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Mafia den: Over $1 trillion was laundered through Estonia (pop. 1 million) between 2008 and 2017


RT
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 18:34 UTC
estonia
Estonia may be the world's money-laundering capital. The small Baltic country is caught up in a huge corruption scandal following a US Department of Justice investigation.

The Estonian branch of Danish Danske Bank is at the center of a €200-billion ($230-billion) money-laundering scandal. The bank said it had "received requests for information from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with a criminal investigation relating to the bank's Estonian branch conducted by the DOJ," and was cooperating.

Last month, the bank reported that it tracked a total of $230 billion in "suspicious" operations through its Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015. The Estonian central bank has admitted that it saw more than $1 trillion in money flows between 2008 and 2017.

Comment: The DOJ was actually trying to target Russian money laundering when they submitted their requests to Danske, however, it appears they've opened a can of worms given the likely European sources within the much bigger $1 trillion being laundered.

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Bad Guys

NATO chief maintains Georgia will join the alliance 'one day'


RFE/RL
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 18:18 UTC
Jens Stoltenberg

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speaks to reporters in Brussels on October 3.
Georgia will one day join the alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, 10 years after the Western military organization first promised the South Caucasus country it would become a member.

"NATO's door remains open," Stoltenberg said in Brussels on October 3 after chairing a meeting between Georgian and NATO defense ministers.

At a 2008 summit in Bucharest, NATO agreed that Georgia will eventually become a NATO member, but no firm date has been set, although the membership perspective for the country has been reconfirmed at every summit ever since.

Stoltenberg said the NATO allies "welcomed the continued progress Georgia is making on reforms, in particular on more effective security and defense institutions and modernizing their armed forces."

Comment: NATO sees Georgia as a pawn in their game against Russia, and Georgia is a willing instrument. It's too bad for NATO that Russia doesn't roll over so easily.

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X

Fascist statewide smoking ban takes effect in Alaska

Angela Krenzien
KTVA
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 19:41 UTC
No smoking sign
© Zest Magazine
Take it outside! The "Smoke-free Alaska" law went into effect Monday, ensuring smoke-free workplaces and public places across the state. The measure extends an existing ban on smoking in public workplaces to private businesses.

Gov. Bill Walker signed Senate Bill 63 into law at a ceremony at Anchorage's Lucky Wishbone restaurant in July.

More than 25 years ago, the Lucky Wishbone was the first business in Anchorage to go smoke-free on April 19, 1990.

As of Monday, under the new ban, businesses must:
  • Post no smoking or vaping signs in plain view at all major entrances
  • Remove all ashtrays
  • Ask anyone smoking or vaping indoors to stop and go outside
Dr. Jay Butler is the State of Alaska Chief Medical Officer and praises the ban, saying the rules are based on science, protecting Alaskans' health and save money.

Comment: See also: 'Pretty coercive': Alaska legislature expands smoking ban to include bars, restaurants, and taxis

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Vader

Bolton announces US withdrawal from Vienna Convention's 'optional protocol' - claims Palestine 'not a state'


RT
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 15:28 UTC
Jerusalem
© Ronen Zvulun / Reuters
A view of Jerusalem
The US is withdrawing from the "optional protocol" in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, John Bolton has confirmed. He said it follows a case brought by Palestine, challenging the US embassy's move to Jerusalem.

"I am announcing that the president has decided that the United States will withdraw from the optional protocol and dispute resolution to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," Bolton said.

"This is in connection with a case brought by the so-called state of Palestine, naming the United States as the defendant, challenging our move of our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."

Comment: The US dutifully echoes the Israeli line,

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Briefcase

McConnell shoots down Schumer request for briefing on Kavanaugh FBI investigation

Naomi Lim
Washington Examiner
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 15:18 UTC
mcconnell schumer

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused a request Wednesday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for senators to receive an FBI-led briefing on its investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Schumer asked that the FBI agents charged with conducting a supplemental background check into Kavanaugh amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct talk to senators about their findings before a vote on the judge's confirmation in both a Tuesday letter and a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday.

McConnell responded in a letter to his counterpart that such a briefing would be "unprecedented and irregular" under the memorandum of understanding between the Senate Judiciary Committee and the White House that governs how the results of background investigations for judicial nominees are handled.

Comment:

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Light Sabers

Faith, power, money: How Western meddling is corrupting Ukraine's Orthodox Church

Jim Jatras
RT
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 15:11 UTC
Ukrainian Orthodox Church
© Mykola Lazarenko/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/ / Reuters
The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate Metropolitan Filaret, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his wife Maryna
One of the most contentious and significant controversies in the world today is also one of the least-well understood.

In part, this is because it involves matters of faith and church governance, the importance of which many people, especially some of a secular mind who scorn mere "religion," tend to underestimate.

That is a mistake, certainly with respect to the storm that seems on the verge of plunging Ukraine into a new cycle of violence. That may happen if, as seems quite possible, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople recognizes an "autocephalous" (completely self-ruling) Orthodox Church in Ukraine over the objections of the Russian Orthodox Church, of which the Ukrainian Church is an integral part.

This question is often misreported in the Western media as Constantinople's response to a request from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for autocephaly. This is inaccurate. The only Ukrainian Orthodox body recognized as canonical by the rest of the Orthodox Christian world - even including Constantinople at this point - is the autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church under the authority of Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev, which is not asking for autocephaly.

Comment: For more on the issues surrounding the West's attempts to demonize Russia on all fronts, see: But then, we have been warned:

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Padlock

FBI report on Kavanaugh near completion; Senators to access single copy in Judiciary Committee safe

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 02:55 UTC
fbi logo
© Jim Bourg/Reuters
The FBI is nearly finished with their supplemental report on sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, after which they will send a single copy to Capitol Hill where it will be held in a Senate Judiciary Committee safe, two senior Senate sources told Fox News on Wednesday.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Il), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said that preparations are underway to review the report on Thursday, while Republicans are putting strict limits on the viewing.

According to Durbin, the one copy will be taken from the safe and made available to senators - with each party taking turns viewing it in one-hour increments.
"Get this - one copy! For the United States Senate," he said. "That's what we were told. And we were also that we would be given one hour for the Dems, one hour for the Republicans. Alternating.

"We tried to reserve some time to read it. That is ridiculous," he said. "One copy?!"

"Bizarre, it doesn't make any sense," he added. -The Hill

Comment: See also: FBI reportedly done tomorrow, Ford's lawyers complain

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Gear

'Time to move on': Twitter backlash ensues after corrupt senator Booker says it doesn't matter if Kavanaugh is innocent


RT
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 08:02 UTC
cory booker

Cory Booker
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is facing a swift Twitter backlash after saying he believes it is time to "move on" to a new Supreme Court candidate regardless of whether Brett Kavanaugh is "innocent or guilty" of sexual assault.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Booker said that Kavanaugh's "credibility has been challenged by intimates" in his life and that "enough questions" have been raised to justify moving on to a new candidate for the Supreme Court, whether he is guilty of sexual assault or not. Kavanaugh has been accused of attempted rape by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, but has denied that the assault, which allegedly took place in 1982, ever happened.

Comment: Dems are no longer attempting to hide behind a cloak of objectivity, and certainly neither is the media. MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle (whose own Twitter feed is choked with anti-Trump tweets) has freely admitted that the media is 'going after Kavanaugh', noting that the debacle has provided a distraction from Mueller's Russiagate farce.

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Bomb

Collusion bombshell: DNC lawyers met with FBI on Russia allegations before surveillance warrant

John Solomon
The Hill
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 19:57 UTC
fbi logo
© Jim Bourg/Reuters
Congressional investigators have confirmed that a top FBI official met with Democratic Party lawyers to talk about allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion weeks before the 2016 election, and before the bureau secured a search warrant targeting Trump's campaign.

Former FBI general counsel James Baker met during the 2016 season with at least one attorney from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee's private law firm.

That's the firm used by the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign to secretly pay research firm Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence operative, to compile a dossier of uncorroborated raw intelligence alleging Trump and Moscow were colluding to hijack the presidential election.

The dossier, though mostly unverified, was then used by the FBI as the main evidence seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign in the final days of the campaign.

The revelation was confirmed both in contemporaneous evidence and testimony secured by a joint investigation by Republicans on the House Judiciary and Government Oversight committees, my source tells me.
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Handcuffs

Man arrested for doxxing GOP was intern who previously worked for Diane Feinstein

Samuel Chamberlain
Fox News
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:01 UTC
Dianne Feinstein Sheila Jackson Lee
© AP
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
A Democratic congressional intern was arrested Wednesday and accused of posting the personal information of at least one Republican senator during last week's hearing about sexual assault claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, authorities said.

U.S. Capitol Police said 27-year-old Jackson Cosko was charged with making public restricted personal information, witness tampering, threats in interstate communication, unauthorized access of a government computer, identity theft, second-degree burglary and unlawful entry. Police added that the investigation was continuing and more charges could be filed.

Senior congressional sources tell Fox News that Cosko most recently worked as an unpaid intern for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. He previously worked with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and former Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. He also worked or interned with the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as with at least one other unnamed lawmaker. A LinkedIn page with Cosko's name on it describes him as a "Democratic Political Professional & Cybersecurity Graduate Student."
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