Welcome to Sott.net
Sat, 23 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Eye 1

IMF working towards banning cash payments

Nassim Khadem
ABC News
Mon, 26 Aug 2019 05:58 UTC
IMF sign
© Jonathan Ernst: Reuters
Photo: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been talking up the benefits of a cashless world.
As the Federal Government moves to ban cash transactions above $10,000, there's a theory gaining traction that the real motive for the cash ban isn't the so-called "black economy", but rather, to give authorities greater control over your behaviour during recessions.

This theory, put forward by economists such as John Adams — and picked up by some federal politicians — has not been plucked out of thin air.

It is based on repeated public papers and statements by the international body in charge of financial stability — the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF).

A recent IMF blog entitled "Cashing In: How to Make Negative Interest Rates Work", explains its motive in wanting negative interest rates — a situation where instead of receiving money on deposits, depositors must pay regularly to keep their money with the bank.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Bitcoin, Gold and the Cashless Society

      Read More...
Snakes in Suits

House leadership strips approved antiwar measures from renewed National Defense Authorization Act

Jason Ditz
Antiwar.com
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
NDAA
The House version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) set aside an irresponsibly large amount of money for military spending, but it also added some antiwar amendments and other very basic limitations. The House and Senate versions have now been reconciled into a final bill, and materially all of the limitations that the House voted on and approved have been stripped away, in favor of a $738 billion bill that continues spending, but makes no attempt to rein in the military in any serious way.

The House bill had included the latest attempt to use the power of the purse to end US military involvement in Yemen, something that both houses had attempted to do in a War Powers Act resolution that was previously vetoed by President Trump. That language will not be in the final bill.

Nor will House language from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) that said any US attack on Iran could only come with the passage of an authorization for the use of military force against Iran. That is to say, it preemptively aimed to forbid an unauthorized US attack on Iran. The language is gone, and while theoretically the president is meant to be forbidden from unauthorized attacks, that's not the way recent administrations have treated the law.

Comment: Perfect. Greater destruction and carnage can now be fast-tracked by the US thanks to its crazed and war-mad leaders.

      Read More...
Attention

IG report confirms the Schiff memo praised by MSM was shot through with lies

Mollie Hemingway
The Federalist
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 20:55 UTC
schiff

Adam Schiff
The new inspector general report on FISA abuse settles the debate between Republicans and Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Both groups put out memos about the Department of Justice's efforts to secure a warrant to wiretap Carter Page.

At the time of their release, the media praised Democrat Adam Schiff and his memo and vilified Republican Devin Nunes and his memo. Nearly two years later, the inspector general's report vindicates the Nunes memo while showing that the Schiff memo was riddled with lies and false statements.

Comment: What needle is Horowitz trying to thread in not labeling the actions of FBI agents involved as evidence of bias?
Horowitz inexplicably stated early in his report that his office "did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI's decision" to begin surveilling Trump campaign associate Carter Page back in 2016.

Yet, just three pages later, the report says that Horowitz's investigation found seven times where FBI agents relied on "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported" information in order to continually seek reauthorization for the surveillance of Page and others in the campaign.

In one instance, Horowitz notes that the FBI's original theory (since debunked) that Carter Page was a Russian agent was complicated by his denials to intelligence sources of having met with a pair of Russian oligarchs, whom the FBI believed had in fact been in touch with Page. When the FBI wanted re-authorization to continue spying on Page, it concealed Page's denials from the court.

When relying on information provided by Christopher Steele, the former British spy and author of the Steele dossier, to seek surveillance reauthorization, the FBI told the FISA court that Steele's reporting was "corroborated and used in criminal proceedings." As Horowitz writes, this characterization was misleading. The FBI "overstated the significance of Steele's past reporting" and that the intelligence provided by Steele had not even been approved for use in the re-authorization application by the agent who supervised him.

Horowitz's ridiculous declaration that there was no "political bias or improper motivation" in the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign is simply not true, and anyone who actually reads his report knows it.
AG Barr takes a sterner view:
Attorney General William Barr announced on Dec. 9 that the surveillance operation against the Trump campaign in 2016 amounted to a "clear abuse" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process.

Barr made the remarks in a statement responding to the Justice Department inspector general's report on the handling of the FISA applications for warrants to spy on Trump-campaign associate Carter Page.

"In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source," Barr said.

"The Inspector General found the explanations given for these actions unsatisfactory. While most of the misconduct identified by the Inspector General was committed in 2016 and 2017 by a small group of now-former FBI officials, the malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General's report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process."

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded in a report released on Dec. 9 that the four applications for warrants to spy on Page contained 17 significant errors. The errors and other failures amounted to "serious performance failures by the supervisory and non-supervisory agents."
The investigation creeps ever closer to the Obama White House:
The DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Monday released his 476-page report on FISA abuses committed by Obama's corrupt FBI and DOJ before, during and after the 2016 election.

Comey told Inspector General Michael Horowitz that he briefed Barack Obama on the Trump-Russia investigation in August of 2016 shortly after FBI counterintel chief Peter Strzok opened a CI investigation into the Trump campaign dubbed "Crossfire Hurricane."

Barack Obama was also in the infamous Oval Office meeting in January of 2017 just days before Trump's Presidential Inauguration where Comey, Brennan, VP Biden and Susan Rice discussed the phony Russia dossier.

The day after this meeting in the Oval Office, Comey traveled to Trump Tower in New York to brief then-President elect Donald Trump about the salacious, unverified portions of the dossier.

Comey lied to Trump's face and told him not to worry because he was not under investigation, despite the fact that there were several open and ongoing investigations into Trump and his camp.

What did Obama know? How involved was Barack Obama? He should be dragged in to Capitol Hill to publicly testify to lawmakers.



      Read More...
Star of David

Prepping the stage: Another flawed prospectus for war, this time with Iran

Alistair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 09 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
TrumpNeti
© Reuters/Channel 2 News
US President Donald Trump • Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
"This is a historic opportunity", whispered one of Netanyahu's insiders into Ben Caspit (a leading Israeli journalist)'s ear this week: "You have no idea what we can wheedle from the Americans now, what a golden opportunity we face when the US is about to enter an election year".

"Bunker busters", he mutters to Caspit, who elaborates that:
"According to members of Netanyahu's inner circle, these bombs will be given to Israel once it signs the mutual defence agreement that Netanyahu has been working on."
And though Israel's security establishment historically have opposed a full pact, Caspit explains that the PM's associates "are referring to a 'partial' defence pact focused on Iran alone." Netanyahu's associates insist that "the prime minister wants to make history in the next half year."

What sort of history might that be? Why six months? Well, Caspit points up:
"Netanyahu's people, headed by minister Yuval Steinitz clearly state that a widespread war is likely to erupt in the next six months between Iran and its adversaries in the region, including Israel."
And the new Defence Minister, Bennett, threatens Iran on an almost daily basis.

"Perhaps Netanyahu simply needs a war with Iran in order to survive politically," one of the Blue and White leaders told Caspit: "That is scary and dangerous ..." .

Comment: Four considerations not mentioned that factor 'into' or 'out of' the above scenario:
1) the unwavering support Iran has from other countries such as Russia and China,
2) the faux hype for 'all things war' in the recent NATO conference,
3) Netanyahu's infiltration into Arab circles over the past year to cajole support for his Iran war agenda, and
4) If the JCPOA or similar is re-established, Iran may again agree on restrictions.

See also:

      Read More...
Arrow Down

Ray McGovern: US AG Barr blasts inspector general for whitewashing the FBI

Ray McGovern
Consortium News
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
BarrDurhamHorowitz
© EPA/Red Journalists/YouTube/KJN
US AG William Barr • US Attorney John Durham • IG Michael Horowitz
Attorney General William Barr on Monday disparaged the long-awaited findings of the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz into FBI conduct in the investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Barr, in effect, accused Horowitz of whitewashing a litany of proven misfeasance and malfeasance that created the "predicate," or legal justification, for investigating candidate-and-then-president Donald Trump on suspicion of being in cahoots with the Russians.

In grammatical terms, there can be no sentence, so to speak, without a predicate. Trump was clearly the object of the sentence, and the sleuths led by then-FBI Director James Comey were the subjects in desperate search of a predicate. Horowitz candidly depicted the predicate the FBI requires for a counter-intelligence investigation as having to meet a very low bar. The public criticism from his boss was unusual. For the tenacious attorney general, doing a serious investigation of how the FBI handled the Trump-Russia inquiry has become a case of no-holds-Barr-ed, one might say.

Comment:



      Read More...
Question

Top Ukraine official Andriy Yermak raises questions on key impeachment testimony

Simon Shuster
TIME
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Yermak
© Paolo Verzone—Agence VU for TIME
Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to Zelensky, at his office in Kyiv on Dec. 4
Since the start of the public impeachment hearings in Congress last month, Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to the President of Ukraine, has heard his name come up again and again in witness testimony. He took part in many of the events at the center of the impeachment inquiry, and the 300-page report released last week by the inquiry mentions Yermak dozens of times.

But in his first interview about those public hearings, Yermak has questioned the recollections of crucial witnesses in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump's alleged abuse of his office for political gain.

"Listen, I want to tell you straight," Yermak told TIME in the interview on Dec. 4, the first time he has openly discussed his views on the public impeachment hearings:
"Of course, now, when I watch these shows on television, my name often comes up, and I see people there whom I recognize, whom I met and know. That is their personal opinion, especially the positions they expressed while under oath. I have my own truth. I know what I know."
The most crucial point at which Yermak's recollection contradicts the testimony of the inquiry's witnesses relates to a meeting in Warsaw on Sept. 1, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. The meeting was part of an ongoing effort by the Zelensky administration to improve ties with the Trump administration.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Arrow Up

US imposes new sanctions on Iranian airline for supposed proliferation of lethal aid and WMDs

Daphne Psaledakis, Humeyra Pamuk
U.S.News
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
MPompeo
© Reuters/Yuri Gripas
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo makes a statement to the press at the State Department in Washington, U.S., December 11, 2019.
The United States on Wednesday imposed new sanctions on Iran's biggest airline and its shipping network, accusing them of transporting lethal aid and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

The new sanctions come just days after a weekend prisoner swap between the historic foes, a rare act of cooperation since tensions escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord.

The U.S. State Department targeted Shanghai-based ESAIL Shipping Company, which U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said "knowingly transports illicit materials from Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization, which oversees all of Iran's missile industry" and has worked with Iranian organizations subject to U.N. sanctions. The sanctions on ESAIL and additional sanctions on Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines will take effect in June 2020.

Also blacklisted was an Iranian shipping network involved in smuggling lethal aid from Iran to Yemen on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its elite foreign paramilitary and espionage arm, the Quds Force.
      Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Special Envoy Lavrentyev speaks out on White Helmets, Astana, the Kurds and sanctions on Syria


Sputnik
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 14:14 UTC
W Helmets
© AP/Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets
White Helmets
Syria Civil Defence, better known as the White Helmets, is a non-governmental organisation registered in the United Kingdom. The group and its activities are widely endorsed by Western governments. Damascus, however, accuses the organisation of extremism and propaganda dissemination.

The White Helmets are ramping up their presence in Syria's Idlib, potentially readying a provocation, Russian President's Special Envoy Aleksandr Lavrentyev, said on Wednesday at a press conference following talks in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.

Lavrentyev added that Moscow is calling on all its partners to carefully assess the information about the potential provocation.

The White Helmets is a UK-registered NGO. They describe themselves as former bakers, tailors, engineers, pharmacists, painters, carpenters, students and workers of other professions who volunteer to go to the "most dangerous place on earth" and protect local civilians from violence. The group enjoys wide publicity and endorsement in the West but has been accused by Damascus of extremism and spreading propaganda.
      Read More...
X

Nope, not gonna do it!: Joe Biden refuses to comply with senate subpoena

Haris Alic
Breitbart
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Biden
© Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Democratic Candidate and former VP Joe Biden
Joe Biden is promising to not comply if subpoenaed by lawmakers to testify at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump in the United States Senate. The former vice president, who had already ruled out voluntarily testifying at the impeachment proceedings, told NPR in an interview published on Monday he would not cooperate with a subpoena.
"No, I'm not going to let you take the eye off the ball here. Everybody knows what this is about. This is a Trump gambit he plays. Whenever he's in trouble he tries to find someone else to divert attention to."

Comment: The person on trial for impeachment doesn't get to pick who testifies. But let's blame Trump anyway.


When pressed, Biden stood resolute, claiming there was not "one scintilla of evidence" he did anything wrong. "No, I will not yield to what everybody is looking for here," the former vice president said. "And that is to take the eye off the ball."

The refusal comes as Senate Republicans have signaled it would be inappropriate for the impeachment proceedings, let alone a trial, to progress without the former vice president or his youngest son, Hunter, providing testimony.

Comment: Trending Politics, 10/12/2019: "Obstructing Congress" and "abuse of power" - neither impeachment charge is a high crime or misdemeanor
According to former federal prosecutor Robert Ray, neither charge is impeachable.


"My first reaction to that is despite what you just heard from Chairman Nadler, neither one of those is a high crime or misdemeanor," Ray asserted. "So we have not passed through an investigation over the course of the last several months where it's not treason, it's not bribery, it's not extortion, it's not a foreign an illegal foreign campaign violation it's now whatever a majority of the House of Representatives that is controlled by the Democrats say it is, which is abuse of power, abuse of conduct and an inter-branch dispute."

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham also hammered the Democrats after their announcement was made, saying that their actions are to "overturn the votes" of the American people.
Daily Caller, 9/12/2019: 'Take your donor to work day' Matt Gaetz (R: Florida) rips Dems for one-sided impeachment hearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight

Gaetz argued that the hearing was just Democratic donors asking each other questions. "It was this dystopian reality where I'm watching one Democrat donor ask questions of another Democrat donor about issues that we could all read about but they just want to give their hot takes."


      Read More...
Bad Guys

China imprisoned 48 journalists in 2019, most of any nation


RFE/RL
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:03 UTC
china flag
© AFP 2016/ MARK RALSTON
The Chinese government imprisoned at least 48 journalists in 2019, more than any other country, a rights watchdog said on December 11.

The annual report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said at least 250 journalists were imprisoned worldwide this year, compared to 255 last year.

Turkey came second with 47 journalists imprisoned in 2019, down from 68 last year, followed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both with 26.

Iran, which saw significant protests this year, put 11 journalists in prison this year, the report said.

Comment: Amateurs! They just need a free press driven by covert intelligence like the good ol' USA!

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts