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Why There May Be a Lot Less Gold than We Realize | Casey Research - 0 views

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    Wow!  The USA (Federal Reserve and Treasury) is unable to account for 4,500 tonnes of GOLD that they claim to have "imported".  To make matters worse, both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are claiming the same 8,000 tonnes of GOLD reserves as an asset.  This story demands watching; especially as the rest of the world catches on. bottom line: We are being lied to.  Again. excerpt: "Exactly How Much Gold Do We Have? There's growing concern that a lot of official gold has been leased out into the market and that sooner or later, as happened back in the late 1990s, one or more parties, perhaps bullion banks or a metals exchange, would run into difficulty trying to meet a physical gold delivery commitment. For a short video on the mechanics of gold leasing, click here. If a lot of gold has been leased out, someday it will have to be rebought, and difficulties may emerge if the gold cannot be rebought in sufficient quantities without creating mayhem within the financial system by causing a very large hike in the price of gold. Important: The amounts of gold leased by central banks is a very closely guarded secret, and we do not have direct information on them, which means we have to try and back-calculate these amounts by other means. A recent and thought-provoking study regarding gold leasing was done by Sprott Asset Management in March. After accounting for all known flows of gold into and out of the US over the past 22 years, the Sprott team arrived at a figure of nearly 4,500 tonnes of gold that cannot be accounted for. Here's the summary flow chart:"
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NSA Spies on 500 Million German Data Connections - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

  • America's National Security Agency (NSA) is apparently spying on Germany more than previously believed. Secret documents from the US intelligence service, which have been viewed by SPIEGEL journalists, reveal that the NSA systematically monitors and stores a large share of the country's telephone and Internet connection data. Internal NSA statistics indicate that the agency stores data from around half a billion communications connections in Germany each month. This data includes telephone calls, emails, mobile-phone text messages and chat transcripts. The metadata -- or information about which call or data connections were made and when -- is then stored at the NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, near Washington, DC.
  • The documents show for the first time the scope of American surveillance in Germany. Previously, it had only been clear that Germany had been one of the major targets of NSA spying. A map published by the Guardian shows that Germany is on a par with targets such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in terms of the intensity of electronic snooping. For weeks now, new details have emerged from documents collected by whistleblower Edward Snowden about the NSA's Prism and Britain's Tempora digital spying programs. The statistics, which SPIEGEL has also seen, show that data is collected from Germany on normal days for up to 20 million telephone calls and 10 million Internet data exchanges. Last Christmas Eve, it collected data on around 13 million phone calls and about half as many online exchanges. On the busiest days, such as January 7 of this year, the information gathered spiked to nearly 60 million communication connections under surveillance.
  • The NSA, it turns out, is more active in Germany than in any other of the EU's 27 member states. By comparison, during the same time frame, the Americans only recorded data on an average of 2 million connections in France each day. The documents also show that the NSA is primarily interested in important Internet hubs in southern and western Germany. Frankfurt, for example, plays an important role in the global Internet infrastructure, and the city is listed as a central base for the country. One top secret document also states that while Germany may be a partner, it is still also a target of the NSA's electronic snooping. According to the document, Germany is a so-called "3rd party foreign partner." The only countries that are explicitly excluded from spying attacks are Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. "We can, and often do, target the signals of most 3d party foreign partners," a slide from an internal presentation states.
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PDVSA Secures $2.8 Billion Bond Swap to Avert Default - nsnbc international | nsnbc int... - 0 views

  • Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA announced Monday that creditors had accepted a proposal to exchange US$2.8 billion in bonds maturing in 2017 for $3.4 billion due in 2020. 
  • In late September, the state oil giant presented creditors with a modified offer to exchange $5.325 billion in bonds due in 2017 for securities payable at 1.22 times the principal in 2020. With the deadline for the deal fast approaching and less than half of bondholders on board, PDVSA extended the cutoff three times and threatened to default if a majority did not accept the deal. By the final deadline Monday, 52.57 percent of creditors agreed to the offer, amounting to a successful swap of 45.3 percent of bonds due in April and November 2017 equal to $2.8 billion.
  • In recent months, the Venezuelan government has repeatedly denounced what it has termed a “financial blockade” by international banks and rating agencies, which it says refuse to renegotiate the terms of debt payments and exaggerate risk ratings despite the country’s pristine payment record. In August, Citibank unexpectedly resigned as pay agent for PDVSA’s bonds in an unusual move that analysts have attributed to the possible influence of the United States government.
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  • While Venezuela’s foreign reserves have fallen to a new low of $11.8 billion, rising oil prices could yield the government an additional $2.5 billion in revenue this year, reports Financial Times.
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Sheldon Adelson will support Trump as Republican nominee | The Times of Israel - 0 views

  • rominent Republican donor Sheldon Adelson on Thursday said he would support Donald Trump for the US presidency. Get The Times
  • rominent Republican donor Sheldon Adelson on Thursday said he would support Donald Trump for the US presidency
  • “Yes. I’m a Republican, he’s a Republican,” Adelson said at a Manhattan event when asked if he would back Trump, according to The New York Times. “He’s our nominee. Whoever the nominee would turn out to be, any one of the 17 — he was one of the 17. He won fair and square.” The Jewish billionaire, and owner of the pro-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu daily Israel Hayom, said he believes Trump “will be good for Israel,” and noted, without elaborating, that the two spoke recently. Adelson donated tens of millions of dollars to Mitt Romney and organizations supporting the Republican challenger in the last election, and was by far the largest such donor. Adelson had previously declared Trump to be “very charming” after meeting him in December, but stopped short of endorsing him or supporting his campaign. Trump has prided himself in his campaign speeches on not needing the support of mega-donors like Adelson, whom other candidates, at the time, were assiduously courting. In October, Trump tweeted “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!”
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  • US Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the nation’s top Republican, said Thursday he was not yet prepared to support Trump as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, signaling a deep rift within the GOP. “To be perfectly candid… I’m just not ready to do that at this point,” Ryan told CNN. “I hope to, though, and I want to. But I think what is required is that we unify this party.” Ryan, who repeated he would not accept the nomination in case of a contested convention, was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012 and is currently second in line to the presidency.
  • He’s got some work to do,” Ryan said, noting that “the bulk and the burden” was on Trump to begin the healing after a brutal primary campaign and the brash billionaire’s string of insulting remarks about other candidates, Muslims, Mexicans, refugees, women and others. “It’s time to set aside bullying. It’s time to set aside belittlement,” Ryan said.
  • Thursday’s comments were all the more startling because Trump has now emerged as the party’s standard-bearer and Ryan will be co-chairman of the Republican presidential nominating convention in July. Trump shot back within minutes. “I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda,” he said in a statement. “Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people.”
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    Looks like Adelson is trying to repair the damage in his relationship with Donald Trump. Adelson is one of the largest Israel-firster donors in U.S. politics but made the mistake of backing Marco Rubio.  The exchange of comments by Paul Ryan and Trump suggest that there will be a battle for leadership of the Republican Party in Congress if Trump is elected. Trump has thrown down his gauntlet. 
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Under Intense Pressure to Silence Wikileaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Propose... - 0 views

  • Clinton’s State Department was getting pressure from President Obama and his White House inner circle, as well as heads of state internationally, to try and cutoff Assange’s delivery of the cables and if that effort failed, then to forge a strategy to minimize the administration’s public embarrassment over the contents of the cables. Hence, Clinton’s early morning November meeting of State’s top brass who floated various proposals to stop, slow or spin the Wikileaks contamination. That is when a frustrated Clinton, sources said, at some point blurted out a controversial query. “Can’t we just drone this guy?” Clinton openly inquired, offering a simple remedy to silence Assange and smother Wikileaks via a planned military drone strike, according to State Department sources. The statement drew laughter from the room which quickly died off when the Secretary kept talking in a terse manner, sources said. Clinton said Assange, after all, was a relatively soft target, “walking around” freely and thumbing his nose without any fear of reprisals from the United States. Clinton was upset about Assange’s previous 2010 records releases, divulging secret U.S. documents about the war in Afghanistan in July and the war in Iraq just a month earlier in October, sources said. At that time in 2010, Assange was relatively free and not living cloistered in in the embassy of Ecuador in London. Prior to 2010, Assange focused Wikileaks’ efforts on countries outside the United States but now under Clinton and Obama, Assange was hammering America with an unparalleled third sweeping Wikileaks document dump in five months. Clinton was fuming, sources said, as each State Department cable dispatched during the Obama administration was signed by her.
  • Following Clinton’s alleged drone proposal, another controversial remedy was floated in the State Department to place a reward or bounty for Assange’s capture and extradition to the United States, sources said. Numbers were discussed in the realm of a $10 million bounty. A State Department source described that staff meeting as bizarre. One minute staffers were inquiring about the Secretary’s blue and black checkered knit sweater and the next minute, the room was discussing the legalities of a drone strike on Assange and financial bounties, sources said. Immediately following the conclusion of the wild brainstorming session, one of Clinton’s top aides, State Department Director of Policy Planning Ann-Marie Slaughter, penned an email to Clinton, Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and aides Huma Abebin and Jacob Sullivan at 10:29 a.m. entitled “an SP memo on possible legal and nonlegal strategies re Wikileaks.” “Nonlegal strategies.” How did that phrasing make it into an official State Department email subject line dealing with solving Wikileaks and Assange? Why would the secretary of state and her inner circle be discussing any “nonlegal strategies” for anything whatsoever? Against anyone? Shouldn’t all the strategies discussed by the country’s top diplomat be strictly legal only? And is the email a smoking gun to confirm Clinton was actually serious about pursuing an obvious “nonlegal strategy” proposal to allegedly assassinate Assange? Numerous attempts were made to try and interview and decipher Slaughter’s choice of email wording, however, she could not be reached for comment.
  • Slaughter’s cryptic email also contained an attached document called “SP Wikileaks doc final11.23.10.docx.” That attachment portion of Slaughter’s “nonlegal strategies” email has yet to be recovered by federal investigators and House committee investigators probing Clinton’s email practices while at State. Even Wikileaks does not have the document. Slaughter, however, shed some light on the attachment: “The result is the attached memo, which has one interesting legal approach and I think some very good suggestions about how to handle our public diplomacy.” But did it also include details on the “nonlegal strategies” teased in the subject line? Sources confirm Clinton took the email and attachment with her to the White House for an afternoon meeting with Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon prior to an additional evening meeting at the White House. President Obama, sources said, did not attend the early meeting with Gates as he was traveling with Vice President Joe Biden. President Obama did attend the second meeting, however, and Wikileaks and Assange’s planned release of secret cables were discussed at length, sources said. Attending this meeting were President Obama, Clinton, Gates, Donilon, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral “Mike” Mullen, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright as well as a half dozen or more various policy aides, sources confirmed. Did Clinton also share her alleged morning query of droning Assange with the members of the National Security Council and the President? Was it discussed among the top secret subjects in the meeting? Or was Clinton planning to conduct or hatch her own secret foreign policy in defiance of the President, a likely violation of the Logan Act?
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  • The FBI’s 302 report from Clinton’s email investigation interview, again, specified that Clinton had “many discussions” related to “nominating” drone strikes on individuals: “Clinton could not recall a specific process for nominating a target for a drone strike and recalled much debate pertaining to the concurrence process. Clinton knew there was a role for DOD, State and the CIA but could not provide specifics as to what it was. Due to a disagreement between these agencies, Clinton recalled having many discussions related to nominating an individual for a drone strike. When Clinton exchanged classified information pertaining to the drone program internally at State, it was in her office or on a secure call. When Clinton exchanged classified information pertaining to the drone program externally it was at the White House. Clinton never had a concern with how classified information pertaining to the drone program was handled.” Sources said Clinton’s comments on neutralizing Assange fits a pattern of callousness when combined with the FBI testimony that she often considered droning individuals and then coupled with her reaction to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s death in Oct. 2011.
  • Unable to legally counter or stop Wikileaks, and likely abandoning any and all legal and “nonlegal strategies,” Clinton and her staff were forced to weather the collateral damage of CableGate. In fact, just five days after Clinton’s meetings on Mahogany Row in the State Department and the White House, Wikileaks began releasing cables to news outlets globally on Sunday November 28, 2010. Shortly after CableGate, the WikiLeaks founder sought refuge from authorities and threats by hiding at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Now 45, Assange is in his fifth year living quarantined inside the embassy. Clinton remains the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States.
  • Perhaps Democratic political operative Bob Beckel wasn’t a party outlier during this controversial Fox broadcast. Likely, Beckel was projecting what others, including Clinton, had already privately proposed.
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"Dólar Today" Admits Support for Venezuelan Opposition | venezuelanalysis.com - 0 views

  • Gustavo Díaz of Venezuelan currency website “Dólar Today” declared his admiration and support for opposition leadership on the Miami-based television program “Agárrate” with Venezuelan Patricia Poleo this week. Díaz is a retired military official and served as security chief for Pedro Carmona Estanga who swore himself into the Venezuelan presidency after orchestrating a coup d’état against former President Hugo Chávez in April 2002. "We were the first ones to call [the Bolivarian government] 'dictatorship', 'totalitarian', 'tyranny', 'Chávez is a tyrant," he said, explaining the hard right-wing orientation of the website.  Dólar Today tracks the black market exchange rate between the US dollar and South American bolivar based on the dubious rates set by Colombian currency traders in Cúcuta.  Caracas has denounced Dólar Today’s allegedly outsized role in what it has called an "economic war" aimed at destabilizing the country. The website, it says, has influenced the bolivar’s devaluation and manipulated the exchange rate by evading government currency controls.    Díaz expressed praise for well-known opposition leaders such as Leopoldo López, Antonio Ledezma, and Maria Corina Machado, among others. 
  • The three are notorious for their ties to the US Embassy and for allegedly instigating violence against supporters of the Bolivarian government. Ledezma, former mayor of Caracas, was arrested by authorities in February 2015 in connection to the 2014 guarimba protest violence and the failed “Blue Coup” attempt against President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Ledezma is currently under house arrest. López, for his part, was the public face of the violent 2014 anti-government protests known as "The Exit", which left 43 dead, the majority of whom security personnel, government supporters, and passerby. He was sentenced to a 13 year prison sentence in September 2015.   Díaz resides in Alabama, United States after seeking asylum in 2005. The other two founders of Dólar Today live in Seattle and Miami according to Díaz’s interview. Dólar Today has faced two lawsuits filed by the Bolivarian government for “cyberterrorism” due to their alleged destabilization efforts. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in November, Díaz admitted to his intentional attacks against the government saying, “It's ironic that with Dólar Today in Alabama, I do more damage to the government than I did as a military man in Venezuela."
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Russia & US Could Reach Understanding About Aleppo as Situation for "Rebels" Deteriorat... - 0 views

  • Following the meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in the German city of Hamburg on Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that “an intense exchange of documents” had taken place and that c a compromise could possibly be reached. The statement comes amidst latest reports about Al-Nusra possibly agreeing to an evacuation from Aleppo and the possible deployment of special forces from Chechnya for anti-terrorism operations in Syria.
  • Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the press that Russia and the United States are close to reaching an understanding on Aleppo. Rybakov said: “In the past several days an intensive document exchange on the situation in Aleppo has taken place…We are close to reaching an understanding, but I want to warn against high expectations.”
  • Ryabkov noted that the meeting between Lavrov and Kerry on Wednesday was an indicator of the intensive communications between the two sides, particularly because it was the second of its kind within the past few days. Ryabkov expressed hope that eventual new agreements between Moscow and Washington on Syria would be firmer compared to the previous agreement that collapsed last September. The previous agreements collapsed when Washington insisted that Russia stops targeting “moderate opposition fighters”, while Moscow blamed Washington for not assuring that the “moderate rebels” disengage and separate from Jabhat Al-Nusra (a.k.a. Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham). Both parties agree that Al-Nusra’s re-branding as Al-Sham hasn’t changed its status as a terrorist organization.
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  • On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed support to the initiative proposed by his US counterpart John Kerry on Aleppo on 2nd of the current month before the latter withdrew it later. Lavrov said that Kerry’s initiative failed after he withdrew his proposals that stipulated for the exit of terrorists from the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, clarifying “the same thing happened with our agreement of September 9… They have withdrawn their document and have a new one. Our initial impression is that this new document backtracks, and is an attempt to buy time for the militants, allow them to catch their breath and resupply”. Meanwhile, a Lebanese source close to Hezbollah informed nsnbc that back channel talks could result in Al-Nusra agreeing to evacuate from Aleppo. No formal statement in that regard has been issued by any of the conflicting parties.
  • The evacuation of Al-Nusra from Aleppo could make it more easy for Moscow and Washington to reach an agreement, the source added. Another, not yet officially confirmed development is the possible deployment of the Vostok and Zapad special forces units from the Russian Federation’s Republic of Chechnya to Syria for “anti-terrorism operations”. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and allied forces  today continued  operations to evacuate citizens from the remaining “rebel-held” eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo while continuing rapid advances. The SAA noted that it “is doing its best to allocate safe corridors to the locals and transport them to makeshift centers established by authorities in Aleppo governorate in the Jibrin and Hanano Housings neighborhoods”. In the Hanano Housings, families started to return to their homes, provided that they haven’t been destroyed during the intense fighting.
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CNN apologizes for commentator who called WikiLeaks founder a 'pedophile' | McClatchy DC - 0 views

  • In fact, the pedophile allegation has little to do with Assange’s plight that has kept him in the embassy in London, which involves incidents in Stockholm in the summer of 2010.
  • Rather, it is a bizarre tale involving a Houston-based dating website and its global and well-funded efforts to discredit Assange around the globe. The byzantine saga involves disconnected telephones and mystery websites. The website, toddandclare.com, launched and ramped up its efforts against Assange during the U.S. presidential campaign, as WikiLeaks released hacked emails related to the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.Whoever is behind the dating site has marshaled significant resources to target Assange, enough to gain entry into a United Nations body, operate in countries in Europe, North America and the Caribbean, conduct surveillance on Assange’s lawyer in London, obtain the fax number of Canada’s prime minister and seek to prod a police inquiry in the Bahamas.The dating site’s campaign sought to thwart WikiLeaks’ efforts and discredit Assange, who played a role in a presidential campaign season that deeply divided the U.S. electorate and illuminated Russia as a major cyber adversary of the U.S. government.One part of toddandclare’s two-pronged campaign put a megaphone to unproven charges that Assange made contact with a young Canadian girl in the Bahamas through the internet with the intention of molesting her. The second part sought to entangle him in a plan to receive $1 million from the Russian government.
  • WikiLeaks claims the dating site is “a highly suspicious and likely fabricated” company. In turn, the company has lashed out at Assange and “his despicable activities against American national security,” and warned journalists to “check with your libel lawyers first before printing anything that could impact or endanger innocent people’s lives.”For nearly two months after the October allegations, toddandclare.com went off line. But it recently reappeared, repeating charges about the 8-year-old Canadian girl. The website did not immediately respond Thursday to a new query from McClatchy, and no respondent in the past has given a name or allowed telephone contact.The online company paints itself as all-American. Online material says its founders, Todd and Clare Hammond, “are an average American couple from Michigan, who met in the eighth grade.” In 2011, the company says, the Christian couple started an email dating service, and “have married 3,000 couples to date.” Their online network began in 2015, and a statement it filed to a U.N. body says it has “100,000+ female singles” in six countries. The company’s operating address is a warehouse loading dock in Houston. Its mail goes to a Houston drop box. Its phone numbers no longer work. WikiLeaks says Texas officials tell it the entity is not registered there either under toddandclare.com or a parent company, T&C Network Solutions.A person who answered emails to the website in November declined to identify him or herself.
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  • The people behind toddandclare.com persuaded a U.N. body known as the Global Compact to give it status as a participant in May, and it submitted an eight-page report to the U.N. group Oct. 4 carefully laying out its allegations against Assange. The firm was delisted by the U.N. body eight days later amid controversy over its claims. The report was later taken off the internet. An Australian lawyer, Melinda Taylor, said the report’s precise language raised additional suspicions at WikiLeaks, where she assists Assange in human rights litigation.“This is not a report that’s been drafted by a dating agency. It’s highly legalistic and very structured. It’s the language of someone who has drafted complex legal submissions,” she said.Under Todd Hammond’s name, the report alleged that Assange’s Swedish lawyer had reached out in June to offer Assange’s services on a campaign against rape in exchange for an undisclosed amount of bitcoin. It said the two sides held two videoconferences.Then came the bombshell: It said the company had ended ties with Assange following “pedophile crimes” he had committed in the Bahamas in late September. It charged that the victim was the 8-year-old daughter of a Canadian couple on a monthlong yachting vacation. The father went to police in Nassau on Sept. 28, the report claimed, charging that his family held video and chat logs showing Assange “internet grooming” the child and “propositioning the 8-year-old juvenile ‘to perform oral and anal sex acts.’ ”It said Assange made a connection to the child’s 22-year-old sister, who was a client of the online dating site, from his refuge in London, eventually gaining access to the young girl.
  • An assistant commissioner for the Royal Bahamas Police Force, Stephen Dean, said “there is no investigation” into any such incident and that the police have received no evidence that such an incident occurred.“We got a phone call of someone giving us some information. But we never had a face-to-face. It could have been a hoax,” Dean said. “We don’t know.”If someone were in possession of video or chat logs about a pedophile crime, he or she did not provide them to Bahamian police, Dean said, which he said would be odd: “If you have something so significant, I think you’d want to leave a report.”Assange’s Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelson, wrote to the U.N. body on Oct. 10 alleging that Hammond’s report against Assange was “entirely false” in all its facets and that he had had no contact with the dating site or Hammond.Even as authorities in the Bahamas dismissed the report, the dating site sent a fax Oct. 17 to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying the Canadian family had fled the Bahamas due to “anti-white, racist abuse by Bahamian police.”“Julian Assange ... has started a smear campaign to claim our dating company is behind an elaborate scam. It is fully to be expected. Pedophiles are devious and cunning,” the fax said.The company said it would “continue to protect the family’s identity, until either the (Royal Bahamas Police Force) conduct a proper investigation, or hell freezes over. Whichever comes first.”
  • The fax was signed, “The Todd and Clare Team,” and left no way to contact the firm.While the founders of toddandclare.com say they’ve been in the matchmaking business since 2011, their internet presence dates only to September 2015 and really got going only early last year. Those who have done work for the company say they were kept at arm’s length.By summer, in the run-up to what many expected to be an “October surprise” from WikiLeaks to make an impact on the U.S. election, toddandclare.com began moving against Assange in multiple countries simultaneously. The DNC and a cyber-threat intelligence firm it had hired, CrowdStrike, were already fingering Russia as behind the hacks that would provide the fodder for WikiLeaks. They’d said in June that Russian hackers had access to DNC servers for about a year.A company representative, identifying herself as Hannah Hammond, emailed Assange’s Swedish and British legal agents offering $1 million for him to appear in a five-minute tongue-in-cheek television advertisement. In a subsequent exchange Sept. 19, the representative wrote that “the source of the $1,000,000 is the Russian government.”In a curious twist, she offered what she said were three facts about Assange’s London attorney that are “unknown to the public,” including details inside her home and an event in her son’s life, suggesting a capability to conduct surveillance.Taylor, the Assange lawyer, said the details appeared “to create the impression that the members of his team were under close surveillance and/or to bolster the bona fides of the claim that the offer was linked to a State. Its inclusion does appear quite menacing.”
  • A lawyer identifying himself only as “James” responded the next day, slamming the offer as an “elaborate scam designed to entrap” Assange and embarrass him for ties to Russia.The dating site representative sought to pull the veil off “James.”“Julian: We know it’s you writing. The offer expires at midnight, October 31st 2016,” she wrote back on Sept. 21, according to copies of the emails posted by WikiLeaks on its website.By early October, toddandclare.com went on the offensive. It filed a civil complaint in a British court against Assange, seeking 295 pounds sterling – about $359 – in damages because it said it could no longer use his services due to the “child sex offenses in Nassau.”The suit, said Taylor, Assange’s lawyer, “seems to be designed to evade defamation law in the U.K. They’ve put highly noxious information knowing that it would be made public.”The global tussle between the online dating company and WikiLeaks went public in mid-October when the anti-secrecy group voiced public doubt on whether toddandclare.com actually existed, or served only as a vehicle to attack Assange.
  • The announcement opened the gates for a disparate crew of internet sleuths – some motivated by hatred of Clinton and others impelled by support for WikiLeaks – to probe into the history of toddandclare.com, suspicious that the dating site might be an undercover operation with links to the Clinton campaign.Posting their findings on the discussion websites like Reddit.com, they unearthed some curious coincidences. A perusal into the archives of the internet revealed that the Hammonds had once occupied a San Francisco building later rented to a company, Premise Data, whose co-founder has ties to Clinton and her top supporters.Moreover, a telephone number once registered to a Todd Hammond later was registered to a former Premise employee, Aaron Dunn, although with a different area code.Premise co-founder David Soloff said such findings could only be coincidences.“I want to reiterate that Premise has no connection with this case. And beyond confirming that Aaron Dunn worked at Premise until 2014, I don’t know the answer to any of your questions,” Soloff wrote in an email.
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'Clinton death list': 33 spine-tingling cases - 0 views

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    "(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it
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Byron York: Justice Department demolishes case against Trump order | Washington Examiner - 1 views

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    "James Robart, the U.S. district judge in Washington State, offered little explanation for his decision to stop President Trump's executive order temporarily suspending non-American entry from seven terror-plagued countries. Robart simply declared his belief that Washington State, which in its lawsuit against Trump argued that the order is both illegal and unconstitutional, would likely win the case when it is tried. Now the government has answered Robart, and unlike the judge, Justice Department lawyers have produced a point-by-point demolition of Washington State's claims. Indeed, for all except the most partisan, it is likely impossible to read the Washington State lawsuit, plus Robart's brief comments and writing on the matter, plus the Justice Department's response, and not come away with the conclusion that the Trump order is on sound legal and constitutional ground. Beginning with the big picture, the Justice Department argued that Robart's restraining order violates the separation of powers, encroaches on the president's constitutional and legal authority in the areas of foreign affairs, national security, and immigration, and "second-guesses the president's national security judgment" about risks faced by the United States. Indeed, in court last week, Robart suggested that he, Robart, knows as much, or perhaps more, than the president about the current state of the terrorist threat in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and other violence-plagued countries. In an exchange with Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett, Robart asked, "How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?" "Your Honor, I don't have that information," said Bennett. "Let me tell you," said Robart. "The answer to that is none, as best I can tell. So, I mean, you're here arguing on behalf of someone [President Trump] that says: We have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries, and there's no support for that."
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Netanyahu and Trump: A Shared Focus on Terrorism « LobeLog - 0 views

  • Scholars of terrorism credit a specific 1979 symposium in Jerusalem as a turning point in the U.S. and international usage of “terrorism” as we understand it today. The Jonathan Institute, founded following the death of Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother Yonatan during a raid to rescue hostages from a PLO hijacking, hosted a 1979 conference in Jerusalem— and a follow up in 1984 in Washington—on “International Terrorism.” Directed by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jonathan Institute maintained close ties to the Israeli government. Current and former Israeli officials across the political spectrum—including Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Ezer Weizman, Moshe Dayan, and Shimon Peres—dominated its administrative committee. Lisa Stampnitsky, in her 2013 book Disciplining Terror, discusses how the Jonathan Institute helped internationalize Israel’s use of the term to describe terrorist violence as both irrational and illegitimate in both means and ends, and as primarily targeting democracies and “the West.” Previously, she notes, terrorism referred largely to rational political violence, either state or individual, and was dealt with as an issue of criminality and law. The shift helped Israel delegitimize the political aims of certain groups, such as the Palestinian resistance to its colonization and territorial occupation. One cannot be a “freedom fighter” if one’s political aims are demonized as illegitimate or irrational. Stampnitsky argues that the shift to using terrorism to describe violence outside the law also set the stage for retaliatory strikes (such as the 1986 U.S. air strikes in Libya in response to a bombing at a Berlin disco that killed an American soldier) and eventually for the doctrine of preemptive force that has characterized the post-9/11 “War on Terror.”
  • Israel’s role in the development of a specifically anti-Muslim discourse of terrorism is deeply intertwined with the foreign policies of American politicians. As Deepa Kumar and others have pointed out, American neocons and Israel’s Likud party jointly developed a shared language around Islamic terrorism. The 1979 Jonathan Institute conference was attended by prominent American officials and political figures, including future President George H.W. Bush and representatives of the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Commentary magazine who brought the ideas, and later a follow-up conference, back to the U.S. Intended to serve as an intervention into the international discourse on terrorism, the explicit aim of the Jerusalem conference was to awaken the Western world to the problem of terrorism as defined by the conference organizers. It contributed to entrenching in the minds of American conservatives what was popularized a few years later as the “clash of civilizations,” firmly situating Israel in the category of Western democracies threatened by Soviets and Palestinians. The follow-up conference in the United States in 1984 went further by emphasizing the relationship between Islam and terror. As Netanyahu himself wrote in the book that came out of the conference: “the battle against terrorism was part of a much larger struggle, one between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism.” Then, as now, Netanyahu presented Israel as the bulwark against terrorism, a specific kind of illegitimate political violence that threatens not just Israel but all democracies and the Western world.
  • Echoes of this framing of the debate on terrorism can be found in how Western politicians, including Netanyahu and Trump, discuss the issue. Terrorism, which has no single agreed-upon definition in U.S. or international law, now serves as a moniker applied to all violence that established states deem illegitimate. Most often these days, Western democracies use “terrorism” to describe violence committed by Muslims. As journalist Glenn Greenwald writes, “In other words, any violence by Muslims against the West is inherently ‘terrorism,’ even if targeted only at soldiers at war and/or designed to resist invasion and occupation.” The term functions not as a descriptive tool but an ideological one. It doesn’t merely identify a particular kind of violence. It justifies and even requires a particular kind of forceful response by the state. Israel today presents itself as the world’s expert on counterterrorism. It maintains a profitable security industry predicated on selling expertise and technology tested in its interactions with Palestinians. American tax dollars have been funneled into this industry through U.S. military aid, over 25% of which Israel was allowed to spend domestically (the new military aid deal signed by the Obama White House will phase out this allowance over the next 10 years, sending the rest of the $3.8 billion per year to U.S. defense contractors). The United States and Israel collaborate on counterterrorism initiatives, including joint military exercises and police exchange programs. Here tactics and skills are developed and exchanged for surveillance and violent repression of protests that primarily impact Muslims and people of color in the U.S. and Palestinians and Black Jews in Israel.
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  • In this context, Trump’s framing of his anti-Muslim immigration policies as a national security priority to keep out terrorists is nothing new. What is new in this political moment is the extent to which the U.S. public is seeing straight through this discourse and rallying against discrimination and bigotry. Ahead of Trump and Netanyahu’s meeting this week, there’s an opportunity to pay attention to how these discourses have enabled Israel to justify decades of military occupation and human rights abuses with the discourse of national security and counterterrorism. As the Trump administration goes back to the drawing board to devise restrictive immigration policies that will hold up in court, Netanyahu and Israel’s example shouldn’t be far from mind.
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Dreams From My Real Father (Full Movie) | Before It's News - 0 views

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    Incredible!!  I saw the interview Alex Jones of InfoWars had with Joel Gilbert about his research into the real Barack Housain Davis-Obama.   this is the movies Joel made based on those years of research. Note that Joel's research indicates that Obama's real father is the Marxist Frank Marshall Davis.  Which means he is a natural born citizen.  Albeit one that changed his citizenship when his mother married Sotero, the Indonesian.  Obama never reinstated his lost citizenship, failing to register for the draft at 18 yrs of age.  He also attended  aprivate school in Hawaii and Occidental on a foreign exchange student scholarship. excerpt: Published on Jul 6, 2012 by Rickvsnewworldorder What are the true origins of Obama's life and politics? At age 18, Barack Obama admittedly arrived at Occidental College a committed revolutionary Marxist. What was the source of Obama's foundation in Marxism? Throughout his 2008 Presidential campaign and term in office, questions have been raised regarding Barack Obama's family background, economic philosophy, and fundamental political ideology. Dreams from My Real Father is the alternative Barack Obama "autobiography," offering a divergent theory of what may have shaped our 44th President's life and politics. In Dreams from My Real Father, Barack Obama is portrayed by a voiceover actor who chronicles Barack Obama's life journey in socialism, from birth through his election to the Presidency. The film begins by presenting the case that Barack Obama's real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party USA propagandist who likely shaped Obama's world view during his formative years. Barack Obama sold himself to America as the multi-cultural ideal, a man who stood above politics. Was the goat herding Kenyan father only a fairy tale to obscure a Marxist agenda, irreconcilable with American values? This fascinating narrative is based in part on 2 years of research, interviews, newly unearthed footage and photos, and the wr
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My Doctor Is Now the IRS : Dr. IIeana Johnson Paugh - 0 views

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    Dr. Paugh provides us with the best summary yet of what the monstrous Obamacare Tax will do to destroy the world's best healthcare system. excerpt: The Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, "A Brief Overview of the Law, Implementation, and Legal Challenges," gives a new definition to Nancy Pelosi's statement that we had "to pass Obamacare to find out what's in it." Not only did Congressmen not read the 2,700-page law before they voted and passed it by twisting arms and briberies, but they now have to be informed of the disaster they have created. (C. Stephen Redhead, Hinda Chaikind, Bernadette Fernandez, Jennifer Staman, July 3, 2012) The unfortunately named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, passed by 111th Congress, touted the following: .... increased access to health insurance coverage (not necessarily access to health care) ..... expansion of federal private health insurance market requirements ..... creation of health insurance exchanges to provide individuals and small employers with access to insurance ..... expansion of Medicaid coverage
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Peter Beinart: How Ron Paul Will Change the GOP in 2012 - The Daily Beast - 2 views

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    Not a big Peter Beinhart fan, but this article explains a large part of the Ron Paul phenom. After a life time as a big C Goldwater-Reagan Constitutional Conservative, this summer i made a full transition to big C Constitutional Libertarian. The tipping point for me was the GAO audit of the Federal Reserve, where they discovered $16.1 Trillion of taxpayer dollars missing from the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel management books. It went to a who's who of international Bankster Cartel members. None of the taxpayer funded "financial collapse of 2008" bailout dollars went to the purposes chartered by their legislation. That includees the TARP $850 Billion, the Obama Stimulous $1 Trillion, and the mega FRBC $16.1 Trillion. No bad debts were purchased and retired. No rotting mortgage securities were swept up and restructured. No shovel ready jobs either. And no one in government or banksterism having caused the financial collapse went to jail. Instead, the perps feasted on the bailout dollars. The debt remains on the books of international Banksters, collecting interest, thirsting for foreclosure. The Bankster Cartel members are flush with cash, but not lending. By law (The Federal Reserve Act of December 23rd, 1913), FRBC members must keep a significant amount of their assets on "reserve" at the Federal Reserve, at 6% interest. In exchange for managing this process and the exploding money supply, the taxpayers of the USA are obligated by law to pay the FRBC 1% per year of (assets under management" (the money supply). Take note: the FRBC takes the 1% per year payment for their services in the form of GOLD!! They will not take payment in the form of paper notes labeled legal tender "Federal Reserve Notes". They only take GOLD. My transition to Constitutional Libertarian begins with a strct reading of the Constitution (the How), the Declaration of Independence, (the Why), and belief in the Rule of Law, not man. The concept of achievi
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The worst rise to the top - Mises Economic Blog - 0 views

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    Very interesting post from Douglas French concerning the repubican primaries and F.A. Hayek's "Road to Serfom" comments on modern politics. Fascinating stuff. Hayek argues that, in politics, "the worst rise to the top", and he outlines three reasons why: .... Choosing is the problem. Informed people are more "nuanced" - they have many divergent opinions and views. Uniformity however drives the group dynamics behind a democratic process. Uniformity of opinion rules, and the less informed a person is, the more uniform and drawn to larger groups they will be. The "lowest common denominator" rule rules the democratic process. Mobocracy at work. .... Those on top, pursuing the political leadership positions, must appeal to the masses and weave together the groups driven by the "lowest common denominator" rule. The docile and gullible "are ready to accept whatever values and ideology drummed into them". Advantage to big media, the socialist assemblage ruling public education, and public workers unions. ..... Third, political leaders "don't promote a positive agenda, but a negative one of hating an enemy and envy of the wealthy. To appeal to the masses, leaders preach an "us" against "them" program." The great unwashed and uninformed being guided and driven "by emotion and passion rather than critical thinking." Not sure i agree with any of this, much as i admire and recognize the importance of Hayek and his seminal, game changing "Road to Serfdom". One reason is that some of the most informed people i know are goose stepping socialist hell bent on ending individual liberty - as in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", in exchange for Marxist social equality. Another reason i would disagree is that the salt of the earth "bitter clingers" Reagan Conservatives that rock the Tea Party movement are exactly what the establishment elites call the "uninformed masses". Not sure if that's what Hayek meant, but his viewpoint does look a
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» For the GOP, Moderate Is the New Conservative - Big Government - 1 views

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    Whoa! Great read!   I think i've met my doppleganger. And he can write.  Funny but earlier today Marbux and i had a lengthy eMail exchange about this exact same topic.  Clearly we are not alone in wondering what has happened to the Tea Party?   I have been trying to get my thoughts together about the rope-a-dope of Rush Limbaugh, which predictably resulted in the fragmentation and total route of the Tea Party Patriot movement. Thirty three days into the election primary cycle and the hands down winner is, The Big Government Establishment".  How did the establishment of trough feeding repubicans, democrats and corporatist/banksters do this? And do it so quickly and efficiently? This article attempts to describe the gradual push towards big government socialism.  No doubt the democratic party is the party of socialism, running the gamut from liberals, to progressives, to Euro socialist, to Marxist, communists and hard core Stalinist. Obammunism itself is a rather unique blend of Marxist enviro socialism driven and funded by fascist crony corporatism/banksterism.    The article further describes what used to be moderates as big government social progressives with a strong dose of military merchatilist interventionism.  The artile also calls these types "neo conservatives"  I guess because the neo moderates are describing themselves as new conservatives. Which is an insult to any Goldwater - Reagan conservative.  Like me.  Or at least i was until this past summer when a kind group of libertarians educated me on the Constitution.  I was Federalist  style, social/militarist conservative.  Now i'm a Jefferson-Madison libertarian strict Constitutionalist. So i've been there.  And "neo conservative" is not conservative in any sense other than that of militarist-merchantilist make the world safe for democracy through big, really big, government social and military programs.  And oh yeah, the neo moderate is a Federal Reserve big corporatist/bankster ty
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Next Leg Of The Ponzi Revealed - Foreign Central Banks To Begin Buying US Stocks Outrig... - 0 views

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    Another great chart detailing the Feds destruction of our currency.  Is this money laundering or a giant ponzi scheme? The good news is that the stock market is on a tear.  The bad news?  International banksters are gobbling up US corporate stocks with the Trillions of freshly printed dollars our Federal Reserve Cartel was kind enough to provide.   Recall that the July 2010 GAO audit of the Federal Reserve Banksters revealed an eye-popping $16.1 Trillion dollars had been distributed to domestic and international banksters between December 2007 and January 2010.   Where did the money go?  How do those dollars make their way back into the world economy?  And what will happen to the value of the dollar when these vast sums do show up in world financial markets? The banksters are not lending.  And companies are not borrowing.  The Trillions flooding the worlds banksters was originally thought to provide liquidity and keep the economy churning.  While there are many competing answers to the question of why this massive bailout and reboot didn't work, were now witnessing the wholesale purchase of corporate ownership with those dollars.   "Don't want to borrow those Trillions?  Good.  We'll buy you then." Sorry, but this looks like a gigantic money laundering scheme where hot dollars are dumped off in exchange for real assets. excerpt:  In other words, while the Fed's charter forbids it from buying US equities outright, it certainly can promise that it will bail out such bosom friends as the Bank of Israel, the Swiss National Bank, and soon everyone else, if and when their investment in Apple should sour. Luckily, this means that the exponential phase in risk is approaching as everyone will now scramble to frontrun central bank purchases no longer in bonds, but in stocks outright, leading to epic surges in everything risk related, then collapse and force the Fed to print tens of trillions to bail everyone out all over again, rinse repea
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WallBuilders - Issues and Articles - America's Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President - 0 views

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    Obama was born a Muslim, educated as a Muslim, and is actually listed in the California journal of assembly activity as having applied for and recieved a foreign exchange student grant for Occidental College.  The grant application has Barry Soetoro claiming he is a citizen of Indonesia.  The Occidental College transcripts confirm this as well as the fact that Barry declares himself a Muslim.   A muslim and a citizen of Indonesia.  So why does this collection of insults and hatred for Christians surprise us?  Because it's so extensive and loaded.  And here i thought the guy was all about golf and expensive exotic vacations at the taxpayers expense.  That and funneling billions of taxpayer funds to his friends and bundlers.  What a list.  excerpt: When one observes President Obama's unwillingness to accommodate America's four-century long religious conscience protection through his attempts to require Catholics to go against their own doctrines and beliefs, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Catholic. But that characterization would not be correct. Although he has recently singled out Catholics, he has equally targeted traditional Protestant beliefs over the past four years. So since he has attacked Catholics and Protestants, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Christian. But that, too, would be inaccurate. He has been equally disrespectful in his appalling treatment of religious Jews in general and Israel in particular. So perhaps the most accurate description of his antipathy toward Catholics, Protestants, religious Jews, and the Jewish nation would be to characterize him as anti-Biblical. And then when his hostility toward Biblical people of faith is contrasted with his preferential treatment of Muslims and Muslim nations, it further strengthens the accuracy of the anti-Biblical descriptor. In fact, there have been numerous clearly documented times when his pro-Islam positions have been the cause of his anti-Biblical actions. Listed below i
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Obama's Occidental College transcripts provides concrete evidence to annul his presiden... - 1 views

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    Occidental Registration transcript states ~ Name: Barry Soetoro - Religion: Islam - Nationality: Indonesian The smoking gun evidence that annuls Obama's presidency is Obama's college transcripts regarding his application for and receiving of foreign student aid.  Obama's college transcripts from Occidental College indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript from Occidental College shows that Obama (Barry Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship (scholarship) for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program - an international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government.  Grants are available for U.S. citizens to go abroad and for non-U.S. citizens with no U.S. permanent residence to come to the U.S.  To qualify, for the non-US citizen scholarship to study in the U.S., a student applicant must claim and provide proof of foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama's detractors have been seeking.  The United States Constitution requires that Presidents (and Vice Presidents) of the United States be natural born citizens of the United States.
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