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     As we’ve stated, FL Senator Marco Rubio is the neoconservative horse in the Republican race. His original backer Norman Braman says that the US must remain strong militarily so it can support Israel– and Rubio visited Israel for the first time in 2010 with Braman, days after he was elected to the Senate. There’s further evidence that Rubio is bought by pro-Israel forces, and that our press is unwilling to talk openly about the Israel lobby. The New York Times reports that Paul Singer, an “influential billionaire” has thrown his support to Marco Rubio. The piece never uses the word “neoconservative” and only mentions Israel three times in passing, and states that Singer has no litmus tests. But he clearly has a litmus test on ferocious support for Israel. Eli Clifton has documented Singer’s extensive contributions to rightwing pro-Israel groups: It has not only been AIPAC, Rubio, and the American Enterprise Institute… that have enjoyed Singer’s largesse… The Israel Project (TIP), now headed up by AIPAC’s former chief spokesperson Josh Block, has received increasingly large contributions from the billionaire. Singer gave $500,000 to the group in 2007 and $1 million in the 2012 tax year (the year Block took over the group’s leadership and the last year for which there are publicly available tax filings). That makes Singer one of TIP’s two largest donors since Block arrived.

Jeb Bush lost the Paul Singer primary in part because of his relationship to Jim Baker, who criticized Israeli settlement growth as an impediment to peace in a speech to J Street.

The Times also fails to state that Rubio has promised to reverse the Iran deal on his first day as president.

Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony on Thursday certainly confirmed suspicions that she knew that the September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate was not a spontaneous protest by individuals enraged by an anti-Muslim video. Rather, as the emails she fought so fiercely to protect from public disclosure reveal, the attack was a pre-planned operation, involving fore- knowledge by the assailants of the whereabouts of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, among other details.

Clinton and the Obama Administration had attempted to place the blame for the attack, which resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans, on an unplanned protest, a “spontaneous mob.” However, knowing that Clinton and other Administration officials lied extensively as to the genesis of the attack raises further questions. According to the Wall Street Journal, Clinton lied in order to “attempt to avoid blame for a terror attack in a presidential re-election year”  The WSJ article maintains that the House Select Committee on Benghazi, chaired by Representative Trey Gowdy, has ferreted out the deception. “What that House committee did Thursday was finally expose the initial deception,” writes WSJ reporter Kimberley Strassel.

It is known now, through the subsequent email and cable releases, that the responsibility for the attack was claimed by Ansar al Sharia, al Qaeda’s affiliate on the Arabian Peninsula. In an email to her daughter Chelsea, sent at 11:12 pm the night of the attack, Hillary Clinton wrote: “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like group.” Not by a spontaneous mob, protesting a YouTube video. But by a group which has already been exposed as having deep and covert ties to the United States intelligence agencies. Questions must be addressed as to why the Benghazi compound was not guarded. US Embassies abroad are known to be protected by an elite corps of US Marines. Known as the MSG (Marine Security Group), this elite group is pledged to protect US information and persons in Embassies and Consulates.

A leaked audio of a conversation between Venezuelan businessman, Lorenzo Mendoza, and former politician, Ricardo Hausman, has revealed Venezuela’s political and business opposition to be seeking collaboration with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on December 6th. In the phone conversation, leaked in Venezuela last Wednesday, both men speak about the possibility of IMF intervention in the Venezuelan economy and frequently refer to each other as “mate”.   Mendoza currently ranks as one the wealthiest businessmen in the world and controls key areas of the Venezuelan economy, such as the production of cornflour, beer and other household staples. Government supporters hold him responsible for the widespread shortage of key products, which they say is an attempt to destabilise the administration of current leftwing President Nicolas Maduro.   Hausman was formerly Planning Minister (1992-1993) to disgraced ex-Venezuelan President president, Carlos Andres Perez. He currently resides in the US where he is a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 

The recording has caused shockwaves amongst Venezuela’s citizens, who have widely rejected any IMF involvement in the country’s economics. The fund is largely held responsible by citizens for the country’s debt crisis in the 1980s, the economic turmoil of the 1990s, as well as for the riots known as the Caracazo in 1989 which led to widespread police repression and thousands of killings.  The IMF’s poisonous legacy in the country has led the country’s political opposition to distance itself publicly from the organisation. Nonetheless, its spokespeople have been consistently linked to the ill reputed fund over the past fifteen years of leftist government.  Earlier in February 2015, the political opposition led by Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado and Antonio Ledezma, released a “Call for a National Transition Agreement” just days before the national government reported that it had uncovered plans for an attempted coup amongst the airforce.  “The Call for a National Transition” contained a number of points orientating the politics of a transitional regime in Venezuela, including selling off national public enterprises and the input of “international financial organisations”. 

In the audio, which is dominated by Hausman, the ex-minister reveals that he is a longterm friend of the IMF’s Vice-president for the Western Hemisphere, who has asked him to go to the organisation to “talk about Venezuela”. He explains that the fund is “worried” that it will have to “intervene” in the country.   “The condition is that we have a small committee meeting to speak, gloves off, about what the hell we can do to see… Or, if you were to receive a call from Obama or Holland, or whoever and they say… Hell, mate, for us it’s really important that they get involved in Venezuela,” says Hausman.  The economist also assures Mendoza that he is committed to the “war in Venezuela” despite his absence, stating that “there is no exit for Venezuela without substantial international help,” appearing to reference the opposition’s violent street campaign to unseat the government last year, entitled La Salida (the exit).  Specifically Hausman recommends a 40-50 billion dollar loan from the IMF, which he says will entail a significant restructure of the country’s “debt profile” and “what they euphemistically term, private sector involvement”. The two men also reference a group of Hausman’s students in the US, who appear to have been pinned by both men to carry out the economic restructuring in a post-Chavista government.  The conversation finishes with Hausman revealing that he has “projects” in Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Albania, and confirming that the time is right for “carrying out an adjustment plan in Venezuela”. 

Former attorney general Eric Holder was the honored guest at a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reception on Wednesday (leading investigative reporter Murray Waas to reasonably wonder: How’s that again?). And while I was primarily interested in hearing whether Holder regretted whiffing on torture prosecutions during his tenure (see story: “Holder, Too Late, Calls for Transparency on DOJ Torture Investigation”), I also asked him about whiffing on financial fraud prosecutions. Specifically, I noted his failure to hold accountable the people responsible for the wide-scale financial fraud that led to the massive economic recession of 2007-2009. And I noted that after he stepped down from his post in April, he went back to his job at Covington & Burling, the gigantic D.C. law firm whose clients have included many of the big banks that Holder chose not to prosecute. (The reception was actually held at Covington & Burling’s swanky new building downtown. While it was being built — while Holder was still attorney general! — the firm actually kept an 11th-story corner office reserved for his return. He was making over $3 million a year from the firm before his sojourn at the Justice Department; his current salary has not been disclosed.)

Holder bristled at my suggestion that there might be a connection between his current employer and his conduct at Justice, saying that many top prosecutors at Justice had pursued cases as best they could. “We were simply unable to do it under the existing statutes that we had, and given the ways the decision-making worked at those institutions,” he said. However, Holder had all the statutory authority he needed to prosecute straightforward crimes such as robosigning fraud, perjury in front of Congress by Goldman Sachs executives, or for that matter, HSBC’s money laundering for Mexican drug cartels. He simply chose not to. (In response to another questioner, he denied that any of his decisions not to prosecute were based on the massive legal teams that were fielded against the government.) Moreover, he actively waved off offers of additional help such as the suggestion from Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, that Congress give him more staff for his Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, or extend the statute of limitations on some crimes. At Wednesday’s event, Holder continued: “It’s an easy thing for people who are not a part of the process” to “ask questions,” he said. “It pisses me off, on the other hand,” for people “not conversant” in the process to “somehow say that I did something that was inconsistent with my oath or that I’m not a person of integrity.” “I’m proud to be back at the firm,” he said. “It’s a great firm. And I’m proud of the work I did at the Justice Department.”

Holder’s comment was only the most recent in a series of pronouncements from formerly powerful government officials that they were in fact powerless — while talking tough once they no longer have the ability to do anything about it. See, for instance, my colleague David Dayen’s recent article, “Bernanke Talks Tough But Was Weak When It Mattered,” about former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke saying that more Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for criminal misconduct that led to the financial crisis. As Fed chair, Beranke could have initiated criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but chose not to. As attorney general, Holder could have made pursuing financial fraud a top priority. And he did not.

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — A Portuguese court has ruled that a former CIA operative convicted of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric as part of an extraordinary renditions program should be turned over to Italy to serve her six-year sentence there, a court official said Friday. The decision to extradite Sabrina De Sousa after her arrest last October was handed down on Tuesday, the president of the court in Lisbon, Luis Vaz das Neves, told The Associated Press. De Sousa, who operated under diplomatic cover in Italy, was among 26 Americans convicted in absentia for the kidnapping of Milan cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, in broad daylight from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003. Extraordinary renditions were part of the Bush administration's "war on terror" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Egyptian cleric's kidnapping, which also implicated Italy's secret services, has proven embarrassing to successive Italian governments. De Sousa, who was born in India and holds both U.S. and Portuguese passports, was initially acquitted due to diplomatic immunity, but was found guilty by Italy's highest court in 2014. She was arrested at Lisbon Airport on a European warrant last year as she was on her way to visit her elderly mother in India with a round-trip ticket.

Authorities seized her passport and set her free while awaiting the court decision on her extradition. Manuel Magalhaes e Silva, De Sousa's Portuguese lawyer, told the AP in an email he was officially informed of the extradition decision Friday and intends to lodge an appeal at the Supreme Court. If that fails, he will go to the Constitutional Court, he said. De Sousa has argued against extradition to Italy, telling a Portuguese court after her arrest that Italian authorities tried her in absentia and never officially notified her of her conviction, according to Vaz das Neves. All of the Americans were tried in absentia and were represented for most of the proceedings by court-appointed lawyers who had no contact with their clients. Only toward the end of the trial did De Sousa and another defendant, a member of the military, receive clearance to hire their own lawyers. The Lisbon judge ruled that De Sousa should be sent to Italy so she can be notified of the conviction and possibly demand another trial, Vaz das Neves said. The judge also ruled that if De Sousa accepts her prison sentence, she must be allowed to serve it in Portugal if she wishes, which is possible under European legal procedure, according to Vaz das Neves. De Sousa has said that she had been living in Portugal and intended to settle there.

De Sousa has denied in interviews participating in the rendition and has said she wants to hold the CIA accountable. "If she truly arrives in Italy, she could finally choose to say to magistrates what she so far has only said in interviews," said the lead prosecutor in the case, Armando Spataro. De Sousa has requested a pardon from Italy. Earlier this month, in an act of clemency, Italy's president reduced the sentences of two others convicted in the case. President Sergio Mattarella reduced former CIA base chief Robert Seldon Lady's sentence to seven years from nine. Mattarella also wiped out the entire penalty — three years — faced by another American, Betnie Medero. After being kidnapped Nasr was transferred to Egypt where he claimed he was tortured. After he was released from Egyptian custody, Italian authorities in 2005 issued an arrest warrant for him. He was convicted in absentia by an Italian court in 2013 on decade-old terror charges and was sentenced to six years in prison, although he never returned to Italy to serve the sentence.

In a landmark infrastructure bill passed in December, Congress finally penetrated the Fed’s “independence” by tapping its reserves and bank dividends for infrastructure funding. The bill was a start. But some experts, including Congressional candidate Tim Canova, say Congress should go further and authorize funds to be issued for infrastructure directly. For at least a decade, think tanks, commissions and other stakeholders have fought to get Congress to address the staggering backlog of maintenance, upkeep and improvements required to bring the nation’s infrastructure into the 21st century. Countries with less in the way of assets have overtaken the US in innovation and efficiency, while our dysfunctional Congress has battled endlessly over the fiscal cliff, tax reform, entitlement reform, and deficit reduction. Both houses and both political parties agree that something must be done, but they have been unable to agree on where to find the funds. Republicans aren’t willing to raise taxes on the rich, and Democrats aren’t willing to cut social services for the poor.

In December 2015, however, a compromise was finally reached. On December 4, the last day the Department of Transportation was authorized to cut checks for highway and transit projects, President Obama signed a 1,300-page $305-billion transportation infrastructure bill that renewed existing highway and transit programs. According to America’s civil engineers, the sum was not nearly enough for all the work that needs to be done. But the bill was nevertheless considered a landmark achievement, because Congress has not been able to agree on how to fund a long-term highway and transit bill since 2005. That was one of its landmark achievements. Less publicized was where Congress would get the money: largely from the Federal Reserve and Wall Street megabanks. The deal was summarized in a December 1st Bloomberg article titled “Highway Bill Compromise Would Take Money from US Banks”: The highway measure would be financed in part by a one-time use of Federal Reserve surplus funds and by a reduction in the 6 percent dividend that national banks receive from the Fed. . . . Banks with $10 billion or less in assets would be exempt from the cut. The Fed’s surplus capital comes from the 12 reserve banks. The highway bill would allow for a one-time draw of $19 billion from the surplus, which totaled $29.3 billion as of Nov. 25. . . . Banks vigorously fought the dividend cut, which was estimated to generate about $17 billion over 10 years for the highway trust fund.

The Yediot Achronot conference attacking BDS has become a veritable carnival of hate.  Everyone from delusional Hollywood celebrities (Roseanne Barr) to cabinet ministers, to the leader of the Opposition have pledged fealty to the cause. But the apogee same yesterday when Transportation Minister Israel Katz called for the “civil targeted killing“of BDS leaders like Omar Barghouti.  The phrase he used (sikul ezrahi memukad) derives from the euphemistic Hebrew phrase for the targeted killing of a terrorist (the literal meaning is “targeted thwarting”).  But the added word ” civil” makes it something different.  Katz is saying that we won’t physically murder BDS opponents, but we will do everything short of that. One may rightly ask what business a transportation minister has conducting targeted killings, physical or otherwise, against anyone.  Though everything in Israel is in service to the national security state, has transportation fallen under that bailiwick as well? We are entering dangerous territory when an Israeli cabinet minister engages in wordplay that verges on putting a bull’s-eye on the backs of non-violent activists.  If there are Israel apologists out there who dismiss the significance of such rhetoric they are sadly mistaken.  In this torrid political environment in which Israeli leftists have become criminals and wounded Palestinian youth may be summarily executed in the street,  it is only too easy to forsee Palestinian activists like Barghouti having a bounty on their heads. Does anyone doubt there are scores of Yigal Amirs out there who’d be pleased to strike a blow for their hateful cause by putting a bullet in the head of a Palestinian?

Not to be outdone, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri called for stripping BDS founder Omar Barghouti of his Israeli residency, which he gained in 1994 when he married an Israeli citizen.  Deri claimed that Barghouti is employing a scam against Israel because his main residence is Ramallah and not Israel (though he’s pursuing, or has completed, an MA at Tel Aviv University).  Given Katz’s ever so veiled threat against him it would be no wonder if Barghouti did choose to value his safety and live where he’s not under threat of death.

In the first instance of a prominent politician taken down by the 11.5 million documents leaked in the Panama Papers, Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson resigned on Tuesday after fully 10 percent of Iceland's population rallied in protest of his wife's secret, offshore shell company holding millions. Gunnlaugsson was asked about the account on the day the leak was announced in a television interview, and he walked out rather than answer the question:

The next day, "an estimated 22,000 Icelanders slung eggs and protested outside the Parliament building" demanding his resignation, as Common Dreams reported. Gunnlaugsson initially refused to bow to the public pressure, but eventually announced his resignation on Tuesday evening.

News editor of the Reykjavík Grapevine Paul Fontaine said Tuesday, "While the Prime Minister's particular role in the Panama Papers leak is huge, and I don't want to downplay it, I also don't want to downplay the involvement other Icelanders—and the countless others around the world—also had in this." "This extends beyond the prime minister; it reaches parliament, it reaches Reykjavík City Hall, and it reportedly reaches hundreds of as yet unnamed Icelandic businesspeople," Fontaine pointed out. "The greater crime, which the Panama Papers illustrate comprehensively, is that we have a secret economy connected to and even supporting some of the worst aspects of the global capitalist system."

ou know the old joke: How do you make a killing on Wall Street and never risk a loss? Easy—use other people’s money. Jamie Dimon and his underlings at JPMorgan Chase have perfected this dark art at America’s largest bank, which boasts a balance sheet one-eighth the size of the entire US economy.1 After JPMorgan’s deceitful activities in the housing market helped trigger the 2008 financial crash that cost millions of Americans their jobs, homes, and life savings, punishment was in order. Among a vast array of misconduct, JPMorgan engaged in the routine use of “robo-signing,” which allowed bank employees to automatically sign hundreds, even thousands, of foreclosure documents per day without verifying their contents. But in the United States, white-collar criminals rarely go to prison; instead, they negotiate settlements. Thus, on February 9, 2012, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced the National Mortgage Settlement, which fined JPMorgan Chase and four other mega-banks a total of $25 billion.2 JPMorgan’s share of the settlement was $5.3 billion, but only $1.1 billion had to be paid in cash; the other $4.2 billion was to come in the form of financial relief for homeowners in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. The settlement called for JPMorgan to reduce the amounts owed, modify the loan terms, and take other steps to help distressed Americans keep their homes. A separate 2013 settlement against the bank for deceiving mortgage investors included another $4 billion in consumer relief.3 A Nation investigation can now reveal how JPMorgan met part of its $8.2 billion settlement burden: by using other people’s money.4 Here’s how the alleged scam worked. JPMorgan moved to forgive the mortgages of tens of thousands of homeowners; the feds, in turn, credited these canceled loans against the penalties due under the 2012 and 2013 settlements. But here’s the rub: In many instances, JPMorgan was forgiving loans on properties it no longer owned.5 The alleged fraud is described in internal JPMorgan documents, public records, testimony from homeowners and investors burned in the scam, and other evidence presented in a blockbuster lawsuit against JPMorgan, now being heard in US District Court in New York City.6 JPMorgan no longer owned the properties because it had sold the mortgages years earlier to 21 third-party investors, including three companies owned by Larry Schneider. Those companies are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit; Schneider is also aiding the federal government in a related case against the bank. In a bizarre twist, a company associated with the Church of Scientology facilitated the apparent scheme. Nationwide Title Clearing, a document-processing company with close ties to the church, produced and filed the documents that JPMorgan needed to claim ownership and cancel the loans.

Over the last year the U.S. bombed Jabhat al-Nusra personal and facilities in Syria some five or six times. The al-Qaeda subgroup also has a history of attacking U.S. paid "relative moderate" proxy forces in Syria. The Pentagon recently inserted another U.S. mercenary group into north Syria. This was accompanied by a media campaign in which the administration lauded itself for the operation. The newly inserted group is especially trained and equipped to direct U.S. air attacks like those that earlier hit al-Nusra fighters. Now that freshly inserted group was attacked by Jabhat al-Nusra. Some of its members were killed and others were abducted. The Obama administration is shocked, SHOCKED, ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED that Jabhat al-Nusra would do such a ghastly deed. "Why would they do that?" "Who could have known that they would attack U.S. proxy forces???"

There is no longer an Jihadist ISIS or ISIL in Syria and Iraq. The people leading that entity declared (pdf) today, at the highly symbolic beginning of Ramadan, themselves to be a new caliphate:

Could someone explain to the fucking dimwits in the Pentagon and the Obama administrations that people everywhere, and especially terrorists group, hate it when you bomb them and kill their leaders? That those people you bomb might want to take revenge against you and your proxies? That people you bombed will not like your targeting team moving in next door to them? That alQaeda is not an "ally"? These people are too pathetically clueless to even be embarrassed about it. The accumulated intelligence quotient of the administration and Pentagon officials running the anti-Syria operation must be below three digits. But aside from their lack of basic intelligence the utter lack of simple "street smarts" is the real problem here. These people have no idea how life works outside of their beltway cages.

Billionaire serial entrepreneur Richard Branson says cash handouts will eventually be required to keep people from becoming homeless in the US. "I think with the coming on of AI and other things there is certainly a danger of income inequality," Branson tells CNN's Christine Romans in a piece published Thursday. The inequality will be caused by "the amount of jobs [artificial intelligence] is going to take away and so on," Branson says. "There is no question" technology will eliminate jobs, he says. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates echoed this sentiment recently. "AI is just the latest in technologies that allow us to produce a lot more goods and services with less labor," says Gates, speaking with "Hamilton" composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and his wife, Melinda, at Hunter College in New York City earlier in February. "AI will bring us immense new productivity."

So new jobs will have to be created, says Branson. But also, a "basic minimum earnings," or a universal basic income, should be instituted "so that there is nobody that is having to sleep on the street," Branson tells CNN. "One hundred percent, I think that is really important." Universal basic income is a cash handout, distributed irrespective of employment status.

Billionaire SpaceX and Tesla chief Elon Musk told CNBC in 2016 that he expects cash handouts will be necessary too. "There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation," says Musk to CNBC. "Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen." Additionally, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg promoted the idea of universal basic income during his commencement speech to Harvard in May. "Now it's our time to define a new social contract for our generation. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things," says Zuckerberg.

On March 16, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe hours before McCabe's retirement, allegedly for showing a lack of candor under oath. A week later, McCabe penned a response in the Washington Post, calling the accusation “not true.” He stated that he “did not knowingly mislead or lie to investigators,” and that, at worst, he “was not clear in [his] responses.” On Friday, April 13, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report on the allegations related to McCabe, concluding that he “lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the [Wall Street Journal]” in violation of FBI policy, and that his “disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in the manner described in this report violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.” The report makes no comment on whether McCabe's dismissal was justified. McCabe’s lawyer, Michael Bromwich, quickly responded with a statement refuting the claims in the OIG report.

McCabe’s lawyer, former Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich, responded to the OIG report in a statement released on Friday. Bromwich expresses concerns about the speed at which the process of McCabe’s dismissal proceeded, describing the “rush to termination” as “nothing short of extraordinary.” He disputes the lack of candor findings, which he also discusses in more depth in a separate statement described below.

The report on McCabe is only part of a larger investigation by the OIG. Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz is reportedly planning to release a broader report on the FBI’s actions during the 2016 election in the coming weeks.

The huge story about bribery by a New York hedge fund in Africa should have been on the front page, but the New York Times buried it in the financial section. And the paper did not even name one of the men at the heart of it, the billionaire Israeli businessman Dan Gertler. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world, parts of it torn by chronic violence, and Dan Gertler is one of the people most responsible for its awful state. But the New York Times has never sent any of its army of reporters to look into the crimes of Dan Gertler. Here’s what just happened: a $39 billion New York hedge fund, Och-Ziff Capital Management, pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe African officials, and agreed to pay a $413 million fine. The U.S. government prosecution brief did not directly name bribers and bribees. But broad hints in government documents made it clear that Gertler, on behalf of the hedge fund, had given $100 million, some of it in cash, to, among others, the DR Congo president, Joseph Kabila, for investment opportunities in diamonds and mining. Other media, including Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, were not squeamish about naming Gertler. The Journal‘s running coverage of the Och-Ziff/DR Congo story has repeatedly put Gertler at front and center of the corruption.

The revelations in the bribery case are earth-shaking. Although rumors of mega-corruption in DR Congo are nothing new, Jason Stearns of the respected Congo Research Group points out it is the first time that “we have a solid paper trail proving that the senior Congolese officials including the Congolese president himself were direct beneficiaries of over $100 million in bribes from foreign companies.” The 42-year-old Gertler is a notorious shadowy figure in the poor central African nation. He befriended President Joseph Kabila two decades ago, and he is widely suspected of snapping up mining concessions at bargain prices and promptly selling them to mining companies at enormous profit. One estimate, a few years ago, was that the Congolese people have been cheated out of as much as $5.5 billion — a significant sum anywhere, but especially painful in a poor nation whose entire government budget for everything one year was as little as $7.2 billion.

As the numerous and obvious ethical conflicts surrounding the Clinton Foundation receive more media scrutiny, the tactic of Clinton-loyal journalists is to highlight the charitable work done by the foundation, and then insinuate — or even outright state — that anyone raising these questions is opposed to its charity. James Carville announced that those who criticize the foundation are “going to hell.” Other Clinton loyalists insinuated that Clinton Foundation critics are indifferent to the lives of HIV-positive babies or are anti-gay bigots. That the Clinton Foundation has done some good work is beyond dispute. But that fact has exactly nothing to do with the profound ethical problems and corruption threats raised by the way its funds have been raised. Hillary Clinton was America’s chief diplomat, and tyrannical regimes such as the Saudis and Qataris jointly donated tens of millions of dollars to an organization run by her family and operated in its name, one whose works has been a prominent feature of her public persona. That extremely valuable opportunity to curry favor with the Clintons, and to secure access to them, continues as she runs for president.

The claim that this is all just about trying to help people in need should not even pass a laugh test, let alone rational scrutiny. To see how true that is, just look at who some of the biggest donors are. Although it did not give while she was secretary of state, the Saudi regime by itself has donated between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, with donations coming as late as 2014, as she prepared her presidential run. A group called “Friends of Saudi Arabia,” co-founded “by a Saudi Prince,” gave an additional amount between $1 million and $5 million. The Clinton Foundation says that between $1 million and $5 million was also donated by “the State of Qatar,” the United Arab Emirates, and the government of Brunei. “The State of Kuwait” has donated between $5 million and $10 million. Theoretically, one could say that these regimes — among the most repressive and regressive in the world — are donating because they deeply believe in the charitable work of the Clinton Foundation and want to help those in need. Is there a single person on the planet who actually believes this? Is Clinton loyalty really so strong that people are going to argue with a straight face that the reason the Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti and Emirates regimes donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation is because those regimes simply want to help the foundation achieve its magnanimous goals?

All those who wish to argue that the Saudis donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation out of a magnanimous desire to aid its charitable causes, please raise your hand. Or take the newfound casting of the Clinton Foundation as a champion of LGBTs, and the smearing of its critics as indifferent to AIDS. Are the Saudis also on board with these benevolent missions? And the Qataris and Kuwaitis?

The White Helmets have been demonstrated to be a primarily US and NATO funded organisation embedded in Al Nusra and ISIS held areas exclusively. This is an alleged “non-governmental” organisation, the definition of an NGO, that thus far has received funding from at least three major NATO governments, including $23 million from the US Government and $29 million (£19.7 million) from the UK Government, $4.5 million (€4 million) from the Dutch Government. In addition, it receives material assistance and training funded and run by a variety of other EU Nations. A request has been put into the EU Secretary General to provide all correspondence relating to the funding and training of the White Helmets. By law this information must be made transparent and available to the public. There has been a concerted campaign by a range of investigative journalists to expose the true roots of these Syria Civil Defence operatives, known as the White Helmets.  The most damning statement, however, did not come from us, but from their funders and backers in the US State Department who attempted to explain the US deportation of the prominent White Helmet leader, Raed Saleh, from Dulles airport on the 18th April 2016.

To condense our research on the Syria White Helmets, we have collated all relevant articles and interviews below.  We condemn wholeheartedly any senseless murder but we recommend that there is serious public and political re-evauluation of the morality of funding a US NATO organisation established to further “regime change” objectives in Syria. Mass murder is being committed across Syria and the region by US and NATO proxy terrorist militants. Funding the White Helmets will serve to prolong the suffering and bloodshed of the Syrian people.

Vanessa Beeley 21st Century Wire Who are the White Helmets? This is a question that everyone should be asking themselves. A hideous murder of a rising star in UK politics, Jo Cox MP, has just sent shock waves across the world. Within hours of her death, a special fund was established in her name to raise money for 3 causes. One of those causes is the Syrian White Helmets. Are we seeing a cynical and obscene exploitation of Jo Cox’s murder to revive the flagging credibility of a US State Department & UK Foreign Office asset on the ground in Syria, created and sustained as first responders for the US and NATO Al Nusra/Al Qaeda forces?

The Obama administration threatened to pull out of talks with Russia over a collapsed cease-fire in Syria and has renewed an internal debate over giving rebels more firepower to fend off a stepped-up Russian and Syrian assault on their Aleppo stronghold, U.S. officials said. The White House put the weaponry debate on hold earlier this year to give Secretary of State John Kerry an opportunity to try to negotiate a cease-fire with his counterpart in Russia.

The renewed debate on what is referred to within the administration as Plan B, according to U.S. officials, centers on whether to authorize the Central Intelligence Agency and its partners in the region to deliver weapons systems that would enable CIA-vetted rebel units to strike Syrian and Russian artillery positions from longer distances. The Obama administration has ruled out providing so-called man-portable air-defense systems, known as Manpads, to the rebels, but officials said they are considering arming them with antiaircraft systems that are less mobile and would pose less of a proliferation risk. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that the Obama administration was discussing options to address the conflict “that are outside diplomacy,” but declined to provide specifics.

Officials said the speed of the Russian and Syrian offensive against Aleppo has put pressure on the White House to accelerate its deliberations and forced policy makers to look at options they previously were reluctant to seriously consider. In addition to the CIA and its partners providing weapons, the U.S. is considering giving a green light to its regional allies, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to provide more-powerful weapons systems to the rebels. Some U.S. officials believe that it already may be too late to have any impact on the battlefield, and that the administration should consider taking direct U.S. military action against the Assad regime to halt the campaign. Officials predicted there would be strong opposition at the White House to any options involving direct U.S. military action against the Assad regime, because of the risk of triggering a wider conflict with Russia. The U.S. military has been conducting strikes in Syria against Islamic State since 2014.

The United States government has already declared that in regards to what it alleges to be a Russian cyberattack against the U.S. Democratic Party, the U.S. reserves the right to go to war against Russia. NATO has accordingly changed its policy so as to assert that a cyberattack (in this case actually cyber-espionage, such as the U.S. government itself perpetrates against even its own allies such as Angela Merkel by tapping her phone) constitutes an act of war by the alleged cyberattacker, and so requires all NATO member nations to join any cyberattacked NATO nation in war against its alleged (cyber)attacker, if the cyberattacked member declares war against its alleged cyberattacker. Excuses are being sought for a war against Russia; and expanding the definition of “invasion,” to include mere espionage, is one such excuse. But it’s not the only one that the Obama Administration has cooked up. U.S. Senator Mike Lee has asserted that President Barack Obama must obtain a declaration of war against Syria — which is allied with and defended by Russia — before invading Syria. Syria has, for the past few years, already been invaded by tens of thousands of foreign jihadists (financed mainly by the royal Sauds and Qataris, and armed mainly with U.S. weaponry) who are trying to overthrow and replace the Syrian government so that pipelines can be built through Syria into Europe to transport Saudi oil and Qatari gas into the EU, the world’s biggest energy-market, which now is dominated by Russia’s oil and gas. Since Syria is already being defended by Russia (those royals’ major competitor in the oil and gas markets), America’s invasion of Syria would necessarily place U.S. and Russia into an air-war against each other (for the benefit of those royal Arabs — who finance jihadist groups, as even Hillary Clinton acknowledges): Syria would thus become a battleground in a broader war against Russia. So: declaring war against Syria would be a second excuse for World War III, and one which would especially serve the desires not only of U.S. ‘defense’ firms but of the U.S. aristocracy’s royal Arabic allies, who buy much of those ‘defense’ firms’ exports (weaponry), and also U.S. oilfield services firms such as pipelines by Halliburton. (It’s good business for them, no one else. Taxpayers and war-victims pay, but those corporations — and royal families — would profit.)

The U.S. government also declares that Russia ‘conquered’ Crimea in 2014 and that Russia must restore it to Ukraine. The U.S. government wants Ukraine to be accepted into NATO, so that all NATO nations will be at war against Russia if Russia doesn’t return Crimea to Ukraine, of which Crimea had only briefly (1954-2014) been a part, until Crimeans voted on 16 March 2014 to rejoin Russia. This Crimean issue is already the basis for America’s economic sanctions against Russia, and thus Russia’s continuing refusal to coerce Crimeans to accept again being part of Ukraine would be yet a third excuse for WW III.

Hillary Clinton says “As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack.” She alleges that when information was unauthorizedly made public from Democratic National Committee computers, the cyberattacker was Russia. She can be counted as a strong proponent of that excuse for WW3. She’s with Barack Obama and the other neocons on that. She has furthermore said that the U.S. should shoot down any Russian and Syrian bombers in Syria — the phrase for that proposed U.S. policy is to “establish a no-fly zone” there. She makes clear: “I am advocating the no-fly zone.” It would be war against not only Syria, but Russia. (After all: a no-fly zone in which the U.S. is shooting down the government’s planes and Russia’s planes, would be war by the U.S. against both Syria and Russia, but that’s what she wants to do.) She can thus be counted as a strong proponent of those two excuses for WW3.

Much Needed New Scrutiny of the Clinton Foundation   Will there ever be a serious investigation and prosecution of the Clinton cash machine? Maybe. Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, has an important update in his latest Investigative Bulletin:   Rumors have been floating up from Little Rock for months now of a new investigation into the Clinton Foundation. John Solomon advanced the story recently in a January report for The Hill. FBI agents in the Arkansas capital, he wrote, “have taken the lead” in a new Justice Department inquiry “into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.” Solomon reports that the probe “may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or political use and whether the foundation complied with applicable tax laws.”   Main Justice also is “re-examining whether there are any unresolved issues from the closed case into Clinton’s transmission of classified information through her personal email server,” Solomon notes.   Solomon is not alone. The Wall Street Journal is tracking the story. And earlier this month, investigative journalist Peter Schweizer cryptically told SiriusXM radio that federal authorities should “convene a grand jury” in Little Rock “and let the American people look at the evidence” about the Clinton Foundation.   Judicial Watch continues to turn up new evidence of Clinton pay-to-play and mishandling of classified information. In recent months, through FOIA litigation, Judicial Watch has forced the release of more than 2,600 emails and documents from Mrs. Clinton and her associates, with more to come. The emails include evidence of Clinton Foundation donors such XL Keystone lobbyist Gordon Griffin, futures brokerage firm CME Group chairman Terrence Duffy, and an associate of Shangri La Entertainment mogul Steve Bing seeking special favors from the State Department. Read more about Judicial Watch’s pay-to-play disclosures here.   Judicial Watch also revealed many previously unreported incidents of mishandling of classified information. Mrs. Clinton and her former State Department deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, sent and received classified information through unsecure channels. The emails and documents involved sensitive information about President Obama, the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan, Mexico, Burma, India, intelligence-related operations and world leaders. For documents and details from Judicial Watch on the mishandling of classified information, see here, here, here and here.   Smelling a rat in Arkansas when it comes to the Clintons of course is nothing new, and the former First Couple are masters of the gray areas around pay-to-play. But mishandling of classified information is a serious matter. And the tax angle is intriguing, even if you’re not Al Capone. The tenacious financial expert Charles Ortel, who has been digging deep into Clinton finances for years, told us back in 2015 that there are “epic problems” with the entire Clinton Foundation edifice, which traces its origins back to Arkansas. He noted that independent accounting firms may have been “duped by false and materially misleading representations” made by Clinton charitable entities. Down in Arkansas, law enforcement may be finally catching up with Ortel’s insights.

Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi government forces seized on Thursday a cache of chemical substances belonging to Islamic State militants in central Mosul, the police service said. Federal Police chief, Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat, said in a statement that the reservoir, found in Mekkawi street in Mosul’s Old City, included c4 and ammonia among other substances. Iraqi government forces regained control over the city of Mosul early July after a nine-month campaign seeking to bring down the self-styled “caliphate” declared by the militants from  Mosul’s Old City in 2014. Occasional reports had told of attacks by IS against civilians and security forces in which militants used improvised chemical weapons since an inventory of chemical arms was discovered by Iraqi forces inside laboratories of Mosul University in the eastern side of Mosul, which government troops took over from IS in January. Security personnel had seized a number of chemical stashes belonging to the extremist group during and after the end of the military campaign.The United Nations had previously confirmed cases of civilians being treated for symptoms of what seemed to be chemical agents.

Donald Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan is not an infrastructure plan and it won’t put $1 trillion of fiscal stimulus into the economy. It’s basically a scheme for handing over public assets to private corporations that will extract maximum profits via user fees and tolls. Because the plan is essentially a boondoggle, it will not lift the economy out of the doldrums, increase activity or boost growth.  Quite the contrary. When the details of how the program is going to be implemented are announced,  public confidence in the Trump administration is going to wither and stock prices are going to plunge.   This scenario cannot be avoided because the penny-pinching conservatives in the House and Senate have already said that they won’t support any plan that is not “revenue neutral” which means that any real $1 trillion spending package is a dead letter.  Thus, it’s only a matter of time before the Trump’s plan is exposed as a fraud and the sh** hits the fan.

Here are more of the details from an article at Slate: “Under Trump’s plan…the federal government would offer tax credits to private investors interested in funding large infrastructure projects, who would put down some of their own money up front, then borrow the rest on the private bond markets. They would eventually earn their profits on the back end from usage fees, such as highway and bridge tolls (if they built a highway or bridge) or higher water rates (if they fixed up some water mains). So instead of paying for their new roads at tax time, Americans would pay for them during their daily commute. And of course, all these private developers would earn a nice return at the end of the day.” (“Donald Trump’s Plan to Privatize America’s Roads and Bridges”, Slate) Normally, fiscal stimulus is financed by increasing the budget deficits, but Maestro Trump has something else up his sleeve.  He wants the big construction companies and private equity firms to stump up the seed money and start the work with the understanding that they’ll be able to impose user fees and tolls on roads and bridges when the work is completed.  For every dollar that corporations spend on rebuilding US infrastructure, they’ll get a dollar back via tax credits, which means that they’ll end up controlling valuable, revenue-generating assets for nothing. The whole thing is a flagrant ripoff that stinks to high heaven.   The corporations rake in hefty profits on sweetheart deals, while the American people get bupkis. Welcome to Trumpworld.  Here’s more background from Trump’s campaign website:

“American Energy and  Infrastructure Act Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over ten years. It is revenue neutral.” (Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter”) In practical terms, ‘revenue neutral’ means that every dollar of new spending has to be matched by cuts to other government programs.  So, if there are hidden costs to Trump’s plan, then they’ll have to be paid for by slashing funds for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps etc. But, keep in mind, these other programs are much more effective sources of stimulus since the money goes directly to the people who spend it immediately and help grow the economy. Trump’s infrastructure plan doesn’t work like that. A lot of the money will go towards management fees and operational costs leaving fewer dollars to trickle down to low-paid construction workers whose personal consumption drives the economy. Less money for workers means less spending, less activity and weaker growth.