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Former President Obama has come under fire for what many have viewed as a hypocritical condemnation of President Trump during a Friday acceptance speech for his Ethics in Government award at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In particular, critics are slamming Obama for his comments regarding Trump’s criticism of the press – while casually minimizing his own actions against journalists and whistleblowers:

It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down or call them enemies of the people. -Barack Obama

Except Obama did much, much more than that…

In addition to prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined, the Obama administration targeted then-Fox News journalist James Rosen as a “criminal co-conspirator” for protecting his sources in a DOJ leak investigation.

And while Obama’s defenders have attempted to downplay his actions, the overwhelming consensus appears to be that the former President is a massive hypocrite.

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“I complained plenty about Fox News, but I never threatened to shut them down.”
It’s probably a good time to remind you that Obama used the Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers who leaked to journalists more than all previous presidents combined.

2:01 PM – Sep 7, 2018

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Worth noting, though, that the Obama Justice Department secretly designated a Fox News journalist, James Rosen, as a criminal co-conspirator.

Brian Stelter‏Verified account@brianstelter

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Obama telling the truth about his media criticism versus Trump’s criticism: “I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people.”

Verified account

1:30 PM – 7 Sep 2018

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We Are Being Played

September 7, 2018

We Are Being Played

If any evidence existed to be found that Donald Trump had illegally colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election, that evidence would have been picked up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies and leaked to the Washington Post before Obama left office.

Russiagate is like a mirage. From a distance it looks like a solid, tangible thing, but when you actually move in to examine it critically you find nothing but gaping plot holes, insinuation, innuendo, conflicting narratives, bizarre mental contortions to avoid acknowledging contradictory information, a few arrests for corruption and process crimes, and a lot of hot air. The whole thing has been held together by nothing but the confident-sounding assertions of pundits and politicians and sheer, mindless repetition. And, as we approach the two year mark since this president’s election, we have not seen one iota of movement toward removing him from office. The whole thing’s a lie, and the smart movers and shakers behind it are aware that it is a lie.

And yet they keep beating on it. Day after day after day after day it’s been Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. Instead of attacking this president for his many, many real problems in a way that will do actual damage, they attack this fake blow-up doll standing next to him in a way that never goes anywhere and never will, like a pro wrestler theatrically stomping on the canvass next to his downed foe.

What’s up with that?

View image on Twitter

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In Opinion
In an anonymous Op-Ed, a senior Trump administration official says he and others are working to frustrate the president’s “misguided impulses.” https://nyti.ms/2Q6wEiP

3:51 PM – Sep 5, 2018

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

No Fracking Way: Debt-Laden Shale Producers May Unleash The Next Financial Crisis

September 4, 2018

No Fracking Way: Debt-Laden Shale Producers May Unleash The Next Financial Crisis

After nearly two decades of horizontal drilling, fracking – as it is commonly known, has “turned the energy world upside down,” according to Journalist Bethany McLean, a former Goldman Sachs analyst-turned-journalist.

And according to a new op-ed in the New York Times, McLean has a warning for anyone betting the farm on the shale industry; beware.

In a nutshell, the fracking industry – which “could not have taken off so dramatically were it not for record low interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis,” is setting up for a spectacular fall without rising oil prices and global demand. Fracking companies have largely survived, according to McLean, because “plenty of people on Wall Street are willing to keep feeding them capital and taking their fees.”

From 2001 to 2012, Chesapeake Energy, a pioneering fracking firm, sold $16.4 billion of stock and $15.5 billion of debt, and paid Wall Street more than $1.1 billion in fees, according to Thomson Reuters Deals Intelligence. That’s what was public. In less obvious ways, Chesapeake raised at least another $30 billion by selling assets and doing Enron-esque deals in which the company got what were, in effect, loans repaid with future sales of natural gas.

But Chesapeake bled cash. From 2002 to the end of 2012, Chesapeake never managed to report positive free cash flow, before asset sales. –NYT

Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy fellow, Amir Azar, calculates that the fracking industry’s net debt in 2015 was $200 billion, a 300% increase from a decade earlier, however interest expense increased at half the rate debt did due to falling interest rates.

Dr. Azar recently called the post-2008 era of super-low interest rates the “real catalyst of the shale revolution.” –NYT

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Neoliberalism drives climate breakdown, not human nature

August 9, 2018

Neoliberalism drives climate breakdown, not human nature

Attempts by the New York Times to blame humanity as a whole for climate change let the real culprits off the hook.

Image: Quarrie Photography, some rights reserved.

Many zoos have an exhibit like this: a wall with a hatch, and under the hatch words like “Do you want to see the most dangerous animal in the world?”. Of course everyone does, and before they open the hatch they speculate as to what the animal behind the hatch will be. A lion? A crocodile? However, when you open the hatch there is a mirror, and you see yourself staring back. You are the most dangerous animal in the world.

Of course this is nonsense. Not everyone who opens that hatch and sees themselves looking back is equally dangerous. We are not all equally responsible for destruction of the world’s ecosystems. Some humans who open the hatch probably are responsible for a great deal of destruction. Other are not. Many people bear the brunt of someone else’s destruction.

The idea that all humanity is equally and collectively responsible for climate change – or any other environmental or social problem – is extremely weak. In a basic and easily calculable way, not everyone is responsible for the same quantity of greenhouse gasses. People in the world’s poorest countries produce roughly one hundredth of the emissions of the richest people in the richest countries. Through the chance of our births, and the lifestyle we choose we are not all equally responsible for climate change.

But we are not all equally responsible in a more fundamental way. Some people through the power they wield, have stood in the way of halting climate change. Not because they were stubborn or incompetent or failed to understand the seriousness.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Paranoia Ramps Up Infowar on Russia

August 4, 2018

US Paranoia Ramps Up Infowar on Russia

This week saw renewed effort by US politicians and media to ramp up the information war against Russia. The impetus came from the US-based social media network, Facebook, declaring that it had identified “coordinated political influence campaigns”.

Never mind that the internet giant admitted that it did not know the actual identify of the organizers, that did not stop US news media and senior Washington politicians jumping to conclusions that Russia was guilty (again) of interfering in US politics.

Facebook’s head of cybersecurity Nathaniel Gleicher was quoted as saying: “At this point in our investigation, we do not have enough technical evidence to state definitively who is behind it.”

Somehow this baseless information was miraculously turned into “evidence” pointing to Russian “malign activity”.

Mark Warner, a member of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, reacted to the non-issue with the following categorical words: “Today’s disclosure is further evidence that the Kremlin continues to exploit platforms like Facebook to sow division and spread disinformation.”

It’s rather astounding that a senior US lawmaker who is running the “intelligence community” can make such a preposterous assertion based on no facts.

Even the Trump White House, which is caught up in a web of contradictions, was impelled to jump to wrong conclusions. A spokesperson said President Donald Trump “will not tolerate foreign interference in our electoral process from any nation state or other malicious actors.”

It is a clear sign of how collectively paranoid the US political and media establishment have become whenever they make such wild extrapolations based on infantile innuendo and fatuous reasoning.

In the following editorial comment in a New York Times report it was stated: “Like the 2016 Russian interference campaign, the recently detected campaign sought to amplify divisive social issues, including through organizing real-world events.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Refusing To Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature

July 30, 2018

In Refusing To Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature

Last Tuesday a top lawyer for the New York Times named David McCraw warned a room full of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange for WikiLeaks publications would set a very dangerous precedent which would end up hurting mainstream news media outlets like NYT, the Washington Post, and other outlets which publish secret government documents.

“I think the prosecution of him would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers,” McCraw said. “From that incident, from everything I know, he’s sort of in a classic publisher’s position and I think the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The New York Times and WikiLeaks.”

Do you know where I read about this? Not in the New York Times.

“Curiously, as of this writing, McCraw’s words have found no mention in the Times itself,” activist Ray McGovern wrote for the alternative media outlet Consortium News. “In recent years, the newspaper has shown a marked proclivity to avoid printing anything that might risk its front row seat at the government trough.”

Though The New York Times itself has not reported it, it’s No. 2 lawyer told a group of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange could have dire consequences for the Times itself, explains Ray McGovern.https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/25/the-gray-lady-thinks-twice-about-assanges-prosecution/ …

9:40 AM – Jul 26, 2018

The Gray Lady Thinks Twice About Assange’s Prosecution

Though The New York Times itself has not reported it, it’s No. 2 lawyer told a group of West Coast judges that prosecution of Julian Assange by the U.S. government could have dire consequences for…

consortiumnews.com

So let’s unpack that a bit. It is now public knowledge that the Ecuadorian government is actively seeking to turn Assange over to be arrested by the British government. This was initially reported by RT, then independently confirmed by The Intercept, and is today full mainstream public knowledge being reported by mainstream outlets like CNN.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Erasing Flint’s Water Crisis: Or How to Lie With Statistics

July 26, 2018

Erasing Flint’s Water Crisis: Or How to Lie With Statistics

Photo by Pete Souza | CC BY 2.0

Mark Twain famously wrote that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” This insight is relevant to examining the apologetics of modern-day academics in the rising neoliberal assault on the public. This subservience to power is evident in efforts to rationalize governmental attacks on the most basic of human needs: access to clean water. In seeking to numb the public to basic facts and reality, the New York Times has published an op-ed analysis piece by Hernán Gómez and Kim Dietrich: “The Children of Flint Were Not Poisoned” (7/22/2018).

On the face of it, many might take the above piece seriously in light of its prestigious source. It was published in the most prominent, influential newspaper in the country – the national “paper of record.” Furthermore, the authors are trained experts in their fields, Gómez an “associate professor” of emergency medicine” at the University of Michigan, Dietrich a “professor of epidemiology and environmental health” at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Furthermore, Gómez’s research on Flint has gone through the peer review process, as seen in the publication of his article, “Blood Lead Levels of Children in Michigan: 2006-2016” in The Journal of Pediatrics. Scholarly peer review is designed to guarantee the highest possible quality of scholarly and medical research, although in this case it appears that the process badly broke down in relation to the study of water in Flint.

Before discussing the New York Time’s claims, it is worth briefly reviewing the history of what happened in Flint, Michigan. In a country where people’s historical memory is notoriously short, many may have forgotten exactly what happened in this tragic case. To provide some context, Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder declared an emergency takeover of Flint’s financial management in November of 2011, citing the city’s fiscal mismanagement and its lack of revenues to provide for basic services.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two Countries?

June 30, 2018

The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two Countries?

Among the ruling interests in the US, one interest even more powerful than the Israel Lobby—the Deep State of the military/security complex— there is enormous fear that an uncontrollable President Trump at the upcoming Putin/Trump summit will make an agreement that will bring to an end the demonizing of Russia that serves to protect the enormous budget and power of the military-security complex.

You can see the Deep State’s fear in the editorials that the Deep State handed to the Washington Post (June 29) and New York Times (June 29), two of the Deep State’s megaphones, but no longer believed by the vast majority of the American people. The two editorials share the same points and phrases. They repeat the disproven lies about Russia as if blatant, obvious lies are hard facts.

Both accuse President Trump of “kowtowing to the Kremlin.” Kowtowing, of course, is not a Donald Trump characteristic. But once again fact doesn’t get in the way of the propaganda spewed by the WaPo and NYT, two megaphones of Deep State lies.

The Deep State editorial handed to the WaPo reads: “THE REASONS for the tension between the United States and Russia are well-established. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a war in eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential election campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, poisoned a former intelligence officer on British soil and continues to meddle in the elections of other democracies.”

The WaPo’s opening paragraph is a collection of all the blatant lies assembled by the Deep State for its Propaganda Ministry. There have been many books written about the CIA’s infiltration of the US media.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the New York Times Lies About Lies: Obama v. Trump as Example

June 22, 2018

How the New York Times Lies About Lies: Obama v. Trump as Example

Although the New York Times says that President Donald Trump lies vastly more than did President Barack Obama, the definite liar in that comparison — based on the factual record, to be presented here — is the New York Times itself. It lies in alleging this, which isn’t to say that either President lies more frequently than the other, but instead, that the Times’s calculation fails to count, at all, but instead altogether ignores, some of President Obama’s very worst lies — ones that were real whoppers. These were lies that were essential to his maintaining support among Democrats (such as the owners of this corporation, the NYT, are), and that would keep Democrats’ support only if they failed to judge him by his actual decisions and actions (such as the NYT’s owners do — or else they secretly know the truth on this, but prevent this truth from being published by their employees). Even to the present day, Obama is evaluated by Democrats on the basis of his lies instead of on the basis of his actions. He’s admired for his stated intentions and promises, which were often the opposite of what his consistent actual decisions and actions turned out to be on those very same matters, on which he had, in retrospect, quite clearly lied (though that was covered-up at the time — and still is).

For example, among the list of lies that the NYT counts from Obama, is excluded Obama’s having asserted on 20 May 2009, at the signing into law of both the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act: “This bill nearly doubles the FBI’s mortgage and financial fraud program, allowing it to better target fraud in hard-hit areas.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why It Matters If Fracking Companies Are Overestimating Their ‘Proved’ Oil and Gas Reserves

June 17, 2018

Why It Matters If Fracking Companies Are Overestimating Their ‘Proved’ Oil and Gas Reserves

Back in 2011, The New York Times first raised concerns about the reliability of America’s proved shale gas reserves. Proved reserves are the estimates of supplies of oil and gas that drillers tell investors they will be able to tap. The Times suggested that a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule change allowed drillers to potentially overbook their “proved” reserves of natural gas from shale formations, which horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) were rapidly opening up.

“Welcome back to Alice in Wonderland,” energy analyst John E. Olson told The Times, commenting on the reliability of these reserves after the rule change. Olson, a former Merril Lynch analyst, is best known for seeing the coming Enron scandal 10 years before the infamous energy company imploded in 2000.

Today, those same rules have allowed shale drillers to boost their reserves of oil, as well as natural gas. As a result, these “proved” reserves, which investors and pipeline companies are banking on, could potentially be much less proven than they appear.

And the unprecented degree to which this is happening in the shale industry casts a shadow of doubt on the purportedly bright future of America’s booming oil and gas industry.

Rising ‘Proved Undeveloped’ Reserves

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Do We Really Borrow From Only Ourselves? Does the Debt/GDP Ratio Means Anything?

June 17, 2018

Do We Really Borrow From Only Ourselves? Does the Debt/GDP Ratio Means Anything?

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, the famous economist Paul Krugman says that debt is ok when we owe it to ourselves. He calls it “deficit scolding” as he wrote in the New York Times. Would you like to comment on this statement?

ANSWER: Paul Krugman seems to lack any historical understanding of how nations rise and fall. Anyone who claims debt is OK and can be infinite because “we” owe it to ourselves is clueless. He wrote in the article you referred to that “we have a more or less stable ratio of debt to GDP, and no hint of a financing problem.” The debt to GDP ratio is interesting but totally irrelevant. China’s debt to GDP stands at 250%, the USA at 103%, and Greece buckled at 186%. Obviously, this ratio is rather meaningless as a forecasting tool. I have published this chart on call money rates previously. In my studies, I quickly discovered that you cannot reduce the cause of any effect to a single issue. We can see that the peak in call money rates took place during 1899 and it was the lowest in 1929 when the Great Depression hit. You can’t even claim that if interest rates hit some magical level the stock market would crash. The world is far more complicated than just this one-dimensional approach to everything.

Capital flows were fleeing the USA in 1899 so interest rates went higher with a shortage of money. In 1929, the capital was in the USA for it rushed here because of World War I. The inflow of capital created an excess so the peak in call money rates was lower than 1899 when capital was fleeing. We even have the world of President Grover Cleveland from the Panic of 1893 commenting on the net capital outflow because of the “unsound” financial policy of the Silver Democrats.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Latest Privacy Scandal, Facebook Gave Apple, Amazon And Others Unprecedented Access To User Data

June 4, 2018

In Latest Privacy Scandal, Facebook Gave Apple, Amazon And Others Unprecedented Access To User Data

Facebook has been giving user data to at least 60 major device manufacturers over the last decade – including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung – as part of a data-sharing partnership program which allowed the companies to integrate various features such as messaging and “like” buttons into their products.

The data-sharing agreement, reported Sunday evening by the New York Times, allowed manufacturers to access information on relationship status, calendar events, political affiliations and religion, among other things. An Apple spokesman, for example, said that the company relied on private access to Facebook data to allow users to post on the social network without opening the Facebook app, among other things.

What’s more, the manufacturers were able to access the data of users’ friends without their explicit consent, despite Facebook declaring they would not let outside companies access user data. The catch? The NYT explains.

Facebook’s view that the device makers are not outsiders lets the partners go even further, The Times found: They can obtain data about a user’s Facebook friends, even those who have denied Facebook permission to share information with any third parties.

In interviews, several former Facebook software engineers and security experts said they were surprised at the ability to override sharing restrictions. –NYT

“It’s like having door locks installed, only to find out that the locksmith also gave keys to all of his friends so they can come in and rifle through your stuff without having to ask you for permission,” said Ashkan Soltani, a research and privacy consultant and former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Krugman Dismisses That an Increase in Money Supply Causes Inflation

April 15, 2018

KRUGMAN DISMISSES THAT AN INCREASE IN MONEY SUPPLY CAUSES INFLATION

In the New York Times article on March 27, 2018 – Immaculate inflation strikes again – Paul Krugman argues that those economists who are of the opinion that the key factor that causes inflation is increases in money supply are very wrong. According to Krugman, the key factor that sets in motion inflation is unemployment. Whilst a decline in the unemployment rate is associated with a strengthening in the rate of inflation an increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a decline in the rate of inflation.

Note that for Krugman inflation is about general increases in the prices of goods and services, which we suggest is a flawed definition. To ascertain what inflation is all about we have to establish how this phenomenon emerged. We have to trace it back to its historical origin.

The essence of inflation

The subject matter of inflation is an act of embezzlement. Historically inflation originated when a country’s ruler such as king would force his citizens to give him all their gold coins under the pretext that a new gold coin was going to replace the old one. In the process, the king would falsify the content of the gold coins by mixing it with some other metal and return diluted gold coins to the citizens.

On this Rothbard wrote,

More characteristically, the mint melted and recoined all the coins of the realm, giving the subjects back the same number of “pounds” or “marks”, but of a lighter weight. The leftover ounces of gold or silver were pocketed by the King and used to pay his expenses.^[1]

On account of the dilution of the gold coins, the ruler could now mint a greater amount of coins and pocket for his own use the extra coins minted. What was now passing as a pure gold coin was in fact a diluted gold coin.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

April 10, 2018

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

At this writing, President Trump is considering “the possibility of retaliation in Syria in response to a suspected chemical attack on young children and families in the Syrian city of Douma,” reported CBS News. “If it’s the Russians, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out,” Trump said. “Nothing’s off the table,” including a military attack by the United States.

Whether that possibility involves a cruise missile strike, drone attacks or conventional bombing raids by fighter jets, this is deadly serious business. People, mostly innocent civilians and Syrian grunts who had nothing to do with the “suspected” chemical attack, will die. People will be injured. Survivors will be traumatized. An attack could escalate and expand the current conflict, leading to more death and destruction.

The stakes are high, but U.S. policymakers are as glibly insouciant as if they were choosing between Hulu and Netflix. This is not new or Trumpian. It’s always been like this. American leaders don’t take these life-and-death decisions seriously.

If the United States were a sane country populated by rational, civically-engaged citizens, Americans would pour derision and ridicule on anyone who seriously considered raining bombs over a “suspected” anything. And the skepticism in this case ought to be exponentially greater considering that this is Syria.

We’ve already been down this “Syria’s Assad regime used chemical weapons against their own people so we should bomb his forces” road. It happened under Obama. What is certain here is uncertainty: maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. As legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh pointed out in 2014, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) believed that at least one major faction of the Syrian opposition, the al-Nusra Front, possessed significant manufacturing facilities and stockpiles of sarin nerve agent and other proscribed toxic chemicals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Unspooling

March 23, 2018

The Unspooling

With spring, things come unstuck; an unspooling has begun. The turnaround at the FBI and Department of Justice has been so swift that even The New York Times has shut up about collusion with Russia — at the same time omitting to report what appears to have been a wholly politicized FBI upper echelon intruding on the 2016 election campaign, and then laboring stealthily to un-do the election result.

The ominous silence enveloping the DOJ the week after Andrew McCabe’s firing — and before the release of the FBI Inspector General’s report — suggests to me that a grand jury is about to convene and indictments are in process, not necessarily from Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s office. The evidence already publicly-aired about FBI machinations and interventions on behalf of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump looks bad from any angle, and the wonder was that it took so long for anyone at the agency to answer for it.

McCabe is gone from office and, apparently hung out to dry on the recommendation of his own colleagues. Do not think for a moment that he will just ride off into the sunset. Meanwhile, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, have been sent to the FBI study hall pending some other shoes dropping in a grand jury room. James Comey is out hustling a book he slapped together to manage the optics of his own legal predicament (evidently, lying to a congressional committee). And way out in orbit beyond the gravitation of the FBI, lurk those two other scoundrels, John Brennan, former head of the CIA (now a CNN blabbermouth), and James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, a new and redundant post in the Deep State’s intel matrix (and ditto a CNN blabbermouth). Brennan especially has been provoked to issue blunt Twitter threats against Mr. Trump, suggesting he might be entering a legal squeeze himself.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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