Adelson-owned paper endorses RubioBy Leigh Ann Caldwell

The Las Vegas Review-Journal endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for the Republican nomination Friday, saying their reasons for the endorsement are "many." The conservative-leaning newspaper was recently bought by casino mogul and Las Vegas resident Sheldon Adelson who is also a prolific donor of Republican candidates and pro-Israel...

 

http://www.msnbc.com/topics/sheldon-adelson

 

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IT WAS AROUND 10:30 p.m. when Steve Jacobs rolled down the gravel driveway. The air was warm for early January, even for Florida. Yellow boat lights bobbed on St. Augustine's harbor, and the scent of star jasmine hung on the breeze. Jacobs stepped onto his porch and found the door still locked. It had only been a few days since he had come home to find it mysteriously ajar.

When Jacobs sat down to work, however, he noticed his crate of files was missing. He headed to the kitchen, opened the top of his coffee maker, and looked inside. The hard drive he'd stashed there was gone too.

A police officer soon arrived, checked the doors, dusted for fingerprints. He carefully wrapped the coffee maker in a plastic bag and said he would forward it to the FBI.

Jacobs had his suspicions as to why his house had been burgled. For more than a year, he'd been locked in a protracted legal battle with one of the wealthiest men on Earth.* Jacobs had filed a wrongful-termination case, accusing his former boss of ordering him to perform "illegal activities." Could the burglary have been the desperate act of some yes-man or fixer, or even the gangsters he'd encountered while working in China? "I don't know who is behind it," Jacobs testified in a subsequent legal proceeding, admitting he had no facts to suggest it was his old employer. "I know who might have a benefit or interest in understanding what information I may have had."

It's a long way from a burglary in northeastern Florida to the battle for the White House, but there may be a connection: Jacobs' tale and the documents his lawsuit has brought to light—some of which were on the hard drive in the coffee maker—provide a rare window into the business dealings of Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate and political megadonor who could have a bigger role in selecting the 2016 GOP nominee than millions of Republican voters.

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/sheldon-adelson-macau-casinos-lawsuit

 

A Palestinian school teacher won a $US1 million education award to applause from world leaders for her approach to teaching children through play.

Hanan Al Hroub, who teaches at the Samiha Khalil High School in the West Bank Palestinian city of Al-Bireh, was presented with the award in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Pope Francis announced the winner in a video message to the ceremony, which was chaired by UAE Prime Minister and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

"A child has the right to play," he said.

"Part of the education is to teach children how to play, because you learn how to be social through games and you learn the joy of life."

Leaders including Prince William, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Vice-President Joe Biden and former US president Bill Clinton also recorded messages for the ceremony.

In Prince William's video he said he had been taught by "some of the best teachers in the world".

"I know what an incredible teacher can mean to a child," he said.

The Global Teacher Prize was set up by the not-for-profit Varkey Foundation after a 2013 survey found the profession's status had been declining.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-14/ex-refugee-wins-global-teacher-prize/7244716

 

 

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Pro-Palestinian journalist continues wait for Australian visa

 

MYRIAM ROBIN
Crikey media reporter

 

 

Although he applied a month ago, an American journalist and leading advocate of the Palestinian cause has not yet been granted a visa to visit Australia. But whether his visa has been delayed for political purposes or simple bureaucratic realities is unclear.

Ali Abunimah is a co-founder and managing editor of Electronic Intifada, a publication that since 2001 has worked to counter what it sees as pro-Israeli bias in the American media.

Friends of Palestine WA and Socialist Alternative invited Abunimah to participate in a national speaking tour of Australia and to speak at the Marxism 2016 Conference in Melbourne.

According to an email sent by Friends of Palestine WA to Fremantle MP Melissa Parke, Abunimah first applied for a Electronic Travel Authority visa to Australia in early January. According to Immigration's website, this is a holiday visa and it does not allow the holder to undertake work of any kind. The website suggests those who wish to work in Australia on a non-ongoing basis apply for a Temporary Work (Short Stay Activity) visa (subclass 400), which entitles the holder to "participate in non-ongoing cultural or social activities at the invitation of an Australian organisation".

Abunimah was told his application for an ETA was "not approved". On January 29, he applied for a visitor visa through the Australian consulate in Ottawa. He was told the consulate could not proceed with this visa and was told to apply for a Temporary Work visa instead. He did this on February 13 and has received no response to his application. According to the Immigration Department, processing this kind of visa can take about a month, and sometimes more if health or character checks are required.

Friends of Palestine WA's Nick Everett wrote:

"Upon telephoning the consulate, Mr Abunimah has been advised that his application 'is being assessed' and all he could do is 'wait for communication from the department. No timeframe was offered for the assessment of his application and no guarantee was given he would even get an answer before his expected travel date.

"Mr. Abunimah has no criminal record and was previously granted a visa to travel to Australia in 2008. The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection website provides no avenue for Mr. Abunimah to appeal an adverse decision or obtain further information on an undetermined application."

Abunimah is booked to leave for Australia on Friday.

...

In a change.org petition calling on Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to grant Abunimah's visa, Friends of Palestine WA said:

"The denial of an entry visa to enable Mr Abunimah to speak in Australia about the Israeli occupation of Palestine amounts to a denial of his right to freedom of speech."

The group criticised what it sees as a double standard in granting a visa last month to retired Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff to the Israel Defense Forces, who it said was in Australia to "fundraise for" and "promote" illegal settlements. It is unknown when Gantz applied for his visa and which visa he applied for.

The Australian Jewish News' report report of Gantz' sold-out session doesn't mention any comments he made on illegal settlements. Gantz has, in the past, been criticised in Israel for overseeing the military at a time when it was providing security for such settlements.

He retired from his position in the Israeli military in 2015. A motion put by the Greens in the Senate about his visit wanted it noted that he "led the IDF through numerous military campaigns, including Operation Protective Edge in Gaza from July to August 2014". That operation resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.

No link available to Gus...

The casino run by major GOP financier Sheldon Adelson agreed today to settle a long-running Securities and Exchange Commission bribery investigation that has been swirling around Adelson's Chinese operations. Las Vegas Sands will pay $9 million but won't have to admit any guilt, and the SEC will close its investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In 2011, the Department of Justice and the SEC launched an investigation into Adelson's company after a former executive accused the company of paying an intermediary to hide the company's role in a variety of transactions, including transferring money to Chinese public officials. In the SEC press release on today's settlement, the agency said Las Vegas Sands had failed to keep accurate records for more than $62 million in payments to an intermediary. According to the SEC, the money was given to the intermediary to buy a basketball team and arrange the purchase of a building from a Chinese state-run entity, for a "business center" that was never built.

According to the former Sands' executive, Steve Jacobs, who is now embroiled in a lengthy court fight with Adelson over his firing several years ago, the intermediary was a man named Yang Saixin, who was helping to organize the Adelson Center for US-China Enterprise in Beijing. Yang has denied any wrongdoing, but an internal Sands memo described him as influential and said his parents "knew [President] Xi Jinping's parents, implying a strong connection to Zhongnanhai (the White House of China)." Adelson himself has denied any knowledge of plans for the center.

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/sheldon-adelsons-casino-agreed-pay-9-million-foreign-corruption-case

 

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LAS VEGAS — Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson pulled out of a deal Monday to build a $1.9 billion domed stadium for the Oakland Raiders in Las Vegas.

The move comes on the heels of a team proposal to pay $1 a year in rent and operate the stadium, and it deprives the project of a chief financial backer as officials seek to bring professional football to Las Vegas for the first time.

Adelson played an instrumental role in the effort to lure the Raiders, which eventually grew into a $750 million commitment of taxpayer money to the deal.

He and his family had pledged $650 million — an amount the team will have to seek from other sources. The Raiders have promised $500 million.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval’s office said the lease agreement submitted last week would have the Raiders shoulder $1.15 billion of the cost of the stadium, and accept operation responsibilities and risk.

In a statement, the Raiders acknowledged Adelson’s involvement in the project over the past year and promised to make good on owner Mark Davis’ vow to move to Las Vegas.

Adelson’s withdrawal means the Raiders will go forward with a decision pending from NFL owners who must approve the move.

It also means the team won’t have to ask team owners to waive a rule prohibiting casino operators from having ownership roles in teams...

read more:

http://nypost.com/2017/01/30/raiders-vegas-plans-derailed-as-billionaire...

Sheldon Adelson Sees a Lot to Like in Trump’s Washington

• The casino magnate and his wife, initially skeptical of President Trump, have donated $55 million to Republican campaigns.
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• Mr. Adelson enjoys a direct line to the president and used his access to push Mr. Trump to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and cut Palestinian aid.

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A bet on Donald Trump for president may have seemed risky two years ago. But for billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the payout has been spectacular.

The 85-year-old and his wife Miriam gave $82 million to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016, and within two years watched their man execute two major Adelson asks: moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.

This was accomplished in consultation with Adelson comprador John Bolton, who in December 2016 promised members of the American Friends of Beit El that Trump would not only move the embassy—declaring Jerusalem the true capital of Israel—but that he would not oppose any Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank territories. Adelson is also credited with opening the door for Bolton’s appointment to national security adviser in March.

[TAC Editor’s note: After this piece was published, Trump awarded Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 16]

Meanwhile, Adelson has enjoyed a direct line to Trump, speaking with him in person and on the phone at least once a month. Most recently Adelson was able to convince the president to cut off U.S. aid to Palestinian refugees living in crowded, dirty, and unrelentingly hopeless refugee camps outside Israel. Around the same time, Trump withdrew $25 million in assistance from impoverished East Jerusalem hospitals that also serve Palestinian cancer patients allowed in from the West Bank and Gaza for treatment. 

Of course, Adelson’s pro-Zionist agenda, which includes expanding the settlements as far as they can go—most recently pouring his money into a huge new Israeli medical university on one of those settlements—is in sync with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. It’s been a great year for all involved. 

And why not? For the first time in recent presidential history, there is no pretense of peace with the Arabs. Trump’s endorsement of a two-state solution at the recent United Nations General Assembly in September may have appeared hopeful, but it was as lame as it was patronizing. “I like [a] two-state solution,” Trump offered spontaneously, posing for smiling photographs with Netanyahu. “That’s what I think works best. That’s my feeling.”

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/in-sheldon-adelson-far-...

 

A bet on Donald Trump for president may have seemed risky two years ago? No. As soon as Uncle Rupert endorsed Trump as a presidential candidate, TRUMP WAS A SHOE-IN. 

 

 

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How America’s Dictatorship Works

Eric Zuesse

Trump could not have become America’s President if he had not won the “vote” of his nation’s second-largest political donor in 2016, casinos-owner Sheldon Adelson.

In publicly recorded donations, as of 25 December 2018, Adelson and his wife donated $82,522,800 to Republican candidates in 2016, and this amount doesn’t include any of the secret money. Of that sum, it’s virtually impossible to find out how much went specifically to Trump’s campaign for President, but, as of 9 May 2017, the Adelsons were publicly recorded as having donated $20.4 million to Trump’s campaign.

Their impact on the Presidential contest was actually much bigger than that, however, because even the Adelsons’ non-Trump-campaign donations went to the Republican Party, and the rest went to Republican pro-Trump candidates, and the rest went to Republican PACS — and, so, a large percentage (if not all) of that approximately $60 million non-Trump-campaign political expenditure by the Adelsons was boosting Trump’s Presidential vote.

The second-largest Republican donor in 2016 was the hedge fund manager Paul Singer, at $26,114,653. It was less than a third, 31.6%, as large as the Adelsons’ contribution. Singer is the libertarian who proudly invests in weak entities that have been sucked dry by the aristocracy and who almost always extracts thereby, in the courts, far larger returns-on-investment than do other investors, who have simply settled to take a haircut on their failing high-interest-rate loans to that given weak entity.

Singer hires the rest of his family to run his asset-stripping firm, which is named after his own middle name, “Elliott Advisors,” and he despises any wealthy person who won’t (like he does) fight tooth-and-nail to extract, from any weak entity, everything that can possibly be stripped from it. His Elliott Advisors is called a “vulture fund,” but that’s an insult to vultures, who instead eat corpses. They don’t actually attack and rip apart vulnerable struggling animals, like Singer’s operation does.

So, that’s the top two, on the Republican Party side.

On the Democratic Party side, the largest 2016 donor was the largest of all political donors in 2016, the hedge fund manager Thomas Steyer, $91,069,795. The second-largest was hedge fund manager Donald S. Sussman, $41,841,000. Both of them supported Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders, and then against Donald Trump.

As of 23 January 2019, the record shows that Trump received $46,873,083in donations larger than $200, and $86,749,927 in donations smaller than $200. Plus, he got $144,764 in PAC contributions. Hillary Clinton received $300,111,643 in over-$200 donations, and $105,552,584 in under-$200 donations. Plus, she got $1,785,190 in PAC donations. She received 6.4 times as much in $200+ donations as Trump did. She received 1.2 times as much in under-$200 donations as he did. Clearly, billionaires strongly preferred Hillary.

So, it’s understandable why not only America’s Democratic Party billionaires but also many of America’s Republican Party billionaires want President Trump to become replaced ASAP by his V.P., President Pence, who has a solid record of doing only whatever his big donors want him to do. For them, the wet dream would be a 2020 contest between Mike Pence or a clone, versus Hillary Clinton or a clone (such as Joe Biden or Beto O’Rourke). That would be their standard fixed game, America’s heads-I-win-tails-you-lose ‘democracy’.

On 18 January 2018 was reported that, “Trump pulled in $107 million in individual contributions, nearly doubling President Barack Obama’s 2009 record of $53 million.”

However, in both of those cases, the figures which were being compared were actually donations to fund the inaugural festivities, not the actual campaigns. But Adelson led there, too: “Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson was [the] most generous [donor], giving $5 million to the inaugural committee.”

The second-biggest donor to that was Hushang Ansary of Stewart & Stevenson, at $2 million. He had previously been the CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company until the CIA-appointed dictator, the brutal and widely hated Shah, was overthrown in 1979 and replaced by Iran’s now theocratically overseen limited democracy. The US aristocracy, whose CIA had overthrown Iran’s popular and democratically elected Prime Minister in 1953, installed the Shah to replace that elected head-of-state, and they then denationalized and privatized Iran’s oil company, so as to cut America’s aristocrats in on Iran’s oil.

Basically, America’s aristocracy stole Iran in 1953, and Iranians grabbed their country back in 1979, and US billionaires have been trying to get it back ever since. Ansary’s net worth is estimated at “over $2 billion,” and, “By the 1970s, the CIA considered Ansary to be one of seventeen members of ‘the Shah’s Inner Circle’ and he was one of the Shah’s top two choices to succeed Amir Abbas Hoveyda as Prime Minister.”

But, that just happened to be the time when the Shah became replaced in an authentic revolution against America’s dictatorship. Iran’s revolution produced the country’s current partially democratic Government. So, this would-be US stooge Ansary fled to America, which had been Iran’s master during 1953-79, and he was welcomed with open arms by Amerca’s and allied aristocracies.

Other than the Adelsons, the chief proponents of regime-change in Iran since 1979 are the US-billionaires-controlled CIA, and ‘news’-media, and Government, and the Shah’s family, and the Saud family, and Israel’s apartheid regime headed by the Adelsons’ protégé in Israel, Netanyahu. America’s billionaires want Iran back, and the CIA represents them (the Deep State) — not the American public — precisely as it did in 1953, when the CIA seized Iran for America’s billionaires.

In the current election-cycle, 2018, the Adelsons have thus far invested $123,208,200, all in Republicans, and this tops the entire field. The second-largest political investor, for this cycle, is the former Republican Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, at $90,282,515, all to Democrats. Is he a Republican, or is he a Democrat? Does it actually make any difference? He is consistently a promoter of Wall Street. The third-largest donor now is Tom Steyer, at $70,743,864, all to Democrats. The fourth-largest is a Wisconsin libertarian-conservative billionaire, Richard Uihlein, at $39,756,996.

Back on 19 March 2018, Politico reported that “Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, are currently the biggest Republican donors of the 2018 midterm elections, having given $21 million to candidates for federal office and super PACs that will support them. And that doesn’t include their funding of state candidates.” On 1 October 2016, International Business Times had listed the top ten donors to each of the two Parties, and the Uihleins at that time were #4 on the Republican side, at $21.5 million.

Of course, all of the top donors are among the 585 US billionaires, and therefore they can afford to spend lots on the Republican and/or Democratic nominees. Open Secrets reported on 31 March 2017 that “Of the world’s 100 richest billionaires, 36 are US citizens and thus eligible to donate to candidates and other political committees here. OpenSecrets Blog found that 30 of those [36] [or five sixths of the total 36 wealthiest Americans] actually did so, contributing a total of $184.4 million — with 58 percent [of their money] going to Republican efforts.” Democratic Party nominees thus got 42%; and, though it’s not as much as Republican ones get, it’s usually enough so that if a Democrat becomes elected, that person too will be controlled by billionaires.

For example, in the West Virginia Democratic Presidential primary in 2016, Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties in the state but that state’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention handed 19 of the state’s 37 votes at the Convention to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who got more money from billionaires than all other US Presidential candidates combined. The millions of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton were voting for the billionaires’ favorite, and she and her DNC stole the Party’s nomination from Sanders, who was the nation’s most-preferred Presidential candidate in 2016; and, yet, most of those voters still happily voted, yet again, for her, in the general election — as if she hadn’t practically destroyed the Party by prostituting it to its billionaires even more than Obama had already done.

Of course, she ran against Trump, and, for once, the billionaires were shocked to find that their enormous investment in a candidate had been for naught. That’s how incompetent she was. But they still kept control over both of the political Parties, and the Sanders choice to head the DNC (the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party itself) lost out to the Obama-Clinton choice, so that today’s Democratic Party is still the same: winning is less important to them than serving their top donors is.

This means that America’s winners of federal elections represent almost entirely America’s 585 billionaires, and not the 328,335,647 Americans (as of noon on 23 January 2019). Of course, there is a slight crossover of interests between those two economic classes, since 0.000002 of those 328,335,647, or 0.0002% of them, are billionaires. However, if 0.0002% of federal office-holders represent the public, and the remaining 99.9998% represent the billionaires, then is that actually a bipartisan Government? If instead 99.9998% represented 328,335,062 Americans, and 0.0002% represented the 585 billionaires; then, that, too, wouldn’t be bipartisan, but would it be a democratic (small “d”) government? So, America is not a democracy (regardless of whether it’s bipartisan); it is instead an aristocracy, just like ancient France was, and the British empire, etc. The rest of America’s population (the 328,335,062 other Americans) are mere subjects, though we are officially called ‘citizens’, of this actual aristocracy.

The same is true in Israel, the land that the Adelsons (the individuals who largely control America) are so especially devoted to. On 8 November 2016, Israel’s pro-Hillary-Clinton and anti-Netanyahu Ha’aretz newspaper headlined “The Collapsing Political Triangle Linking Adelson, Netanyahu and Trump”, and reported that Ha’aretz’s bane and top competitor was the freely distributed daily Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, and:

 

Israel Hayom was founded by Adelson nine years ago, in order to give Netanyahu – who has been rather harshly treated by the Israeli media throughout his political career – a friendly newspaper. Under Israeli law, the total sum an individual can donate to a politician or party is very limited, and corporate donations are not allowed.

Israel Hayom has been a convenient loophole, allowing Adelson to invest the sort of money he normally gives American politicians on Netanyahu’s behalf. It has no business model and carries far fewer ads than most daily newspapers. While the privately owned company does not publish financial reports, industry insiders estimate that Adelson must spend around $50 million annually on the large team of journalists and the printing and distribution operations.

Distributed for free, in hundreds of thousands of copies the length and breadth of the country, Israel Hayom … clings slavishly to the line from Netanyahu’s office – praising him and his family to the heavens while smearing his political rivals, both on the left and the right.

 

A billionaire can afford to use his or her ‘news’-media in lieu of political campaign donations. Lots of billionaires do that. They don’t need to make direct political donations. And ‘making money’ by owning a ‘news’-medium can even be irrelevant, for them. Instead, owning an important ’news’-medium can be, for them, just another way, or sometimes their only way, to buy control over the government. It certainly works. It’s very effective in Israel.

Adelson is #14 on the 2018 Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, all having net worths of $2.1 billion or more, his being $38.4 billion, just one-third as large as that of Jeff Bezos. Bezos is the owner of around 15% of Amazon Corporation, whose profits are derived almost entirely from the Amazon Web Services that are supplied to the US Pentagon, NSA, and CIA. So, he’s basically a ‘defense’ contractor.

Bezos’s directly owned Washington Post is one of America’s leading neoconservative and neoliberal, or pro-invasion and pro-Democratic Party, media; and, so, his personal ownership of that newspaper is much like his owning a one-person national political PAC to promote whatever national policies will increase his fortune. The more that goes to the military and the less that goes to everything else, the wealthier he will become. His newspaper pumps the ‘national security threats’ to America.

Adelson controls Israel’s Government. Whereas he might be a major force in America’s Government, that’s actually much more controlled by the world’s wealthiest person, the only trillionaire, the King of Saudi Arabia. He has enough wealth so that he can buy almost anybody he wants — and he does, through his numerous agents. But, of course, both Israel’s Government and Saudi Arabia’s Government hate Iran’s Government at least as much as America’s Government does.

In fact, if Russia’s Government weren’t likely to defend Iran’s Government from an invasion, then probably Iran would already have been invaded. Supporters of America’s Government are supporters of a world government by America’s billionaires, because that’s what the US Government, in all of its international functions (military, diplomatic, etc.) actually represents: it’s America’s global dictatorship.

They throw crumbs to America’s poor so as to make it a ‘two-party’ and not merely a ‘one-party’ government and so that one of the Parties can call itself ‘the Democratic Party’, but America’s is actually a one-party government, and it represents only the very wealthiest, in both Parties. The aristocracy’s two separate party-organizations compete against each other. But their real audience is the aristocracy’s dollars, not the public’s voters. This “two-Party” dictatorship (by the aristocracy) is a different governing model than in China and some other countries.

The great investigative journalist Wayne Madsen headlined on January 24th “Trump Recognition of Rival Venezuelan Government Will Set Off a Diplomatic Avalanche” and he reported the possibility of a war developing between the US and Russia over America’s aggression against Venezuela. US media even have pretended that the US Government isn’t the one that customarily perpetrates coups in Latin America, and pretended that Russia’s and Cuba’s Governments are simply blocking ‘democracy’ from blossoming in Venezuela.

On January 24th, Middle East Eye reported that Morgan Stanley’s CEO James Gorman had just told the World Economic Forum, in Davos, that the torture-murder of Saudi Crown Prince Salman’s critic and Washington Postcolumnist Jamal Khashoggi was “unacceptable,” “But what do you do? What part do you play in the process of economic and social change?” and the report continued: “Gorman said he did not judge any country’s attempts to root out corruption,” and Gorman and a French tycoon joined in throwing their “weight behind Riyadh’s economic and social direction, by saying, ‘it is quite difficult and brave what the kingdom is doing’,” by its ‘reforms’. It was all being done to ‘root out corruption, and to spread democracy’. Sure.

There’s “a sucker born every minute,” except now it’s every second. That seems to be the main way to win votes.

On January 26th, Trump appointed the fascist Elliott Abrams to lead this ‘democratization of Venezuela’, by overthrowing and replacing the elected President by the second-in-line-of succession (comparable in Venezuela to removing Trump and skipping over the Vice President and appointing Nancy Pelosi as America’s President, and also violating the Venezuelan Constitution’s requirement that the Supreme Judicial Trbunal must first approve before there can be ANY change of the President without an election by the voters).

It’s clearly another US coup that is being attempted here. Trump, by international dictat, says that this Venezuelan traitor whom the US claims to be installing is now officially recognized by the US Government to be the President of Venezuela. Bloomberg News reported that Abrams would join Trump’s neocon Secretary of State on January 26th at the UN to lobby there for the UN to authorize Trump’s intended Venezuelan coup. The EU seemed strongly inclined to follow America’s lead. On the decisive U.N. body, the Permanent Security Council, of China, France, Russia, UK, and US, the US position was backed by three: US, France, and UK. Russia and China were opposed.

In the EU, only France, Germany, Spain, and UK, came out immediately backing the US position. On January 25th, Russia’s Tass news agency was the first to report on the delicate strategic situation inside Venezuela. It sounded like the buildup to Obama’s successful coup in Ukraine in February 2014, but in Venezuela and under Trump. In fact, at least two commentaors other than I have noted the apparent similarities: Whitney Webb at “Washington Follows Ukraine, Syria Roadmap in Push for Venezuela Regime Change” and RT at “‘Venezuela gets its Maidan’: Ukrainian minister makes connection between regime change ops”.

Abrams’s career has been devoted to “regime-change,” and is as unapologetic about it as is John Bolton. Also like Bolton, he’s an impassioned supporter of Jewish apartheid. He wrote in his 1997 book Faith or Fear, that “Outside the land of Israel, there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart — except in Israel — from the rest of the population.” 

Israel is, in this and the view of many billionaires, the whole world’s ghetto, and ‘real’ Jews don’t belong anywhere else than there. And, according to that, nobody else does belong there, except people who accept being ruled by Jewish Law — the Torah. So, on 25 June 2001, George W. Bush, as the main representative of America’s billionaires, made Abrams the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations at the National Security Council.

Of course, Abrams was gung-ho for Americans to conquer Iraq, because Iraqis didn’t like Israel. And the current US President hires that same agent of Israel, Abrams, now to sell internationally America’s current coup to grab Venezuela for America’s billionaires. Abrams, for years, had been courting Trump’s favor by having declined to include himself among the many Republican neoconservatives, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. He thereby has now won his new job, on the real-world sequel to The Apprentice, which is known as President Trump’s Administration. Another such winner, of course, is John Bolton, who likewise had declined to endorse Hillary.

Perhaps the US regime thinks that testing the resolve of Russia’s Government, regarding Venezuela, would be less dangerous than testing it over the issue of Iran. But Big Brother says that this imposition of America’s corruption is instead merely a part of rooting out corruption and spreading democracy and human rights, throughout the world.

The US has managed to get Venezuela in play, to control again. Some American billionaires think it’s a big prize, which must be retaken. The largest oil-and-gas producers — and with the highest reserves of oil-and-gas in the ground — right now, happen to be Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Russia, Venezuela, and US. So, for example, Venezuela is a much bigger prize than Brazil.

All of those countries have an interest in denying the existence of human-produced global warming, and in selling as much of their product as quickly as possible before the world turns away from fossil fuels altogether. High-tech doesn’t drive today’s big-power competition nearly so much as does the fossil-fuels competition — to sell as much of it as they can, as fast as they can. The result of this competition could turn out to be a nuclear winter that produces a lifeless planet and thus prevents the planet from becoming lifeless more slowly from global burnout — the alternative outcome, which would be produced by the burnt fossil fuels themselves. Either way, the future looks bleak, no matter what high-tech produces (unless high-tech produces quickly a total replacement of fossil fuels, and, in the process, bankrupts many of the billionaires who are so active in the current desperate and psychopathic global competition).

This is what happens when wealth worldwide is so unequally distributed that the “World’s Richest 0.7% Own 13.67 Times as Much as World’s Poorest 68.7%”. According to economic theory (which has always been written by agents for the aristocracy), the distribution of wealth is irrelevant. This belief was formalized by a key founder of today’s mathematized economic theory, Vilfredo Pareto, who, for example, in his main work, the 1912 Trattato di Sociologia Generale, wrote (# 2135), that, though “the lover of equality will assign a high coefficient to the utility of the lower classes and get a point of equilibrium very close to the equalitarian condition, there is no criterion save sentiment for choosing between the one [such equality of wealth] and the other [a single person — whom he called “superman” — owning everything].”

The article on Pareto in the CIA’s Wikipedia doesn’t even so much as mention this central feature of Pareto’s thinking, the feature that’s foundational in all of the theory of “welfare” in economics. Pareto was also the main theoretician of fascism, and the teacher of Mussolini. This belief is at the foundation of capitalism as we know it, and as it has been in economic theory ever since, actually, the 1760s. Pareto didn’t invent it; he merely mathematized it.

So, we’ve long been in 1984, or at least building toward it. But US-allied billionaires wrote this particular version of it; George Orwell didn’t. And it’s not a novel. It’s the real thing. And it is now becoming increasingly desperate.

If, in recognizing this, you feel like a hog on a factory-farm, then you’ve got the general idea of this reality. It’s the problem that the public faces. But the publics in the US and its allied regimes are far less miserable than the publics in the countries that the US and its allied regimes are trying to take over — the targeted countries (such as Syria). To describe any realistic solution to this systematic global exploitation would require an entire book, at the very least — no mere article, such as here. The aristocracy anywhere wouldn’t publish such a book. Nobody would likely derive any significant income from writing it. That’s part of the reality, which such a book would be describing.

However, a key part of this reality is that for the billionaires — the people who control international corporations or corporations that even are aspiring to grow beyond their national market — their nation’s international policies are even more important to them than its domestic affairs (such as the toxic water in Flint, Michigan; or single-payer health insurance — matters that are relatively unimportant to billionaires), and, therefore, the most-censored and least-honestly reported realities on the part of the aristocracy’s ‘news’-media are the international ones. And, so, this is the field where there is the most lying, such as about “Saddam’s WMD,” and about all foreign countries.

However, when a person is in an aristocracy’s military, deception of that person is even more essential, especially in the lower ranks, the troops, because killing and dying for one’s aristocracy is far less attractive than killing or dying in order honestly to serve and protect an authentic democracy. Propagandizing for the myth that the nation is a democracy is therefore extremely important in any aristocracy.

Perhaps this is the reason why, in the United States, the military is consistently the institution that leads above all others in the public’s respect. It’s especially necessary to do that, in the nation that President Barack Obama repeatedly said is “the one indispensable nation”. This, of course, means that every other nation is “dispensable.” Any imperial nation, at least since ancient Rome, claimed the same thing, and invaded more nations than any other in the world when it was the leading imperial nation, because this is what it means to be an empire, or even to aspire to being one: imposing that given nation’s will upon other nations — colonies, vassal states, or whatever they are called.

When soldiers know that they are the invaders, not the actual defenders, their motivation to kill and die is enormously reduced. This is the main reason why the ‘news’-media in an imperial nation need to lie constantly to their public. If a news-reporting organization doesn’t do that, no aristocrat will even buy it. And virtually none will advertise in it or otherwise donate to it. It will be doomed to remain very small and unprofitable in every way (because the “World’s Richest 0.7% Own 13.67 Times as Much as World’s Poorest 68.7%”). Billionaires donate to ‘news’-organizations that might report accurately about domestic US problems, but not to ones that report accurately about international affairs, especially about important international affairs. Even liberal ‘news’-media are neoconservative, or favorable toward American invasions and coups. In order to be a significant player in the ‘news’-business in the United States, one has to be.

So: this is how America’s dictatorship works. This is not America’s exceptionalism: it is America’s ordinariness. America’s Founders had wanted to produce something not just exceptional but unique in its time: a democratic republic. But what now exists here is instead a dictatorial global empire, and it constitutes the biggest threat to the very existence of the United Nations ever since that body’s founding in 1945. If that body accepts as constituting the leader of Venezuela the person that America’s President declares to be Venezuela’s leader, then the U.N. is effectively dead.

This would be an immense breakthrough for all of the US regime’s billionaires, both domestically and throughout its allied countries (such as in France, Germany, Spain, and UK). It would be historic, if they win. It would be extremely grim, and then the U.N. would immediately need to be replaced. The US and its allies would refuse to join the replacement organization. That organization would then authorize economic sanctions against the US and its allies. These will be reciprocated. The world would break clearly into two trading-blocs. In a sense, the UN’s capitulation to the US on this matter would create another world war, WW III. It would be even worse than when Neville Chamberlain accepted Hitler’s offer regarding the Sudetenland. We’d be back to the start of WW II, with no lessons learned since then. And with nuclear weapons.

Originally posted at strategic-culture.org

 

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/18/how-americas-dictatorship-works/

 

 

 

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I used to read articles by Eric Margolis. His views were that of a moderate conservative, quite well suited for The American Conservative. Although I could have missed articles, I think he has dropped off the radar.

 

Wikipedia tells us:

 

Margolis identifies his politics as "Eisenhower Republican". Though his domestic political persuasion is moderately conservative (he is a staunch anti-communist and a supporter of capitalism), Margolis' views on the Middle East are sharply at odds with those of the neoconservatives.[21]

Margolis wrote this about Barack Obama's election:

Americans did not "liberate" Iraq, but they certainly liberated their own nation last week by sweeping the Republican Party from power. One prays America's long nightmare of foreign aggressions, fear, religious extremism, and flirting with neo-fascism is finally at an end.[22] (Note from Gus: good luck to that — nothing like this happened. More US fascist crap came through that door... Libya, Syria, Venezuela, etc — all a continuation of the US empire control.)

In a 2009 column, Margolis stated that an American politician he very much admires is Ron Paul.[23] Margolis wrote about Paul:

I came to deeply respect and admire Paul's courage, honesty, and his refusal to accept special interest money ... In fact, Rep. Paul has been a model of the type of legislators envisaged by America's founding fathers: men of high moral standards and intellect dedicated to the nation's wellbeing. He reminds me in many ways of the fiercely upright senators of the early Roman Republic.[23]

Margolis has said he rejects the Republican Party of 2010 because of the growing influence of the Tea Party movement, which he says now appeals to the fears and prejudices of its followers.[24]

 

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Margolis_(journalist)

 

Lucky, the internet is still flowing. Eric has his own website from which he spruiks his views. Here is his latest:

 

---------------

 

March 8, 2019

“Tell me who you cannot criticize and I will tell you who is your master”. (Attributed to Voltaire).

Saying anything negative about Israel has long been the third rail of US politics and media. Israel is our nation’s most sacred cow. Any questioning of its behavior brings furious charges of anti-Semitism and professional oblivion.

I keep in my bookcase a cautionary book, ‘They Dared Speak Out’ written by US senators and congressmen who all lost their positions after rebuking Israel for its mistreatment of Palestinians or daring to suggest that Israel had far too much influence in the US. 

Journalists learn this first commandment very early. Criticize, or even question, Israel at your own peril. Until recently, we journalists were not even allowed to write there was an ‘Israel lobby.’ It was widely considered Washington’s most powerful lobby group but, until lately, mentioning its name was seriously verboten. 

Now, young Democratic stars Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a feisty congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, have suddenly broken the taboo and said what dared not be said: there is too much rightwing Israeli influence and there must be justice for Palestine.

Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have come to the defense of Ilhan Omar against the usual charges that she is anti-Semitic. So have black groups and smaller liberal Jewish groups. The Democratic Party, that once received half its financial support from Jewish sources, is badly split over the Palestine crisis. Its old guard is retreating and does not know what to do beyond issuing fiery denunciations of the heretical Miss Omar. The Democrat Party split comes just at a time when it is trying to bring down President Donald Trump.

Many people seem unaware that Islam is now America’s third largest religion and may soon surpass the number of Jews. In Canada, Muslims are already the second religion. 

Ilhan is not anti-Semitic. I grew up in New York and New England where vicious anti-Semitism abounded. I know real anti-Semitism when I see it. But she is quite right in charging that vast amounts of pro-Israel money have bought Congress and the media.

Sheldon Adelson, the pro-Israel casino tycoon, has given well over $100 million to the Republican Party and its leaders. This money comes from legal gambling, a sickness that preys on addicts and the unfortunate. 

In the 1700’s, Dr. Samuel Johnson well defined lotteries and gambling as ‘a tax on fools.’ Such is the source of Adelson’s billions and his influence over the US political process. He is also the primary financier of Israel’s prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who now faces serious charges of corruption.

Interestingly, Britain faces a similar political storm. Its left-leaning Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, has called for justice for the Palestinians and a viable state for them. Britain’s pro-Israel groups and media have launched furious counterattacks on Corbyn and his allies, barraging them with false accusations of being anti-Semitic. This is utter nonsense. To find real anti-Semitism in Britain you need look into the recesses of the Conservative Party. I’ve seen its ugly face.

 

Read more:

https://ericmargolis.com/2019/03/more-power-to-you-miss-omar/

 

We have known why Corbyn has been tainted with "anti-semitism" since that kerfuffle started. The Labour Party in England is now trailing the conservatives by at least 10 points, while presenting a better alternative than the Tories. The conservatives, despite being totally inept and rudderless in all political activities including Brexit, should be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but the rightwing controlled press has had a field day by claiming that Corbyn was anti-semitic. It's rubbish of course but it sticks...

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Imagine if almost all the Democrats running for president were ex-generals, and their main claim to rule was that, well, they were ex-generals. That’s the situation Israel has found itself in, about which is said: “Israel is an army with a country rather than a country with an army.”

Military officers, both in and out of uniform, have played an outsized role in every aspect of Israeli life. Moshe Dayan, with his fetching eyepatch, established the archetype. Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon both overcame mixed military legacies (as defense minister, Sharon was officially admonished for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Arabs in 1982) to make history as prime ministers. The martyred Rabin was the architect of the uneasy rapprochement with Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Sharon, who was denied Israel’s top military job, stopped the peace process begun by Rabin in its tracks.

...

Joining Gantz are two other ex-chiefs of staff in the military troika at the head of the new faction, Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe Ya’alon. 

Ya’alon was an undisguised opponent of Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiating effort, calling Kerry “delusional.” Ashkenazi’s sympathies are less hard-edged. In Israel today, this translates into support for what used to be viewed as a right-wing national security agenda.

Ya’alon was Netanyahu’s minister of defense and famously opposes any retreat on the West Bank or the creation of a Palestinian state. His political journey reflects that of the nation itself. Born and raised in the nurturing cradle of the long-ruling Labor Party, after leaving the Army’s top job in 2005, Ya’alon became a star in Likud, which suffered Labor’s uncontested rule for decades until 1977 when Menachem Begin and his settlement agenda prevailed.

Earlier this week, Gantz led a train of ex-military, intelligence, and security leaders, including former Mossad and Shabak (internal security) bosses, and the three other ex-chiefs of staff on the party list, to the Golan Heights. 

They traveled to the Syrian border to declare that Israel would never retreat from the Golan Heights and would continue pushing for international recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the territory—a new favorite idea of Republicans in the Senate—which Israel captured in the June 1967 war.

“We will increase the settlement of the Golan in a way that shows the world clearly—we will not come down from the Golan; the opposite—it will be developed and [its population] doubled,” Gantz said.

None of this is news to Bashar al-Assad. But of course, sitting in Damascus 269 kilometers away, he wasn’t the audience.

Gantz’s campaign strategy appears to be producing electoral dividends, so much so that he is considering how to form the next Israeli government after elections on April 9—with Bibi’s party, but without the battle-scarred political veteran himself.

Netanyahu’s strategy to confront this challenge is an improbable one, which nevertheless has proven effective before. He is trying to convince voters that these standard-bearers, who have spent a lifetime in service to the country—Gantz’s was selected by Bibi himself to lead the army—are in fact dangerous leftists.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/ex-idf-officers-launch-...

 

The choice of politics in Israel is basically the same as having to choose between Hillary-the-warrior-woman and Trump-the-halfwit-genius... Take your pick. And we still don't know who is whom...

 

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US report drops references to ‘occupation’ of Palestine, now it’s ‘Israeli-controlled’...
In the latest annual global human rights report, the US has stopped using the term “occupied” when talking about areas of Palestine controlled by Israel, including the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza.

In a report by the State Department intended to detail data regarding human rights around the globe in 2018, the US has decided to alter the words it uses to describe the situation in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, opting for what seems to be more neutral language.

This decision comes despite the fact that the word “occupation” is official terminology approved by the United Nations and how the US had formerly described the territories in question.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/453757-israel-palestine-us-occupation/

 

 

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 TAX-EXEMPT U.S. NONPROFITS FUEL ISRAELI SETTLER PUSH TO EVICT PALESTINIANS

 

U.S. charities are funding Israeli settler organizations working to evict Palestinians from their East Jerusalem homes.

 

 

ON MAY 6, right-wing Israeli officials descended on Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, to show their support for the settler movement’s push to displace Palestinian residents and take their homes.

One of the officials was Aryeh King, a deputy mayor of Jerusalem and settler who lives in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. In an exchange caught on camera, King mocked Palestinian activist Mohammed Abu Hummus for being shot by Israeli forces in his backside, and then, pointing at his head, said, “It’s a pity it didn’t go in here.” It was a wish for the death of a Palestinian.

The remarks turned a spotlight on King’s involvement in the saga of Sheikh Jarrah, the Palestinian neighborhood targeted by Israeli settlers that is at the heart of the current crisis in Israel-Palestine. The impending removal of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah fueled tensions in Jerusalem, which spiraled out of the holy city into Gaza and the rest of Israel-Palestine. Israeli airstrikes are now blanketing Gaza, with Palestinian groups firing rockets back; both Jewish and Palestinian mobs are roaming cities in Israel, beating up whoever they can find.

King is one of the players, among others, who has stoked tensions in Sheikh Jarrah, the site of a long-simmering crisis. In 2007, King started the Israel Land Fund, and since then, the group has worked to buy land in Palestinian neighborhoods throughout occupied East Jerusalem to sell to Jewish settlers.

The Israel Land Fund isn’t trying to dominate East Jerusalem by itself. It’s doing it with the help of private American donors, who get tax deductions for the money they give to U.S.-based nonprofits who funnel the money to Israeli settlements. The overwhelming majority of the Israel Land Fund’s budget comes from the Central Fund of Israel, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

The Central Fund of Israel is among a network of U.S.-based groups fueling dispossession and displacement of Palestinians from neighborhoods in Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers. The groups’ tax-exempt nonprofit status means their donors receive an effective U.S. government subsidy to bolster the settlement moment — in contradiction of the Biden administration’s policy against the land takeovers, which are widely considered to be a gross violation of international law.

“Organizations like the ILF are part of a much broader scheme involving the transfer of millions of dollars via U.S. private foundations like CFI to Israeli organizations that together, along with the Israeli state, constitute the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise,” said Diala Shamas, a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “That American organizations are taking advantage of so-called charitable designation to perpetrate violence on the ground and a situation of apartheid in the West Bank goes contrary to the basic principles laid out in the U.S. Tax Code, and other provisions of U.S. law.”

From 2009 to 2013, U.S. charities funneled over $220 million to Israeli settler organizations, according to a 2015 Haaretz investigation. U.S. nonprofits’ central involvement in the Israeli settler movement has sparked calls amongst Palestinian rights advocates for the U.S. government to investigate the U.S.-based organizations fueling Palestinian displacement.

Reached by phone on the number listed on the Central Fund of Israel’s website, a man who refused to give his name declined to comment on the group’s activities, saying, “My history with journalists has been so horrible. I’m not interested.” An Israel Land Fund spokesperson said, “ILF is not involved in any illegal act.” The spokesperson told The Intercept that the group is “not involved so much” in Sheikh Jarrah.

The Israel Land Fund assisted in the eviction of a Palestinian family in Sheikh Jarrah in 2017, and King openly advertises that one of his major targets is the neighborhood. “In about 10 years we will have in [Sheikh Jarrah], some 400, maybe 500 Jewish families,” King told the Jerusalem Post in 2017. The Israel Land Fund advertises “residential plots” in what the group calls “Nahalot Shimon,” the Hebrew name given to parts of Sheikh Jarrah. The fund also notes that Palestinians — “Arabs” in the settlers’ parlance — currently live on the plots they claim are owned by Jews.

Two other Jerusalem neighborhoods, Batan al-Hawa and Al-Bustan, are also facing a wave of eviction orders instigated by U.S. nonprofit-backed settler groups. The Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Bustan eviction plans, which threaten the homes of some 2,000 Palestinians, were condemned as violations of international law by 25 House Democrats in a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, calling on the State Department to pressure Israel over the pending forced displacement.

SHEIKH JARRAH IS key to the Israeli settler movement’s plan to take over neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem, as a way to create what King calls “layers” of Jews that would “secure the future of Jerusalem as a Jewish capital for the Jewish people.”

In 1967, Israel conquered East Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the Six-Day War, beginning the military occupation that continues to this day. Israeli Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem is considered illegal under international law, a violation of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit an occupying power from sending its own citizens to live on occupied land. The U.N. considers Israeli claims of sovereignty over East Jerusalem to be an unlawful annexation.

An international consensus long held that the thorny issue should be resolved through peace talks, but as negotiations have lost momentum in the past decade, several influential nations, including the U.S., have moved toward recognizing Israeli sovereignty. In 2017, President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move long rejected by previous presidents who said that the status of Jerusalem should be subject to negotiation. In 2018, the U.S. moved its embassy to Jerusalem, an act that Palestinians saw as supporting Israeli claims over the entire city, including its occupied eastern half. President Joe Biden has not reversed the embassy move.

For the settler movement, implanting more settlers in East Jerusalem is part of a push to consolidate Jewish demographic dominance over Palestinians, cement Israeli control over the entirety of Jerusalem, and kill the diminishing chances for a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem, a central Palestinian demand.

 

 

Read more:

https://theintercept.com/2021/05/14/israel-settler-evictions-jerusalem-nonprofits/

 

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