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Federal judge will review Clinton connection to 1987 murder of two Arkansas boys


Sheep Media
Wed, 29 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
2 boys
© UnknownKevin Ives (foreground) and Don Henry
A federal judge is to review an unsolved 1987 murder case of 2 young boys from Arkansas who were believed to have been killed by Clinton operatives.

A mother's 30-year missions to uncover the truth about what happened to her son's in 1987 has led a federal judge to order an urgent review of several tightly guarded government documents about the Clintons and other high-level government officials.

On Au­gust 23, 1987, two boys were found dead on a rail­road tracks near Mena. The bod­ies were Kevin Ives, 17 years old and his friend, Don Henry, 16 years old. Their deaths at the time were ruled ac­ci­den­tal by Clin­ton-ap­pointed state med­ical ex­am­iner, Dr. Fahmy Malak.

In the 80's, Mena was used for one of the busiest drug smug­gling in op­er­a­tions in the world in what eventually became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Key op­er­a­tives in Iran-Con­tra were George Bush, Oliver North, Dewey Clar­ridge, John Point­dex­ter and Cas­par Wein­berger. The en­tire op­er­a­tion how­ever, would have to have bi-par­ti­san ef­forts. This would re­quire the co­op­er­a­tion of for­mer CIA op­er­a­tive and then Gov­er­nor, Bill Clin­ton.



Comment: The government elites' defiance of law, coverups and compromise of the justice system continue to protect them at the expense of innocent lives, exemplified by this tragic case of 30 years ago. It is the same today as then.

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Bandaid

McCain backs tax bill, Senate GOP still tweaking suspends vote


RT
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 04:01 UTC
quotetaxes
© Pinterest
Senate Republicans are delaying their final vote on tax reform after heated debates nearly sent the bill back to committee. The bill has gained Senator John McCain's (R-Arizona) support, but other Republicans still need convincing in order for it to pass.

On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) called to delay the next vote on their version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act until 11:00 am Friday, as Republicans make final changes to ensure they have the votes.

McCain, who was considered to be a key holdout, released a statement, saying that he would support the bill. McCain called the bill "far from perfect," but said that it would "enhance American competitiveness, boost the economy, and provide long overdue tax relief for middle-class families."

However, even with McCain's vote, Republicans can't afford to lose more than two votes from their caucus, or the bill fails.
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Dollar Gold

America's addiction to military-industrial money

JP Sottile
Consortium News
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
President Dwight Eisenhower
President Dwight Eisenhower delivering his farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961.
Polls show that Americans are tired of endless wars in faraway lands, but many cheer President Trump's showering money on the Pentagon and its contractors, a paradox that President Eisenhower foresaw, writes JP Sottile.

The Military-Industrial Complex has loomed over America ever since President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of its growing influence during his prescient farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961. The Vietnam War followed shortly thereafter, and its bloody consequences cemented the image of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) as a faceless cadre of profit-seeking warmongers who've wrested control of the foreign policy. That was certainly borne out by the war's utter senselessness ... and by tales of profiteering by well-connected contractors like Brown & Root.

Over five decades, four major wars and a dozen-odd interventions later, we often talk about the Military-Industrial Complex as if we're referring to a nefarious, flag-draped Death Star floating just beyond the reach of helpless Americans who'd generally prefer that war was not, as the great Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler aptly put it, little more than a money-making "racket."

The feeling of powerlessness that the MIC engenders in "average Americans" makes a lot of sense if you just follow the money coming out of Capitol Hill. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) tabulated all "defense-related spending" for both 2017 and 2018, and it hit nearly $1.1 trillion for each of the two years. The "defense-related" part is important because the annual National Defense Authorization Act, a.k.a. the defense budget, doesn't fully account for all the various forms of national security spending that gets peppered around a half-dozen agencies.
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Gold Coins

Nobel Laureate Stiglitz: Bitcoin should be outlawed, serves no socially useful function

Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Thu, 30 Nov 2017 20:41 UTC
bitcoin
© Karen Blier / AFP
Bitcoin has soared this year by more than ten-fold, defying all of the Wall Street veterans who have compared it to the Tulip Bubble and/or a Ponzi scheme. That doesn't mean that Bitcoin is a legitimate investment; it just means that bubbles have no set expiration date.

The Nobel laureate economist, Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, appeared on Bloomberg television yesterday and had this to say about Bitcoin:
"One of the main functions of government is to create currency. And Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight. So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed. It doesn't serve any socially useful function."
Consider the remarks Stiglitz made yesterday to our more detailed assessment along the same lines back in 2014. We wrote:
"The business writers at Reuters are also dead wrong on Bitcoin being like other currencies whose 'value depends on people's confidence in it.' Let's take the U.S. dollar. Backing the use of the U.S. dollar as a world currency is the following: a Congress made up of 435 Representatives in the House and 100 Senators in the Senate; 535 people elected from all over the United States who have the power to tax the income of every American receiving wage, dividend, interest or even Social Security income at whatever rate they see fit in order to pay the Nation's bills and debt obligations to other countries.

Comment: Decentralization? Instant transactions? Transparency? Time will tell if Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies don't serve "any socially useful function". See also:

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Chess

Tillerson brushes off reports of his imminent replacement as "laughable"


RT
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 20:22 UTC
tillerson
© James Lawler Dugga / Reuters
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson brushed off reports that President Donald Trump is planning to replace him with CIA director Mike Pompeo. The administration has repeatedly rejected the report as false.

"It's laughable. It's laughable," Tillerson said on Friday, when asked by reporters if Trump is planning to replace him with Pompeo. The rumor was first reported by the New York Times on Thursday, citing an anonymous sources in the White House.


Comment: Neither the NY Times nor "anonymous sources" are good sources of information for the discerning reader.


Tillerson's comment came during an appearance at the State Department with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Al-Sarraj's visit to Washington includes meetings with President Trump and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Mattis also denied the reports about Tillerson on Thursday, saying, "I make nothing of it, there's nothing to it."

Trump was not as direct when asked about Tillerson's position. When asked about it during a Thursday meeting with the Bahraini crown prince, the president responded, "He's here. Rex is here."
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USA

U.S. Empire is heading into 'irrevocable' decline


Information Clearing House
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 19:44 UTC
Alfred McCoy
© a. nolanAlfred William McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Alfred McCoy, Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains the decline of the United States as a global power and the rise of the Chinese empire. Chris Hedges discusses the current state of the American empire with historian Alfred McCoy.

"The American Empire could collapse almost overnight"

"If it comes to a military crunch," the historian tells the journalist, "we could lose."

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2 + 2 = 4

Analysing Flynn's indictment for lying to the FBI about asking Russia to help protect Israel

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 19:57 UTC
flynn kislyak
General Michael Fly and Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak
The indictment and guilty plea of General Flynn represent what I suspect is the high water mark of the Russiagate scandal.

A few weeks ago, following the indictments issued against Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos, I speculated that Flynn would be the next person to be indicted, and so it has proved.

Flynn's guilty plea has come with an apparent agreement to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Inevitably this is giving rise to speculation that Flynn has "flipped". Is that speculation warranted?

Firstly, it needs to be said that the indictment against Flynn and his guilty plea have absolutely no bearing on the allegations of illegal collusion during the 2016 Presidential election between the Trump campaign and the Russians which are at the centre of the Russiagate scandal.

Instead they concern what is purely a 'process crime': that Flynn falsely denied to the FBI that he had asked Russian ambassador Kislyak for Russia to react with restraint to the sanctions imposed on Russia in December 2016 by Barack Obama, and - much more interestingly - that he also falsely denied asking Kislyak for Russia's help to block or delay a vote on a Resolution in the UN Security Council.

Comment: Trump's personal lawyer released this statement:
"The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year," Cobb continued. "Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn. The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel's work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion".
More of Flynn's statement, quoted partially above:
After over 33 years of military service to our country, including nearly five years in combat away from my family, and then my decision to continue to serve the United States, it has been extraordinarily painful to endure these many months of false accusations of "treason' and other outrageous acts.

Such false accusations are contrary to everything I have ever done and stood for.

But I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right.

My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel's Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions.
See also: Michael Flynn 'Guilty' Plea and the Entire 'Russia Collusion' Investigation is a Farce

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Gear

Turkey issues arrest warrant for former CIA officer in role of 2016 failed coup


Sputnik
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 17:03 UTC
Turkey military
© AP Photo/ Hussein Malla
Since the thwarted coup in Turkey, the authorities have arrested hundreds of military personnel, activists and journalists on suspicion of having links to the Fethullah Terrorist Organization.

Turkish prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for Graham Fuller, a former employee of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), over his alleged involvement in the 2016 coup attempt, the Hurriyet newspaper reported Friday.

Graham, who served as vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council of the CIA, resided in Turkey during the attempted coup in July 2016 and left the country after it failed, according to the newspaper.

Comment: Looks like Turkey is starting to inform the public that the 'Gulen network' isn't a mere independent organization and is in fact a CIA operation. This is something Sott.net has been signaling all along:

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Bullseye

Tulsi Gabbard: The 'only viable option' to denuclearize North Korea is diplomacy

Daniel Chaitin
Washington Examiner
Thu, 30 Nov 2017 17:25 UTC
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
© AP Photo/Ajit Solanki"The only viable option that I see before us today is a diplomatic one, and that can only be pursued if two things happen," the Hawaii Democrat said.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said there is only one "viable" way to denuclearize an aggressive North Korean regime.

Following Pyongyang's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test this week, demonstrating a range not seen before, Gabbard advocated diplomacy, but with conditions.

"The only viable option that I see before us today is a diplomatic one, and that can only be pursued if two things happen," Gabbard said on CNN on Thursday.

Comment: Diplomacy - what a concept! But unfortunately one that few in Washington see as real option. So much better to threaten, bully and terrorize.

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USA

Best of the Web: Michael Flynn 'Guilty' Plea and the Entire 'Russia Collusion' Investigation is a Farce

Andrew McCarthy
National Review
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 19:22 UTC
Michael Flynn arrives at a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., December 1, 2017.
Michael Flynn arrives at a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., December 1, 2017.
Former Trump-administration national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who is reportedly cooperating with the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller, is pleading guilty in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to a one-count criminal information (which is filed by a prosecutor in cases when a defendant waives his right to be indicted by a grand jury).
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