Fake Noose? ’60 Minutes’ Shreds Epstein Suicide Theory
’60 Minutes’ has revealed several new data points in the death of wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein which raise more questions than they answer, and suggest that the financier did not kill himself – an opinion the New York City Medical Examiner’s office stands “firmly” behind.
The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Epstein’s death a suicide by hanging, but a forensic pathologist who observed the four-hour autopsy on behalf of Epstein’s brother, Mark, tells 60 Minutes the evidence released so far points more to murder than suicide in his view. Dr. Michael Baden’s key reason: the unusual fractures he saw in Epstein’s neck. –CBS News
While we’ve heard all sorts of theories about the improbabilities of the force required by the nearly 6 foot tall Epstein to successfully hang himself while breaking an unusual three bones in his neck usually seen in strangulations, that’s nowhere near the most peculiar part of Epstein’s demise (notwithstanding the ol’ homeless guy switcharoo theory).
For the first time, we get to look at the noose Epstein used to allegedly kill himself. Photos admitted as evidence reveal a clean cloth with no blood, despite Epstein’s clearly bloody neck. Moreover, both ends of the noose were hemmed, not cut – while the guard who found Epstein reportedly cut him down.
Also odd is that Epstein’s ligature wound, allegedly left by said bloodless noose, is fairly low on his neck.
“It doesn’t look like anybody ever took scissors to it,” said 60 Minutes’ Sharyn Alfonsi. “So there is some question—is that the right noose?”
“I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging.”
Dr. Michael Baden lays out the forensic reasons why he’s skeptical of the medical examiner’s ruling that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. **This video contains graphic images.** https://t.co/rZDRtPchodpic.twitter.com/sAkIch7sBF
The photos also reveal other potential nooses – none of which are bloodied, as well as orange sheets strewn around the room.
“There were fractures of the left, the right thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone,” said Baden. “I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging.”
“Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures,” he added.
According to Vladimir Lenin, “There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen.”
As Japan moves into the second year of the Reiwa era, there is a palpable sense that world history is going through a phase of acceleration, driven by the rapid economic rise of Asia and the relentless worldwide spread of the internet and social media.
Hence, the intensifying confrontation between the United States and China. This may appear to have been sparked by the unpredictable trade policies of President Donald Trump, which came as a shock after the laid-back attitude toward China of his predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush. In reality, though, the clash of wills was inevitable, as there is a fundamental incompatibility of national interests between the world’s two largest economies.
What is at stake is supremacy in two vital and interconnected areas: new technologies — such as A.I., 5G, and biogenetics — and influence in Asia.
Calm Before the Storm
As with the original Cold War, it is a struggle for control of the future. The contest will be long drawn out and multi-faceted, involving high-tech, trade, finance, soft power, political values, alliances, cyber warfare, espionage, and military muscle.
Though there will be ebbs and flows in tensions, these fundamentals will remain in place — regardless of whether President Trump wins re-election in 2020 or not. And the logic of U.S.-China strategic competition means that Japan cannot be a passive observer, as it was largely in the first Cold War. Thanks to geography, it is on the front line, like it or not.
In recent years, Japan has been an oasis of calm in a turbulent global landscape. Indeed, the most heated political controversies concern such trivialities as the budget for the government’s annual cherry blossom viewing party.
Hong Kong people used to be famous for their apolitical pragmatism and single-minded devotion to business, so the scenes of masked demonstrators fighting riot police were shocking to many observers. Perhaps the increasingly obvious flaws of Hong Kong’s governance should have been debated more openly before.
Perhaps in recent times Hong Kong has been too calm. In contrast, the United Kingdom’s long and heated debate about Brexit appeared chaotic, but in fact the political system has been working as it should. Brexit is now a fait accompli and will soon fade from the world’s headlines.
Fortunately, in the coming year it is likely that Japanese citizens will have the opportunity to engage in a thorough, ongoing debate about national security as part of the process of constitutional reform. It will be controversial and divisive, but also necessary and healthy.
Indeed, Reiwa 2 will be a year packed with politics. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may call a general election in order to establish the necessary two thirds majority in the twin houses of the Diet for passing his constitutional bill. If successful, he would then hold a referendum, the first in Japan’s history, in order to gain the public’s approval.
For the first time, ordinary Japanese citizens would be given a direct voice in their own governance. Leaving aside the specific issue in question — the legitimacy of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces — this would be a spectacular illustration of Japan’s democratic maturity.
Germany’s constitution has been amended some 60 times since it was established in 1949. India’s constitution has been amended over 100 times in a similar timespan.
Constitutional reform was the official policy of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, which was in power through nearly all that period, but nothing was attempted. Both politicians and the public lacked the sense of urgency and, more important, the confidence in their own institutions to make it happen.
Circumstances have changed, as has the national mood, especially among younger people. Opinion surveys show that it is the older generation which is most opposed to constitutional revision — the same generation that is most opposed to increasing numbers of immigrant workers. The under-30s are much more comfortable with 21st century realities.
2020 is the year of the Tokyo Olympics. It is to be hoped that the event passes off in fine style and the host nation secures a satisfying haul of medals.
Of more lasting significance will be how Japan performs in the geopolitical Olympics that lies ahead. It will be a test of agility, stamina, strength, guile, and concentration — closer to martial arts than synchronized swimming.
“This Is Unprecedented!” Guaido Denied Entry To Venezuelan Parliament, Only To Be Reelected Hours Later
Between Turkey, Venezuela and efforts to remove Donald Trump from office, it’s been tough sledding for coup d’états over the last several years.
In the case of Venezuela, would-be President Juan Guaido’s journey is just sad at this point – after the opposition leader said on Sunday that police prevented him from entering the country’s National Assembly, only to be reelected for a second term as speaker of parliament hours later.
Guaido has led opposition to Venezuela’s socialist president Nicolas Maduro for the past 12 months and had hoped to be confirmed in the post in a key vote.
When he arrived for the special parliament session, police prevented him from entering. –DW
At one point he tried to jump the fence, only to be repelled.
Guaido is trying to jump the fence to get into the National Assembly. He is being forcibly prevented by the GNB#Venezuelapic.twitter.com/bh4PnKKrSs
“This is unprecedented!” Guaido told a guard amid a heated exchange.
“The regime is kidnapping and persecuting deputies, militarizing the Federal Legislative Palace, preventing access and blocking entry to the free press,” he later tweeted.
“This is the reality in Venezuela: the desire for change in the face of a dictatorship that continues to persecute.”
That said, despite the earlier impasse, Guaido was reelected president of Parliament by the majority of deputies hours later.
The standoff outside the parliamentary chambers went on for more than an hour as troops reviewed the credentials for each lawmaker. According to DW, critics said this was a delay strategy to prevent the assembly from reaching quorum. Journalists were denied entry as well.
Guaido declared Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro illegitimate after the May, 2018 elections.
Trump Says “US Will Not Leave” Iraq Unless Billions For Air Base Are Repaid
Just hours after Iraq voted to expel US troops stationed in Iraq, Trump made it clear that he has no interest in vacating the nation that has been a stalwart US military outpost in the middle east for nearly two decades ever since it was invaded by, well, the US in search of fabricated weapons of mass destruction, and speaking to reporters on Air Force One said “we’re not leaving” unless Iraq “pays us back” for a US air base built in Iraq.
“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.” Trump told the AF1 reporter pool.
That, however, wasn’t enough, and Trump also made it clear that that in addition to billions in reimbursements, unless the US left on a “very friendly basis”, the US would hit Iraq with “very big” sanctions like “they’ve never seen before ever.”
“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
And just to make it abundantly clear, Trump also added that “if there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”
Trump also addressed his Saturday threat to attack various Iranian cultural sites in retaliation to any escalation out of Tehran, threatening “major retaliation” on Iran if they “do anything” and saying that “they’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way.”
“We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever,” Trump says if Iraq’s government demands US leave. “It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
Earlier, Axios reported that The Trump administration tried to stop an Iraqi vote to expel the U.S. military from the country and citing unnamed sources, said that the Trump administration tried to persuade top Iraqi officials to kill the parliamentary effort. As a reminder, earlier on Sunday, Iraq’s parliament voted to approve of the expulsion of the U.S. military following last week’s attack that killed Soleimani.
A US official told Axios that expelling the U.S. military from Iraq “would be inconvenient for us, but it would be catastrophic for Iraq”, adding that “it’s our concern that Iraq would take a short-term decision that would have catastrophic long-term implications for the country and its security.”
“But it’s also what would happen to them financially if they allowed Iran to take advantage of their economy to such an extent that they would fall under the sanctions that are on Iran,” the official added. “We don’t want to see that. We’re trying very hard to work to have that not happen.”
A senior Iraqi official told Axios that many Kurdish and Sunni members of parliament, who tend to be more supportive of the U.S. presence in Iraq, did not attend the vote to expel the U.S. presence.
“This is a temporary victory for the parties which are pro-Iranian,” the official told Axios. “But it’s also a clear message from the Sunnis and from the Kurds [who didn’t vote] and from some Iraqi Shia for the Americans to tell them we want you to stay in Iraq.
Our agreement with Iran reached under the Obama administration and canceled by President Trump was viewed, by many, as an alternative to the unsavory option of taking military action to halt Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.John Kerry crafting the agreement with Iran always stressed that if Iran fails to meet the requirements of the current deal, all options remain on the table. With this in mind, we should not give the Obama administration too much credit for bringing us a great or even good agreement.
Remember that during the Obama years many people considered Middle-east policy a mess as he flip-flopped ignoring the red lines he boldly drew in the sand. At the time, Iran held more cards than we were told because ISIS was a growing threat. In many ways, Iran held the fate of Baghdad in their hands. If the Shia militias from Iran that were defending Baghdad wavered both the Iraqi capital and the American Green Zone could have come under fire from ISIS, this would have been very embarrassing for Obama and our government. When Kerry talked about offsetting the one hundred and fifty billion dollars Iran was to receive when the sanctions were lifted by “upping our game in the area” questions arise as to the cost and how Washington intended to pay for this gambit.
Iran Has Little Reason To Trust America
While officials claimed the agreement would halt much of Iran’s nuclear program and ratchet back other elements, several U.S. senators, both Democrat and Republican, voiced displeasure with the agreement. They argued that the U.S. and its partners offered too much for something short of a full freeze on uranium enrichment. Also, if part of the boatload of money released at the signing of the agreement was used to fund Iran’s many proxy wars it would create chaos. If Iran does not halt and reverse its course it can always ramp up its plans to develop a nuclear bomb at off-site locations.
Much of the problem America has with Iran stems from the perception that we have created over the years by portraying Iran as a larger than life boogeyman that threatens our very way of life and existence. Iran was elevated to this level when President George W. Bush included Iran as a member of the “Axis Of Evil” in his State of the Union Address in 2002. Unfortunately, Washington and the politicians who reside there often mislead us as they allow agendas of special interest to influence policy. When it comes to Iran’s official stance towards America anyone saying that Iran has good reason not to trust the American government is making an understatement. America through its foreign policy has wreaked havoc upon many countries few have been affected or suffered from our meddling as much as Iran.
A somewhat neutral source for information on the history of Iran post-World War II is Wikipedia. It shows America has constantly interfered in their internal politics. In 1953 the British M16 and the American CIA organized a military coup d’etat to oust the nationalist and democratically elected Prime Minister and put in power Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, the man we all know as the Shah of Iran, in Persian Shah means king. It is only fair to call attention to some very damning declassified documents released recently, the approximately 1,000 pages of documents, shed light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s central role in the 1953 coup that brought down Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh.
The documents conflict with the U.S government’s long denied involvement in the coup.The State Department first released coup-related documents in 1989 but edited out any reference to CIA involvement. Public outrage coaxed a government promise to release a more complete edition, and some material came out in 2013. Two years later, the full installment of declassified material was scheduled but the release was delayed fearing it might interfere with the Iran nuclear talks that were taking place. Now they have finally been released, it should be noted they are not complete because numerous original CIA telegrams from that period are known to have disappeared or were destroyed long ago.
What is clear and finally brought to light is the CIA plot known as Operation Ajax, was about oil. In early 1951, amid great popular acclaim, Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry. A fuming Great Britain began conspiring with U.S. intelligence services to overthrow Mossadegh and restore the monarchy under the Shah. While some of the U.S. State Department, the newly-released cables attempt to blame the British for the tensions and indicate efforts to work with Mossadegh plans were made for a coup. The coup attempt began on August 15th but was swiftly thwarted. Mossadegh made dozens of arrests. General Fazlollah Zahedi, a top conspirator, went into hiding, and the Shah fled Iran. At that point according to a newly declassified cable sent on August 18, 1953, the CIA under the impression the coup had failed decided to end their role. The message read, “Operations against Mossadegh should be discontinued.”
Washington wanted to make sure nothing “could be traced back to the U.S,” however, this cable was ignored by Kermit Roosevelt, the top CIA officer in Iran. What unfolded next is pivotal, on August 19, 1953, with the aid of “rented” crowds widely believed to have been arranged with CIA assistance, the coup succeeded and Iran’s nationalist hero jailed and the Western-friendly Shah placed in power. The existence and extent of Operation Ajax have long been a major point of contention for many Iranians from which the flames of anti-Western sentiment grew fueling a surge of nationalism. In 1979 this culminated in the U.S. hostage crisis, the Shah being overthrown and the creation of the Islamic Republic.
During his time in power, the Shah maintained a close relationship with America and shared our views towards the Soviet Union its northern neighbor. Iran was a strong ally in efforts to keep the Russians contained during the cold war. While the Shah westernized and modernized Iran arbitrary arrests and torture by the Shah’s secret police were used to crush all forms of political opposition. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini an active critic of the Shah publicly denounced the government and was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release when Khomeini publicly criticized the United States government he was sent into exile. When oil prices spiked in 1973 due to an oil embargo declared by OPEC and several other countries a flood of foreign currency into Iran caused double-digit inflation;
Social unrest from waste, corruption and a recession resulted in protests and strikes that spread until they reached a point where the Shah fled the country. Ayatollah Khomeini returned in 1979 and formed a new government. Over the next several years uprisings were violently subdued as the new government went about purging itself of the non-Islamist political opposition that had joined with them to overthrow the Shah. Tens of thousands of Iranians were executed by the Islamic regime.
A part of history that lingers strongly in the minds of many Americans is that in November 1979, a group of Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy taking 52 U.S. citizens and embassy personnel hostage after the U.S. refused to return the former Shah to Iran to face trial and execution.
The hostages were finally set free but many Americans continue to view this as a slap in the face.
America Supported Iraq Which Attacked Iran
A serious point of discord among Iranians is what happened next. On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi army invaded Iranian Khuzestan which signaled the start of the Iran–Iraq War. The United States, alongside regional and international powers, supported Iraq and Saddam Hussein with loans, military equipment, and satellite imagery during Iraqi attacks against Iranian targets.Although Saddam Hussein’s forces made several early advances, by mid-1982 the Iranian forces successfully managed to drive the Iraqi army back into Iraq and Iran decided to invade Iraq in a bid to conquer Iraqi territory. The war continued until 1988 when the Iraqi army defeated the Iranian forces inside Iraq and pushed the remaining Iranian troops back across the border.
Subsequently, Khomeini accepted a truce mediated by the UN, but the war cost Iran many lives and huge economic damage. Half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers, with an equivalent number of civilians, are believed to have died and many more injured. It must be noted that during the conflict America and the international community remained silent as Iraq used chemical weapons of mass destruction against Iran as well as the Kurds in northern Iraq. Following the war, Iran concentrated on a pragmatic pro-business policy of rebuilding and strengthening the economy without making any dramatic break with the ideology of the revolution.
Tensions with the United States dramatically increased after the 2005 presidential election brought the conservative populist candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to power. His over the top rhetoric galvanized the feeling Iran had no intention to take a peaceful place in the world community. In 2009 protests erupted in Iran after he was reported to have won nearly 60 percent of the vote despite voting irregularities. Despite the relatively peaceful nature of the protests, the police and the Basij (a paramilitary group) crushed the people by using batons, pepper spray, sticks and, in some cases, firearms. Images of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot and died were uploaded to mass media and broadcast around the world. It was reported that thousands were arrested and tortured in prisons around the country, with former inmates alleging mass rape of men, women, and children by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Relatives of those killed are forced to sign documents claiming they had died of heart attack or meningitis.
Many Iranians Want More Freedom
In truth, few Americans know much about Iran or its 78 million inhabitants or have ever visited the country. Many people would have difficulty pinpointing its location on an unmarked map and the chief source of what knowledge they do have is usually from the evening news. The official name of the country is the Islamic Republic of Iran and it is an area that history called Persia with Persian being the official language and the rial is its currency. Iran’s unique political system based on its 1979 constitution combines elements of a parliamentary democracy with a theocracy governed by the country’s clergy. The country is made up of several ethnic and linguistic groups but most inhabitants are officially Shia.
Travel Documentary Shows Little Malice Towards America
This recall of history is necessary to understand the real nature of the American-Iranian relationship and how we arrived at today. It should be noted that many Iranians have no malice towards America and are far more moderate than the political apparatus with its strong links to the country’s clergy. A few years ago Rick Steves produced a documentary that explored Iran in a one-hour, ground-breaking travel special. This is a good place to meet the people of this nation whose government so exasperates our own.
On June 15, 2013, the electoral victory of new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took place but the moderate has not had as much impact as hoped. The fact is if current trends continue in the future Iran looks to face a defanged and economically weakened America with less power in the region. Regardless the fact remains that one way or the other we must deal with Iran and war is not a great option.
Two things are clear.
The first is that many Iranians want more freedom.
The second is that history shows war to be a poor option to bring about positive change. War brings about change but to what degree and for how long.
Durham Probes Early, Suspicious Contacts Between Obama State Dept And Papadopoulos
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) dropped some interesting tidbits regarding the ongoing investigation into the Obama-era intelligence community and its actions during the 2016 US election.
In an appearance with Maria Bartiromo on Fox‘s Sunday Morning Futures, Ratcliffe said “Now we come up with evidence that’s recently been reported that one of the folks that John Durham talked to was an embassy official who reached out to George Papadopoulos three months before Crossfire Hurricane was ever opened,” adding “That’s a sign that John Durham is looking at the fact that this may include Obama administration officials beyond law enforcement, perhaps to include our intelligence community.”
As the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross noted in September of 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller interviewed US embassy official Terrence Dudley about his contacts during the 2016 election with Papadopoulos – several months before the FBI launched operation Crossfire Hurricane to officially investigate the Trump campaign.
Terrence Dudley, a former Navy commander who works with the Office of Defense Cooperation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Mueller’s office contacted him to discuss several meetings that he and a colleague had during the campaign with Papadopoulos.
The former Trump aide recently identified Dudley and his colleague, Greg Baker, in a tweet alleging that the pair were sent to spy on him on behalf of the U.S. government. –Daily Caller
(relevant portion starts at 7:15)
Ratcliffe also said that Durham is looking into conflicting statements between former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan regarding the Steele Dossier.
“Brennan says Comey was pushing the Steele dossier to be included in the intelligence community assessment. Comey says that it was Brennan that was pushing it. They both testified under oath, before Congress and to investigators, to that fact,” said Ratcliffe, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
Durham Probes Early, Suspicious Contacts Between Obama State Dept And Papadopoulos
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) dropped some interesting tidbits regarding the ongoing investigation into the Obama-era intelligence community and its actions during the 2016 US election.
In an appearance with Maria Bartiromo on Fox‘s Sunday Morning Futures, Ratcliffe said “Now we come up with evidence that’s recently been reported that one of the folks that John Durham talked to was an embassy official who reached out to George Papadopoulos three months before Crossfire Hurricane was ever opened,” adding “That’s a sign that John Durham is looking at the fact that this may include Obama administration officials beyond law enforcement, perhaps to include our intelligence community.”
As the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross noted in September of 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller interviewed US embassy official Terrence Dudley about his contacts during the 2016 election with Papadopoulos – several months before the FBI launched operation Crossfire Hurricane to officially investigate the Trump campaign.
Terrence Dudley, a former Navy commander who works with the Office of Defense Cooperation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Mueller’s office contacted him to discuss several meetings that he and a colleague had during the campaign with Papadopoulos.
The former Trump aide recently identified Dudley and his colleague, Greg Baker, in a tweet alleging that the pair were sent to spy on him on behalf of the U.S. government. –Daily Caller
(relevant portion starts at 7:15)
Ratcliffe also said that Durham is looking into conflicting statements between former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan regarding the Steele Dossier.
“Brennan says Comey was pushing the Steele dossier to be included in the intelligence community assessment. Comey says that it was Brennan that was pushing it. They both testified under oath, before Congress and to investigators, to that fact,” said Ratcliffe, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
In the Trump era, that patriotic phrase is not only dead, it’s decomposed.
And ironically so, since the latest manifestation of this decomposition is over the termination of Qasem Soleimani, the terror mastermind who was, on analysis, even more dangerous to the United States and the world than bin Laden and al-Baghdadi, monumentally evil as they were.
Neither bin Laden, nor al-Baghdadi ever had remotely the power at their disposals – even when the latter controlled his caliphate – Soleimani did as the military leader of by far the greatest state sponsor of terrorism. They were not even close to him who was head of Iran’s Quds force and the second most powerful person in that country of eighty plus million, with all its attendant weaponry and technology and ties to China and Russia.
Besides the thousands of Americans who either died or were maimed for life because of Soleimani, hundreds of thousands across the Middle East have met their fates at least in part through this man’s ministrations.
The once shining state of Lebanon is practically decimated through the rise of his Hezbollah, a fate he was replicating in Iraq. And then there’s Yemen and his Houthi and their simultaneous war against Saudi Arabia and their own people. And of course Israel where he kept the Jewish state in a crossfire between his clients Hamas, Islamic Jihad and, again Hezbollah (when Hezbollah was not busy exporting drugs into the United States).
It’s worth remembering Soleimani was in charge of all these operations at once, a veritable superstar of terror.
On top of all this, he had as much influence as anyone in keeping the Syrian Civil War alive. Current death (under)count: 400,000. Number of refugees: 5.7 million. He may have changed Europe as we knew it forever.
And let’s not forget Iran itself where only in the last few weeks Soleimani’s footprints were all over the deaths of thousands of peaceful anti-regime demonstrators. Nobody knows how many. And torture as well—something the Islamic Republic has made a specialty since 1979. Only the other day, they once again executed a man for homosexuality.
Yet the supposedly liberal and progressive Democrats are all in a dither about the assassination of Soleimani. After all, Trump did it. It has to be wrong.
Not only would these same Democrats obviously have applauded the action if it had been done by one of their own, equally obviously many of them would have attacked Trump even if had he assassinated Hitler in 1940, blaming the president for escalating the conflict.
It’s that simple—and nauseating—and every honest person in America knows it, especially the vets almost all of whom have friends incinerated by one of Soleimani’s roadside bombs, if they are not themselves walking around on prosthetic devices.
And this leaves aside whatever Qasem’s plans were that constituted the proximate cause of the assassination. If past performance is any indication, he had many.
Meanwhile the Democratic candidates are demonstrating uniform cowardice in the face of the action. Is there one of them you would want to have beside you in a foxhole?
It would seem to have been impossible, but as bad as it has been for the last three years, Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached unforeseen levels.
But a deeper cause of this increased derangement may stem from events that began September 11, 2012 – the Obama administration’s behavior in the aftermath of the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
As most will recall, the administration sent Susan Rice to inform the nation that the lethal terror attack occurred because of a spontaneous emotional reaction to an amateur anti-Islamic video that barely anyone had ever watched. It was not a planned attack by a terror group, Rice said. That was a despicable lie.
Kenneth Timmerman wrote in the NY Post in June 2014: “My sources, meanwhile, say Suleymani [sic] was involved in an even more direct attack on the U.S.—the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya.”
Timmerman goes on to detail a complicated and clever plot behind Benghazi worthy of the evil mastermind Qasem Soleimani. (Read it here.)
If this is true – and it seems vastly more likely than Susan Rice’s “explanation” – then what just occurred at Baghdad Airport is a prime, and highly-justified, example of that old saw: what goes around comes around.
* * *
Senior Political Analyst Roger L. Simon’s new novel “The GOAT” is available on Amazon.
Bernanke Hints At Negative Rates, “Purchases Of Private Securities” To Fight Next Recession
Nearly a decade after his now laughably idiotic prediction that the Fed could hike rates in “15 minutes if we have to” – which of course it could and it would then promptly crash markets as late 2018 showed which is also why the Fed will never be able to normalize monetary policy ever again – former Fed Chairman, who together with Alan Greenspan will be responsible for blowing the three biggest asset bubbles in history of which the current one may well be last one as it will mark the end of central banking as we know it, Ben Bernanke delivered what he called “a relatively upbeat” assessment of the U.S. central bank’s ability to fight the next recession.
Ahead of his address to the American Economic Association’s annual meeting on Saturday, Bernanke wrote in a blog post that “the new policy tools are effective,” perhaps seeking to reassure himself and other central bankers rather than the population and commercial banks around the globe, which is reeling form an onslaught of populism in response to the historic wealth transfer programs initiated by central banks whose negative rate policies have brought the European financial sector to the edge of the abyss.
“Central bank purchases of longer-term financial assets, popularly known as quantitative easing or QE, have proved an effective tool for easing financial conditions and providing economic stimulus when short rates are at their lower bound. The effectiveness of QE does not depend on its being deployed during a period of market turbulence.”
“Quantitative easing and forward guidance can provide the equivalent of about 3 additional percentage points of short-term rate cuts.” By which he meant that the Fed, which is currently engaging in QE4, can boost markets to even recorded highs, at which point trickle down may finally happen… although it won’t, and instead the rich will get even richer as the US become an even greater Banana republics thanks to people like Bernanke.
While the Fed has limited room to cut short-term interest rates because they’re already so low – and negative across Europe and Japan – Bernanke argued that quantitative easing and forward guidance could provide enough extra punch to combat a future economic contraction.
Anticipating that the next market crash will test the central bank’s liquidity injecting skills (and reputation) like never before, Bernanke said the Fed should also consider adopting the same “tools” employed by other central banks, including purchases of private securities, negative interest rates, funding for lending programs, and yield curve control. More importantly, the man who in 2005 said on TV he did not think US housing could ever decline, urged the Fed against ruling out the possibility of pushing short-term interest rates below zero, a very clear hint of what awaits the US during the next recession.
“The Fed should also consider maintaining constructive ambiguity about the future use of negative short-term rates, both because situations could arise in which negative short-term rates would provide useful policy space; and because entirely ruling out negative short rates, by creating an effective floor for long-term rates as well, could limit the Fed’s future ability to reduce longer-term rates by QE or other means.”
And yes, Bernanke did also commend banks such as the ECB for purchasing corporate bonds, just so everyone is on the same page as to what happens when corporate bonds sporing record leverage, finally crater in the next recession.
Then there was an amusing tangent on helicopter money and MMT, which as Bernanke explained, has been going on for quite a while now: “the risk of capital losses on the Fed’s portfolio was never high, but in the event, over the past decade the Fed has remitted more than $800 billion in profits to the Treasury, triple the pre-crisis rate.”
Just in case it wasn’t clear why the Fed is a socialist’s best friend…
That said, no matter if the Fed has to buy equities first, or cut rates to, say, -10% and threaten to make all paper currency illegal in order to fight future market drops, pardon recessions, longer-term yields will probably spend extended periods of time at zero or below, according to Bernanke, now a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, who appears to realize that reliance on the Fed’s monetary policy has pushed the entire world into a twilight zone of negative real rates, from which there is no escape, but at least forces even more disastrous monetary policy which makes the rich even richer, at least until the next civil war erupts and the poor masses retake what they believe is theirs.
There was one moment when the prevailing idiocy of Bernanke’s blog actually gave way to fact, namely when he admitted that pervasive negative rates pose risks to financial stability. “Monetary easing does work in part by increasing the propensity of investors and lenders to take risks,” Bernanke said, perhaps eyeing the fact that the Fed had no choice but to inject $100 billion per month in the last quarter of 2019 just to push stocks to new all time highs.
“Vigilance and appropriate policies, including macro-prudential and regulatory policies, are essential”, he added without a dose of sarcasm, perhaps hoping that none of those who read his steaming pile of dogshit were alive when he said that “subprime is contained.”
Bernanke was also kind enough to point out that the Fed’s grossly erroneous inflation metric will never be fixed to accurately capture true inflation, which is not just within the economy but also among asset prices. Because to the Fed, the latter is mysteriously a non-issue.
While Bernanke’s blog post was unfortunately devoid of any moments of factual or truthful insight unlike his oddly honest and accurate May 2014 prediction that “there would be no rate normalization” in his lifetime, Bernanke did admit that his entire monetary policy dogma is predicated on a crucial hypothesis: that the neutral level of short-term rates which neither spurs nor restricts economic growth is between 2% and 3%. According to Bernanke, if the equilibrium rate is much below that then QE and forward guidance won’t be sufficient to fight off a downturn. “In that case, other measures to increase policy space, including raising the inflation target, might be necessary,” he said.
Of course, as we first warned back in December 2015 when the Fed’s QT was just starting, the Fed’s balance sheet shrinkage would prove to be a giant mistake precisely because soaring US debt and slowing US growth meant precisely that: the equilibrium rate is now roughly zero.
Of course, four year later, we know that this was also spot on: the Fed’s attempt to “normalize” rates resulted in the first and only mini bear market of the post-crisis era, and the central bank had to quickly cut rates while launching “NOT QE.”
So besides negative rates and purchases of bonds, and eventually stocks, what does Bernanke believe will happen in the next downturn? His first policy prescription should come as no surprise: echoing virtually every other talking head over the past year, Bernanke said that fiscal policy may also have to play a more central role in countering a contraction. This is better known as the “it takes debt to undo the consequences of record debt and a debt crisis.” How it actually works out and leads to a happy ending is anyone’s guess.
That’s not all: going back to his famous November 2002 speech in which he first hinted at helicopter money, Bernanke said that central banks in Europe and Japan face even greater difficulties, largely because inflation expectations there have fallen too far. “In those jurisdictions, fiscal as well as monetary policy may be needed to get inflation expectations up. If that can be done, then monetary policy, augmented by the new policy tools, should regain much of its potency.”
Naturally, such a JV between fiscal and monetary policy, which is where the central bank officially monetizes the government’s debt, is also known as helicopter money, and it’s only a matter of time before it arrives.
In parting, Bernanke reminded everyone of the farce that defined his entire tenture, saying that unlike Volcker’s days, the problem is not that inflation is too high, “it’s the risk that it’s too low.”
“Low inflation can be dangerous,” Bernanke wrote in his blog. “Consistent with their declared ‘symmetric’ inflation targets, the Federal Reserve and other central banks should defend against inflation that is too low as least as vigorously as they resist inflation that is modestly too high.”
While we would challenge Bernanke (or his acolyte Neel Kashkari) to show up at anywhere in public and tell the struggling consumers drowning in credit card debt that inflation is not too high, it is in fact too low, we know this will never happen, and instead we urge the former Fed Chair to highlight to us which asset class he deems as having “too low” inflation ever since he launched QE1… and QE2… and QE3.
