by Sean Jobst
8 June 2016
At the time of writing this, the election results are still coming in from California which will finally make the foregone conclusion clear: that Hillary Clinton will get the Democratic nomination, just as Donald Trump received the Republican Party nomination, and its inevitable that Bernie Sanders will lose to Clinton - as was the plan all along. Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party once again set aside principles and chose the very non-libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and his VP pick, William Weld, who will further compromise their already un-libertarian records to appeal to disenchanted Statists.
I previously deconstructed the charade of the Trump and Sanders candidacies in an earlier article ("The Sanders and Trump Phenomenon: Inconsistencies, Misplaced Anger and False Opposition"), which was republished on the excellent Non-Aligned Media. In this current article, we discuss Sanders' very inconsistent record on foreign policy, which he has been avoiding despite the anti-war principles of many of his well-meaning followers. We will also touch upon Clinton's links with the Neocons, banker-"philanthropist" George Soros' role in this election, and Donald Trump's own links to shady economic robber-barons and financial criminals.
Sanders' Inconsistent "Anti-War" Record
While he raises his voice against money in politics, he certainly has not said anything about the topic of how interconnected the U.S. government has become with war-profiteering industries, not showing "how much the U.S. national economy depends on a massive military and endless foreign wars." ("Bernie Sanders’ Foreign Policy Includes Military Aid To Israel, Saudi Arabia," Mint Press News, August 31, 2015)
Neither has he raised his voice against the recent murder of a Honduran activist named Cáceres by the oligarchic government that was installed in Honduras by a 2009 coup backed by the Obama Administration, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the CIA. And his only criticism of the brutal Saudi war in Yemen is not the slaughter itself, but that they should be more focused on fighting ISIS - whitewashing the Saudi role in purveying extremism. (Chris Floyd, "No Bern Notice: the Imperial Myopia of Candidate Sanders," March 11, 2016)
Sanders would ensure the status quo on the U.S. government's entangling alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia, itself indicative of the central fact of who actually dictates our country's foreign policy - a nexus of pro-Israel Zionist Jews and their Neocon and Neoliberal ideological allies, and certain Big Corporate interests that directly benefit from the Saudi alliance as well. These have further merged together, given how Israel and Saudi Arabia have recently been openly allied throughout the region against Iran and any forces of resistance. Sanders is certainly ensuring the status quo, by supporting continued military aid to both Israel and Saudi Arabia. He may throw out the red herring that its about ISIS, but if not for the Saudi exporting of its own extreme (mis)interpretation of Islam outside its borders, and the resulting U.S. support for extremist groups in Libya and Syria in alliance with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, there would literally be no ISIS!
While issuing some criticism over how indiscriminate the drone program has been, Sanders has still said he would continue it. (Julian Hattem, "Sanders: I wouldn't end drone program," August 30, 2015) Being a supporter of the drone program, little wonder that Sanders hasn't said anything about his money in politics theme as it applies to that - the bipartisan Unmanned Systems Caucus in the Congress and Senate, whose top donors happen to be Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Why the silence? One has to ask if there's a clear personal conflict of interest on his own part, and whether any of the members of that Caucus happen to be among his supporters.
This ensures that any sort of alleged "revolution" from Sanders, will be mere cosmetic, rhetorical changes to deceive his supporters among the "progressive left" that he is somehow any different from the status quo. Its about mere cosmetic reforms, which actually harm and hinder any sort of real political revolution, which must first be economic - how the State uses the Empire to constantly solidify its erosion of civil liberties, expansion of its surveillance and police state laws, and merely increasing its dominance by the private Big Banks and Big Corporate interests. If Sanders plays according to script and does indeed endorse the war-mongering, corporatist, AIPAC-stooge Hillary Clinton, he will certainly reveal the Sanders phenomenon was meant to be what I earlier termed "Misplaced Anger and False Opposition," designed to peter out the same way the Ron Paul Revolution and the Occupy Movement earlier did.
"Most likely Bernie will have no lasting effect, and his followers will scatter in the usual way, with some doubling down on practical politics and others leaving for different callings. But there's a decent chance that Bernie's failure will result in a net increase of cynicism about politics, and that's the last thing we need. I hate the idea that we might lose even a few talented future leaders because they fell for Bernie's spiel and then got discouraged when it didn't pan out." (Kevin Drum, "Here's Why I Never Warmed Up to Bernie Sanders," April 29, 2016)
Investigative journalist Randolph Bourne famously said in 1918: "War is the health of the State." The self-professed democratic socialist Sanders, with his Marxist ideology, views Big Government as the solution to the power of Big Business and the Banks. This is the opposite of what reactionary conservatives propose, which is an alleged opposition to Big Government but who want to enable Big Business and the Banks, giving them even more free rein to loot the economy, and to expand the war-making and surveillance abilities of the State. Both visions suffer from an ignorance of the nature of government and the corporations/Big Banks: Big Government IS Big Business, Big Banking IS Big Government, and Total War IS Total Economics, i.e. advocating one to "rein" in on the other is doomed to failure and not even intended to begin with, except to continue to deceive the ideological partisans on both sides, so they fall in line whenever election season comes.
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| "… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses." (Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81) |
While Trump has openly aligned himself with the right-wing Likud Zionist faction and praised its current leader Benjamin Netanyahu, as I documented in my "An Open Letter to Truth Movement Supporters of Donald Trump", Sanders aligns with the socialist left-wing Labor Zionist faction. Anyone who knows about Israeli policies knows Likud and Labor has been one and the same when it comes to genocidal policies against the Palestinians, expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, committing state terrorism against neighboring countries like Lebanon, and discriminatory policies towards non-Jews (and even darker-skinned Jews) within Israel. Even this didn't stop Sanders from addressing the American Friends of Likud Conference, such as on 30th January 2015 when he assured them that "ISIS does not represent a threat to Israel's national security." ("US Senator: 'ISIS Not A Serious Threat to Israel'," February 1, 2015)
Sanders' supporters point out he was the only candidate not to appear at that groveling spectacle called the AIPAC Convention, but what they fail to mention - if they even know - is that Sanders, who was campaigning in Utah at the time, simply asked if he could speak to the convention's attendees via live satellite feed, but AIPAC turned him down by saying it would have to be a physical appearance there or not at all. Thus, Sanders still had every will and intention to grovel before AIPAC! He admitted this on his own website, which published his prepared pro-Israel speech complete with the clarification: "I was invited along with other presidential candidates to be at the AIPAC conference in Washington, but obviously I could not make it because we are here." ("Sanders Outlines Middle East Policy," March 21, 2016)
Author and investigative journalist Chris Hedges pointed out that Sanders has been "lending credibility to a party that is completely corporatized", despite any of his rhetoric to the contrary which certainly doesn't match his actual voting record (similar to the other "Progressive hero" Barack Obama): "Bernie has also not confronted the military industrial complex at all. On a personal level, having spent seven years in the Middle East, I'm just not willing to forgive him for abandoning the Palestinians and giving carte blanche to Israel. He was one of 100 Senators who stood up like AIPAC wind up dolls and approved Israel's 51-day slaughter last summer of Palestinians in Gaza - the Palestinians who have no army, no navy, artillery, mechanized units, command and control." (Russell Mokhiber, "Chris Hedges on Bernie Sanders and the Corporate Democrats," CounterPunch, July 15, 2015)
Sanders represents the "lite" liberal interventionism, giving a "softer" rhetorical underpinning to what is inherently an imperialist policy designed to benefit the ideological, political and economic interests of the small elite controlling the government. He supports the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, such as when he said in October 2015 that he supported Obama's effort to "combat the Islamic State in Syria while at the same time supporting those in Syria trying to overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Assad." (John Wagner and Anne Gearan, "Bernie Sanders sides with Obama and against Clinton on no-fly zone in Syria," Washington Post, October 3, 2015)
He reiterated this in his debate with Clinton in January 2016, even while admitting the links between Daesh and the various "moderate" rebel groups, speaking about an "incredible quagmire of Syria, where it’s hard to know who’s fighting who and if you give arms to this guy, it may end up in ISIS’ hand the next day," then adding: "I think in terms of our priorities in the region, our first priority must be the destruction of ISIS. Our second priority must be getting rid of Assad, through some political settlement, working with Iran, working with Russia." (Rachel Blevins, "Sanders Condemns Overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Supports Overthrow of Assad," January 18, 2016)
Sanders' Links to Bankster George Soros
It has become common-place for politicians to claim that "knowing what they know now," they would've opposed the Iraq war. This is a simple rhetorical point that's easy to assume, given that it's after the fact. President Obama conveniently used it, as does presidential candidate Trump - even while the former actually continued the intervention and the latter vocally supported the invasion of Iraq. Sanders actually voted for war in Iraq in 2003 and consistently enabled it by voting to funding it, and rejected any impeachment against Bush, Cheney and the other Neocon rabble of criminals. (Howard Linsoff, "Bernie Sanders Voting Record Antithetical To His Purported Anti-War Stance," July 29, 2015).
That Sanders still supports overthrowing Assad in Syria, is not surprising given his own indirect links with George Soros - I say indirect because the medium seems to be through his grassroots activist group called Democracy Spring, which happens to be backed by NGOs directly funded by the Soros enterprise! This group is conveniently named in the tradition of the phony CIA-orchestrated "color revolutions" designed to undermine anti-Globalist governments. This is not surprising given Soros' own links with former CIA spooks (Neil Clark, "Profile - George Soros," New Statesman, 2 June 2003) and the active role of his "Open Society" networks ("George Soros, speculator and philanthropist," Voltaire Network, 15 January 2004).
As an alleged "liberal", George Soros has no problem maintaining close connections with the "conservative" George Bush, Sr. through the war-profiteering company Carlyle Group - yet another instance of the deep connections between the alleged "liberal" and "conservative" interventionists, united in their war-profiteering. Soros walked off with $100 million in profits from his deals with the Carlyle Group. His Quantum Fund committee includes two former Rothschild-linked investment bankers, Richard Katz and Nils Taube. Leaders of Quantum also included Jacob Rothschild, James Goldsmith, and the Israeli arms dealer Edmond Safra. Like Soros, none of these bankers earned their wealth through honest labor but solely through speculative activities like parasites.
Soros is an elitist par excellence, who could care less about the masses of the world, as shown by his response to a question about the havoc caused by his currency speculation in Southeast Asia in 1997: "As a market participant, I don't need to be concerned with the consequences of my actions." This is the reality behind all his alleged "open society" advocacy: "Soros deems a society 'open' not if it respects human rights and basic freedoms, but if it is 'open' for him and his associates to make money. And, indeed, Soros has made money in every country he has helped to prise 'open'. In Kosovo, for example, he has invested $50m in an attempt to gain control of the Trepca mine complex, where there are vast reserves of gold, silver, lead and other minerals estimated to be worth in the region of $5bn. He thus copied a pattern he has deployed to great effect over the whole of eastern Europe: of advocating 'shock therapy' and 'economic reform', then swooping in with his associates to buy valuable state assets at knock-down prices." (Clark, op. cit.)
The "Democracy Spring" is directly funded by the infamous MoveOn.org, whose board president Eli Pariser happens to be co-founder of the Soros-funded Avaaz.org, well-known for promoting "humanitarian" interventions. It was this group which beat the drums of war in Libya and is also closely linked with the White Helmets NGO which is a mouthpiece of Syrian rebel groups, and a clearing house of anti-Assad propaganda it feeds to the Zionist media only too eager to whip up more wars for Israeli interests. Liberal interventionism differs from the conservative variety in that it uses more soft rhetoric of "human rights" and "democracy", but the agenda remains the same - a united Neoliberal/Neoconservative consensus united by the twin pillars of Israel and Profits. Soros is the primary funder of both Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group, both groups that reveal the myriad of connections:
"At Human Rights Watch, for example, there is Morton Abramowitz, US assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research from 1985-89, and now a fellow at the interventionist Council on Foreign Relations; ex-ambassador Warren Zimmerman (whose spell in Yugoslavia coincided with the break-up of that country); and Paul Goble, director of communications at the CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (which Soros also funds). Soros's International Crisis Group boasts such 'independent' luminaries as the former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Richard Allen, as well as General Wesley Clark, once Nato supreme allied commander for Europe. The group's vice-chairman is the former congressman Stephen Solarz, once described as 'the Israel lobby's chief legislative tactician on Capitol Hill' and a signatory, along with the likes of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, to a notorious letter to President Clinton in 1998 calling for a 'comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime'." (ibid.) The links continue within his ICG, which also includes such paragons of "human rights" as Kuwaiti Prince Saud Nasir Al-Sabah. "We also find some financial links like former President of The Philippines, Fidel Ramos, or the Russian oligarch Mijaíl Khodorkovsky, all of them members of the Carlyle Group. Likewise, some French personalities like Simone Veil, President of the Shoah Memorial, and journalist Christine Ockrent, wife of former Kosovo governor, Bernard Kouchner." ("George Soros, speculator and philanthropist," op. cit.)
Hillary Clinton's Neocon Links
The primary difference between the two wings of interventionism is merely the rhetoric used, but there have occasionally been some other changes. For example, Soros and Brzezinski opposed the Iraq war which they saw as a distraction from the "Grand Chessboard" of Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It was not based on any principles aside from their expediency and timing. Nevertheless, Soros participated in some of the early elitist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) meetings that essentially gave instructions to media corporations on how to cover the 9/11 attacks and the resulting "War on Terror." Soros is like an intermediate position between the Neocons and Brzezinski, as the latter has increasingly been sidelined within the elites:
"Some geopolitical analysts have over-emphasized Brzezinski's role in recent US foreign policy gambits, even today portraying him as the 'master strategist' behind the Obama presidency. This effort appears designed to assist disinformation intended to shift attention and focus from Israel and US-based Jewish Zionists who are the driving force, and indeed the ideological godfathers, behind neoconservatism itself. While Brzezinski and other US foreign policy 'realists' are contemptible in their own right, the ever more adventurous and militant Jewish-Zionist faction of the elite appears to have sidelined the likes of Brzezinski and other 'traditional' US imperialist types. The analysts who do this should perhaps be scrutinized for undisclosed sympathies with Israel and Zionism." (Brandon Martinez, "Iran Deal: Ploy for Future Sabotage?," Non-Aligned Media, July 16, 2015)
Why have these Sanders protest groups rioted against Trump rallies, but still been silent about Clinton's murderous policies? As then Secretary of State, she presided over the NATO-supported and Al-Qa'ida-backed slaughter of thousands in Libya alongside a group of mostly-Jewish Neocons in the U.S. and France, and the overthrow of their sovereign leader Qadhafi who was like a beacon of prosperity for Libya and the potential of Africa....as well as her role in supporting the Neocons' invasion of Iraq while on Capitol Hill (even now having the Neocons Kagan and Nuland as her advisors) and the CIA-financing of extremist rebel groups in Syria alongside other regional powers but ultimately for Israeli interests.
The conclusion of the Bush Presidency did not spell the end of the Neoconservative movement, which was already moving into other directions - including even the Democratic Party. Neocon Robert Kagan joined the "liberal" Brookings Institution, headed by former President Bill Clinton's deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott, who praised Kagan's new Neocon manifesto in the liberal New Republic as "magisterial." Neocon Max Root, a senior fellow at the CFR, has praised Hillary Clinton in a New Republic article: "It is clear that in administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya." (Jacob Heilbrunn, "The Next Act of the Neocons: Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?," New York Times, July 5, 2014)
Robert Kagan is married to Victoria Nuland, the current Assistant Secretary of European and Eurasian Affairs who was also Strobe Talbott's chief of staff during the Clinton administration. She has been known for her activities in the Ukraine, as well as her flagrant disregard and contempt for the European Union. This is not surprising, given the Neocon contempt for the traditional "old Europe" which refuses to go along with their Israel-first objectives. Aside from serving under the Democratic presidents, she was also deputy foreign policy adviser to Cheney.
This is similar with the ease with which her husband went from being co-founder of the neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC) to Republican John McCain's foreign policy advisor in 2008 to still maintaining influence within the Obama administration via his position at the liberal Brookings Institution. This is not surprising, given Obama's endorsement of Robert Kagan's article, "The Myth of American Decline," in State of the Union Address in January 2012. (Josh Rogin, "Obama embraces Romney advisor's theory on 'The Myth of American Decline'," January 26, 2012)
His brother, Frederick Kagan, and their father, Donald Kagan, are each leaders of the Neocon movement with several positions at influential think-tanks on both the liberal and conservative spectrums. In 2010, Obama's appointee in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, hired Frederick Kagan and his wife Kimberly Kagan, giving them more high-security clearance and access than other civilians. The Kagans were personally sponsored by several "defense" contractors through their positions at the neocon American Enterprise Institute. Kimberly Kagan's Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is directly funded by Raytheon, General Dynamics and DynCorp.
The ISW is careful to stress its non-partisan nature and membership, while Robert Kagan, the same neocon who has served on the State Department's Foreign Affairs Policy Board under both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, "insists he is 'liberal' and 'progressive' in a distinctly American tradition." (Peter Beaumont, "A neocon by any other name," The Guardian, 26 April 2008) He has boasted how the last decades have seen the "ambitious and expansionist" pursuit of common universal values by Democratic and Republican elites alike. We can make much of the fact that Hillary Clinton has been enthusiastically endorsed by this "chief neoconservative foreign-policy theorist." (Andrew J. Bacevich, "Present at the Re-Creation: A Neoconservative Moves On," Foreign Affairs, July-August 2008)
More on Clinton's Criminal Activities
The Republicans have hypocritically castigated Hillary Clinton as a criminal for her e-mails which seem to cover up what happened at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The problem is that Benghazi was a symptom of the Libyan war itself, the root cause which was itself supported and cheered on by the Republicans and promoted by Neocon think-tanks just as it was by the Obama administration, Clinton's State Department, and liberal interventionist groups such as Soros' NGOs MoveOn.org and Avaaz.org. It was certainly backed by Donald Trump as well, as I documented in my article, "An Open Letter to Truth Movement Supporters of Donald Trump."
Her campaign has been directly funded by at least two super PACs with connections to Soros: Priorities USA Action, which has received $7 million from Soros, whose spokesman Michael Vachon said his boss was supporting it because "Mr. Soros believes Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate to be president," and American Bridge 21st Century, which has received $1 million from Soros. (Dave Levinthal, "Inside Hillary Clinton's big-money cavalry," The Center for Public Integrity, April 7, 2016)
Three of the top five contributors from her campaign have been the Wall Street firms of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan Chase, according to data from "Open Secrets" for the 1999-2016 election cycles. Goldman Sachs, whose destructive activities in the Greek economic crisis I earlier documented in the series "Greek Tragedy, Banksters' Paradise", also has links with Republicans: for example, former candidate and ideologue conservative darling of the Tea Party, Ted Cruz, is married to a Goldman Sachs investment manager, Heidi Cruz, who directly used her profits from the firm to fund Cruz' campaign. (Liz Mundy, "The New Power Wives of Capitol Hill," Politico, July 31, 2014)
In a letter to her pro-Israel donor Haim Saban, Clinton wrote of her intention to use Wall Street against the pro-Palestine BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement: "I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority....we can work together....to reverse this trend with information and advocacy, and fight back against further attempts to isolate the delegitimize Israel....from Congress and state legislatures to boardrooms and classrooms, we need to engage all people of good faith, regardless of their political persuasion or their views on policy specifics, in explaining why the BDS campaign is counterproductive to the pursuit of peace and harmful to Israelis and Palestinians alike." ("Clinton pledges opposition to Israel boycott movement," McClatchy, July 6, 2015)
Billionaire entertainment mogul Haim Saban, a frequent donor to Democratic Party candidates, joined his counterpart, billionaire casino and hotel mogul Sheldon Adelson, a frequent donor to Republican Party candidates, to raise $20 million in fighting the BDS movement. (Nathan Guttman, "Adelson-Saban Summit Raises Millions to Fight BDS," June 9, 2015) "Adelson said his prime focus....was to reverse the inroads being made by what he called 'the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and company.... the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations [that] are making a lot of headway on the campuses in the United States.' He said he would encourage Jewish groups to work to have boycott decisions taken by student campus groups reversed....Saban made clear that he intended to fight back against any business groups inclining to boycott Israel, and create a climate in which they were deterred from doing so." ("Saban calls Orange liars, joins with Adelson to battle boycott 'tsunami,'" Times of Israel, June 6, 2015)
Clintons' Corruption and Crimes Against Haiti
Along with her husband, Hillary Clinton operates the Clinton Foundation, which "remains a poster child for waste, fraud, and corruption in the handing of aid," according to Mary O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal. Haitian activists have accused the Clintons of squandering away billions of dollars raised by their Foundation, intended to be used to rebuild Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake. Bill Clinton was then serving as the UN's special envoy to Haiti, Secretary of State Hillary was in charge of U.S. Emergency relief response and plans for recovery, and her brother Tony Rodham, is a member of a gold mine in Haiti that has been the source of great controversy in Haiti. ("Hillary Clinton Has Been Accused of Stealing Billions From Haiti: Should Black America Support Her?," Financial Juneteenth, April 28, 2015)
Why the lack of mainstream media coverage of these activities in Haiti? A major donor to the Clinton Foundation is the billionaire Carlos Slim, who became the largest shareholder of the New York Times in 2015. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation, another Pentagon contractor with close links to Neocon think-tanks. In December 2012, Tony Rodham, Hillary's younger brother, won a major gold concession in Haiti through his VCS Mining, whose board also included former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, who co-chaired the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission with Bill Clinton. (F. William Engdahl, "Hillary: The New York Times Will Never Tell Us This," New Eastern Outlook) The Clintons personally ensured their candidate, Michel Martelly, who had close links with the CIA-backed paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti and proposed to re-instate the Armed Forces of Haiti which had been disbanded by democratically-elected President Aristide in 1995 due to their use by deposed tyrant Duvalier, would win rigged elections. The embezzling by the alleged "charitable" Clinton Foundation was documented by Haitian lawyer and activist Ezili Dantò:
"Less than 1% of this amount made it to the Haitian government. Bill Clinton had total control of the balance. Hillary and Bill Clinton 'opened Haiti' as their private asset to liquidate. They used the resources of the World Bank, the State Department, USAID, the UN, the Private Military Security Contractors, the US military, and the Fed's passport and visa issuance capabilities. They got kickbacks called 'donations' from anyone who wished to buy from them a piece of Haiti lands, oil, iridium, uranium or gold. The Clintons have used governmental power to conduct their private business and called it 'helping poor Haitians.'
"They pushed their own Haiti staff members into nominal positions of power to rubber stamp their edicts. Haiti Prime Minister Gary Conille, who succeeded Jean Max Bellerive, worked as chief of staff for Bill Clinton and as a UN development expert. Cheryl Mills, another Clinton staffer named in the Clinton 'email-gate' scandal and who today is on the board of the Clinton Foundation, also served as the United States' representative on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC).
"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff at the State Department, brought intense US pressure to bear on the Haitian government and Electoral Council to advance Martelly, who finished third, to the first place in the runoff, insuring his election as President in March, 2011. Hillary Clinton revoked the visas of several Haitian officials she felt were not complying, prematurely announced the election dispute was over, threatened to cut off aid if the doctored elections and OAS ruling to advance Martelly to the second rounds were not accepted by Haiti. The US even threatened to forcibly remove Haiti president Preval if he didn't comply and put Martelly in the elections.
"The quake monies benefited Clintons' cronies, the Clinton Foundation big business donors, the Clintons' luxury spa resort and hotel partners, the military industrial/intelligence complex, and the usual Washington beltway bandits, like Chemonics. The holocaust for Haiti continued. What's worst was the Clintons' use of shock and trauma - the cataclysmic 2010 earthquake and 2010 UN-imported cholera traumas - to push the 2010 doctored elections down the Haitian people's throats to outright dictatorship." (ibid.)
Trump's Connections Reveal REALITY Behind "Making America Great Again"
To his gullible followers, Donald Trump is some kind of "savior" who puts America "first" and is a businessman who's needed to "make America great again." How or why any "conservative" would justify a politician having so much power within the economy is beyond me - not that conservatives have been consistent about "small government" though, as their enthusiastic support for the increased war-making and police powers of the State attests. In any case, Trump is an entertainer and egoist who uses nationalist and populist rhetoric to deceive a segment of the American electorate. In the pertinent words of the 18th-century English philosopher Samuel Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Although Trump adopted the persona as an "outsider" who self-funded his own campaign, the truth is he is very much an insider with close connections to various movers and shakers in New York City. This was especially revealed during his victory speech after the New York primary, when he had a number of them in the front row and was heaping praise on them one-by-one: Carl Icahn, who he calls a "savvy trader" that "will bring our jobs back," but neglecting to mention Icahn's own investments in China and Mexico; Bennett LeBow, who made a fortune off his luxury hotel deal in the Ukraine with close connections to mostly-Jewish crime moguls of the local "Red Mafiya," like Vadim Rabinovich; Howard Lorber, Manhattan real estate mogul and LeBow's business partner; and Steve Roth, the real estate mogul known for his "philanthropy" to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Roth Center For Jewish Life at Dartmouth College, and the NYU Medical School. (Nathanael Kapner, "Trump's Front Row Jew Boys," Real Jews News, April 20, 2016)
Not surprising given the interchangeable party connections of these Big Business elites, Bennett LeBow who is now backing the Republican Donald Trump (who has himself flip-flopped between the two parties), first made contact with Vadim Rabinovich at a Democratic fund-raising party in late 1995. LeBow's Brooke Group partnered with Rabinovich to develop a business center and luxury hotel in Kiev. In his office, Rabinovich prominently displays a photograph of him with Bill Clinton and Al Gore. He was jailed for theft from the state from 1982 to 1990, an experience he blames on "anti-Semitism." Through his investment in Studio 1+1, Rabinovich presided over a joint television venture with the Central European Media Enterprises of the cosmetics heir and U.S. diplomat to Austria, Ronald Lauder. (Douglas Frantz and Raymond Bonner, "A Cosmetics Heir's Joint Venture Is Tainted by Ukrainian's Past," New York Times, April 5, 1997)
This indisputable myriad of links between Big Business and Banking elites, with leading Jewish political pressure groups and the Israeli government, continue through Ronald Lauder: He is current chairman of the World Jewish Congress. "And, on Israeli issues, he was a vocal supporter of the Likud party, with long-standing ties to Benjamin Netanyahu." (Michael Massing, "Deal Breakers," The American Prospect, Washington, D.C., March 2002) Lauder has used his position at the WJC to continuously accuse European governments of "anti-Semitism" and constantly make them guilty about the "holocaust." When we look at activities of the likes of Lauder and Rabinovich, we are susceptible to being accused of "anti-Semitism" ourselves, so one only has to look at the words of the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky: "There is only one power which really counts: The power of political pressure. We Jews are the most powerful people on earth, because we have this power, and we know how to apply it." (Jewish Daily Bulletin, New York, July 27, 1935)
Another prominent advisor to Trump is his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whom he credits with helping him to write his AIPAC speech. A graduate of a traditional Jewish yeshiva high school, Kushner was accepted at Harvard after his father, real estate mogul Charles Kushner, made a $2.5 million donation to the university, with the director of Harvard's college preparatory program describing Jared Kushner's admission to be "an unusual choice for Harvard to make" given that he was "not anywhere near the top of his class." As the old saying goes, money talks - certainly those of us from working-class backgrounds lack these connections that open up revolving doors to the favored. Jared Kushner also owns and publishes the tabloid, New York Observer.
Trump recently named Wall Street investor Steven Mnuchin as his campaign's finance chairman. According to filings from the Federal Election Commission, Mnuchin contributed over $8,000 to Hillary Clinton since 2000, and has also donated to both Obama and Romney. He also used to work for the Soros-funded OneWest Bank, which became notorious in New York for its "harsh, repugnant and repulsive" acts in throwing elderly and poor tenants out of homes the bank quickly foreclosed, making a huge profit for the likes of Mnuchin. OneWest Bank became known for its cold refusal to work compromises with home-owners and profited from shady reverse mortgage deals:
"OneWest Bank also disproportionately foreclosed on senior citizens. Using a FOIA request, the California Reinvestment Coalition determined that OneWest's reverse mortgage servicing subsidiary Financial Freedom was responsible for 39 percent of reverse mortgage foreclosures, typically something that goes to senior citizens. But Financial Freedom only serves 17 of the market so OneWest was foreclosing at twice the rate one would expect....Similarly, OneWest Bank foreclosed on more communities of color than white communities. Of the 35,877 foreclosures the bank conducted in California from April 2009 to April 2015, 68 percent occurred in areas where the non-white population was 50 percent or higher." (Gideon Resnick, "Trump’s New Money Man Has a ‘Repulsive’ Record of Throwing Homeowners Out on the Street," May 5, 2016)
OneWest Bank is the recipient of the government's corporate welfare to the tune of a $814.2 million "bailout." The bank lost a court case after Suffolk County Judge Jeffrey Spinner canceled a $525,000 debt in mortgage payments the bank was seeking to collect from a Long Island couple. The victim felt that dealing with the bank was "like dealing with organized crime." OneWest Bank's conduct was "inequitable, unconscionable, vexatious and opprobrious" according to Spinner, who also ruled the debt be canceled since OneWest "must be appropriately sanctioned so as to deter it from imposing further mortifying abuse against [the couple]." (Kieran Crowely, "Judge blasts bad bank, erases 525G debt," New York Post, November 25, 2009)
It should be clear to any honest observer not taken in by Trump's calculated act, that he speaks with a forked tongue out of both sides of his mouth. For example, why has he invested money in the very same companies he publicly bashes? These include a number of companies he has publicly bashed for closing plants in the U.S. and outsourcing jobs to Mexico - in keeping with his public persona: Mondelez International, the parent company of Nabisco; the Ford Motor Company; General Electric, whose move of jobs outside Connecticut he called "devastating"; and the United Technologies Corporation, the parent company of the same Indiana-based Carrier Corporation he criticized for moving jobs outside the U.S. to Mexico. He has invested in Disney, the very same company he criticized for hiring foreign workers on H1-B visas. And his financial disclosures reveal he has also invested in Apple, the very same company he called for a boycott of after it refused a government request to unlock the phones of the San Bernardino massacre shooters. (Eliza Collins, "Trump invests in the same companies he bashes," USA Today, May 18, 2016)
