Press TV – July 17, 2019

US President Donald Trump has reportedly assigned Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as a liaison to Iran in a stated effort to de-escalate tensions with Tehran.

Trump signed off the proposal this weekend, four US officials told Politico on Wednesday.

The report was released a day after Trump and his state secretary, Mike Pompeo, spoke of “progress” and “deal” with Iran.

According to Politico, assignment of the “dovish” Kentucky Republican could hamper the administration’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign.

On Saturday, Paul played a round of golf with the president at his club in Sterling, Virginia, along with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.).

Neither the White House nor Paul’s office has commented about US media questions on a meeting between Paul and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is currently in New York.

The anti-war senator waned Pompeo during an April hearing on Capitol Hill about going to war with Iran through bypassing congressional approval.

“You do not have the permission of Congress to go to war with Iran,” Paul told Pompeo. “Only Congress can declare war” […]

via ‘Trump assigns Rand Paul as Iran liaison’ — Aletho News

via China Building Secular Schools for Muslims in Xinjiang Province. Western Media Critique

Turkey is taking delivery of Russia’s S 400 missile defence system. What this signifies is that Turkey and Russia are now “officially” allies. The first shipment of the S-400 landed in Ankara on July 12, according to Turkey’s Ministry of Defense. (see image below)

Two more shipments are due, with the third delivery of “over 120 anti-aircraft missiles of various types… [scheduled] tentatively at the end of the summer, by sea.”

Reports confirm that the “Turkish S-400 operators will travel to Russia for training in July and August. About 20 Turkish servicemen underwent training at a Russian training center in May and June, …”(CNN, July 12, 2019)

How will the US respond?

In all likelihood, Erdogan’s presidency will be the object of an attempted regime change, not to mention ongoing financial reprisals directed against the Turkish Lira as well as economic sanctions.

What is unfolding is an all out crisis in the structure of military alliances. Turkey cannot reasonably retain its NATO membership while at the same time entering into a military cooperation agreement with the Russian Federation […]

via Is Turkey Now “Officially” an Ally of Russia? Acquires Russia’s S-400 making Exit from NATO Imminent? — © blogfactory

by John P. Curran

“Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution specifically says that Congress is the only body that can “coin money and regulate the value thereof.” The US Constitution has never been amended to allow anyone other than Congress to coin and regulate currency. So what’s the Federal Reserve?

In 1910 Senator Nelson Aldrich, then Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, in collusion with representatives of the European central banks, devised a plan to pressure and deceive Congress into enacting legislation that would covertly establish a private central bank. This bank would assume control over the American economy by controlling the issuance of its money. After a huge public relations campaign, engineered by the foreign central banks, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was slipped through Congress during the Christmas recess, with many members of the Congress absent. President Woodrow Wilson, pressured by his political and financial backers, signed it on December 23, 1913. The act created the Federal Reserve System, a name carefully selected and designed to deceive. “Federal” would lead one to believe that this is a government organization. “Reserve” would lead one to believe that the currency is being backed by gold and silver. “System” was used in lieu of the word “bank” so that one would not conclude that a new central bank had been created.

In reality, the act created a private, for profit, central banking corporation owned by a cartel of private banks. The Federal Reserve Bank, a.k.a Federal Reserve System, is a Private Corporation. Black’s Law Dictionary defines the “Federal Reserve System” as: “A Network of twelve central banks to which most national banks belong and to which state chartered banks may belong. Membership rules require investment of stock and minimum reserves.” Privately-owned banks own the stock of the FED. Who owns the FED? The Rothschilds of London and Berlin; Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Moses Seif of Italy; Kuhn, Loeb and Warburg of Germany; and the Lehman Brothers, Goldman, Sachs and the Rockefeller families of New York. Did you know that the FED is the only for-profit corporation in America that is exempt from both federal and state taxes? The FED takes in trillions of dollars per year tax free! The banking families listed above get all that money.

The FED basically works like this: The government granted its power to create money to the FED banks. They create money, then loan it back to the government charging interest. The government levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt. On this point, it’s interesting to note that the Federal Reserve Act and the sixteenth amendment, which gave Congress the power to collect income taxes, were both passed in 1913. The incredible power of the FED over the economy is universally admitted. Any one person or any closely knit group who has a lot of money has a lot of power. Now imagine a group of people who have the power to create money. Imagine the power these people would have. This is exactly what the privately owned FED is!

An often overlooked aspect of John F. Kennedy’s attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the Constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System […]

via JFK’s Executive Order 11100 Abolishing the Federal Reserve

Human Wrongs Watch

By Baher Kamal

Yet another under-reported human-made disaster: the relentless desertification of Planet Earth that may make uninhabitable some regions like the Middle East, endanger food security, aggravate climate crisis, and force more and more millions of people to flee.

But before listing the main causes and consequences of this mounting threat, you should know that, according to the UN, desertification does not refer to the expansion of deserts, but rather the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, primarily as a result of human activities and climatic variations.

Now, alerting against such a disaster, specialised world bodies, like the UN, have just reported on the occasion of the 17 June 2019 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, that as much as 24 billion tons of fertile land are lost… every single year.

Moreover, degradation in land quality is responsible for a reduction in the national domestic product of up to eight per cent… also every single year.

Among other consequences, desertification, land degradation, and drought will increase forced migrations, and worsen the growing climate crisis.

The World Day, which raises awareness of international efforts to combat desertification, was established 25 years ago, along with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification(UNCCD), the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management, the UN explains.

Three key issues

Running under the slogan “Let’s Grow the Future Together”, the 2019 World Day focuses on the following three key issues as reported by the UNCCD in relation to land: drought, human security and climate.

• Land and Drought — By 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions – when demand outstrips supply during certain periods.
  A complex and slowly encroaching natural hazard with significant and pervasive socio-economic and environmental impacts that to cause more deaths and displace more people than any other natural disaster;
• Land and Human Security — By 2045 some 135 million people may be displaced as a result of desertification.
  Achieving land degradation neutrality -by rehabilitating already degraded land, scaling up sustainable land management and accelerating restoration initiatives- is a pathway to greater resilience and security for all,
• Land and Climate Change — Restoring the soils of degraded ecosystems has the potential to store up to 3 billion tons of carbon annually.
  The land use sector represents almost 25 per cent of total global emissions. Its rehabilitation and sustainable management is critical to combating climate change.

‘It isn’t just about sand’

Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, said there are only three things all people need to know about the World Day to Combat Desertification:

• It isn’t just about sand,
• It isn’t an isolated issue that will quietly disappear; and
• It isn’t someone else’s problem

[…]

via The Implacable Desertification of Planet Earth — DESERTIFICATION

The Smoking Man
Source – ahtribune.com–

“…Epstein’s contact with the Israeli intelligence service may have plausibly come through his associations with Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly served as his key procurer of young girls. Ghislaine is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, who died or possibly was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 1991. Maxwell was an Anglo-Jewish businessman, very cosmopolitan in profile, like Epstein, a multi-millionaire who was very controversial with what were regarded as ongoing ties to Mossad”Did Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Work for Mossad? – By Philip Giraldi 

The extent of Israeli spying directed against the United States is a huge story that is only rarely addressed in the mainstream media. The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States.

Last week I wrote about how Israeli spies operating more-or-less freely in the U.S. are rarely interfered with, much less arrested and prosecuted, because there is an unwillingness on the part of upper echelons of government to do so. I cited the case of Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood movie producer who had a secret life that included stealing restricted technology in the United States to enable development of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, something that was very much against U.S. interests. Milchan was involved in a number of other thefts as well as arms sales on behalf of the Jewish state, so much so that his work as a movie producer was actually reported to be less lucrative than his work as a spy and black-market arms merchant, for which he operated on a commission basis.

That Milchan has never been arrested by the United States government or even questioned about his illegal activity, which was well known to the authorities, is just one more manifestation of the effectiveness of Jewish power in Washington, but a far more compelling case involving possible espionage with major political manifestations has just re-surfaced. I am referring to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire Wall Street “financier” who has been arrested and charged with operating a “vast” network of underage girls for sex, operating out of his mansions in New York City and Florida as well as his private island in the Caribbean, referred to by visitors as “Orgy Island.” Among other high-value associates, it is claimed that Epstein was particularly close to Bill Clinton, who flew dozens of times on Epstein’s private 727.

*(Alex Acosta (L) Jeffrey Epstein (R))

Epstein was arrested on July 8th after indictment by a federal grand jury in New York. It was more than a decade after Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, who is now President Trump’s secretary of labor, accepted a plea bargain involving similar allegations regarding pedophilia that was not shared with the accusers prior to being finalized in court. There were reportedly hundreds of victims, some 35 of whom were identified, but Acosta deliberately denied the two actual plaintiffs their day in court to testify before sentencing.

Acosta’s intervention meant that Epstein avoided both a public trial and a possible federal prison sentence, instead serving only 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the almost-no-security Palm Beach County Jail on charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida. While in custody, he was permitted to leave jail for sixteen hours six days a week to work in his office.

Epstein’s crimes were carried out in his $56 million Manhattan mansion and in his oceanside villa in Palm Beach Florida. Both residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones in the bedrooms, which Epstein reportedly used to record sexual encounters between his high-profile guests and his underage girls, many of whom came from poor backgrounds, who were recruited by procurers to engage in what was euphemistically described as “massages” for money. Epstein apparently hardly made any effort to conceal what he was up to: his airplane was called the “Lolita Express.”

The Democrats are calling for an investigation of the Epstein affair, as well as the resignation of Acosta, but they might well wind up regretting their demands. Trump, the real target of the Acosta fury, apparently did not know about the details of the plea bargain that ended the Epstein court case. Bill and Hillary Clinton were, however, very close associates of Epstein. Bill, who flew on the “Lolita Express” at least 26 times, could plausibly be implicated in the pedophilia given his track record and relative lack of conventional morals. On many of the trips, Bill refused Secret Service escorts, who would have been witnesses of any misbehavior. On one lengthy trip to Africa in 2002, Bill and Jeffrey were accompanied by accused pedophile actor Kevin Spacey and a number of young girls, scantily clad “employees” identified only as “massage.” Epstein was also a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation and was present at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010 […]

via COVER-UP: ‘Epstein’, Protected Because He Is a Spy? — RIELPOLITIK

via Big Pharma Fail: No Evidence Of Added Benefit In Most New Drugs, Study Finds by John Anderer — Nwo Report

By Baher Kamal

In case you were not aware or just do not remember: all you eat, drink, breathe, wear, take as a medicine, the cosmetics you use, the walls of your house, among others, is full of chemicals. And all is really ALL.

For instance, in your bathroom, formaldehyde often sits in your shampoo, microbeads in your toothpaste, phthalates in your nail polish and antimicrobials in your soaps, while your medicine cabinet contains a myriad of synthetic pharmaceuticals.

In your kitchen, a juicy strawberry may carry traces of up to 20 different pesticides.

The size of the global chemical industry exceeded 5 trillion dollars in 2017. It is projected to double by 2030. Consumption and production are rapidly increasing in emerging economies.

And the perfumed bin-liners and air fresheners contain volatile organic compounds that can make you nauseous and give you a headache. And the list goes on…

Who tells all these and many other shocking facts is one of the top world organisations dealing with the sources and dangers of pollution and contamination – the UN Environment, which on 29 April 2019 released its Global Chemicals Outlook […]

via Today’s Menu: Pesticide Salad, Leaded Fish with Plastic, Chemical Fruit — Bed Bug Blog Report

The Smoking Man

Source – theorganicprepper.com

– “…The Chinese version of empire is no less insidious but, over the long haul, it may be just as effective. By using the carrot instead of the stick, China is luring away countries that may have been clients or targets of the United States. It is expanding its empire by the day and doing so without firing a single shot”

Bombs VS Bridges – How Two Empires Are Competing For Their Version Of The New World Order – By Brandon Turbeville

There is a crisis in the Western world. Both in terms of domestic affairs and foreign policy, Western nations are showing all signs of impending collapse. This is despite the fact that the flagship of the Western world, the United States, continues to expand its empire across the globe. At the same time, the world is witnessing the “rise of China,” an empire in its own right though no one seems to have any interest in calling it what it is.

The American empire has come to terms with itself to some extent. Through all the claims of support for “democracy” and “freedom,” the United States has transitioned to an authoritarian state at home and a rampaging military of conquest abroad. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Egypt, Somalia, Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria, Venezuela, Chad and Mali all serve as hot battles for the American military (in cooperation with other Western militaries, including Australia) in service of forcing governments into accepting the rule of private central banks, big biotechnology firms, pharmaceutical and industrial corporations and forcing those nations into providing raw materials for major industry centered in the Western world

China is also an empire and it is also marching across the globe attempting to expand its influence and control. However, most Westerners do not recognize it as such and even those anti-imperialist journalists in the alternative media find it difficult if not impossible to call China what it is; an expanding empire. Like the United States, China’s empire is one based on authoritarianism and control, though placing the collective in an even higher priority than its American competitor. Domestically, it has surpassed America in totalitarianism though the US is running as quickly as it can to the Marxist slaughterhouse.

The main reason China is still seen as a victim of American aggression rather than a mutual purveyor of imperialism is the fact that the boots of Chinese empire march much softer than the American version. While the US offers sticks, China offers carrots, albeit tainted ones. The US offers threats of overthrow and chaos, China offers roads and industry. The US offers bombs, China offers bridges.

Despite the manifestations, however, both countries are offering nothing more than empire in different packaging.

The Chinese Strategy

With the exception of its domestic oppression, China’s expansion of empire has been largely bloodless. It has focused on the maintenance of its status as a “developing nation” as well as benefiting from Free Trade globalism, the intentional de-industrialization of the West (particularly the United States) and the tyrannical repression of individual rights at home. China’s slave labor industrial model [see here also] has made it the number one dumping spot for jobs that once provided high wages and high living standards to workers in America and, though raising some Chinese out of the poverty of rural areas, has simply moved them to the poverty of the city. With its excessively long hours, authoritarian work culture, extreme pollution, and low living standards, China has made the Chinese people into the collective Mao slaughtered so many to bring about, a mass able to be molded and adapted to serve the whims of the ruling class.

China has used the designation of “developing nation” to its greatest benefit, allowing it to skirt virtually all environmental regulations, turning the country into a toxic cesspit of pollution, chemical pools, and fake food. Its “developing nation” status allows it to avoid the obnoxious “climate change” regulations that have hastened the de-industrialization of the West and heralds the low living standards that have already begun to make themselves manifest wherever climate hysteria takes hold.

Likewise, China has willingly acted as a depository for the Free Trade system, allowing it to soak up jobs and industry that should have remained in the West providing high wages and high living standards for Americans. Unfortunately, however, both the left and the right, as well as the well-meaning but uninformed middle have supported this transition under the name of Free Trade. But the result is not just the weakening of American economic might, it is the growth of China’s economic and, hence, political power.

Buying up US debt as well as manufacturing material that is essential for the US economy and national security has placed China in a position where attempts by the US to regain its industry puts America in a precarious position […]

via REALPOLITIK: ‘Bombs vs Bridges’, How Two Empires Are Competing For Their Version Of The New World Order – By Brandon Turbeville — RIELPOLITIK

Eideard.com

For decades, elected leaders and corporate executives have chased a dream of independence from unstable or unfriendly foreign oil producers. Mission accomplished: Oil companies are producing record amounts of crude oil and natural gas in the United States and have become major exporters…With a global glut driving down prices, many are losing money and are staying afloat by selling assets and taking on debt…

In the last four years, roughly 175 oil and gas companies in the United States and Canada with debts totaling about $100 billion have filed for bankruptcy protection. Many borrowed heavily when oil and gas prices were far higher, only to collectively overproduce and undercut their commodity prices. At least six companies have gone bankrupt this year, and Weatherford International, the fourth-leading oil services company, which owes investors $7.7 billion, is expected to file for bankruptcy protection…

One concern is that the industry will be forced to leave oil and gas in the ground as climate change prompts environmental restrictions on drilling or a shift to alternative fuels […]

via new fossil fuel sources + overproduction = bankruptcy for greedy developers — Eideard