Skip to main content

Home/ Socialism and the End of the American Dream/ Group items matching "Counterpunch" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
2More

False Flag in Odessa » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...false-flag-in-odessa war & peace Ukraine Odessa-fire CIA false-flag
shared by Paul Merrell on 09 May 14 - No Cached
  • Photos of the victims of the Odessa fire which have been circulating on the Internet have cast doubt on the official version of events. It’s now clear that many of the anti-junta activists who occupied the Trade Unions House were neither burned to death nor died of smoke inhalation, but were savagely shot at point-blank range by agents and thugs who had infiltrated the building to kill as many of the occupants as possible, burn the corpses, and then slip away without notice. Some of the victims–like a young woman who was eight months pregnant –were strangled with an electrical chord and left slumped backwards over her desk in a room that shows no sign of fire or smoke damage. In another case, a woman was stripped naked from the waste down, raped, killed, and set ablaze. In still other cases, victims with bullet-holes through their skulls, had flammable fluid dumped on their heads and were incinerated, leaving a charred head atop a corpse whose clothes were untouched by fire. The sloppily-executed killing-spree proves that the fire was not the result of a spontaneous clash between pro and anti-Kiev demonstrators, but a carefully planned black-op that likely involved foreign Intel agencies working hand-in-hand with the fascist junta government in Kiev. Did we mention that the CIA has taken up residence in the Ukrainian capital? Here’s the scoop from the AFP:
  • “Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government … helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure…” (CIA, FBI agents ‘advising Ukraine government: report, AFP) We all know about the CIA’s energetic efforts to create a “functioning security structure” in nations around the world. The CIA’s presence in Ukraine suggests that the US was either actively involved in the Odessa incident or knows who was. Either way, there should be an independent investigation before the case is referred to the ICC for prosecution.
4More

Increasing Attention to Allegations of 9/11 FBI Cover-Up | 28 Pages.org - 0 views

28pages.org/...llegations-of-911-fbi-cover-up war & peace false-flag 9-11 FBI Bush Cheney Mueller 28-pages
shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • While much of the speculation about the contents of the 28 classified pages from a 9/11 intelligence inquiry center on the secret activities of foreign governments, there is growing scrutiny on the secret activities of our own government—specifically, its investigation of the terrorists both before and after the attacks.
  • Television station WTSP, which serves Sarasota and Tampa Bay, aired a very insightful report last week in which investigative reporter Mike Deeson talked to former Senator Bob Graham and dug deep into the FBI’s concealment of its investigation of the Sarasota 9/11 terror cell. You can watch it here.
  • Meanwhile at Counterpunch, James Ridgeway traces the FBI’s stonewalling of the joint House/Senate intelligence inquiry all the way to the White House and makes the case that the failure to cooperate with the inquiry may well amount to obstruction of justice by George Bush, Dick Cheney and FBI Director Robert Mueller: Finally in his book, Graham describes a letter from a member of the FBI’s congressional staff explaining the Bureau had been uncooperative on orders of the administration.  “We were seeing in writing what we had suspected for some time. The White House was directing the coverup.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • “Later, when the 911 Commission conducted its own investigation, both Bush and Cheney met with them in a private, off-the-record conversation.” This story and the new piece by Wright strongly suggest the President, Vice President and head of the FBI were engaged in obstruction of justice. If so, that would call for the convening of a federal grand jury. Would the Justice Department, which runs the FBI, do that? Probably not.
3More

The Liberal Apologies for Obama's Ugly Reign » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts,... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...pologies-for-obamas-ugly-reign Auction 2016 Obaba-apologists Hillary Progressives banksters
shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • My favorite story indicating the depth and degree of Obama’s loyalty to the wealthy Few comes from the spring of 2009. In his important book Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President (2011), the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind tells a remarkable story from March of 2009. Three months into Barack Obama’s supposedly progressive, left-leaning presidency, popular anger at Wall Street was intense and the nation’s leading financial institutions were weak and on the defensive in the wake of the financial collapse and recession they had created. The new president called a meeting of the nation’s top 13 financial executives at the White House. The banking titans came into the meeting full of dread. As Suskind noted: “They were the CEOs of the thirteen largest banking institutions in the United States… And they were nervous in ways that these men are never nervous. Many would have had to reach back to their college days, or even grade school, to remember a moment when they felt this sort of lump-in-the-throat tension…As some of the most successful men in the country, they weren’t used to being pariahs… [and] they were indeed pariahs. The populist backlash against the financial sector—building steadily since September—was finally beginning to cause grave discomfort on Wall Street. As unemployment ballooned and credit tightened, the country began to look inward, toward the origins of the panic and its disastrous consequences.”
  • In the end, however, the anxious captains of high finance left the meeting pleased to learn that Obama was totally in their camp. For instead of standing up for those who had been harmed most by the crisis—workers, minorities, and the poor – Obama sided unequivocally with those who had caused the meltdown. “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” Obama said. “You guys have an acute public relations problem that’s turning into a political problem. And I want to help…I’m not here to go after you. I’m protecting you…. I’m going to shield you from congressional and public anger.” For the banking elite who destroyed millions of jobs in their lust for profit, there was, as Suskind puts it, “Nothing to worry about. Whereas [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt had [during the Great Depression] pushed for tough, viciously opposed reforms of Wall Street and famously said ‘I welcome their hate,’ Obama was saying ‘How can I help?’” As one leading banker told Suskind, “The sense of everyone after the meeting was relief. The president had us at a moment of real vulnerability. At that point, he could have ordered us to do just about anything and we would have rolled over. But he didn’t – he mostly wanted to help us out, to quell the mob.” When “the bankers arrived in the State Dining Room,” Suskind notes, “Obama had them scared and ready to do almost anything he said…. An hour later, they were upbeat, ready to fly home and commence business as usual” (Confidence Men).
  • This remarkable episode happened in the White House in a time when, to repeat, the Democrats held the majority in both houses of Congress along with an angry populace ready with good reason for Wall Street and 1% blood. And what did the populace get from this seemingly progressive alignment of the stars? The venerable left liberal journalist William Grieder put it very well in a March 2009 Washington Post Op-Ed: “a blunt lesson about power, who has it and who doesn’t.” Americans “watched Washington rush to rescue the very financial interests that caused the catastrophe. They learned that government has plenty of money to spend when the right people want it. ‘Where’s my bailout,’ became the rueful punch line at lunch counters and construction sites nationwide. Then to deepen the insult, people watched as establishment forces re-launched their campaign for ‘entitlement reform’ – a euphemism for whacking Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid.”
1More

Repo, Baby, Repo » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 1 views

www.counterpunch.org/...repo-baby-repo financial-collapse banksters repo-market federal-reserve
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Subprime mortgages did not cause the financial crisis, nor did the housing bubble or Lehman Brothers. The financial crisis originated in a corner of the shadow banking system called the repo market. That’s where the bank run occurred that froze the secondary market, sent prices on mortgage-backed assets plunging, and pushed the financial system into a death spiral. In the Great Crash of 2008, repo was ground zero, the epicenter of the global catastrophe. As analyst David Weidner noted in the Wall Street Journal, “The repo market wasn’t just a part of the meltdown. It was the meltdown.” Regrettably, the Federal Reserve’s nontraditional monetary policies (ZIRP and QE) have succeeded in restoring the repo market to it’s precrisis level of activity, but without implementing any of the changes that would have made the system safer. Repo is as vulnerable and crisis-prone today as it was when the French bank PNB Paribas stopped redemptions in its off-balance sheet operations in 2007 kicking off the tumultuous bank run that would eventually implode the entire system and push the economy into the deepest slump since the Great Depression. By failing to rein in repo, the Fed has ensured that financial crises will be a regular feature in the future occurring every 15 or 20 years as was the case before banks were more strictly regulated and government backstops were put in place. Repo returns us to Wild West “anything goes” banking.
5More

The Dynastic Hillary Bandwagon » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...the-dynastic-hillary-bandwagon Auction 2016 Hillary Nader Soros Obama nepotism dynasties
shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • by RALPH NADER The Hillary Clinton for President in 2016 bandwagon has started very early and with a purpose. The idea is to get large numbers of endorsers, so that no Democratic Primary competitors dare make a move. These supporters include Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), financier George Soros and Ready for Hillary, a super PAC mobilizing with great specificity (already in Iowa). Given this early bird launch, it is important to raise the pressing question: Does the future of our country benefit from Hillary, another Clinton, another politician almost indistinguishable from Barack Obama’s militaristic, corporatist policies garnished by big money donors from Wall Street and other plutocratic canyons? There is no doubt the Clintons are syrupy political charmers, beguiling many naïve Democrats who have long been vulnerable to a practiced set of comforting words or phrases camouflaging contrary deeds.
  • Many Wall Streeters like Hillary Clinton. Expecting their ample contributions, and socializing with their business barons, it is not surprising that Hillary Clinton avoids going after the crooked casino capitalism that collapsed the economy, drained investors, pensions, jobs and taxpayer bailouts. Hillary Clinton is a far cry from the stalwart Senator Elizabeth Warren on this towering pattern of unaccountable corporate abuse.
  • A Clinton Coronation two years or more before the 2016 elections will stifle any broader choice of competitive primary candidates and more important a more progressive agenda supported by a majority of the American people.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Maybe the sugarcoating is starting to wear. Columnist Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times (Hillary in 2016? Not so Fast), reports her polls are starting to slump. Apparently, as Bruni suggests, she’s being seen as part of the old Washington crowd that voters are souring on. As I wrote to Hillary Clinton in early summer 2008, when calls were made by Obama partisans for her to drop out, no one should be told not to run. That’s everyone’s First Amendment right. However, not voting for her is the prudent decision.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 13
     
    Nice rundown by Ralph Nader of Hillary Clinton's many sins against the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party base. On the Clinton dynasty issue, Nader might have noted that daughter Chelsea married a former Goldman Sachs bankster in 2010, now a partner in a hedge fund. Chelsea for President in Auction 2020?
7More

Is Bank of America Headed for the Glue Factory? » Counterpunch: Tells the Fac... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...ca-headed-for-the-glue-factory Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Bank-of-America FDIC banksters
shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • The GAO detailed instance after instance of top executives of corporations and financial institutions using their influence as Federal Reserve directors to financially benefit their firms, and, in at least one instance, themselves….
  • The corporate affiliations of Fed directors from such banking and industry giants as General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers pose ‘reputational risks’ to the Federal Reserve System, the report said. Giving the banking industry the power to both elect and serve as Fed directors creates ‘an appearance of a conflict of interest,’ the report added….
  • ‘If we [i.e. the World Bank] had seen a governance structure that corresponds to our Federal Reserve system, we would have been yelling and screaming and saying that country does not deserve any assistance, this is a corrupt governing structure.’” (“Non-Partisan Government Report: Federal Reserve Is Riddled with Corruption and Conflicts of Interest,” Washington’s Blog)
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • this move amounts to a direct transfer from derivatives counterparties of Merrill to the taxpayer, via the FDIC, which would have to make depositors whole after derivatives counterparties grabbed collateral.
  • This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors. No Congressman would dare vote against that. This move is Machiavellian, and just plain evil.” (Naked Capitalism)
  • Let’s say the second biggest bank in the country is starting to teeter because it’s loaded with all manner of dodgy (toxic?) derivatives that could blow up at any minute and take down the entire global financial system. Would you (a) Wait until the bombshell exploded knowing that the only choice you would then have would be to further expand the Fed’s balance sheet by another couple trillion dollars or (b) Try to sleaze the whole thing off on Uncle Sam and let the taxpayers pick up the tab?
  • Gary Edwards on 22 Oct 11
     
    Nice catch by Marbux.  A Bloomberg article explains how Bank of America is moving high risk derivatives into the coffers of a federally insured subsidiary.  Meaning, when (not if) the derivatives fail, the tax payers will get stuck with covering the losses and making the Banksters whole. The article also explains the recent GAO audit of the Federal Reserve where it was disclosed that through interlocking directories and shareholdings, the Bankster industry is in control of the Federal Reserve.  Awful, sickening stuff.  But a good catch nevertheless. excerpt: There are two things worth noting in this article. First, according to Bloomberg, "the transfers (of derivatives) are being requested by counterparties." Well, how do you like that? In other words, the investors on the other side of these contracts want Merrill to put them under an insurance umbrella provided by the FDIC. Now, why would that be? The only reason I can come up with, is that they know that a lot of these complex instruments are undercapitalized and ready to implode, so they want to make sure they get their money back any way possible. That means they need to latch on to Uncle Sam without anyone knowing about it. But, like we said, the cat is out of the bag. The other thing worth noting is that the Fed and the FDIC are at loggerheads over the matter. ("The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting.") Now, that's not good at all, in fact, it's a big red flag that suggests the Fed trying to pull a fast one on the American people. One does not have to look too far for other examples of Fed misbehavior; the endless bailouts (TARP, QE1 and 2, Operation Twist, ZIRP, etc) In fact, the Fed's history is a tedious chronicle of one shifty deal after another. This is just more of the same; another gift to big finance at the public'
2More

European Central Bank Goes Sub Zero » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names th... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...ean-central-bank-goes-sub-zero economy Europe central-banks interest-rates
shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • On Thursday, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi dropped rates on overnight deposits to minus 0.1% thereby charging commercial banks to keep their money at the ECB. The move, which was applauded by the media as a “historic measure to fight deflation”, is nothing of the kind. Negative rates have been used in both Sweden and Denmark in recent years, but to little effect. The policy will not “get the banks lending again” as the ECB suggests, nor will it ease the high unemployment and slow growth that have plagued the Eurozone for the last six years. In truth, the rate change will have no impact at all. It’s merely public relations stunt designed to create the impression that the ECB is aggressively addressing the crisis for which it is largely responsible. Here’s how the World Socialist Web Site summed it up: “The move is an expression of the fact that, nearly six years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the world economy remains mired in deep crisis, for which the world’s central banks have no solution outside of pumping trillions into banks and financial firms. While trillions are handed out to the banks, workers throughout the continent are told that there is “no money” to pay for pensions, social programs, and healthcare benefits.” (European Central Bank cuts interest rate below zero, World Socialist Web Site)
  • Stock traders loved the news that the ECB was going “sub zero”. As we’ve seen before, any indication that the easy money regime is here-to-stay is enough to send equities skyrocketing, which it did. All the main indices notched substantial gains on the day while the SandP 500 surged to a new record of 1,940. The idea that charging the banks a small fee on overnight deposits will induce them to lend more freely, demonstrates a laughable misunderstanding of how the system really works.
2More

The Economic Scam of the Century » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the N... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...e-economic-scam-of-the-century banksters bail-outs legislation
shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The leaders of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee,  Sen. Tim Johnson (D., S.D.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho),  released a draft bill on Sunday that would provide explicit government guarantees on mortgage-backed securities (MBS) generated by privately-owned banks and financial institutions. The gigantic giveaway to Wall Street would put US taxpayers on the hook for 90 percent of the losses on toxic MBS the likes of which crashed the financial system in 2008 plunging the economy into the deepest slump since the Great Depression. Proponents of the bill say that new rules by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) –which set standards for a “qualified mortgage” (QM)– assure that borrowers will be able to repay their loans thus reducing the chances of a similar meltdown in the future. However, those QE rules were largely shaped by lobbyists and attorneys from the banking industry who eviscerated strict underwriting requirements– like high FICO scores and 20 percent down payments– in order to lend freely to borrowers who may be less able to repay their loans.  Additionally, a particularly lethal clause has been inserted into the bill that would provide blanket coverage for all MBS  (whether they met the CFPB’s QE standard or not) in the event of another financial crisis. Here’s the paragraph:
  • “Sec.305. Authority to protect taxpayers in unusual and exigent market conditions…. If the Corporation, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, determine that unusual and exigent circumstances threaten mortgage credit availability within the U.S. housing market, FMIC may provide insurance on covered securities that do not meet the requirements under section 302 including those for first loss position of private market holders.” (“Freddie And Fannie Reform – The Monster Has Arrived”, Zero Hedge) In other words, if the bill passes,  US taxpayers will be responsible for any and all bailouts deemed necessary by the regulators mentioned above.  And, since all of those regulators are in Wall Street’s hip-pocket, there’s no question what they’ll do when the time comes. They’ll bailout they’re fatcat buddies and dump the losses on John Q. Public. If you can’t believe what you are reading or if you think that the system is so thoroughly corrupt it can’t be fixed; you’re not alone. This latest outrage just confirms that the Congress, the executive and all the chief regulators are mere marionettes performing whatever task is asked of them by their Wall Street paymasters.
2More

Wanted! Obama » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...cyberwarfare-in-high-gear surveillance state Obama China U.S.-foreign-policy cyberwar
shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 14 - No Cached
  • It is as though Edward Snowden’s disclosures had never been made, or the US practices in themselves perpetrated. Yet AG Holder with all the majesty of office declares China engaged in criminal economic espionage against America, even DOJ issuing “wanted” posters, pictures and names, of five army officers to stand trial in Pennsylvania for cyberattacks on US corporations and the Steelworkers’ Union. More like it would be, the International Criminal Court issuing an Obama “wanted” poster for war crimes that include intervention, regime change, and assassination, and the World Trade Organization (if it were not dominated already by the US) for the exact kind of espionage Holder charges against China. If we are to be symmetrical, how about a Beijing court issuing subpoenas, accompanied by “wanted” posters for five members of OTNS (Obama Team National Security), say, Clapper, Rice, Comey, Brennan, and Dempsey? The chance of US honoring the request for the extradition of its five, is about as slim as China honoring the request for extraditing, though at a lower functional level in policy making and execution, its five—perhaps selected at random, unless the US has hacked into the computers of, or placed informants in (or both)–the People’s Liberation Army (PLA Unit61398).
  • Paul Merrell on 23 May 14
     
    Interesting essay on the foolishness of the Obama Administrations criminal charges against five Chinese generals for cyber-espionage. 
4More

Risky Business » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...risky-business-2 banksters FHFA mortgages Fannie Freddie
shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Last week, the country’s biggest mortgage lenders scored a couple of key victories that will allow them to ease lending standards, crank out more toxic assets, and inflate another housing bubble.  Here’s what’s going on. On Monday,  the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Mel Watt, announced that Fannie and Freddie would slash the minimum down-payment requirement on mortgages from 5 percent to 3 percent while making loans more available to people with spotty credit. If this all sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. It was less than 7 years ago that shoddy lending practices blew up the financial system precipitating the deepest slump since the Great Depression. Now Watt wants to repeat that catastrophe by pumping up another credit bubble.
  • Here’s the story from the Washington Post: “When it comes to taking out a mortgage, two factors can stand in the way: the price of the mortgage,…and the borrower’s credit profile.” On Monday, the head of the agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac outlined … how he plans to make it easier for borrowers on both fronts. Mel Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, did not give exact timing on the initiatives. But most of them are designed to encourage the industry to extend mortgages to a broader swath of borrowers.
  • Here’s what Watt said about his plans in a speech at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention in Las Vegas: Saving enough money for a downpayment is often cited as the toughest hurdle for first-time buyers in particular. Watt said that Fannie and Freddie are working to develop “sensible and responsible” guidelines that will allow them to buy mortgages with down payments as low as 3 percent, instead of the 5 percent minimum that both institutions currently require.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • It might be worth noting at this point that Watt’s political history casts doubt on his real objectives.   According to Open Secrets, among the Top 20 contributors to Watt’s 2009-2010 campaign were Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup Inc., Bank of New York Mellon, American bankers Association, US Bancorp, and The National Association of Realtors. (“Top 20 Contributors, 2009-2010“, Open Secrets)
8More

Obama's "Catastrophic Defeat" in Ukraine » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Nam... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...catastrophic-defeat-in-ukraine war & peace Ukraine Novorussia Obama propaganda lies
shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • “We are currently witnessing an epic and historic event. The Ukrainian regular army and the punitive battalions are suffering a catastrophic defeat to the south of Donetsk…..It still is not quite clear how the Junta intends to avoid a complete defeat here…. By squandering the most combat-capable brigades in systematic offensive operations, the Junta sustained enormous losses and at the same time suffered a crushing, purely military defeat. The southern front has collapsed.” – The Southern Front Catastrophe – August 27, 2014″, Colonel Cassad, Military Briefing, Novorossiya, Ukraine “The reports out of Novorussia (New Russia) are nothing short of incredible… sources are reporting that Novorussian forces have bypassed Mariupol from the north and have entered the Zaporozhie region!” – News from the Front, Vineyard of the Saker Barack Obama has pushed Ukraine to the brink of political, economic and social collapse. Now he wants to blame Russia for the damage he’s done. It’s absurd. Moscow is in no way responsible for Ukraine’s descent into anarchy. That’s all Washington’s doing, just as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria were Washington’s doing. If you want to blame someone, blame Obama.
  • “We are currently witnessing an epic and historic event. The Ukrainian regular army and the punitive battalions are suffering a catastrophic defeat to the south of Donetsk…..It still is not quite clear how the Junta intends to avoid a complete defeat here…. By squandering the most combat-capable brigades in systematic offensive operations, the Junta sustained enormous losses and at the same time suffered a crushing, purely military defeat. The southern front has collapsed.” – The Southern Front Catastrophe – August 27, 2014″, Colonel Cassad, Military Briefing, Novorossiya, Ukraine “The reports out of Novorussia (New Russia) are nothing short of incredible… sources are reporting that Novorussian forces have bypassed Mariupol from the north and have entered the Zaporozhie region!” – News from the Front, Vineyard of the Saker Barack Obama has pushed Ukraine to the brink of political, economic and social collapse. Now he wants to blame Russia for the damage he’s done. It’s absurd. Moscow is in no way responsible for Ukraine’s descent into anarchy. That’s all Washington’s doing, just as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria were Washington’s doing. If you want to blame someone, blame Obama.
  • Ukraine’s troubles began when the US State Department toppled the elected president in February and replaced him with a compliant stooge who agreed to follow Washington’s directives. The new “junta” government quickly launched a full-blown war against Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east which split the civilian population and drove the country to ruin. The plan “pacify” the East was concocted in Washington, not Kiev and certainly not Moscow.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Donetsk and Lugansk have formed militias and taken the war to the enemy. They’ve engaged Obama’s proxy-army on the battlefield and pounded it into mincemeat. That’s why Obama deployed his propagandists to lie about the fictitious “Russian invasion”. The administration needs a diversion because the Novorussia forces (aka-the “pro Russia separatists”) are kicking the holy crap out of Obama’s legions. That’s why Washington and Kiev are in full panic-mode, because none of this was supposed to happen. Obama figured the army would put down the insurrection, crush the resistance, and move him one step closer to his goal of establishing NATO bases and missile defense systems on Russia’s western flank. Well, guess what? It’s not playing out that way and it probably never will. The Novorussia fighters are too tough, too smart and too motivated to be one-upped by Obama’s feckless troopers. (Check out this short video and you’ll see why the rebels are winning: Vineyard of the Saker)
  • Putin hasn’t sent tanks and artillery into Ukraine. He doesn’t need to. The militias are loaded with battle-hardened veterans who know how to fight and who are quite good at it. Just ask Poroshenko whose army has been taking it in the shorts for the last couple of weeks. Check out this blurb in Thursday’s Itar Tass: “Over the week of August 16-23, the self-defense fighters of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics seized 14 T-64 tanks, 25 infantry fighting vehicles, 18 armored personnel carriers, one armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicle, one Uragan multiple launch rocket system, two Gvozdika self-propelled artillery guns, four D-30 howitzers, four mortars, one ZU-23-2 air defense system and 33 vehicles.” (East Ukraine militias seize large amount of Ukrainian armor, Itar Tass) Get the picture? The Ukrainian army is getting beaten to a pulp, which means that Obama’s glorious “pivot strategy” just slammed into a brick wall.
  • Bottom line: Russia has not invaded Ukraine. The propagandists in the media are just trying to hide the fact that the Novorussia Army Forces (NAF; aka-the pro Russia separatists) are kicking ass and taking names. That’s what’s really going on. That’s why Obama and his gaggle of miscreant neocons are in a furor. It’s because they don’t know what to do next, so they’ve returned to their default position on every issue; lie like hell until they settle on a plan.
  • So, who do you believe; Kerry or the facts? And who are you going to believe this time; “Aluminum tubes” Gordie or Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitor Andrey Kelin who said yesterday: “We have said that no Russian involvement has been spotted, there are no soldiers or equipment present.” “Accusations relating to convoys of armored personnel carriers have been heard during the past week and the week before that. All of them were proven false back then, and are being proven false again now.” (RT) Repeat: “No Russian involvement”. All the accusations “were proven false.” “False” as in fake, phony, propaganda, bunkum, lies which, by the way, appears to be Gordon’s area of expertise.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 14
     
    Don't miss the video at http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/08/watershed-press-conference-by-top.html It's a press conference by Alexander V. Zakharchenko, Chairman of The Council of Ministers of The Donetsk National Republic, describing the rout of coup government forces and the reconstitution of the Novorussia militias into a national army. Russian with English subtitle translation.  According to him the DNR army has killed thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, but the coup government is notifying family members that they are "missing in action," even when the DNR transfers the bodies to Ukraine. He also describes encountering coup government soldiers wearing the insignia of the Galacia SS Division, a Ukraine collaborators' division of the Nazi World War II Waffen SS. (The coup government includes in its leadership neo-Nazis, and neo-Nazi militias are fighting on the side of the coup government.)  
2More

Obama Declares War on Syria » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...obama-declares-war-on-syria war & peace Syria ISIL Obama saber-rattling
shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Invoking the same ominous language as his predecessor, Barack Obama used a prime time presidential address on Wednesday to announce the beginning of a war on Syria. And while there’s no doubt that many Americans will be confused by Obama’s misleading focus on the terrorist organization named ISIL, the real purpose of the speech was to garner support for another decade of homicidal conflicts in the Middle East. The administration is as determined as ever to plunge the region into chaos, erase existing borders, and install its puppets wherever it can.  ISIL–which is mainly an invention of western Intel agencies and their treacherous counterparts in the Gulf– conveniently creates the justification for another bloody invasion followed by years of occupation, subjugation, and revolt.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 14
     
    Mike Whitney dissects Obama's speech declaring war on ISIL and Syria in detail.  
6More

40 Years of Economic Policy in One Chart » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Nam... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...f-economic-policy-in-one-chart economy class warfare productivity income wealth-transfer
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Growth of Real Hourly Compensation for Production/Nonsupervisory Workers and Productivity, 1948–2011
  • Is America in the throes of a class war? Look at the chart and decide for yourself. It’s all there in black and white, and you don’t need to be an economist to figure it out. But, please, take some time to study the chart, because there’s more here than meets the eye. This isn’t just about productivity and compensation. It’s a history lesson too. It pinpoints the precise moment in time when the country lost its way and began its agonizing descent into Police State USA. That’s what it really means.
  • Did you know that inequality has actually gotten worse under Obama? Much worse. It’s true. He might proclaim his determination to “tax millionaires” in one of his blustery orations, but it’s all just rhetorical fakery. The fact is, the 1 percenters have done better under Obama than they did under Bush. Check this out from Naked Capitalism:
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Are we there yet? Pretty close, I’d say. The only way to preserve democracy is by keeping one hand firmly clasped around the windpipe of every rich bastard in the country. If you can’t keep your tycoons in check, you’d might as well throw in the towel and accept a life of indentured servitude now, because that’s where you’re headed anyway. Here’s a short rundown of the changes that took place in the ’70s by economist Lawrence Mishel:
  • Yup, under Bush, the 1% captured a disproportionate share of the income gains from the Bush boom of 2002-2007. They got 65 cents of every dollar created in that boom, up 20 cents from when Clinton was President. Under Obama, the 1% got 93 cents of every dollar created in that boom. That’s not only more than under Bush, up 28 cents. In the transition from Bush to Obama, inequality got worse, faster, than under the transition from Clinton to Bush. Obama accelerated the growth of inequality.” (Growth of Income Inequality Is Worse Under Obama than Bush, Matt Stoller, Naked Capitalism) 93 cents of every buck has gone to the 1 percenters under Obama. And you wonder why Wall Street loves this guy? It’s because he’s bent over backwards to make them richer, that’s why.
  • But as bad as Obama may be, the problem didn’t start with him. It goes back decades as the first chart indicates.
1More

Pushing Ukraine to the Brink » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...pushing-ukraine-to-the-brink war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Ukraine Afghanistan Iraq pipelinestan must-read
shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • What does a pipeline in Afghanistan have to do with the crisis in Ukraine? Everything. It reveals the commercial interests that drive US policy. Just as the War in Afghanistan was largely fought to facilitate the transfer of natural gas from Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea, so too, Washington engineered the bloody coup in Kiev to cut off energy supplies from Russia to Europe to facilitate the US pivot to Asia. This is why policymakers in Washington are reasonably satisfied with the outcome of the war in Afghanistan despite the fact that none of the stated goals were achieved. Afghanistan is not a functioning democracy with a strong central government, drug trafficking has not been eradicated, women haven’t been liberated, and the infrastructure and school systems are worse than they were before the war. By every objective standard the war was a failure. But, of course, the stated goals were just public relations blather anyway. They don’t mean anything. What matters is gas, namely the vast untapped reserves in Turkmenistan that could be extracted by privately-owned US corporations who would use their authority to control the growth of US competitors or would-be rivals like China. That’s what the war was all about. The gas is going to be transported via a pipeline from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the Arabian sea, eschewing Russian and Iranian territory. The completion of the so called TAPI pipeline will undermine the development of an Iranian pipeline, thus sabotaging the efforts of a US adversary.
2More

The Unanswered Questions of MH17 » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the N... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...e-unanswered-questions-of-mh17 war & peace Ukraine U.S.-foreign-policy MH17-debunking Kerry lies
shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • So why hasn’t Washington been more forthcoming with the information they have? Why are they basing their judgment on the nonsense they’ve gleaned from social media and Twitter feeds instead of spy-in-the-sky photos and satellite imagery? Why are they dragging their feet and obstructing the investigation? And why, for God sakes, why has Europe agreed to go along with this charade when they know there’s not a scintilla of evidence linking Russia to the downed plane?
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 14
     
    Mike Whitney does a quite thorough job of debunking what John Kerry and other U.S. "diplomats" have been saying about Malaysia Air's flight MH17. 
5More

The Absolution of Jamie Dimon » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...the-absolution-of-jamie-dimon banksters JPMorgan fraud litigation
shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Here are some of the good things JPMorgan has done in recent years.  In 2012 it reduced the compensation of Jamie Dimon, its chairman, president and CEO from $23 million to $11.5 million. That was his punishment for all the bad things the bank acknowledged that it had been doing while under his supervision. The bank acknowledged its sins by paying almost $20 billion in fines and penalties. Included in the $20 billion was $13 billion it agreed to pay in November 2013 that was described in the Wall Street Journal as “the biggest combination of fines and damages extracted by the U.S. government in a civil settlement with any single company.” For a bank the size of JPMorgan to pay $20 billion in fines as penance is a bit like the parishioner entering the confessional and seeking forgiveness from the supervisor of the man on the other side of the partition.  It has no effect on his future conduct. Nonetheless, paying the fines was a good thing since each fine was an act of contrition and those acts are always welcomed by those sitting in judgment on bad actors.   Here, however, are two bad things JPMorgan has been doing since leaving the federal government’s confessional at the end of 2013.
  • t increased Mr. Dimon’s compensation package by 74%, raising it to $20 million as a result of which Jamie’s compensation went from $31,506.84 per day to $54,794.52 per day. Since much of that is in restricted stock he cannot run out and spend it all.  Here is why that was a bad thing for the bank to have done.  It turns out that notwithstanding the $20 billion in penance paid, JPMorgan had discovered yet another way to make money at the expense of its customers.  It did this by ignoring part of the bankruptcy laws.
  • The bankruptcy law notwithstanding, some do.  Jamie Dimon’s bank is one of them. Just as it bundled subprime mortgages it had issued and sold them to investors at great profit to itself, according to a report in the New York Times, JPMorgan and other banks have been selling debts discharged in bankruptcy to outside investors.  Instead of showing that the debt of an individual to the bank has been discharged and is no longer collectible, the bank continues to described the debt as unpaid and that is how it appears on the borrower’s credit report.  If the borrower tries to get credit following a bankruptcy and the credit report does not disclose that the debt cannot be collected, a discharged debtor may be unable to get a new loan or a job or be otherwise adversely affected.  The bank, of course, makes money by selling the discharged debt to investors who are willing to take the chance that the debtor will continue to pay on the debt in order to get it removed from the credit report.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Judge Robert D. Drain, a bankruptcy judge sitting in White Plains, New York, has confronted the issue of discharged debts being sold to investors by banks.  He observed that the buyers of those debts know that a bank “will refuse to correct the credit report to reflect the obligor’s bankruptcy discharge, which means that the debtor will feel significant added pressure to obtain a ‘clean’ report by paying the debt.” In refusing to throw out a lawsuit that has been filed in which the plaintiffs are seeking class action status for their claims against JPMorgan he observed that “the complaint sets forth a cause of action that Chase is using the inaccuracy of its credit reporting on a systematic basis to further its business of selling debts and its buyer’s collection of such debt.”
  • A U.S. Senate report released November 19, 2014, was highly critical of JPMorgan and other banks for, among other things, exceeding federal limits on commodity holdings.  Whether the activities described in the report will result in JPMorgan or any of the other banks paying a fine or Jamie Dimon suffering a salary reduction only time will tell. One thing we know without waiting for events to unfold.  JPMorgan stock is a good investment. The bank is always looking for creative ways to make money.
8More

Exit South Stream, enter Turk Stream - RT Op-Edge - 0 views

rt.com/...turkey-russia-east-pipeline-eu war & peace Pipelinestan Russia Turkey EU energy
shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • So the EU “defeated” Putin by forcing him to cancel the South Stream pipeline. Thus ruled Western corporate media. Nonsense. Facts on the ground spell otherwise. This “Pipelineistan” gambit will continue to send massive geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia for quite some time. In a nutshell, a few years ago Russia devised Nord Stream – fully operational – and South Stream – still a project – to bypass unreliable Ukraine as a gas transit nation. Now Russia devised a new deal with Turkey to bypass the “non-constructive” (Putin’s words) approach of the European Commission (EC). Background is essential to understand the current game. Five years ago I was following in detail Pipelineistan’s ultimate opera – the war between rival pipelines South Stream and Nabucco. Nabucco eventually became road kill. South Stream may eventually resurrect, but only if the EC comes to its senses (don’t bet on it.)
  • The 3,600 kilometer long South Stream should be in place by 2016, branching out to Austria and the Balkans/Italy. Gazprom owns 50 percent of it - along with Italy’s ENI (20 percent), French EDF (15 percent) and German Wintershall, a subsidiary of BASF (15 percent). As it stands these European energy majors are not exactly beaming – to say the least. For months Gazprom and the EC were haggling about a solution. But in the end Brussels predictably succumbed to its own. Russia still gets to build a pipeline under the Black Sea – but now redirected to Turkey and, crucially, pumping the same amount of gas South Stream would. Not to mention Russia gets to build a new LNG (liquefied natural gas) central hub in the Mediterranean. Thus Gazprom has not spent $5 billion in vain (finance, engineering costs). The redirection makes total business sense. Turkey is Gazprom’s second biggest customer after Germany. And much bigger than Bulgaria, Hungary, and Austria combined. Russia also advances a unified gas distribution network capable of delivering natural gas from anywhere in Russia to any hub alongside Russia’s borders.
  • And as if it was needed, Russia gets yet another graphic proof that its real growth market in the future is Asia, especially China – not a fearful, stagnated, austerity-devastated, politically paralyzed EU. The evolving Russia-China strategic partnership implies Russia as complementary to China, excelling in major infrastructure projects from building dams to laying out pipelines. This is business with a sharp geopolitical reach – not ideology-drenched politics.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Turkey also made a killing. It’s not only the deal with Gazprom; Moscow will build no less than Turkey’s entire nuclear industry, apart from increased soft power interaction (more trade and tourism). Most of all, Turkey is now increasingly on the verge of becoming a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); Moscow is actively lobbying for it. This means Turkey acceding to a privileged position as a major hub simultaneously in the Eurasian Economic Belt and of course the Chinese New Silk Road(s). The EU blocks Turkey? Turkey looks east. That’s Eurasian integration on the move. Washington has tried very hard to create a New Berlin Wall from the Baltics to the Black Sea to “isolate” Russia. Now comes yet another Putin judo/chess/go counterpunch – which the opponent never saw coming. And exactly across the Black Sea. A key Turkish strategic imperative is to configure itself as the indispensable energy crossroads from East to West – transiting everything from Iraqi oil to Caspian Sea gas. Oil from Azerbaijan already transits Turkey via the Bill Clinton/Zbig Brzezinski-propelled BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan) pipeline. Turkey would also be the crossroads if a Trans-Caspian pipeline is ever built (slim chances as it stands), pumping natural gas from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, then transported to Turkey and finally Europe.
  • So what Putin’s judo/chess/go counterpunch accomplished with a single move is to have stupid EU sanctions once again hurt the EU. The German economy is already hurting badly because of lost Russia business. The EC brilliant “strategy” revolves around the EU’s so-called Third Energy Package, which requires that pipelines and the natural gas flowing inside them must be owned by separate companies. The target of this package has always been Gazprom – which owns pipelines in many Central and Eastern European nations. And the target within the target has always been South Stream.
  • Now it’s up to Bulgaria and Hungary – which, by the way, have always fought the EC “strategy” – to explain the fiasco to their own populations, and to keep pressing Brussels; after all they are bound to lose a fortune, not to mention get no gas, with South Stream out of the picture. So here’s the bottom line; Russia sells even more gas – to Turkey; and the EU, pressured by the US, is reduced to dancing like a bunch of headless chickens in dark Brussels corridors wondering what hit them. The Atlanticists are back to default mode – cooking up yet more sanctions while Russia is set to keep buying more and more gold.
  • This is not the endgame – far from it. In the near future, many variables will intersect. Ankara’s game may change – but that’s far from a given. President Erdogan – the Sultan of Constantinople – has certainly identified a rival Caliph, Ibrahim of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh fame, trying to steal his mojo. Thus the Sultan may flirt with mollifying his neo-Ottoman dreams and steer Turkey back to its previously ditched “zero problems with our neighbors” foreign policy doctrine. The House of Saud is like a camel in the Arctic. The House of Saud’s lethal game in Syria always boiled down to regime change so a Saudi-sponsored oil pipeline from Syria to Turkey might be built – dethroning the proposed, $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria “Islamic” pipeline. Now the Saudis see Russia about to supply all of Turkey’s energy needs – and then some. And “Assad must go” still won’t go.
  • US neo-cons are also sharpening their spears. As soon as early 2015 there may be a Ukrainian Freedom Act approved by the US Congress. Translation: Ukraine as a “major US non-NATO ally” which means, in practice, a NATO annexation. Next step; more turbo-charged neo-con provocation of Russia. A possible scenario is vassal/puppies such as Romania or Bulgaria – pressed by Washington – deciding to allow full access for NATO vessels into the Black Sea. Who cares this would violate the current Black Sea agreements that affect both Russia and Turkey? And then there’s a Rumsfeldian “known unknown”; how the weak Balkans will feel subordinated to the whims of Ankara. As much as Brussels keeps Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia in a strait jacket, in energy terms they will start depending on Turkey’s goodwill. For the moment, let’s appreciate the magnitude of the geopolitical shockwaves. There will be more, when we least expect them.
12More

Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador - 1 views

www.counterpunch.org/...m-russia-to-iceland-to-ecuador Banksters
shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself. Among other interesting news items: * In Russia, vulnerability to Western sanctions has led to proposals for a banking system that is not only independent of the West but is based on different design principles. * In Iceland, the booms and busts culminating in the banking crisis of 2008-09 have prompted lawmakers to consider a plan to remove the power to create money from private banks. * In Ireland, Iceland and the UK, a recession-induced shortage of local credit has prompted proposals for a system of public interest banks on the model of the Sparkassen of Germany. * In Ecuador, the central bank is responding to a shortage of US dollars (the official Ecuadorian currency) by issuing digital dollars through accounts to which everyone has access, effectively making it a bank of the people.
  • A major concern with stripping private banks of the power to create money as deposits when they make loans is that it will seriously reduce the availability of credit in an already sluggish economy. One solution is to make the banks, or some of them, public institutions. They would still be creating money when they made loans, but it would be as agents of the government; and the profits would be available for public use, on the model of the US Bank of North Dakota and the German Sparkassen (public savings banks). In Ireland, three political parties – Sinn Fein, the Green Party and Renua Ireland (a new party) — are now supporting initiatives for a network of local publicly-owned banks on the Sparkassen model. In the UK, the New Economy Foundation (NEF) is proposing that the failed Royal Bank of Scotland be transformed into a network of public interest banks on that model. And in Iceland, public banking is part of the platform of a new political party called the Dawn Party.
  • Particularly interesting is a proposal to provide targeted lending for businesses and industries by providing them with low-interest loans at 1-4 percent, financed through the central bank with quantitative easing (digital money creation). The proposal is to issue 20 trillion rubles for this purpose over a five year period. Using quantitative easing for economic development mirrors the proposal of UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbin for “quantitative easing for people.”
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • William Engdahl concludes that Russia is in “a fascinating process of rethinking every aspect of her national economic survival because of the reality of the western attacks,” one that “could produce a very healthy transformation away from the deadly defects” of the current banking model.
  • Iceland’s Radical Money Plan Iceland, too, is looking at a radical transformation of its money system, after suffering the crushing boom/bust cycle of the private banking model that bankrupted its largest banks in 2008. According to a March 2015 article in the UK Telegraph: Iceland’s government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank. The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled “A better monetary system for Iceland”.
  • Under this “Sovereign Money” proposal, the country’s central bank would become the only creator of money. Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments and would serve as intermediaries between savers and lenders. The proposal is a variant of the Chicago Plan promoted by Kumhof and Benes of the IMF and the Positive Money group in the UK.
  • Ever since 2000, when Ecuador agreed to use the US dollar as its official legal tender, it has had to ship boatloads of paper dollars into the country just to conduct trade. In order to “seek efficiency in payment systems [and] to promote and contribute to the economic stability of the country,” the government of President Rafael Correa has therefore established the world’s first national digitally-issued currency.
  • Unlike Bitcoin and similar private crypto-currencies (which have been outlawed in the country), Ecuador’s dinero electronico is operated and backed by the government. The Ecuadorian digital currency is less like Bitcoin than like M-Pesa, a private mobile phone-based money transfer service started by Vodafone, which has generated a “mobile money” revolution in Kenya.
  • According to a National Assembly statement: Electronic money will stimulate the economy; it will be possible to attract more Ecuadorian citizens, especially those who do not have checking or savings accounts and credit cards alone. The electronic currency will be backed by the assets of the Central Bank of Ecuador.
  • That means there is no fear of the bank going bankrupt or of bank runs or bail-ins. Nor can the digital currency be devalued by speculative short selling. The government has declared that these are digital US dollars trading at 1 to 1 – take it or leave it – and the people are taking it. According to an October 2015 article titled “
  • Banking Moves into the 21st Century The catastrophic failures of the Western banking system mandate a new vision. These transformations, current and proposed, are constructive steps toward streamlining the banking system, eliminating the risks that have devastated individuals and governments, democratizing money, and promoting sustainable and prosperous economies.
  • Gary Edwards on 16 Dec 15
     
    Excellent article on banking, lending, and currency reform initiatives.  Thanks to Marbux!
7More

A caller had a lewd tape of Donald Trump. Then the race to break the story was on. - Th... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html Auction 2016 Trump-video video-source
shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Reporter David Fahrenthold got a phone call around 11 a.m. Friday from a source with a tip about Donald Trump. The source asked: Would Fahrenthold be interested in seeing some previously unaired video of Trump? Fahrenthold didn’t hesitate. Within a few moments of watching an outtake of footage from a 2005 segment on “Access Hollywood,” the Washington Post reporter was on the phone, calling Trump’s campaign, “Access Hollywood” and NBC for reaction. By 4 p.m., his story was causing shock waves.
  • Fahrenthold’s story about the recording — which some observers said might deal a death blow to Trump’s presidential campaign — was the second major revelation, or “October surprise,” that came courtesy of an anonymous source. The New York Times last week revealed that Trump took a $916 million loss on his 1995 taxes, which could have relieved him from paying federal income taxes for as many as 18 years. The Times’ story was based on tax returns supplied by a source whose identity is unknown even to the Times. Fahrenthold, a 16-year veteran of The Post, said he knows who pointed him to the “Access Hollywood” video, but he will not reveal the identity because he promised anonymity to his tipster. But like many readers, he said he was surprised and shocked by what he saw on the tape.
  • As it happens, Fahrenthold was racing to produce his story in competition with “Access Hollywood” itself. The syndicated show, owned by NBC Universal, had found the Trump recording in its archives and was preparing its own story. NBC News, tipped by “Access Hollywood,” was also aware of the tape and was preparing a story, which it intended to broadcast after the entertainment show aired the recording. It was not clear, however, when “Access Hollywood” and NBC News were planning to go ahead with their stories.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Fahrenthold’s story proved to be the most concurrently viewed article in the history of The Post’s website; more than 100,000 people read it simultaneously at one point on Friday. The interest was so heavy that it briefly crashed the servers of the newspaper’s internal tracking system.
  • The story not only damaged Trump but also elicited intense criticism of Bush on social media. Bush, 44, a cousin of former president George W. Bush, is now a co-host of NBC’s “Today” show. Noting that “Today” has a huge following among women, some critics called for Bush’s resignation.
  • The quick succession of events left several questions unanswered, among them: Why did a 2005 recording of Trump remain in the “Access Hollywood” archives for so long before becoming public? And what other damaging outtakes, if any, remain in the archives of NBC’s “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice,” the reality shows in which Trump starred?
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Oct 16
     
    I went looking for what was known about the source of the Trump video. This is all I found. The original WaPo story on the video is here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html I'm reminded of the Republican drive to impeach Bill Clinton that resulted in Larry Flynt (of Hustler magazine fame) offering a million-dollar reward for dirt on Republican members' of Congress affairs with women. He found a lot of takers and several Repubs were forced to resign from Congress after their affairs were publicized. I recall that Newt Gingrich said something along the lines of "I've never seen such a strong counterpunch before." The timing was exquisite, just after Trump let it be known that he'd be attacking Hillary in the next debate for her attacks on the women who had come forward claiming that Bill Clinton had either had affairs with them or made unwelcome sexual advances on them. The timing was also great to pull the sting from the Wikileaks release of the latest 2,000 Hillary emails showing that she perjured herself before Congress about shipment of arms to al-Qaeda in Syria from Libya. That never made it into mainstream media, although a few articles resulted from the leak of Hillary's talk to Goldman Sachs. All swept from the headlines by the eleven-year-old recording of Trump making sexist remarks. It says something about American politics that the next election may be determined by such a recording as opposed to life and death issues like U.S. foreign wars that are killing hundreds of thousands of people, climate change that threatens the extinction of the human race in as little as 100 years, etc.
‹ Previous 21 - 40 of 79 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page