Syria is an enigma to American Foreign Policy, National
Interests and National Security. Just about any action along a policy choice
is a damned if we do or damned if we don’t.
There is no doubt that Bashar Assad is a brutal and
nefarious dictator that butchers the Sunni majority in his nation. YET much of
the Sunni majority is fractured under the control of Islamic terrorist entities
that are just as if not more so brutal than Assad. AND the Sunni rebel militias
that claim no affiliation to the Islamic terrorists are less organized and/or
unreliable in their moderate assertions.
Military action taken by President Trump against the Assad
controlled airbase that launched a chemical weapon attack on the civilians of
Khan Sheikhoun was quite proportional as a warning against continued chemical
WMD attacks.
AND YET Syria took advantage of Russia and Iran’s version of
a redline warning against the U.S. claiming (or pretending) they’d
retaliate for their little/widdle client if more military action is
forthcoming.
I do like Justin Smith’s analysis of the Syrian enigma as
relating President Trump’s proportional response to a chemical weapon attack.
Making the only moral choice and protecting the United
States vital interests, President Donald Trump ordered the first direct U.S.
attack on Syria in six years, in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's
use of a sarin gas nerve-agent on his own people and the images of little
children dying and foaming at the mouth, on April 6th 2017. While President
Trump seemed to act solely out of humanitarian concern, his decision sent a
clear message around the world and to all America's enemies, that the United
States is back, strong as it ever once was, and willing to act with its
military might should it prove necessary.
On Tuesday, April 4th, U.S. and foreign intelligence
agencies tracked Syrian SU-22 jets leaving Al Shayrat Airbase, for Idlib
Province, where one jet dropped a sarin bomb in the middle of Kahn Sheikhoun. Eighty-seven people were killed, including
26 children, and 546 more were deathly sick and injured.
Approximately 600,000 Syrians have been killed by
conventional warfare in the Syrian Civil War, but Assad's use of sarin changed
the entire world's view of the situation. The horrors of chemical weapons used
in WWI have long convinced civilized nations to ban their use through treaties
such as the Chemical Weapons Convention,
because they kill everyone within range in a most horrific manner.
Unlike former President Obama, whose fear created failed
policies, President Trump did something tangible to respond to Assad's
atrocities, even after Russia warned the United States against any strike on
Syria at the United Nations, and at 8:40 p.m. EST 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles
were launched from the destroyers USS Ross and USS Porter. They hit Al
Shayrat's infrastructure in Homs Province, air defense systems and ammunition
bunkers, and they destroyed approximately 25 aircraft of the 7th Wing of the
Syrian Air Force.
After the cruise missile strikes, President Trump stated:
"No child of God should suffer such horror. ... It is in this vital
national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread
and use of deadly chemical weapons. ... We pray ... for the souls of those who
passed ... Good night and God Bless America and the entire world."
Most of the world's nations embraced President Trump's
missile strike as a necessary move, and Prime Minister Theresa May's office
said the action was "an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical
weapons attack." France, Italy and Israel also welcomed the strikes.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:
"President Trump sent a strong and clear message today that the use and
spread of chemical weapons will not be tolerated. Israel fully supports
President Trump's decision and hopes that this message of resolve in the face
of the Assad regime's horrific actions will resonate not only in Damascus, but
Tehran, Pyongyang and elsewhere."
While an originalist reading of Constitution has many in the
public and in Congress questioning President Trump's authority to use immediate
military force to counter foreign threats, President Trump's action against
Assad's heinous sarin attack, undertaken as a second step to prevent the spread
and repeated use of chemical weapons, is perfectly consistent with the
Constitution, especially so, since U.S. troops are in nearby proximity. In the
relevant part of the War Powers Act passed by Congress in 1973,
the President is permitted to launch a military act on his own, as long as he
notifies or consults Congress within 48 hours. Trump acted within these
guidelines.
However, America would do well to recall that U.S.
Presidents like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are responsible for
the rise of the Islamofascists, like the Ayatollah Khomeini and the subsequent
Iranian nuclear program, embedding Hamas in the Palestinian territories; and
most recently, Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed the
Arab [Islamic, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda] Spring and their
"democracy" initiative, which has toppled one strong man after
another, undoing the entire Middle East and paving the way for the Islamic
State in both Iraq and Syria and creating general chaos.
Without oil resources, Syria has never really been of too
much concern to the United States, other than being a thorn in our side due to
its alliance with Iran, support of Islamofascist Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists
and its own pursuit of nuclear weapons, confirmed in 2007. It doesn't seek to
control the Persian Gulf or dominate the region, unlike Iran.
Assad's opposition is primarily the Islamofascists of the
Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State, and if they gain control of Syria,
the country and its people will face even more heinous atrocities. The Syrian
Free Army is no much better, being comprised of anti-American, pro-Hamas
Muslims, who are content to accept U.S. funding, if it can place them in
control of Syria.
Due to the Muslim Brotherhood's own brutal nature, their brutality
has been met with extreme overkill measures, since the Baath Party rose to
power in Syria in 1963. In 1982, a Sunni Islamist rebellion was murderously
crushed by Bashar's father, Hafez Assad, that left 20,000 people dead. Bashar's
insane use of sarin gas is the last crime against humanity by a desperate
despot.
Prior to the uprising in Deraa [aka Daraa] in March 2011,
Syria had become a proper nation-state with a sense of Saryana (Syrianhood)
that had never before existed, and it was evident it Syria's literature,
television, journalism and its own version of Arabic. Assad's regime had
improved access to higher education and health care services, and he had helped
to create a new urban middle class with Western-style political aspirations.
Agriculture and handicraft industries had revived and were unrestrained by the
government. And the Christian population flourished under Assad's secular
authoritarian regime. This all changed through international interference.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir
Putin views the U.S. strike as an "aggression against a sovereign state in
violation of international law [that] deals a significant blow to Russia-U.S.
relations".
Just how wonderful has Russia turning a blind-eye to Syria's
sarin stock been for U.S.-Russia relations? Russia supposedly assisted in the
destruction of Assad's chemical weapons stores, but since 2015, Russia has
repeatedly obfuscated evidence of new chemical attacks by Assad's regime.
A few hours before the strike, United Nations Ambassador
Nikki Haley stated: "Russia cannot escape responsibility for this. They
chose to close their eyes to the barbarity. They defied the conscience of the
world."
Both America's and Russia's interests center more on ending
the Syrian Civil War than on any one particular political future for Damascus;
but, the sarin attacks have renewed calls for Assad's removal. Of greater
importance, the focus of America and the free world and Russia must be unified
on eradicating the Islamic State [Daesh] and the Islamofascists who are
destabilizing the entire region.
President Trump acted contrary to the popular consensus and
what most presidents would have done. He attacked Syria solely for humanitarian
reasons. Now he must clearly articulate the mission ahead and America's
interests in this war, since there isn't any nation with the capacity to fix
Syria's problems. Getting rid of Assad will most assuredly be hard and have
serious consequences, but America's new, strong and determined President Trump
has shown his willingness to effectively counter the world's dictators, and he
will not tolerate egregious, inhuman chemical weapons attacks on innocent
civilians.
By Justin O. Smith
_________________
Edited by John R. Houk
All source links and text
enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.
Tony Newbill highlights Eco-Marxism as part of the Agenda 21 paradigm. He proceeds
to the subject of Fake News as in it’s been occurring for decades. Newbill
found a Rappoport article talking of the government/media coverup of Chem-WMD
sent from the U.S. to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the consequences of that move
later. Newbill wonders about the Obama/Dem/Clinton outrage over Russian actions
in hacking when prior there appeared complete cooperation with Russian money
laundering (and I might add Crooked Hillary giving nuclear armed Russia
access to a huge percentage of American uranium). Newbill points to Obama
money laundering illegalities with Iran to get hostages freed yet lying (as
was and is typical) it was a part of the Iran Nuke deal. Crooked Hillary’s
part in fixing IRS criminal against international banks HSBC and USB. Then
Newbill culminates with the medical deaths imposed on the public by dangerous
GMOs and needless deaths in U.S. hospitals.
The UN-ECO Marxists .... Give us the POWER to subvert your
life into oblivion .... and the international jet set of Climate Change
Globalist savants will have the earth all to ourselves!!!!! Like Marxism,
sustainability prefers revolution to reform, but is willing to take half-steps.
Like Marxism, sustainability seeks to re-architect human nature, finding human
beings as they are unworthy of the kingdom it will build. Like Marxism, sustainability is a vision of
history in which a decisive inflection point lies just ahead of us, and we the
living have the opportunity to get on “the right side of history” if we are
smart enough to listen the movement’s prophets. Like Marxism, sustainability
pictures itself a global movement, transcending the boundaries -- and the laws
-- of nations.
Listen to the Video
starting at 1:39 you will HEAR THE KEY WORD for THEIR PLAN at 1:50:
The 193-Member United Nations
General Assembly formally adopted the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, along with a set of bold new Global Goals,
which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed as a universal, integrated and
transformative vision for a better world.
"The new agenda is a promise
by leaders to all people everywhere. It is an agenda for people, to end poverty
in all its forms - an agenda for the planet, our common home," declared
Mr. Ban as he opened the UN Sustainable Development Summit.
The UN chief's address came ahead
of the Assembly's formal adoption of the new framework, Transforming Our World:
the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is composed of 17 goals and 169 targets to
wipe out …READ
THE REST (Agenda 2030: A Vision of a Better Future; UN Montenegro)
All TRUMP and PENCE need to do to get reelected is Abstain
from this CREATURE and REBUILD our Industrial Base for self-reliance away from
these Dependencies on Foreign Resources that can be used as Leverage against
the U.S. People being folded into this Globalist Cabal of servitude!!!!!!
+++
We Only Know What We are Told
12/27/2016 12:09 PM
We only know what we are
told .... fake or otherwise!!!!!
Here I want to comment on one of
the most devious forms of MSM fake news: the limited hangout.
When necessary, news outlets will
do a PARTIAL EXPOSURE of a hidden crime. The assumption is, once the story is
published and broadcast, everyone will shake their heads and say, “That’s
terrible,” and move on. The whole thing will be forgotten in a matter of days,
as if the whole truth has been revealed. Limited hangout.
From media’s point of view, a
limited hangout means: “We won’t do any further digging. We’ll shut down
further investigation.” Vital questions won’t be asked:
…
The mainstream press could set
their hounds loose and build a story into a huge wave. Over time, they could bring
hidden players out into the open and expose them and wring confessions out of
them. They could get some of these players to roll over and
point to higher-level criminals. The story could achieve
tsunami status, at which point the government would have to make
arrests and lay on trials in open courtrooms.
But that doesn’t happen. Limited
hangout rules the day.
I’m going to present a story about
a crime now. It’s big. Very big. It was covered, to a degree, by the mainstream
press. The coverage seemed to be significant. But it was a limited hangout.
As you read on, imagine what might
have happened if the press had decided to go in with guns blazing and investigate
all the way, over a period of months, releasing new revelations as they
discovered them. …
In 1975, the US signed on to an
international treaty banning the production, use, and stockpiling of biological
weapons. Ditto for chemical weapons, in 1993. Another treaty.
Here’s a quote from the Washington
Post (9/4/13, “When the US looked the
other way on chemical weapons”): “…The
administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to
Iraq of numerous items…including
poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic
plague…”
Between 1985 and 1989, a US 501C3
firm, American Type Culture
Collection, sent Iraq up to 70 shipments of various biowar agents,
including 21 strains of anthrax.
Between 1984 and 1989, the CDC (Centers
for Disease Control!) sent Iraq at least 80 different biowar agents, including
botulinum toxoid, dengue virus, and West Nile antigen and antibody.
Then we have a comprehensive
article by William Blum (one of the good investigators in this whole story) in
the April 1998 Progressive called “Anthrax for Export.” Blum
cites a 1994 Senate report confirming that, …
…
This 1994 Senate report also
indicates that the US exported to Iraq the precursors for chemwar agents,
actual plans for chemical and biowar production facilities, and
chemical-warhead filling equipment. The exports continued until at least
November 28, 1989.
Blum lists a few other biowar
agents the US shipped to Iraq. Histoplasma Capsulatum, Brucella Melitensis,
Clostridium Perfringens, Clostridium tetani—as well as E. coli, various genetic
materials, human and bacterial DNA.
Blum also points out that a 1994
Pentagon report dismissed any connection between all these biowar agents and
Gulf War Illness. But the researcher who headed up that study, Joshua
Lederberg, was actually a director of the US firm that had provided the most
biowar material to Iraq in the 1980s: the American Type Culture Collection.
Newsday revealed that the CEO of
the American Type Culture Collection was a member of the US Dept. of Commerce’s
Technical Advisory Committee. See, the Dept. of Commerce had to license and
approve all those exports of biowar agents carried out by the American Type
Culture Collection. Get the picture?
…
Hewlett Packard said that the
recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was some sort of school in Iraq. But in
1990, the Wall St. Journal stated that Saad 16 was a “heavily fortified,
state-of-the-art [Iraqi] complex for aircraft construction, missile design,
and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research.”
If you review and think about all
these WMD shipments from the US to Iraq, you understand there were many US
officials and corporate employees who knew about them. Knew about them then, in
the 1980s, and knew about them later, during 2 US wars in Iraq, when American
soldiers were sent to Iraq, and could have been exposed to the bio/chem
weapons.
And these officials and employees
said nothing.
Officials at the CDC and the Dept.
of Commerce said nothing. People at the American Type Culture Collection said
nothing. People at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSA said nothing.
Presidents said nothing. Employees of the corporations who supplied germs and
chemicals said nothing.
US Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld helped Saddam Hussein build up his arsenal of deadly chemical and
biological weapons, it was revealed last night.
As an envoy from President Reagan
19 years ago, he had a secret meeting with the Iraqi dictator and arranged
enormous military assistance for his war with Iran.
The CIA had already warned that
Iraq was using chemical weapons almost daily. But Mr. Rumsfeld, at the time a
successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry, still made it possible for
Saddam to buy supplies from American firms. [Blog Editor: Emphasis Tony
Newbill]
They included viruses such as
anthrax and bubonic plague, according to the Washington Post.
The extraordinary details have come
to light because thousands of State Department documents dealing with the 1980-88
Iran-Iraq war have just been declassified and released under the Freedom of
Information Act.
At the very least, it is highly
embarrassing for 70-year-old Mr Rumsfeld, who is …READ THE REST(Rumsfeld
'helped Iraq get chemical weapons'; By WILLIAM LOWTHER; Daily Mail; 12/31/02
7:36:39 am)
+++
Dems & Obama are Russian Friends
12/30/2016 2:20 PM
I don't understand why the Democrats and Obama are making
such a Big deal out of their Friends the Russians. First, we have Bill dressed
up as a Russian:
Bill and Hillary Clinton's
charitable foundation reportedly received as much as $81million from clients
with accounts with at HSBC's Swiss bank in Geneva.
The contributions - including
$1million in exchange for Bill attending a lavish fancy-dress party in Russia -
come from wealthy clients who are protected by Switzerland's robust banking
secrecy laws.
Details of 30,000 accounts have
come to light after an enormous banking leak - which brought with it the names
of seven donors to the charitable Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton
Foundation.
According to the Guardian, chief among the
donors was Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra, who reportedly handed over
$50million to the presidential organisation.
Michael Schumacher, the racing
driver seriously injured in a 2013 skiing accident, was listed as another
donor, as was billionaire Eli Broad and French financier Arpad Busson.
Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex
offender who flew President Clinton round in his private jet, also gave tens of
thousands of dollars, according to …READ THE REST (Clinton
foundation 'received $81million in donations from controversial HSBC Swiss bank
- including $1million to dress up as a Russian soldier for lavish fundraiser';
By KIERAN CORCORAN; Daily Mail;
2/10/15 00:13 EST – UPDATED 2/10/15 09:05 EST)
Then there is this little Money Laundering scheme:
The investigation into HSBC
currency trader Mark Johnson and associate Stuart Scott for their alleged role
in a “conspiracy to rig currency benchmarks” by front-running customer orders
has escalated to the point where the Department of Justice is threatening to tear up a 2012 agreement to
fine HSBC a historic $1.9 billion for money-laundering violations in lieu of
criminal prosecutions.
At issue is whether or not HSBC has
honored the 2012 deferred-prosecution agreement in which the bank agreed to
establish internal review procedures to catch and punish potentially criminal
activities by employees.
WND broke open the HSBC money-laundering
case with a series of articles beginning in February 2012.
More than 1,000 pages of customer records and secret audio recordings brought
to WND by whistleblower John Cruz, a former HSBC employee, showed HSBC
employees in Long Island were stealing the Social Security numbers of former
bank depositors to create bogus “pass-through” accounts used to launder
hundreds of millions of dollars for criminal enterprises such as Mexican drug
cartels and Islamic terrorists.
WND reported in February 2015 Cruz
told Senate Judiciary Committee staff preparing for the Loretta Lynch
confirmation hearings that he considered the $1.9 billion fine DOJ imposed on
HSBC in 2012 in lieu of criminal prosecution “a joke.” Cruz argued that a $1.9
billion fine of an international bank the size of HSBC amounted to …READ ENTIRETY(HSBC
CASE BLOWS LID OFF CLINTONS' OFFSHORE EMPIRE: By JEROME
R. CORSI; WND; 9/14/16 8:50 PM)
Oh My then Hillary gets Obama to not Look at some of the UBS
accounts, LOL wonder who they might be???!!!!
Donations to the Clinton Foundation
by Swiss bank UBS increased tenfold after Hillary Clinton intervened to settle
a dispute with the IRS early in her tenure as secretary of state, according to
a published report.
According to the Wall Street Journal,
total donations by UBS to the foundation grew from less than $60,000 at the end
of 2008 to approximately $600,000 by the end of 2014. The Journal reports that
the bank also lent $32 million through entrepreneurship and inner-city loan
programs it launched in association with the foundation, while paying former
President Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of corporate
question-and-answer sessions with UBS Chief Executive Bob McCann.
Though there is no evidence of
wrongdoing, ties between the Clinton Foundation, major corporations and foreign
governments have come under increasing scrutiny as Hillary Clinton begins her
presidential campaign. The UBS case is unusual in that it shows a top U.S.
diplomat intervening on behalf of a major overseas bank in a situation where
federal prosecutors and the Justice Department had been the lead entity.
Clinton, speaking to reporters
on …READ THE REST (Swiss
bank's donations to Clinton Foundation increased after Hillary intervention in
IRS dispute; Ed Henry contributed to this report; Fox News; 6/30/15)
The Wall Street Journal’s
eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband
accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety
that it created.
The Swiss bank UBS is one of the
biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world. As secretary of
state, Hillary Clinton intervened to help it out with the IRS. And after that,
the Swiss bank paid Bill Clinton $1.5 million for speaking gigs. TheWall
Street Journal reported all that and more Thursday in an article that
highlights huge conflicts of interest that the Clintons have created in the
recent past.
The piece begins by detailing how
Clinton helped the global bank.
“A few weeks after Hillary Clinton
was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by
her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service
was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts,” the
newspaper reports. “If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would
face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the
names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court. Within
months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual
intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information
on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”
Then reporters James V.
Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus lay out how UBS helped the Clintons.
“Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000
through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014,
according to the foundation and the bank,” they report. “The bank also joined
the Clinton Foundation to launch entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs,
through which it lent $32 million. And it paid former president Bill Clinton
$1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with
UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single
corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.”
…READ THE REST (Hillary
Helps a Bank—and Then It Funnels Millions to the Clintons; By CONOR
FRIEDERSDORF; The Atlantic; 7/31/15)
And I guess Money Laundering is part of US Foreign Policy????
A member of the House Intelligence
Committee is accusing the Obama administration of laundering some $1.7 billion
in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Iran through a complicated network that included
the New York Federal Reserve and several European banks, according to
conversations with sources and new information obtained by the lawmaker and
viewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
New disclosures made by the
Treasury Department to Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a House Intelligence
Committee member, show that an initial $400 million cash payment to Iran was
wired to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) and then converted from
U.S. dollars into Swiss francs and moved to an account at the Swiss National
Bank, according to a copy of communication obtained
exclusively by the Free Beacon.
Once the money was transferred to
the Swiss Bank, the “FRBNY withdrew the funds from its account as Swiss franc
banknotes and the U.S. Government physically transported them to Geneva” before
personally overseeing the handover to an agent of Iran’s central bank,
according to the documents.
These disclosures shine new light
on how the Obama administration moved millions of dollars from U.S. accounts to
European banks in order to facilitate three separate cash payments to Iran
totaling $1.7 billion.
The latest information is adding
fuel to accusations the Obama administration arranged the payment in this
fashion to skirt U.S. sanctions laws and give Iran the money for the release of
U.S. hostages, in what many have called a ransom.
Congress has been investigating the
circumstances surrounding the payment for months and said the administration is
blocking certain requests for more detailed information about the cash
transaction with Iran.
“By withholding critical details
and stonewalling congressional inquiries, President Obama seems to be hiding
whether or not he and others broke U.S. law by sending $1.7 billion in cash to
Iran,” Pompeo told the Free Beacon. “But Americans can plainly
see that the Obama administration laundered this money in order to circumvent
U.S. law and appease the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
As new details emerge,
congressional critics such as Pompeo and Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) are
beginning to suspect the U.S. government laundered the money in order to
provide Tehran with immediate access.
“Think about this …READ THE REST (Obama
Admin ‘Laundered’ U.S. Cash to Iran Via N.Y. Fed, Euro Banks; By Adam
Kredo; Washington Free Beacon; 9/19/16 5:00 am)
A court in Madrid has launched an
investigation into the amnesty deal offered to the hundreds of Spaniards whose
names appeared in the HSBC files, in which suspected
tax evaders were quietly offered the chance to pay back taxes and avoid prison
sentences of up to six years as well as millions of euros in fines.
The Socialists, who were in power
at the time, shied away from the established norm of launching inquiries into
the suspected tax fraud. Instead, those named on the list were sent a letter,
informing them that their Swiss bank accounts had been discovered and inviting
them to pay the taxes they owed voluntarily. They were given 10 days to respond
before an inspection – which could have led to criminal prosecution – would be
initiated.
…
More than 300 Spaniards took
advantage of the offer, handing over €260m
(£192m) to Spain’s tax agency. Much of that
came from Spain’s BotÃn family, whose members head
Santander bank; they paid €200m
(£150m) in back taxes
to the Spanish government.
Complaining that the deal was a
thinly veiled attempt to “offer impunity” to suspected tax evaders, the union
representing tax workers, Gestha, filed a legal complaint in a Madrid court
shortly after the amnesty deal was announced, accusing the tax agency’s top
brass of a breach of public duty.
The case was initially dismissed by
the court, but now has been reopened after a higher court sided with Gestha’s
appeal against the decision. Specifically, the court will examine the response
of two former senior tax officials to the names on the leaked list. –READ ENTIRETY (HSBC
Files: amnesty deal for Swiss bank’s Spanish clients investigated; By Ashifa Kassam; the
guardian; 2/13/15 11.04 EST)
DRUM ROLL please …
Oh and LOOK, the DOJ makes it OK to be a Money Launderer. LOL!!!!!
The Justice Department has reached
final agreements with Swiss banks in deals that will help the financial institutions
avoid potential criminal liabilities over U.S. tax crimes, the department
announced Thursday.
The Swiss Bank Program, announced
in 2013, allowed banks who believed they had committed tax crimes to be
eligible for non-prosecution agreements if they met certain requirements, such
as paying penalties and providing detailed information about accounts
associated with U.S. taxpayers. It also allowed Swiss banks that could
establish that they hadn't committed tax or monetary-transaction related crimes
to receive non-target letters from DOJ.
“The completion of the resolutions
with the banks that participated in the Swiss Bank Program is a landmark
achievement in the department’s ongoing efforts to combat offshore tax
evasion,” said Caroline Ciraolo, principal deputy assistant attorney
general, in a news release. “We are now in the legacy phase of the program, in
which the participating banks are cooperating, and will continue to cooperate,
in all related civil and criminal proceedings and investigations."
Between March 2015 and January
2016, DOJ executed non-prosecution agreements with 80 Swiss banks that told the
department that they had reason to believe that they had committed tax-related
offenses. The banks paid a total of more than $1.3 billion in penalties, DOJ
said.
Between July and December of 2016,
four Swiss banks and one cooperative that had not engaged in wrongdoing became
eligible for non-target letters from DOJ.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said
that the Swiss Bank Program “has uncovered those who help facilitate evasion
schemes and those who hide funds in secret offshore accounts; improved our
ability to return tax dollars to the United States; and allowed us to pursue
investigations into banks and individuals." (DOJ announces deal with Swiss banks on
anti-tax evasion program; BY NAOMI JAGODA; The Hill;
12/29/16 01:50 PM EST)
[Blog Editor: Well that Hill article is a display swamp
infested corruption in Washington DC, the Dems and sadly the Department of
Justice!!!]
+++
GMO, pesticide, FDA horror show
12/31/2016 10:33 AM
Warning to Trump:
don’t approve GMO, pesticide, FDA horror show
In a previous article on
Donald Trump, I wrote: “I think Trump favors jobs, all jobs, and
will go to extremes to create them…He’ll find ways to allow the
FDA to license new drugs more quickly, thus maiming and killing more Americans.
He’ll cast a blind eye
toward big corporate toxic GMOs/pesticides.”
I want to strengthen that warning.
First of all, the FDA isn’t being
too careful in their drug approval process, as Trump team members suggest. It’s
the opposite. The FDA is in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies. The
president-elect should take notice of the famous July 26, 2000, review in
the Journal of the American Medical Association, by Dr. Barbara Starfield, a
revered public-health expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Starfield concluded that
FDA-approved medical drugs kill 106,000 Americans a year. That would be 1.06
MILLION deaths per decade. Speeding up their drug-approval work now, the FDA
would add many MORE dead Americans to their “credit.”
On the issue of GMO/pesticide
safety, I could cite many references which eradicate the official claim that
these substances are safe. But let’s look at the primary facts surrounding the
original approval of GMO crops (and their attendant pesticides) in the US.
When you cut through the verbiage,
you arrive at two key statements. One from Monsanto and one from the FDA, the
agency responsible for overseeing, licensing, and certifying new food varieties
as safe.
…
This buck-passing, the direct and
irreconcilable clash of these two statements, is no accident. It’s not a sign of
incompetence or sloppy work or a mistake or a miscommunication. It’s a clear
signal the fix was in.
There was no science to back up the
claim that GMOs were safe.
My belief, at the moment, is that
Trump will screw all this up completely. His focus on jobs and the economy will
lead him into doing grave damage—just as Obama has,
just as Hillary Clinton would have.
The corporate media, their
corporate experts and allies, and their government friends have low-keyed the
whole GMO-pesticide-FDA horror show for a long time.
We need a president who will go
against the tide.
On these issues, Mr. Trump, through
ignorance, inattention, unconcern, whatever, is on the verge of becoming a Big
Pharma Big Biotech shill. –READ ENTIRETY (Warning
to Trump: don’t approve GMO, pesticide, FDA horror show; By Jon
Rappoport; Jon
Rappoport's Blog; 12/31/16)
How do we know if GMO food is NOT causing the Immune System
to become WEAK and LESS resistant to Disease instead of disease more resistant
to antibiotics, because every Living Creature is EATING GMO FOODS??????
In the link to Jon Rappoport article there is information in
there that shows the FDA has approved drugs that KILL 106,000 a year since 2000
for 10 years which does not take into consideration what has been approved on
top of that since then to now .... Then
there is this: Now comes a study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient
Safety that says the numbers may be much higher — between 210,000 and 440,000
patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of
preventable harm that contributes to their death.
It seems that every time
researchers estimate how often a medical mistake contributes to a hospital
patient's death, the numbers come out worse.
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine
published the famous "To Err Is Human" report, which dropped a
bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year
die because of mistakes in hospitals. The number was initially disputed, but is
now widely accepted by doctors and hospital officials — and quoted ubiquitously
in the media.
In 2010, the Office of Inspector
General for the Department of Health and Human Services said that bad hospital
care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given
year.
Now comes a study in the current issue of
the Journal of Patient Safety that says the numbers may be
much higher — between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each
year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that
contributes to their death.
The new estimates were …READ THE REST (How
Many Die From Medical Mistakes In U.S. Hospitals? By MARSHALL ALLEN; NPR;
9/20/13 4:52 PM ET)
And Drum Roll please for the grand finale of how our
Federally Approved Medicare system is handling the Organized Genocide of the
citizenry. Study Shows Hospital-Acquired Infections Kill 3 Times as Many
Americans as HIV:
Study Shows Hospital-Acquired
Infections Kill 3 Times as Many Americans as HIV
Every year, 48,000 Americans die of
infections they caught while in the hospital -- and that's a conservative
estimate, a new study finds.
These aren't infections people
would have caught anyway. They are mistakes that cost lives, says study
researcher Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD, MPH, a senior fellow at the Washington,
D.C. think tank Resources for the Future.
…
Hospital acquired infections
actually kill three times more Americans than HIV does. Yet we're only
beginning to get a handle on the size of the problem. …
Laxminarayan and colleagues
analyzed administrative data from a huge national database of information on
hospital records for 69 million U.S. residents in 40 statesbetween 1998
and 2006. They focused only on infections acquired in the hospital, and not on
infections picked up in the community.
Most of the infections come from
using catheters and ventilators. Some of the germs causing the infections have
been around for years; others are scary new bugs such as the MRSAstaph "superbug."
Johns Hopkins researcher Peter J.
Pronovost, MD, PhD, is a world expert on hospital-acquired infections. He tells
WebMD that the Laxminarayan study finally gives hard numbers to a problem that
has vexed hospitals for decades.
"These deaths are invisible. The
public doesn't know. They are happening one at a time, silently, and patients
think they are inevitable," Pronovost tells …READ ENTIRETY (Hospital
Infections Kill 48,000 Each Year; By Daniel J. DeNoon - Reviewed by Louise
Chang, MD; WebMD; 2/22/10)
Bill Gates warns
world "vulnerable" to deadly epidemic in next decade
LONDON,
Dec 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates
warned on Friday that the world was vulnerable to a deadly epidemic of an
illness like flu, with the recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks underlining weaknesses
in global efforts to tackle health crises swiftly.
Gates,
whose foundation invests in improving healthcare in developing countries, said
the global emergency response system was not strong enough and the ability to
create new drugs and vaccines quickly was lacking.
He
added that there needed to be more focus on developing treatments for likely
epidemics.
"I
cross my fingers all the time that some epidemic like a big flu doesn't come
along in the next 10 years," Microsoft Corp founder Gates told Britain's
BBC radio.
"I
do think we will have much better medical tools, much better response, but we
are a bit vulnerable right now if something spread very quickly, like a flu,
that was quite fatal."
But
Gates defended the World Health Organization (WHO) over widespread criticism of
…READ THE REST (Bill Gates warns world "vulnerable" to
deadly epidemic in next decade; By Emma Batha; Reuters; 12/30/16 9:35am EST)
