On the anniversary of one of the most explosive political scandals in American history, let Sputnik guide you through ten of the most shameful, shocking, deplorable embarrassments to ever rock Washington DC.

In its nearly 240-year history, America has seen its share of political sideshows. Some were minor: former US Representative Anthony Weiner's sexting habits, the cost of John Edwards' haircut, Aaron Schock redecorating his Congressional office to look like the set of Downton Abbey. Others have become part of the national zeitgeist. Stories of the Boston Tea Party, Alexander Hamilton's duel to the death with Aaron Burr, George Washington chopping down that cherry tree, all occupy a special place in a shared American story.

But none have become quite so grandiose as Nixon's great con on the American people, which occurred 43 years ago Wednesday.

1. Watergate

In 1972, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two reporters for the Washington Post, were contacted by an FBI informant known only as "Deep Throat." Later identified as the Bureau's associate director Mark Felt, he helped bring to light one of the most astonishing presidential scandals in US history, ultimately leading to the resignation of Republican President Richard Nixon.

On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested after breaking into the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex. Deep Throat unveiled a high-level cover-up which, once unraveled, revealed that the five men were paid by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. Nixon's involvement in the affair was proven when the Supreme Court got its hands on the president's infamous tape recordings.

"...People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook," Nixon said during a press conference. "Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."

In the 1989 film Batman, after the caped crusader rescues a damsel in distress from the Joker using a fancy zipline gun, the clown prince of crime, played by Jack Nicholson, asks in bewilderment:

"Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

Especially upon seeing Batman's nicest toys — his armored Batmobile and his military-grade Batwing fighter plane, etc — the Joker must have assumed his adversary was financed by some seriously deep pockets. And indeed, hidden behind the cowl was billionaire Bruce Wayne all along.

Similarly, upon seeing real-life fighters also garbed in black masks and jumpsuits, and running around the poverty-stricken Middle East with such "wonderful toys" as TOW anti-tank missiles, up-armored Humvees, M1A1 Abrams tanks, and fleets of gun-mounted Toyota pick-up trucks, any perceptive person must also assume that a wealthy patron lurked in the background.

Where do they get those wonderful Toyotas?

Indeed where do ISIS and al-Qaeda get those wonderful toys we so often see these days triumphantly bedecked with black flags? The ultimate source of virtually all of the jihadists' gear are the deep pockets of the United States government and its client states. Uncle Sam is the veritable Bruce Wayne of Jihad. This was basically admitted in a recently disclosed Defense Intelligence Agency report. But anyone who bothered looking into it could have known this long ago, even if restricting one's self to mainstream sources.

Most support for the jihadists has come by way of the aid the US offers, along with its allies, to the insurgency in Syria battling to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. Washington has given this support even though the Pentagon admitted internally as early as 2012 that extremists including al-Qaeda were, as the DIA report said, "the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria."

If Donald Trump's presidential bid has left you asking "who in their right mind would vote for that man?" the answer could very well be: actors he's paid 50 bucks.

Donald Trump is rich. Really, really, really rich. We know because he told us. "I'm really rich. I'll show you that in a second," he said during his presidential announcement on Tuesday, before waving around a copy of his net worth summary like a 4-year-old who just found an extra quarter at ChuckECheese.

That summary is already being called into question. While Trump claims he's worth about $9 billion, Anand Chokkavelu, managing editor of investment site Motley Fool, told NPR, "I don't see any reason to take his self-reported net worth at face value."

Still, we do have some indications that the Donald is as wealthy as he claims: he can afford to fill Trump Tower with paid supporters.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko can't seem to get enough of foreign advisors telling his government how to carry out reforms, this time offering former British Prime Minister Tony Blair a job in his International Advisory Council for Reforms, a press release on the president's website reported.

The press release, issued Wednesday, noted that the former prime minister had been invited "to share his experience of public administration" within the council, headed by corruption-mired former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has since moved on to become governor of the Odessa Region.


"I discussed with Tony Blair the experience of reforms and state management. Despite the war, we have the opportunity to conduct reforms!"

Poroshenko met with the former prime minister in Kiev. Blair, who served as prime minister between 1997 to 2007, called on the Ukrainian government to follow the values of "freedom, democracy and a desire to serve the people," adding that the country faces "great challenges" including corruption and "Russian aggression."

Russia's Foreign Ministry summoned the Belgian ambassador on Thursday, informing him that Russia may adopt reciprocal measures if asset seizures are not reversed.

Russia may be forced to consider retaliatory measures if Belgium continues persists with the seizure of assets belonging to Russian organizations in the country, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

A Belgian court instructed on Wednesday that 47 Belgian and Russian companies be stripped of assets to the tune of 1.65 billion euros ($1.87 billion) in connection to a settlement awarded to former Yukos shareholders by a Dutch arbitration court. Russia's Justice Ministry Alexander Konovalov said that Belgium's legal arguments for seizing Russian property are unclear and that it has requested information regarding through diplomatic channels.

"The Belgian ambassador was informed that the Russian side considers such acts by competent authorities of the Kingdom of Belgium as openly unfriendly acts and flagrant violations of universally recognized norms of international law," the ministry said in a statement.

The EU Council has agreed on a six-month extension of economic sanctions against Russia, according to a TASS source in Brussels.

"The decision to prolong sanctions till January, 2016 was ratified by the Committee of Permanent Representatives of Member States of the EU," said the source Wednesday.

The EU Council did not discuss the issue of tightening economic sanctions, added the source. The six-month extension is expected to be unanimously ratified at the foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

The EU summit in March adopted a declaration of intent to prolong the economic sanctions against Russia, but no formal decision had been made.


The EU's decision to prolong sanctions against the Russian Federation was expected; nothing will change in relations between Moscow and Brussels, said the Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy Fyodor Lukyanov.

"It seems to me that even if Moscow had any hopes the EU would change its stance after signing ... the Minsk Agreement a few months ago then it became clear that there is nothing to be expected. Therefore, there will be no disappointment," he said.

CHAPTER ONE

War is a Racket

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

- From Major General Smedley Butler's War is a Rackett

This is one of the most important articles I will write all year. The statists are coming for your kids, and the conditioning has already begun.

Greece's former representative to the IMF, Panagiotis Roumeliotis, has testified that Greek journalists attended seminars funded by the IMF and were instructed to present the IMF in a favorable light.

In what can only be described as a shocking testimony, Greece's former representative to the IMF, Panagiotis Roumeliotis, in front of the special parliamentary committee on the Greek debt, said that several Greek journalists were "trained" in Washington D.C. in order to support the positions of the IMF and the European Commission in Greek media.

Roumeliotis testified that...

"The IMF trained" greek journalists so that "Greek journalists can promote the positions of the IMF and the European Commission in Greek media."

In an extremely unsettling ruling, a New York appeals court has ruled that your family members' organs can be kept by the medical examiner without having to notify the family of the deceased.

The divisive ruling left the seven-member appeals court divided 5-2, with all justices wanting the state legislature to ultimately decide the issue.

The morbid case ensued after a New York medical examiner, doing a routine autopsy on 17-year-old vehicular accident victim Jesse Shipley, kept the brain of the teenager, only to have it be discovered by classmates on a school field trip two months later.

The organ was only discovered after a classmate of Shipley's, on a field trip to the Staten Island morgue, noticed a brain in a jar of formaldehyde type fluid labeled with Shipley's name on the outside of the container. The classmate then informed Shipley's sister Shannon.

The right to claim the remains of deceased loved ones harkens back to old English common law and is called the "right of sepulcher," according to The Guardian.

Although his parents did agree to have an autopsy done, in which the brain is removed, they were completely taken by surprise to find out that the body of their child, released to them by the medical examiner, and eventually buried, was missing the brain.

The brain was eventually returned to the family and they then held a second funeral for their son. The family then sued the city for emotional distress, citing that they should have been made aware that their son's brain had permanently removed from the body.

It was in April when we got a stark reminder of a post we first penned in April of 2011, describing Odious Debt, and why we thought sooner or later this legal term would become applicable for Greece, because two months ago Greek Zoi Konstantopoulou, speaker of the Greek parliament and a SYRIZA member, said she had established a new "Truth Committee on Public Debt" whose purposes was to "investigate how much of the debt is "illegal" with a view to writing it off."

Moments ago, this committee released its preliminary findings, and here is the conclusion from the full report presented below:

All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika's arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and odious.

As we predicted over four years ago, Greece has effectively just declared that it will no longer have to default on its IMF (or any other debt - note that the dreaded "Troika" word finally makes an appearance after it was officially banned) simply because that debt was not legal to begin with, i.e. it was "odious."