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Paul Merrell

Former Israeli Opposition Leader Puts Bibi-Boehner Ploy Bluntly « LobeLog - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/puts-bibi-boehner-ploy-bluntly

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth Israel-lobby Netanyahu-speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Yossi Sarid, the former head of Israel’s Meretz Party and leader of the opposition in the Knesset from 2001 to 2003, has just written a very blunt—far too blunt for “acceptable” political discourse in Washington, DC—op-ed published Sunday by Haaretz. Unfortunately, it’s behind a pay wall, so the most I can do is extract a few excerpts. The title is straightforward: “Beware: Republican Jews on the Warpath,” and Sarid, who also served as minister of education under Ehud Barak, doesn’t pull any punches about what Boehner’s fraudulent invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is really all about. Now it’s no longer a “crisis in the relationship” that they try to paper over; now it’s no longer just “tensions with the White House” that they’re making every effort to reduce in between meetings; now, it’s an open war with the United States. It’s Sheldon Adelson versus Barack Obama, and Israel is caught in the cross-fire. After Vice President Joe Biden, our greatest friend over there, announced an unspecified trip abroad that will prevent him from being in Congress at the fateful hour, Republican Jewish organizations launched a campaign of intimidation against those lawmakers who had already announced their intent to skip the joint session: Their political fate will be bitter.
  • …Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer, in the service of his master, is rallying his troops and launching a combined assault on Capitol Hill. Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to show the president once and for all who really rules in Washington, who is the landlord both here and there. … One Matthew Brooks – the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who does the will of its financial backers – explained over the weekend, “We will commit whatever resources we need to make sure that people are aware of the facts, that given the choice to stand with Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu in opposition to a nuclear Iran, they chose partisan interests and to stand with President Obama.” Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, added unambiguously, “We will, of course, be publicly condemning any Democrats who don’t show up for the speech — unless they have a doctor’s note.” Doctor, this man is sick and urgently needs tranquilizers.
  • … Israel, which until now was a cornerstone of bipartisanship, has become loathsome to its traditional supporters. Benjamin Nitay Netanyahu, the Israeli-American, has made it into something that reeks, even among its longtime supporters. In these very moments, the protocols are being rewritten. Rich Jews are writing them in their own handwriting. They, in their wealth, are confirming with their own signatures what anti-Semites used to slander them with in days gone by: We, the elders of Zion, pull the strings of Congress, and the congressmen are nothing but marionettes who do our will. If they don’t understand our words, they’ll understand our threats. And if in the past, we ran the show from behind the scenes, now we’re doing it openly, from center stage. And if you forget our donations, the wellspring will run dry.
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  • You’ll remember that Obama, during an off-the-record meeting with Democratic senators three weeks ago, reportedly appealed to them to resist “donors and others” who opposed a deal with Iran and were pushing for new sanctions legislation that risked sabotaging the nuclear-focused talks with Iran and an eventual deal. Sen. Robert Menendez, who has been pushing for such legislation for more than a year, reportedly replied that he took “personal offense” at Obama’s remarks about donors, apparently interpreting Obama’s comments as suggesting that Menendez’s position was motivated by his desire and need for campaign cash. The New York Times helpfully noted in a profile of Menendez that the New Jersey senator had received $341,170 from hard-line pro-Israel groups over the past seven years, “more than any other Democrat in the Senate.” (In fact, he received more money than any other Senate candidate—Democratic or Republican—in the 2012 elections, while his Republican comrade-in-arms and co-sponsor for sanctions legislation, Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, has received more campaign cash from pro-Israel political actions committees (PACs) associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other member of Congress over the past decade. And that doesn’t necessarily include all the much-harder-to-track money provided by donors like Adelson, who chairs Brooks’s RJC, through super PACS and other vehicles.)  Indeed, there’s no doubt that Obama’s reference to “donors” touched a very sensitive nerve with Menendez. Sarid, whose op-ed is most unlikely to appear in any mainstream U.S. publication, has now pounded it with a sledgehammer.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Feb 15
     
    There it is, finally out in the open. 
Paul Merrell

White House: Israel 'cherry-picking' intel that distorts Iran talks | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ng-intel-to-distort-iran-talks

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth negotiations Israel Netanyahu-speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The White House is accusing Israel of "cherry-picking" information that distorts the U.S. position in nuclear talks with Iran.“There's no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterizing our negotiating position have not been accurate. There's no question about that,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said during a press briefing on Wednesday.ADVERTISEMENT"We've also been very clear about the fact that the United States is not going to be in a position of negotiating this agreement in public, particularly when we see that there is a continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States.”The White House spokesman said those involved in the talks are obligated to act in “good faith.”“And that means giving negotiators the room and the space to negotiate,” Earnest said.
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have long expressed alarm over the talks that seek to dismantle Iran’s illicit nuclear effort in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.Netanyahu is expected to lobby against the potential deal, when he visits Washington in the coming weeks to address Congress. That invitation from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) without the knowledge of President Obama has sparked a partisan fight, with many Democrats saying they will skip the speech.Netanyahu has warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would be an existential threat to Israel.The ongoing nuclear talks are between Iran and the P5+1 group, including the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The U.S. has kept Israel, a close ally, informed on developments.Earnest pushed back against reports that the administration was cutting the Israelis out of the loop on the negotiations.
  • "You could arguably make the case that there's no country that is not participating in the negotiations that has greater insight into what's going on at that negotiating table,” said Earnest of Israel.He added that no nation “has a clearer stake in the outcome of these negotiations.”“The United States has a clear stake in this outcome, but so does Israel,” said Earnest. “And that's why we're going to continue to consult with them about these talks.”
Gary Edwards

Swimming with the Sharks: Goldman Sachs, School Districts, and Capital Appreciation Bon... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...and-capital-appreciation-bonds

Banksters Goldman-Sachs

shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • In 2008, after collecting millions of dollars in fees to help California sell its bonds, Goldman urged its bigger clients to place investment bets against those bonds, in order to profit from a financial crisis that was sparked in the first place by irresponsible Wall Street speculation. Alarmed California officials warned that these short sales would jeopardize the state’s bond rating and drive up interest rates. But that result also served Goldman, which had sold credit default swaps on the bonds, since the price of the swaps rose along with the risk of default.
  • In 2009, the lenders’ lobbying group than proposed and promoted AB1388, a California bill eliminating the debt ceiling requirement on long-term debt for school districts. After it passed, bankers traveled all over the state pushing something called “capital appreciation bonds” (CABs) as a tool to vault over legal debt limits. (Think Greece again.) Also called payday loans for school districts, CABs have now been issued by more than 400 California districts, some with repayment obligations of up to 20 times the principal advanced (or 2000%).
  • The controversial bonds came under increased scrutiny in August 2012, following a report that San Diego County’s Poway Unified would have to pay $982 million for a $105 million CAB it issued. Goldman Sachs made $1.6 million on a single capital appreciation deal with the San Diego Unified School District.
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  • . . . AB1388, signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009, [gave] banks the green light to lure California school boards into issuing bonds to raise quick money to build schools. Unlike conventional bonds that have to be paid off on a regular basis, the bonds approved in AB1388 relaxed regulatory safeguards and allowed them to be paid back 25 to 40 years in the future. The problem is that from the time the bonds are issued until payment is due, interest accrues and compounds at exorbitant rates, requiring a balloon payment in the millions of dollars. . . . Wall Street exploited the school boards’ lack of business acumen and proposed the bonds as blank checks written against taxpayers’ pocketbooks. One school administrator described a Wall Street meeting to discuss the system as like “swimming with the big sharks.” Wall Street has preyed on these school boards because of the millions of dollars in commissions. Banks, financial advisers and credit rating firms have billed California public entities almost $400 million since 2007. [State Treasurer] Lockyer described this as “part of the ‘new’ Wall Street,” which “has done this kind of thing on the private investor side for years, then the housing market and now its public entities.”
  • The Federal Reserve could have made virtually-interest-free loans available to local governments, as it did for banks. But the Fed (whose twelve branches are 100% owned by private banks) declined. As noted by Cate Long on Reuters:
  • The Fed has said that it will not buy muni bonds or lend directly to states or municipal issuers. But be sure if yields rise high enough Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan will be standing ready to “save” these issuers. There is no “lender of last resort” for muniland.
  • Among the hundreds of California school districts signing up for CABs were fifteen in Orange County. The Anaheim-based Savanna School District took on the costliest of these bonds, issuing $239,721 in CABs in 2009 for which it will have to repay $3.6 million by the final maturity date in 2034. That works out to $15 for every $1 borrowed. Santa Ana Unified issued $34.8 million in CABs in 2011. It will have to repay $305.5 million by the maturity date in 2047, or $9.76 for every dollar borrowed. Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified issued $22.1 million in capital appreciation bonds in 2011. It will have to repay $281 million by the maturity date in 2049, or $12.73 for every dollar borrowed.
  • In 2013, California finally passed a law limiting debt service on CABs to four times principal, and limiting their maturity to a maximum of 25 years. But the bill is not retroactive. In several decades, the 400 cities that have been drawn into these shark-infested waters could be facing municipal bankruptcy – for capital “improvements” that will by then be obsolete and need to be replaced.
  • Then-State Treasurer Bill Lockyer called the bonds “debt for the next generation.” But some economists argue that it is a transfer of wealth, not between generations, but between classes – from the poor to the rich. Capital investments were once funded with property taxes, particularly those paid by wealthy homeowners and corporations. But California’s property tax receipts were slashed by Proposition 13 and the housing crisis, forcing school costs to be borne by middle-class households and the students themselves.
  • According to Demos, per-student funding has been slashed since 2008 in every state but one – the indomitable North Dakota. What is so different about that state? Some commentators credit the oil boom, but other states with oil have not fared so well. And the boom did not actually hit in North Dakota until 2010. The budget of every state but North Dakota had already slipped into the red by the spring of 2009.
  • One thing that does single the state out is that North Dakota alone has its own depository bank.
  • The state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND) was making 1% loans to school districts even in December 2014, when global oil prices had dropped by half. That month, the BND granted a $10 million construction loan to McKenzie County Public School No. 1, at an interest rate of 1% payable over 20 years. Over the life of the loan, that works out to $.20 in simple interest or $.22 in compound interest for every $1 borrowed. Compare that to the $15 owed for every dollar borrowed by Anaheim’s Savanna School District or the $10 owed for every dollar borrowed by Santa Ana Unified.
  • How can the BND afford to make these very low interest loans and still turn a profit? The answer is that its costs are very low. It has no exorbitantly-paid executives; pays no bonuses, fees, or commissions; pays no dividends to private shareholders; and has low borrowing costs. It does not need to advertise for depositors (it has a captive deposit base in the state itself) or for borrowers (it is a wholesale bank that partners with local banks, which find the borrowers). The BND also has no losses from derivative trades gone wrong. It engages in old-fashioned conservative banking and does not speculate in derivatives. Unlike the vampire squids of Wall Street, it is not motivated to maximize its bottom line in a predatory way. Its mandate is simply to serve the public interest.
  • Gary Edwards on 21 Feb 15
     
    " Remember when Goldman Sachs - dubbed by Matt Taibbi the Vampire Squid - sold derivatives to Greece so the government could conceal its debt, then bet against that debt, driving it up? It seems that the ubiquitous investment bank has also put the squeeze on California and its school districts. Not that Goldman was alone in this; but the unscrupulous practices of the bank once called the undisputed king of the municipal bond business epitomize the culture of greed that has ensnared students and future generations in unrepayable debt."
Paul Merrell

White House Considers Punishment for Netanyahu's Upcoming US Speech - International Mid... - 0 views

www.imemc.org/70671

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth Netanyahu-speech Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • As a reaction to the highly unanticipated speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Congress, next month, the White House is reportedly planning a series of procedures in reaction to the unwelcome visit.
  • A source in the White House reported to the Associated Press that one of the possible procedures being considered is a boycott of the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington. The procedures, PNN reports, could also involve a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, and multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security officials to talk about the US stance on Iran's nuclear program. The White House is also considering stiff strategies, including dispatching Cabinet members out of the country and sending a lower-ranking official to represent the administration at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
  • Netanyahu's plan for a March 3 address to a joint meeting of Congress has further strained already tense ties between the US and Israel. Congressional Republicans orchestrated Netanyahu's visit without consulting the White House or State Department, a move the Obama administration blasted as a break in diplomatic protocol. Some Democratic lawmakers say they will boycott the speech.
Paul Merrell

The Spy Cables: A glimpse into the world of espionage - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...rica-leak-150218100147229.html

war & peace surveillance-state spy-cables leaked-docs

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • A digital leak to Al Jazeera of hundreds of secret intelligence documents from the world's spy agencies has offered an unprecedented insight into operational dealings of the shadowy and highly politicised realm of global espionage. Over the coming days, Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit is publishing The Spy Cables, in collaboration with The Guardian newspaper.
  • Spanning a period from 2006 until December 2014, they include detailed briefings and internal analyses written by operatives of South Africa's State Security Agency (SSA). They also reveal the South Africans' secret correspondence with the US intelligence agency, the CIA, Britain's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Russia's FSB and Iran's operatives, as well as dozens of other services from Asia to the Middle East and Africa.
  • Among the revelations, the Spy Cables disclose how: Israel's Mossad told its allies that Iran was not working to produce nuclear weapons just a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned it was barely a year from being able to do so; The CIA made attempts to contact Hamas directly despite the US government listing the Palestinian group as a "terrorist organisation"; Britain's MI6 sought South African help in an operation to recruit a North Korean official who had previously refused their cash; and South African and Ethiopian spies struggled to "neutralise" an assassination plot targeting a leading African diplomat.
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  • Mossad contradicted Netanyahu on Iran nuclear programme The Spy Cables A glimpse into the world of espionage Spy Cables South African spies wary of Iran operations Spy Cables expose 'desperate' US approach to Hamas Israeli cable reveals S Africa missile theft cover-up The Spy Cables - Al Jazeera English Yazidis battle ISIL Disaster 'made us stronger' Spy Cables Abbas and Israel ally against 2009 UN probe Cables describe British attempt to recruit N Korean spy The Rise of the Oligarchs
  • Unlike the Edward Snowden documents that focus on electronic signals intelligence, commonly referred to in intelligence circles as "SIGINT", the Spy Cables deal with human intelligence, or "HUMINT".
  • Rather than chronicling spy-movie style tales of  ruthless efficiency of intelligence agencies, they offer an unprecedented glimpse into the daily working lives of people whose jobs are kept secret from the public.
  • The Spy Cables also reveal that in many cases, intelligence agencies are over-classifying information and hiding behind an unnecessary veil of secrecy. This harms the ability of a democratic society to either consent to the activities of their intelligence agencies or provide adequate checks and balances to their powers.
  • Spy Cables expose 'desperate' US approach to Hamas Leaked documents also show Mossad lobbying South Africa against Goldstone Report, claiming Abbas shared their stance.
  • Spy Cables: South African spies wary of Iran operations Leaked documents describe Tehran working to counter sanctions by using front companies and official channels.
Paul Merrell

Division over bank as Australia caught between China and US | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...bank-australia-caught-china-us

BRICS China Australia development-bank free-trade-agreements

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Senior cabinet ministers are believed to be divided over whether Australia should sign up to an internationally funded infrastructure development bank that China is set to launch next month.
  • Australia has been under pressure from the United States not to participate in the new bank. The position of Prime Minister Tony Abbott is unclear on the issue, that could have ramifications for the final days of bedding down the Australia-China free trade agreement which the government wants concluded this year and preferably by the G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane next month. The Chinese plan is being viewed internationally in the wider geopolitical context of Chinese-US competition in the region. The Americans, who see the bank as potentially a way of China increasing its clout with countries in southeast Asia, have been strongly lobbying Australia to keep out of it. The issue is to come before cabinet imminently, as China plans to announce the bank at the APEC summit, which will be held in Beijing in November. Hockey will be in Beijing next week for the APEC finance ministers meeting, where the bank will be a topic of discussion.
Paul Merrell

EEU considers launching a Currency Union: Putin | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...unching-a-currency-union-putin

de-dollarization EEU currency-union Russia Belarus Kazakhstan

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is considering the launch of a currency union within the 170 million inner market that was launched in January 2015. The Presidents of the EEU member States agreed to continue their work at coordinating the Union’s monetary policy.  After meetings with the Presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan in Astana, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the press that the EEU member States are discussing the establishment of a currency union and continue coordinating monetary policy, reports the Belarus news agency BelTa. The news agency quotes Putin as saying:
  • Putin described talks with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana on March 20 as “very intensive and informative”. President Nursultan Nazarbayev is widely regarded as the intellectual mastermind of a post-Soviet Union political and economic integration. The three heads of State reportedly discussed a wide range of issues about Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. The aggregate GDP of the troika amounts, according to BelTa, to 85% of the GDP of the CIS with Russia ranking first, followed by Belarus and Kazakhstan on a shared second place. The establishment of the EEU in January and discussions about the establishment of a currency union come against the backdrop of a series of US, UK, EU, G7 sanctions against Russia over the situation in Ukraine, with Germany, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia and some other European nations being reluctant about obstructing European – Russian relations. Especially strong French and German lobbies would rather see a closer cooperation between the EU and the EEU than a predominantly US/UK dominated policy of tensions that aims at maintaining an US/UK hegemony in Europe and a global dollar-dominated economy.
  • “We think that the time has come to talk forming a currency union in the future. … It is easier to protect the common financial market when working shoulder by shoulder”.
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  • Many US and British economists perceive an integration of EEU and EU markets as the single-most serious threat against the (f)ailing primacy of the US dollar and the hegemony of the “Atlantic Axis” in Europe.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 15
     
    More de-dollarization moves on the way.  Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are expected to join the EEU soon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union "CIS" stands for the Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes 9 memer states that are former Soviet Republics. Commonwealth of Independent States Eight of them form the Commonwealth of Independent States Free Trade Area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Independent_States_Free_Trade_Area  
Paul Merrell

Clinton Foundation's Deep Financial Ties to Ukrainian Oligarch Revealed | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5438165

Auction 2016 Hillary Clinton-Foundation foreign-donations

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Fortunately, I did decide to take a look and pretty soon my jaw absolutely hit the floor. Although the Wall Street Journal didn’t play up the connection, I was stunned to see that of all the oligarchs connected to foreign governments who donated to the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State, Ukraine was at the very top. I thought this to be strange, but as I read on I just couldn’t believe how connected the main donor was to the current regime in power. Considering this is the main geopolitical hotspot on earth right now, many, many questions need to be asked.
  • Let’s also recall some of the more shady aspects of the new government in Ukraine by taking a look back at the post, Made in the USA – How the Ukrainian Government is Giving Away Citizenships so Foreigners Can Run the Country [17]. Here are a few excerpts:
  • Claims that the new government in Ukraine is nothing more than a Western puppet Parliament have been swirling around consistently since February. Nevertheless, I think it’s very significant that the takeover is now overt, undeniable and completely out in the open. Nothing proves this fact more clearly than the recent and sudden granting of citizenship to three foreigners so that they can take top posts in the government. At the top of the list is American, Natalie Jaresko, who runs private equity fund Horizon Capital. She will now be Ukraine’s Finance Minister, and I highly doubt she will be forced to pay the IRS Expatriation Tax [18] (one set of laws for the rich and powerful, another set of laws for the peasants). For Economy Minister, a Lithuanian investment banker, Aivaras Abromavicius, will take the reins. Health Minister will be Alexander Kvitashvili of Georgia. Now read the following from the WSJ [14]:
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  • The Clinton Foundation swore off donations from foreign governments when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. That didn’t stop the foundation from raising millions of dollars from foreigners with connections to their home governments, a review of foundation disclosures shows. Some donors have direct ties to foreign governments. One is a member of the Saudi royal family. Another is a Ukrainian oligarch and former parliamentarian. Others are individuals with close connections to foreign governments that stem from their business activities. Their professed policy interests range from human rights to U.S.-Cuba relations. All told, more than a dozen foreign individuals and their foundations and companies were large donors to the Clinton Foundation in the years after Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state in 2009, collectively giving between $34 million and $68 million, foundation records show. Some donors also provided funding directly to charitable projects sponsored by the foundation, valued by the organization at $60 million.
  • Former President Bill Clinton promised the Obama administration the foundation wouldn’t accept most foreign-government donations while his wife was secretary of state. The agreement didn’t place limits on donations from foreign individuals or corporations. Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, according to that foundation, which is based in Kiev, Ukraine. It was created by Mr. Pinchuk, whose fortune stems from a pipe-making company. He served two terms as an elected member of the Ukrainian Parliament and is a proponent of closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union. In 2008, Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a wing of the foundation that coordinates charitable projects and funding for them but doesn’t handle the money. The pledge was to fund a program to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals “to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation. Several alumni are current members of the Ukrainian Parliament. Actual donations so far amount to only $1.8 million, a Pinchuk foundation spokesman said, citing the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. During Mrs. Clinton’s time at the State Department, Mr. Schoen, the pollster, registered as a lobbyist for Mr. Pinchuk, federal records show. Mr. Schoen said he and Mr. Pinchuk met several times with Clinton aides including Melanne Verveer, a Ukrainian-American and then a State Department ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. The purpose, Mr. Schoen said, was to encourage the U.S. to pressure Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych to free his jailed predecessor, Yulia Tymoshenko.
  • Mr. Schoen said his lobbying was unrelated to the donations. “We were not seeking to use any leverage or any connections or anything of the sort relating to the foundation,” he said. Please Schoen, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
Gary Edwards

Ukraine's Oligarchs Turn on Each Other | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...s-oligarchs-turn-on-each-other

Ukraine Corporate-Oligarchs Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • n the never-never land of how the mainstream U.S. press covers the Ukraine crisis, the appointment last year of thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to govern one of the country’s eastern provinces was pitched as a democratic “reform” because he was supposedly too rich to bribe, without noting that his wealth had come from plundering the country’s economy.In other words, the new U.S.-backed “democratic” regime, after overthrowing democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych because he was “corrupt,” was rewarding one of Ukraine’s top thieves by letting him lord over his own province, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, with the help of his personal army.
  • Last year, Kolomoisky’s brutal militias, which include neo-Nazi brigades, were praised for their fierce fighting against ethnic Russians from the east who were resisting the removal of their president. But now Kolomoisky, whose financial empire is crumbling as Ukraine’s economy founders, has turned his hired guns against the Ukrainian government led by another oligarch, President Petro Poroshenko.Last Thursday night, Kolomoisky and his armed men went to Kiev after the government tried to wrest control of the state-owned energy company UkrTransNafta from one of his associates. Kolomoisky and his men raided the company offices to seize and apparently destroy records. As he left the building, he cursed out journalists who had arrived to ask what was going on. He ranted about “Russian saboteurs.”It was a revealing display of how the corrupt Ukrainian political-economic system works and the nature of the “reformers” whom the U.S. State Department has pushed into positions of power. According to BusinessInsider, the Kiev government tried to smooth Kolomoisky’s ruffled feathers by announcing “that the new company chairman [at UkrTransNafta] would not be carrying out any investigations of its finances.”
  • Yet, it remained unclear whether Kolomoisky would be satisfied with what amounts to an offer to let any past thievery go unpunished. But if this promised amnesty wasn’t enough, Kolomoisky appeared ready to use his private army to discourage any accountability.On Monday, Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, chief of the State Security Service, accused Dnipropetrovsk officials of financing armed gangs and threatening investigators, Bloomberg News reported, while noting that Ukraine has sunk to 142nd place out of 175 countries in Transparency International’s Corruptions Perception Index, the worst in Europe.The see-no-evil approach to how the current Ukrainian authorities do business relates as well to Ukraine’s new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who appears to have enriched herself at the expense of a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund for Ukraine.
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  • Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat who received overnight Ukrainian citizenship in December to become Finance Minister, had been in charge of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which became the center of insider-dealing and conflicts of interest, although the U.S. Agency for International Development showed little desire to examine the ethical problems – even after Jaresko’s ex-husband tried to blow the whistle. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Finance Minister’s American ‘Values.’”]Passing Out the BillionsJaresko will be in charge of dispensing the $17.5 billion that the International Monetary Fund is allocating to Ukraine, along with billions of dollars more expected from U.S. and European governments.
  • Regarding Kolomoisky’s claim about “Russian saboteurs,” the government said that was not the case, explaining that the clash resulted from the parliament’s vote last week to reduce Kolomoisky’s authority to run the company from his position as a minority owner. As part of the shakeup, Kolomoisky’s protégé Oleksandr Lazorko was fired as chairman, but he refused to leave and barricaded himself in his office, setting the stage for Kolomoisky’s arrival with armed men.On Tuesday, the New York Times reported on the dispute but also flashed back to its earlier propagandistic praise of the 52-year-old oligarch, recalling that “Mr. Kolomoisky was one of several oligarchs, considered too rich to bribe, who were appointed to leadership positions in a bid to stabilize Ukraine.”Kolomoisky also is believed to have purchased influence inside the U.S. government through his behind-the-scenes manipulation of Ukraine’s largest private gas firm, Burisma Holdings. Last year, the shadowy Cyprus-based company appointed Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to its board of directors. Burisma also lined up well-connected lobbyists, some with ties to Secretary of State John Kerry, including Kerry’s former Senate chief of staff David Leiter, according to lobbying disclosures.
  • As Time magazine reported, “Leiter’s involvement in the firm rounds out a power-packed team of politically-connected Americans that also includes a second new board member, Devon Archer, a Democratic bundler and former adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Both Archer and Hunter Biden have worked as business partners with Kerry’s son-in-law, Christopher Heinz, the founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a private-equity company.”According to investigative journalism in Ukraine, the ownership of Burisma has been traced to Privat Bank, which is controlled by Kolomoisky.So, it appears that Ukraine’s oligarchs who continue to wield enormous power inside the corrupt country are now circling each other over what’s left of the economic spoils and positioning themselves for a share of the international bailouts to come.
  • As for “democratic reform,” only in the upside-down world of the State Department’s Orwellian “information war” against Russia over Ukraine would imposing a corrupt and brutal oligarch like Kolomoisky as the unelected governor of a defenseless population be considered a positive.(Early Wednesday morning, President Poroshenko dismissed Kolomoisky from his post as Dnipropetrovsk regional governor.)
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 15
     
    Another of the greatest U.S. exports: corruption.
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Mar 15
     
    Corporate oligarchs leading private but well armed armies in raids against the Ukrainian government holdings - controlled by other corporate oligarchs? This article dives into the mess that the USA and European NATO allies have stirred in the Ukraine, and through this lens we get to see what the world will look like when corporate oligarchs and their Bankster masters rule the world. The article is revealing, but it fails to connect the corporatist to the Banks that are sending in billions of dollars. The connection instead is made to the democratic governments intent on pushing the world into world war 3. Nor is there much mention of the oil and natural gas pipeline and supply geographics that dominate battlefields from the Ukraine, to Syria, Iraq and Lybia. The New World Order needs a third World War if it's to truly overturn the fragile post World War II economic order loosely based on free market capitalism, individual liberty and democratic governance. The end of national sovereignty, religious and cultural identities has one more hurdle. And there is no doubt in my mind that the elites are ready to jump that hurdle. World War III has spread from the middle east to middle Europe. Best we all hold on. .................. "Exclusive: Ukraine's post-coup regime is facing what looks like a falling-out among thieves as oligarch-warlord Igor Kolomoisky, who was given his own province to rule, brought his armed men to Kiev to fight for control of the state-owned energy company, further complicating the State Department's propaganda efforts, reports Robert Parry. In the never-never land of how the mainstream U.S. press covers the Ukraine crisis, the appointment last year of thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to govern one of the country's eastern provinces was pitched as a democratic "reform" because he was supposedly too rich to bribe, without noting that his wealth had come from plundering the country's economy. In other words, the new U.S.-b
Paul Merrell

America's new, more 'usable', nuclear bomb in Europe | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-usable-nuclear-bomb-in-europe

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy nukes B-61

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The $8 billion upgrade to the US B61 nuclear bomb has been widely condemned as an awful lot of money to spend on an obsolete weapon. As an old fashioned ‘dumb’ bomb it has no role in US or NATO nuclear doctrine, but the upgrade has gone ahead anyway, in large part as a result of lobbying by the nuclear weapons laboratories. In non-proliferation terms however the only thing worse than a useless bomb is a ‘usable’ bomb. Apart from the stratospheric price, the most controversial element of the B61 upgrade is the replacement of the existing rigid tail with one that has moving fins that will make the bomb smarter and allow it to be guided more accurately to a target. Furthermore, the yield can be adjusted before launch, according to the target. The modifications are at the centre of a row between anti-proliferation advocates and the government over whether the new improved B61-12 bomb is in fact a new weapon, and therefore a violation of President Obama’s undertaking not to make new nuclear weapons. His administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review said life extension upgrades to the US arsenal would “not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.”
  • The issue has a particular significance for Europe where a stockpile of 180 B61’s is held in six bases in five countries. If there is no change in that deployment by the time the upgraded B61-12’s enter the stockpile in 2024, many of them will be flown out to the bases in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey. The row has had a semantic tone, revolving on what the definition of ‘new’ is, but arguably the only definition that counts is whether the generals and officials responsible for dropping bombs, view its role in a different light as a result of its refurbishment. Referring to the B61-12’s enhanced accuracy on a recent PBS Newshour television programme, the former head of US Strategic Command, General James Cartwright, made this striking remark: If I can drive down the yield, drive down, therefore, the likelihood of fallout, etc, does that make it more usable in the eyes of some — some president or national security decision-making process? And the answer is, it likely could be more usable.
  • In general, it is not a good thing to see the words ‘nuclear bomb’ and ‘usable’ anywhere near each other. Yet they seem to share space in the minds of some of America’s military leaders, as Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, points out. Cartwright’s confirmation follows General Norton Schwartz, the former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, who in 2014 assessed that the increased accuracy would have implications for how the military thinks about using the B61. “Without a doubt. Improved accuracy and lower yield is a desired military capability. Without a question,” he said. The great thing about nuclear weapons was that their use was supposed to be unthinkable and they were therefore a deterrent to contemplation of a new world war. Once they become ‘thinkable’ we are in a different, and much more dangerous, universe.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    Oh, Lord, please save this planet from idiocy in high places. 
Paul Merrell

Steven Salaita settles lawsuit with Univ. of Illinois | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...-settles-lawsuit-univ-illinois

war & peace Israel Palestine Salatia litigation settlement BDS

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Steven Salaita will not be reinstated under the terms of an out of court settlement with the University of Illinois. The deal will pay Salaita $875,000 – about ten times the annual salary he would have received as a tenured professor in the American Indian Studies program at the university’s flagship Urbana-Champaign campus. “This settlement is a vindication for me, but more importantly, it is a victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment,” Salaita said in a release from his legal counsel, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the law firm Loevy & Loevy. The settlement brings an end to Salaita’s breach of contract lawsuit against university trustees and administrators over his August 2014 firing because of his tweets excoriating Israel’s attack on Gaza. Salaita had sought reinstatement as well as financial damages.
  • The university statement said Salaita would receive a lump sum of $600,000, while the remaining amount would cover his legal fees.
  • Salaita’s case became a cause celebre for academic freedom, highlighting the role of pro-Israel donors in pressuring university administrators. Thousands of academics pledged to boycott the university until he was reinstated. The Salaita affair devastated and demoralized the university’s celebrated American Indian Studies program, leading to the departure of several faculty. His firing also earned the University of Illinois a formal censure from the American Association of University Professors for violating academic freedom, a rare rebuke and severe blow to its reputation.
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  • Salaita had scored successes in the early phases of his federal lawsuit. In August, US District Judge Harry Leinenweber backed Salaita’s contention that he had a binding contract with the university. Yet there was never a guarantee that even if he won at trial that the court would order his reinstatement. In September, the judge found that university officials had destroyed emails that may have contained key evidence Salaita needed to prove his case. This came after sensational revelations that top officials, including then Chancellor Phyllis Wise, had been using private email accounts to discuss the case and evade disclosure laws. Wise and another official, Provost Ilesanmi Adesida, resigned in disgrace, adding to the disarray at the frequently scandal-plagued state university.
  • In August, Salaita took up a year-long post as Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut.
Paul Merrell

On this Veterans Day, suicide has caused more American casualties than wars in Iraq and... - 0 views

www.montereyherald.com/...151119969

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy veterans suicide stats

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • One of the most tragic problems afflicting those who served their country is the specter of suicide, often the fallout of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After more than a year of intense lobbying by veterans groups, Congress this year passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, named for a Marine veteran who took his own life even after working as an advocate for suicide prevention. The law is designed to reduce military and veteran suicides, and improve access to quality mental health care. But veterans experts estimate that 17 of the 22 daily suicides involve vets not enrolled in the VA’s healthcare system, suggesting more research — and far greater funding — will be necessary to get a handle on the problem.
  • With U.S. combat operations winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the suicide rate among ex-military members has risen from 18 a day in 2010, although studies undertaken by the Veterans Administration have failed to pinpoint a direct cause. Only about a third of all vets use the VA for healthcare, which leaves a wide swath of people who once wore the uniform outside the reach of the military’s data gathering.“Common sense would have us expect a correlation between number of deployments and combat with suicide risk,” says Fred MacRae, lead suicide prevention coordinator at the VA hospital in Palo Alto. But recent research suggests that’s not necessarily the case. #AD_text{ font-size: 11px; color: #999999; } Advertisement Not even the horrors of battle are a proven cause. “More and more,” says Jackie Maffucci, research director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), “the data are suggesting that exposure to combat is not one of the high-risk factors.”
  • Almost everyone who has served in the military now knows someone — often several someones — who suffers from disabling depression. Some end their own lives. Members of the IAVA were asked in a survey last year if they knew at least one post-9/11 veteran who had attempted suicide, and 47 percent answered yes. Another 40 percent knew at least one veteran who had died by suicide. “And 31 percent indicated they had thought about taking their own life since joining the military,” says Maffucci. “Those are startling numbers.”Daniel Faddis told another veteran in his family that he felt he had let down his military buddies when he was booted out. “He carried around a lot of guilt about that,” Stan Faddis says. “Some guys he knew ended up dying in combat, and he felt bad he wasn’t there to save them, or to die with them.”The current wait time for a mental health appointment at the VA in Palo Alto is about 12 days, and in a recent national study by the Government Accountability Office it averaged 26 days. Still, that’s considerably shorter than when the country went on a wartime footing following 9/11. “In 2001, your chances of dying by suicide were greater if you got your care in the VA system than if you got it elsewhere,” MacRae acknowledges. The new federal legislation is creating a program to help the VA recruit psychiatrists by assisting with their tuition payments, and it also requires an annual evaluation of VA mental health and suicide-prevention programs.
Paul Merrell

Brazil Refuses Israeli Settler as Diplomatic Envoy - International Middle East Media Ce... - 0 views

www.imemc.org/74388

war & peace Israel Palestine Brazil settlements ambassador

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Brazil’s reluctance to accept an Israeli ambassador who is a West Bank colonist has set off a diplomatic crisis and led to concerns in the Israeli government that the clash could encourage pro-Palestinian activism against it.
  • The appointment four months ago of Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish colony movement, did not go down well with Brazil’s left-leaning government, which has supported Palestinian statehood in recent years. Most world powers deem the "Jews-only" colonies on Palestinian land as illegal. The regime’s previous ambassador, Reda Mansour, left Brasilia last week and the Israeli government said on Sunday that Brazil risked degrading bilateral relations if Dayan was not allowed to succeed him. “Israel will leave the level of diplomatic relations with Brazil at the secondary level if the appointment of Dani Dayan is not confirmed,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Channel 10 TV, saying Dayan would remain the sole nominee. She said Israel would lobby Brasilia through the Brazilian Jewish community, confidants of President Dilma Rousseff and direct appeals from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Brazilian government officials declined to comment on whether Rousseff will accept the nomination of the Argentine-born Dayan. But one senior Foreign Ministry official said: “I do not see that happening.”
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  • The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said Israel would have to choose a different envoy because the choice of Dayan has further worsened relations that turned sour in 2010 when Brazil decided to recognise Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in a 1967 war and colonised. Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but claims occupied Jerusalem as its “indivisible capital” and wants to keep swathes of West Bank colonies under any eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.
  • Brazil’s government was also angered by the announcement of Dayan’s appointment by Netanyahu in a Twitter message on August 5 before Brasilia had been informed, let alone agreed to the new envoy as is the diplomatic norm. Over the weekend, Dayan went on the offensive to defend his nomination, telling Israeli media that Netanyahu’s government was not doing enough to press Brazil to accept him. Dayan said not doing so could create a precedent barring colonists from representing Israel abroad.
  • Israel has a considerable role in providing avionics technology for Brazil’s aerospace and defense industry. Celso Amorim, a former Brazilian foreign and defence minister, said on Friday that the diplomatic dispute over Dayan’s appointment showed that “it is time the Brazilian armed forces reduced their dependence on Israel.”
Paul Merrell

Repeating 'neutrality' vow on Israel, Trump surely senses shift in US mood - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...surely-senses-shift-in-us-mood

war & peace Auction 2016 Trump Israel public-opinion polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump has doubled down on his statement at a town hall last week that he aims to be neutral in his comments on the Israel/Palestine conflict so as not to injure his ability as president to negotiate a deal between the parties. On Meet the Press yesterday he pointedly did not buy into the Republican “orthodoxy” on Israel, saying he’s very pro-Israel but peace there is the “ultimate deal” and he wasn’t going to prejudice matters.
  • Trump surely senses that he can gain by exhibiting independence of the Israel lobby. Here are some other straws in the wind: –A new poll shows that the number of Americans holding a favorable view of Israel has declined 16 percent in the last year, to 59 percent. And in the same interval those holding a favorable view of the Palestinians has surged 42 percent, to 25 percent, and even Iran has had an image-makeover, with 16 percent of Americans regarding the country favorably, up considerably. Grant Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy says the data reveal “a stunning turn in U.S. public opinion.” –The MSM are reflecting the thaw. Last week Newsweek ran a defiant piece by Hanin Zoabi, the Palestinian Israeli legislator who has been suspended from the Knesset as a troublemaker, explaining Palestinian violence as a response to occupation and discrimination. Boldly titled, “Why Israel Is Fighting the Indigenous Palestinians,” it included these lines: “The occupier does not have the right to self-defense. We, the occupied, have the full and only right to fight it, by all means recognized within the framework of international law.”
  • I throw in these stray facts to say that American public opinion is changing (as is Jewish opinion) and there is political hay to be made of the changes. Donald Trump surely senses this, in his populist campaign. And so he is preparing to run against Marco Rubio by saying that Rubio is Sheldon Adelson’s “perfect little puppet”, and preparing to set up a general election campaign against Hillary Clinton in which he can call out her beholdenness to the billionaire Haim Saban. In his reissued autobiography of last fall, Bernie Sanders refers with disdain to Sheldon Adelson and the “Adelson primary” on the very first page. But that’s the last we hear of it: Adelson, who is in bed with Hillary Clinton’s good friend Haim Saban. Sanders is ignoring a populist political opportunity that Donald Trump has seized upon. Go figure
Paul Merrell

Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on Israel - 0 views

theintercept.com/...-an-extremist-agenda-on-israel

Auction 2016 Greenwald Hillary Israel-lobby

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Photo: Alex Brandon/APFormer President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community, and, as the Times of Israel reports, “He vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one of her top priorities to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.” It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking: adeptly telling everyone what they want to hear and making them believe it. After all, is it even physically possible to “strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance” beyond what it already entails: billions of dollars in American taxpayer money transferred every year, sophisticated weapons fed to Israel as it bombs its defenseless neighbors, blindly loyal diplomatic support and protection for everything it does? But Bill Clinton’s vow of even greater support for Israel is completely consistent with what Hillary Clinton herself has been telling American Jewish audiences for months. In November, she published an op-ed in The Forward in which she vowed to strengthen relations not only with Israel, but also with its extremist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Her comments on Israel have similarly contained implicit criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy: namely, that he has created or at least allowed too much animosity with Netanyahu. In her Forward op-ed, she wrote that the Israeli prime minister’s “upcoming visit to Washington is an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel.” She pointedly added: “The alliance between our two nations transcends politics. It is and should always be a commitment that unites us, not a wedge that divides us.” And in case her message is unclear, she added this campaign promise: “I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.” Last month, Clinton wrote an even more extreme op-ed in the Jewish Journal, one that made even clearer that she intends to change Obama’s policy to make it even more “pro-Israel.” It begins: “In this time of terrorism and turmoil, the alliance between the United States and Israel is more important than ever. To meet the many challenges we face, we have to take our relationship to the next level.”
  • “With every passing year, we must tie the bonds tighter,” she wrote. Tie those bonds tighter. Thus: As part of this effort, we need to ensure that Israel continues to maintain its qualitative military edge. The United States should further bolster Israeli air defenses and help develop better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms smuggling and kidnapping. We should also expand high-level U.S.-Israel strategic consultations. As always, there is not a word about the oppression and brutality imposed on Palestinians as part of Israel’s decadeslong occupation. She does not even acknowledge, let alone express opposition to, Israel’s repeated, civilian-slaughtering bombing of the open-air prison in Gaza. That’s because for Clinton — like the progressive establishment that supports her — the suffering and violence imposed on Palestinians literally do not exist. None of this is mentioned, even in passing, in the endless parade of pro-Clinton articles pouring forth from progressive media outlets.
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  • Clinton partisans — being Clinton partisans — would, if they ever did deign to address Israel/Palestine, undoubtedly justify Clinton’s hawkishness on the ground of political necessity: that she could never win if she did not demonstrate steadfast devotion to the Israeli government. But for all his foreign policy excesses, including on Israel, Obama has proven that a national politician can be at least mildly more adversarial to Israeli leaders and still retain support. And notably, there is at least one politician who rejects the view that one must cling to standard pro-Israel orthodoxy in order to win; just yesterday, Donald Trump vowed “neutrality” on Israel/Palestine. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Clinton advocates are understandably desperate to manufacture the most trivial controversies because the alternative is to defend her candidacy based on her prior actions and current beliefs (that tactic was actually pioneered by then-Clinton operative Dick Morris, who had his client turn the 1996 election into a discussion of profound topics such as school uniforms). If you were a pro-Clinton progressive, would you want to defend her continuous vows to “strengthen” U.S. support for the Netanyahu government and ensure that every year “we must tie the bonds tighter”?
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Feb 16
     
    Glen Greenwald (a Jew) tackles Hillary's promise to increase support for Israel's right-wing government, at the expense of Palestinian liberty. With friends like Israel, who needs enemies?
Paul Merrell

Even as Clinton opposes sanctions over Israeli settlements, new poll shows her Democrat... - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...nctions-settlements-democratic

war & peace Auction 2016 Israel Palestine BDS polls Hillary

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Last weekend Hillary Clinton joined the Republican candidates in coming down hard against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. Speaking to her financial sponsor Haim Saban as well as a D.C. audience, she described the campaign as anti-semitic and wrong, and meantime offered vague opposition to Israeli settlements. Well there’s a good reason Clinton doesn’t want the issue politicized. If the matter were actually debated openly between Republicans and Democrats, her own base would be against her. A new poll of American attitudes on the conflict from Shibley Telhami at the Brookings Institution says that Democrats favor sanctions to counter Israeli settlement construction. Telhami reports: It is notable that among Democrats, more people (49%) recommend either imposing economic sanctions or taking more serious action [re settlements], than those recommending doing nothing or limiting U.S. opposition towards (46%)
  • The poll also shows broad support for a one-state outcome among Americans. The poll at Telhami’s academic site defines one state as “a single democratic state in which both Jews and Arabs are full and equal citizens, covering all of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories.” Those who advocate a one-state solution, 31%, are now comparable to those who advocate a two-state solution, 35%. The most notable change is that Republicans this year equally support a two-state solution vs. one-state solution (29% each). This shows that Democrats support a two-state-solution over one state by 45 to 33. Still: a third of Dem voters are for a single democratic state with equal citizenship. Dems don’t like the Israel lobby either. The poll shows that by more than a three-to-one ratio, Democrats feel that Israel has too much influence in American politics. And Americans generally also are turned off:
  • Overall, twice as many Americans say the Israeli government has too much influence (37%) than say too little influence (18%), while a plurality (44 %) say it’s the right level. The story once again is more pronounced in the partisan views: Among Democrats, about half (49%) say Israel has too much influence, compared with 14% who say Israel has too little influence, and 36 % who say it’s the right level. Netanyahu’s popularity has crashed among Dems, though he’s a heroic figure to Republicans. Notice that Democratic attitudes on blame for the recent “escalation in violence” actually track attitudes on our site. Democrats understand the Palestinian violence as a response to lack of freedom: A plurality of Democrats, 37%, blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, followed by 35% who blame the absence of serious peace diplomacy, while 15% blame Palestinian extremists. In contrast, 40% of Republicans blame Palestinian extremists first…
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  • And again, Americans are for a secular democracy there. Where did we ever get that idea? Strong American majorities continue to favor Israel’s democracy over its Jewishness in the absence of a two-state solution (72% in 2015, compared with 71% in 2014). Hillary Clinton has very different attitudes. She calls Israel “a thriving raucous democracy” and a “light unto the nations,” and is fundamentally opposed to the idea of any pressure on Israel. She said: Some proponents of BDS may hope that pressuring Israel may lead to peace. Well that’s wrong too. No outside force is going to resolve the conflict between Israeli’s and Palestinian’s.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 15
     
    "Negotiations" for a two-state solution has never been anything more than an excuse for prolonging an apartheid government across all of Palestine. The fact that public support is building in the U.S. for a single-state, secular government for all of Palestine including Israel has to be keeping Israel's right-wing leadership up at night. Israel is losing the BDS battle for U.S. hearts and minds. Hillary risks eroding her support by continuing to push for the increasingly unpopular two-state solution.
Paul Merrell

Chicago students get death threat over Palestine protest | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...-threat-over-palestine-protest

war & peace Israel BDS anti-BDS student-faculty-retaliation

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Students in Chicago received a death threat after taking part in a Palestine solidarity protest. Another student activist in Santa Barbara, California, was physically assaulted during an argument with an Israel supporter. These are just two of dozens of on-campus incidents reported across the United States over the last four weeks, according to Palestine Legal.
  • Five days later, one of the students received a threatening email message directed at Students for Justice in Palestine. The message stated: “If there is one more demonstration in the quad from your petty organization, consider it to be your real bodies falling next time. What you did was downright anti-Semitism. Don’t underestimate the Jewish presence on campus. #jewhater.”
  • University spokesperson Bill Burton told The Electronic Intifada that the matter is under investigation and had no further comment. Saadeh said that although the death threat is frightening and is being taken seriously, SJP members will not stop organizing. “They’re not going to shut us up with this,” she said. She said that students have created ways to protect each other on campus, such as making sure members of SJP do not have to walk alone to class, or sit alone at the library.
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  • Meanwhile, a member of SJP at the University of California at Santa Barbara was physically assaulted during a peaceful protest as part of the international day of action. Daniel Mogtaderi said he was filming the demonstration on his phone as a matter of protocol, so that SJP can document any harassment or violence it might encounter. A young man who appeared to be another student began arguing with Mogtaderi about the 13-year-old Palestinian boy who was accused of a stabbing attack and critically injured and taunted by Israeli settlers as he lay bleeding on the ground two weeks ago. The assailant became aggressive when he realized Mogtaderi was recording the encounter. “At that point he forcibly took hold of the phone, held on to the phone for some time, and shoved Mogtaderi two times before returning the phone and leaving the scene,” SJP stated. Mogtaderi’s video recording of the argument between himself and the assailant can be viewed here.
  • Mogtaderi told The Electronic Intifada that when he filed a report, campus police blamed him for “escalating the situation” and claimed that he could have avoided being assaulted if he hadn’t argued with the assailant. He added that campus police insist they cannot find the assailant and have not contacted Mogtaderi for additional information. UC Santa Barbara told The Electronic Intifada that the matter is being investigated. “There are so many stories around the country [of attempts] to try and silence people as much as possible,” Mogtaderi said. “My voice won’t be silenced, nor will the voices of other SJPers.”
  • Palestine Legal stated last week that it has responded to more than 35 campus incidents over the last month. “The pattern persists: with a rise in activism comes a rise in suppression,” the group said. Flush with new injections of cash, Israel-aligned organizations are stepping up their efforts to smear and intimidate students involved in Palestine activism. Palestine Legal says it has responded to more than 300 incidents of “censorship, punishment, or other burdening of advocacy” reported by Palestine solidarity activists on more than 65 US campuses in the last 18 months. The legal group calls on university administrations to protect the speech rights and physical safety of students who speak out in favor of Palestinian rights.
Paul Merrell

The Arab Spring: Made in the USA | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5484950

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Arab Spring NED Soros

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Arabesque$: Enquête sur le rôle des États-Unis dans les révoltes arabes (Investigation into the US Role in the Arab Uprisings) is an update of Ahmed Bensaada’s 2011 book L’Arabesque Américaine. It concerns the US government role in instigating, funding and coordinating the Arab Spring “revolutions.” Most of this history has been carefully suppressed by the western media.The new book devotes much more attention to the personalities leading the 2011 uprisings. Some openly admitted to receiving CIA funding. Others had no idea because it was deliberately concealed from them. A few (in Egypt and Syria) were officially charged with espionage. In Egypt, seven sought refuge in the US embassy in Cairo and had to be evacuated by the State Department.
  • According to Bensaada, the MENA Arab Spring revolutions have four unique features in common: None were spontaneous – all required careful and lengthy (5+ years) planning, by the State Department, CIA pass through foundations, George Soros, and the pro-Israel lobby.1 All focused exclusively on removing reviled despots without replacing the autocratic power structure that kept them in power. No Arab Spring protests made any reference whatsoever to powerful anti-US sentiment over Palestine and Iraq. All the instigators of Arab Spring uprisings were middle class, well educated youth who mysteriously vanished after 2011.
  • Follow the Money Relying mainly on Wikileaks cables and the websites of key CIA pass through foundations (which he reproduces in the appendix), Bensaada methodically lists every State Department conference and workshop the Arab Spring heroes attended, the dollar amounts spent on them by the State Department and key “democracy” promoting foundations3, the specific involvement of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Obama’s 2008 Internet campaign team in training Arab Spring cyperactivists in encryption technologies and social media skills, US embassy visits, and direct encounters with Hillary Clinton,  Condoleezza Rice, John McCain, Barack Obama and Serbian trainers from CANVAS (the CIA-backed organization that overthrew Slobodan Milosevic in 2000). Bensaada focuses most heavily on the Tahrir Square uprising in Egypt. TheWashington Post has estimated approximately 10,000 Egyptians took part in NED and USAID training in social media and nonviolent organizing techniques. For me the most astonishing information in this chapter concerned the role of an Egyptian exile (a former Egyptian policeman named Omar Afifi Suleiman) in coordinating the Tahrir Square protests from his office in Washington DC. According to Wikileaks, NED paid Suleiman a yearly stipend of $200,000+ between 2008-2011.
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  • When Nonviolence Fails Arabesques$ devotes far more attention to Libya, Syria and Yemen than Bensaada’s first book. In the section on Libya, Bensaada zeroes in on eleven key US assets who engineered the overthrow of Gaddafi. Some participated in the same State Department trainings as the Middle East opposition activists and instigated nonviolent Facebook and Twitter protests to coincide with the 2011 uprisings in Tunisian and Egypt. Others, in exile, underwent guerrilla training sponsored by the CIA, Mossad, Chad and Saudi Arabia. A few months after Gaddafi’s assassination, some of these same militants would lead Islamic militias attempting to overthrow Assad in Syria. Between 2005 and 2010, the State Department funneled $12 million to opposition groups opposed to Assad. The US also financed Syrian exiles in Britain to start an anti-government cable TV channel they beamed into Syria. In the section on Syria, Bensaada focuses on a handful of Syrian opposition activists who received free US training in cyberactivism and nonviolent resistance beginning in 2006. One, Ausama Monajed, is featured in the 2011 film How to Start a Revolution about a visit with Gene Sharp in 2006. Monajed and others worked closely with the US embassy, funded by the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). This is a State Department program that operates in countries (such as Libya and Syria) where USAID is banned. In February 2011, these groups posted a call on Twitter and Facebook for a Day of Rage. Nothing happened. When Sharpian techniques failed to produce a sizable nonviolent uprising, as in Libya, they and their allies (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Jordan) were all set up to introduce Islamic mercenaries (many directly from Libya) to declare war on the Assad regime.
  • Dr. Bramhall is a retired American psychiatrist and political refugee in New Zealand. She has published a free, downloadable non-fiction ebook 21st Century Revolution.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Oct 15
     
    Alas, the book is apparently available only in French. 
Paul Merrell

Holder Defends Record of Not Prosecuting Financial Fraud - 0 views

theintercept.com/...ot-prosecuting-financial-fraud

banksters too-big-to-jail Holder DoJ Bernanke federal-reserve

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • 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.
Paul Merrell

Most Americans Believe Palestinians Occupy Israeli Land - Antiwar.com Original by -- An... - 0 views

original.antiwar.com/...lestinians-occupy-israeli-land

war & peace Israel Palestine occupation public-opinion U.S.

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • According to an IRmep poll fielded by Google Consumer Surveys the majority of Americans (49.2 percent) believe that Palestinians occupy Israeli land rather than the reverse. The statistically-significant survey was fielded on March 9 in four nations and had a margin of error of 1.7-4.3 percent. The U.S. adult internet population is alone in North America believing that Israelis are under a Palestinian occupation. A simultaneous survey of Canadians reveals that 51.4 percent correctly believe Israelis occupy Palestinian land, while 54.6 percent of Mexicans also believe Israel occupies Palestinian territory. Adults living in the United Kingdom were the most convinced among the four countries surveyed with 57.7 percent believing “Israelis occupy Palestinian land.” The issue has taken on new relevance with the EU’s efforts to clearly label the origin of goods produced in Israeli West Bank settlements. The organization tasked with lobbying congress on behalf of many Israel affinity organizations in the US, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC, deems the EU labeling measure an “attack” on Israel and has sought to legitimize products from “Israeli-controlled territories” in US trade legislation. AIPAC has sought to “blur” the issue by promoting the Israeli government formulation of the lands as “disputed” rather than “occupied.”
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Mar 16
     
    While the statistic on the American public's ignorance is facially dismaying, it's going to change and change rather quickly as a result of the educational efforts of the mushrooming Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in the U.S. It's good to have a baseline public opinion to work from.
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