by the big banks, the military industrial complex, Big Pharma, etc., somehow, those who are elected remain loyal to the voters, not to those who paid for their election.

    And, they imagine these elected members to be running the show.

    Further, whilst they often acknowledge that the political party that they oppose is bought and paid for, they prefer to think that the one they favour is not.

    At this point, both the EU and the US are run by the Deep State. In Europe it’s a bit more obvious, as the EU is a visible, unelected body that holds sway over all of the most significant developments in Europe.

    In the US, it’s a bit less obvious, but it’s generally understood that the CIA, FBI and other similar organisations run independently of the president. (He has the power to fire a Director, but does not have the power to eliminate these organisations or change their agenda.)

    The US is run as a corporatist body – joint rule by big business and the state.

    The elected members are, like doormen, temporary. They are, of course, highly visible, which they’re intended to be, as they’re meant to distract the public eye away from those who are truly in charge.

    And, like doormen, they’re disposable. They can be unelected at four-year intervals and the agenda continues as planned. They are, in fact, largely irrelevant to the direction that the country takes.

    The president in particular falls into this category. There have been quite a few presidents, such as the present one, who rose to that post with little or no previous experience in elected office. Their election is a result of popularity. If they do a better job of creating campaign-promises than their opponents, they emerge as the winners, even if they have no political ties, associations with other legislators, or previous experience in the job.

    And yet, we somehow assume that those who really pull the strings would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections, then tolerate a newly-elected outsider to wash away their investment by actually taking charge.

    To be sure, there have been presidents who have bucked the Deep State, but they tend to change their tune rather quickly and get back into line. Those who have refused have sometimes found themselves on the business end of a bullet, although, more recently, the preferred tactic has been to invent accusations of corruption and indecency, then to produce questionable witnesses to discredit the leader. (A leader who has been forced out in disgrace is just as gone as one that’s been assassinated.)

    But, almost invariably, the “leader” sees that it’s in his interest to cave in to the Deep State, as, perennially, they hold the real power. Campaign promises are tossed into the dustbin and it’s back to the previous, ongoing agenda. This we’ve witnessed time after time.

    Does this mean that the president is only a mouthpiece for the Deep State? Well, no, it’s actually advantageous for him to express his own opinions, ruffle the public’s feathers and push his pet projects. It adds to the distraction that he’s in charge. However, the larger issues – particularly the flow of tax dollars into the pockets of corporations, continue exactly as planned, regardless of who’s in office.  Bankers continue to receive absurdly large bailouts when they’ve grossly mismanaged their banks. The military industrial complex continues to enjoy perpetual warfare, so that they can supply armaments to the government for unnecessary conflicts. Big Pharma enjoys legislation that forces people to be vaccinated against their will and accept outrageously high prices for medications that are generally inexpensive to produce.

    But, yes, as long as a president remains the spokesman to explain why such policies are not only tolerable, but essential, he may be allowed to occupy the oval office until the voters tire of him.

    But, if this is true, why do people so quickly and so readily accept the “leader” to actually be unilaterally responsible for every facet of every governmental policy and action?

    Well actually, nothing could be easier. It’s human nature to want to put a face to our praise and/or criticism. We can’t muster the same focus if we’re advised that we’re being ruled by a faceless group. We tend to respond more readily and more intensely to a single individual – a face we can conjure up immediately. “People desire certainty,” Doug Casey once observed to me, when discussing a related subject, and that’s exactly so. If we’re uncertain during troubled times, we’ll instantly jump at the opportunity to put a single face to the problem, to blame one individual for whatever is troubling us.

    This is evidenced by the presentation of photos of Lee Harvey Oswald and Osama bin Laden, mere hours after major events, as the certain culprits. They were immediately accepted, without any question, by a people desperately seeking certainty.

    Therefore, as soon as one leader is out and another takes his place, we’re able to immediately transfer our devotion or hatred to the replacement.

    The concept of providing a single face to the public is one that was understood by George Orwell, who created the character of “Big Brother,” who would be on the video screens incessantly, as the face of the government.

    But, in stating all of the above, it may seem that I’ve portrayed the doorman as insignificant and this is not the case. He does play quite an important role.

    He’s absolutely essential, as he, more than any other legislator, creates a suitable distraction from those who really run the show. He’s in front of the microphone, does interviews, is filmed almost on a daily basis, and is constantly credited by the media as being either the saviour or the devil, depending upon which media outlet is providing the portrayal.

    And the shakier an economy, and the greater the problems of a country, the more essential it is that the “leader” be visible. After all, when things go badly awry, someone has to serve as the fall guy.

    When this occurs, he is, of course, disposable. He leaves in disgrace or is voted out and a new puppet is voted in whose loyalty is again to the Deep State, not to the voters. And, most importantly, the real agenda continues, as planned, regardless of whatever new campaign promises got him elected.

    (This is not at all new. In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt introduced the Emergency Banking Act the day after his inauguration speech, in which he had assured the country that he would not mess with the currency.)

    Campaign promises are dumped wholesale; the demeanour of the new leader may change dramatically, and the new leader’s very principles may suddenly evaporate after election day. However, the ongoing agenda does not. Regardless of who’s elected, or what party he professes to represent, we witness a continuation of the previous directions taken by those who truly hold the power.

    What’s important to recognize is that, no matter how large the apartment building may be, no matter how impressive the presentation of the doorman may be, he is just that. He is only the front man, and he is disposable.

    The Deep State runs the show. Their presence is permanent and their agenda is both ongoing and impervious to the whims of the voting public.

    *  *  *

    The Deep State’s quiet control on the US financial system has pushed it to the brink. Find out how to protect yourself in our Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse. Click here to download your free PDF copy now.

  • Deutsche: "Nobody Can Understand What's Going On With The Dollar… The Answer Is Simple"

    Earlier this week, the bizarre, unexplainable, ongoing plunge in the dollar and US bond prices in the aftermath of the stronger than expected CPI print which also sent equities surging, prompted at least one trader at Citi to explode: “Wake Up Folks, It’s Not Risk Positive“

    Then again, maybe it is not all that unexplainable.

    As Deutsche’s FX strategist, George Saravelos, writes, he has been getting numerous inquiries as to how can it be that US yields are rising sharply, yet the dollar is so weak at the same time?

    He believes the answer is simple: the dollar is not going down despite higher yields but because of them. Higher yields mean lower bond prices and US bonds are lower because investors don’t want to buy them, or as he puts it “this is an  entirely different regime to previous years.”

    Below we repost his simple explanation, while highlighting that maybe…

    … just maybe, the bottom for the dollar is now in?

    From Deutsche Bank:

    Blame the dollar on yields

    We are well into 2018 and our feedback from recently attending the TradeTech FX conference in Miami is that the market is still struggling to understand or embrace dollar weakness. How can it be that US yields are rising sharply, yet the dollar is so weak at the same time? The answer is simple: the dollar is not going down despite higher yields but because of them. Higher yields mean lower bond prices and US bonds are lower because investors don’t want to buy them. This is an entirely different regime to previous years.

    Dollar weakness ultimately goes back to two major problems for the greenback this year. First, US asset valuations are extremely stretched. As we argued in our 2018 FX outlook a combined measure of P/E ratios for equities and term premia for bonds is at its highest levels since the 1960s. Simply put, US bond and equity prices cannot continue going up at the same time. This correlation breakdown is structurally bearish for the dollar because it inhibits sustained inflows into US bond and equity markets.

    The second dollar problem is that irrespective of asset valuations the US twin deficit (the sum of the current account and fiscal balance) is set to deteriorate dramatically in coming years. Not only does the additional fiscal stimulus recently agreed by Congress push the fair value of bonds even lower via higher issuance and inflation risk premia effects, but the current account that also needs to be financed will widen via import multiplier effects. When an economy is stimulated at full employment the only way to absorb domestic demand is higher imports.  Under conservative assumptions the US twin deficit is set to deteriorate by well over 3% of GDP over the next two years.

    The mirror image to all of this is that the flow picture into both Europe and Japan has been improving dramatically anyway. We have previously written about the positive flow dynamics in Europe as the flow distortions caused by extremely unconventional ECB policy are starting to adjust. But the Japanese basic balance has also shot up to a 4% surplus in recent years helped by a big improvement in the services balance (Chinese tourists) and a collapse of Japanese inflows into the US: treasuries simply do not provide enough duration compensation any more. To conclude, embrace dollar weakness, it has more to run.

  • Peter Thiel "Makes A Killing" With Massive Vol-Spike Bet

    While Thiel is best known for venture investments like those in Facebook and PayPal,  Bloomberg writes that it was his macro strategy that positioned him to make a killing on last week’s spike in market volatility.

    Outspoken Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel was along for the ride in the world’s great short-volatility trade with a $404 million bet as recently as the end of 2014.

    But in the latest filings from Thiel Macro, it appears Thiel changed his mind in the latter half of last year and reversed his position into a massive bet on volatility jumping…

    While he maintained a small $6.5mm VXX Put position (short-volatility bet), he added a massive $244mm SVXY Put position (long-volatility bet).

    If you’re wondering why Thiel’s sudden change of heart, perhaps this will explain it.

    The following, recorded secretly from EqDerivatives Conference in May 2017, exposes Chris Cole of Artemis and Mike Green of Thiel Macro arguing with XIV-creator Nick Cherney, specifically about the Termination Event in XIV.

    The action starts in the Q&A session after the anti-short-volatility keynote by Cole and Green (move forward to around 37-38mins on for a heated argument!!!!)

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Cherney insults them for being (correctly) anti-XIV… and Cole and Green pretty much eviscerate his logic, XIV, and the entire short-vol trade, and explain to him why his own product is doomed to fail.

    It seems they were right… and Thiel Macro made a killing!!

    As Bloomberg reports, the options, which entitle the holder to sell the underlying shares at a set price in the future, increase in value when those underlying shares decline. Thiel Macro still held the put options on 1.9 million shares of the ETF as of Dec. 31, according to the filing. The face value of those shares was $244 million.

    After closing at $121.67 a share on Feb. 1, the ETF collapsed in the ensuing days, hitting a low of $9.58 a week later. The shares covered by Thiel’s put options lost about $213 million of market value during that week.

    It is unknown at what strike these options were bought, but no matter, if Thiel held onto the options, his gains would equal some portion of the $213 million decline.

    For a sense of context, at-the-money SVXY Puts from mid Q4 exploded in price from around $9 to $108 in the last two weeks… a 1000% gain!!!

    Of course, we await another article akin to The Guardian’s from last week, “Making millions from chaos: the fund cashing in on the stock market collapse” villifying those who dared not be all-in, levered long to the US stock market.

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