Majorityrights News > Category: Law & Order

Engaged in a bitter dispute with France and Germany over illegal immigration, Italy sides with the Visegrád Group

By Olivier Bault, Visigrad Post, 8 Aug 2019:

This article was originally published on Kurier.plus.

European Union – On July 22, French President Emmanuel Macron announced at a press conference in Paris that an agreement had been reached by 14 countries of the European Union on a temporary and voluntary redistribution mechanism for migrants taken on board European ships in the Mediterranean. Macron then once again threatened those countries that refused to take part in this “voluntary” scheme that France would no longer approve their receipt of EU structural funds. Although no specific country was named,the French media had no doubt that Macron was thinking of the Visegrád Four, and Hungary and Poland in particular. “As far as solidarity is concerned”, the French president said, “Europe is not ‘à la carte’. You cannot have countries saying ‘I don’t want your Europe when it is about sharing the burden, but I want it when it is about receiving structural funds’.”

A new Franco-German redistribution plan with similarities to the old compulsory relocation scheme

According to French sources, the temporary agreement reached in Paris is meant to avoid the endless squabbles over who should take charge of how many migrants each time an NGO ship conducts a new operation near the coast of Libya. It is based on the plan proposed earlier by German foreign minister Heiko Maas when he called for a “coalition of the willing” to replace the failed EU compulsory relocation mechanism. “We must now move forward with those member states that are ready to receive refugees – all others remain invited to participate,”Maas had said. On July 18, at an informal meeting of interior and justice ministers in Helsinki, Maas’s plan was proposed by Germany’s interior minister Horst Seehofer and supported by his French counterpart Christophe Castaner. France then organised the July 22 informal meeting in Paris with foreign and interior ministers from the “coalition of the willing”, as well as officials from the European Commission, the United Nations’ refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Maas’s proposal was by then being presented as a joint Franco-German initiative.

However, only eight countries were actually named and said to have agreed to “actively” take part in such a voluntary redistribution mechanism. These are France, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Lithuania, Croatia and Ireland. Macron said that “in principle, 14 member states, at this stage, have expressed their agreement with the Franco-German document”, but the other six countries who are supposed to have expressed their agreement have not been named and were nowhere to be found in subsequent media reports.

One thing is for sure: Italy was not among them. And this is good news for the Visegrád Group, as Macron’s statement about EU structural funds clearly shows that, in the minds of some European leaders, this so-called “coalition of the willing”, when it is further discussed at European level in September as planned by Paris and Berlin, is meant to become a new version of the former compulsory EU relocation scheme.As soon as Germany’s foreign minister made known his proposal for a “coalition of the willing”, it was dismissed by former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz. His centre-right ÖVP party being the front-runner to win the election in September, Kurz will probably soon become chancellor again. “The distribution of migrants in Europe has failed,” Kurz said on July 13, “we are once again discussing ideas from 2015 that have long proved impractical.” And he went on to explain that “the order of the day is rather to remove the business case for unscrupulous smugglers and return people after sea rescues to their home or transit countries, as well as creating initiatives for stability and economic development in Africa”, which is exactly what the Visegrád countries have been advocating since the beginning of the current migrant crisis.

In fact, not only would such a scheme take immigration out of the control of participating member states, but the discussions on the subject are sending a new signal to would-be emigrants in Africa and the Middle-East, and also to people smugglers in North Africa, that Europe’s gates are being opened wide once again, thus reinforcing the pull factor created by lenient policies in many European countries – not least in France and Germany, which allow most immigrants to stay and move freely around the Schengen area even after their requests for asylum have been rejected (see here for the figures as of 2018). At a press conference in Helsinki, French interior minister Christophe Castaner himself had to acknowledge that several EU countries fear the proposed voluntary redistribution mechanism will generate a new massive influx of migrants. This impression created by the likes of Maas, Seehofer, Castaner and Macron is further reinforced by the fact that NGO ships are now back in the Mediterranean, trying to force Salvini to reopen Italy’s ports to illegal immigrants, while France and Germany have also been making repeated calls for Italian ports to open up to boats transporting rescued migrants. The Franco-German mechanism which was agreed on in Paris on July 22 is still based on having rescued migrants disembarked in Italian ports and thereafter redistributed among participating countries. Similarly to the now defunct compulsory relocation scheme, the redistribution of migrants would only concern those asylum seekers who are likely to gain refugee status, and who are in fact a small minority of all illegal immigrants trying to cross the Mediterranean. According to the Franco-German plan, the remaining migrants would have to be kept in Italian centres until they could be deported. From the Italian point of view, there is nothing new in that proposal, and such a scheme will probably only increase the pressure on Libyan shores and increase the number of illegal immigrants making it to Europe, as well as the death toll by drowning in the Central Mediterranean.

       
        Total death toll from January 1 to July 26 each year (Central Mediterranean route only).
        Source: https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean

The Italian–Maltese plan

Italy and Malta came to the summit in Helsinki on July 17–18 with a different proposal. A day after Heiko Maas had first presented his own plan to the German RND media group, namely on July 14, Italy’s foreign minister Esteri Moavero Milanesi described his alternative plan in an interview with Corriere della Sera. What Rome and Valletta proposed was to give people the possibility of applying for refugee status as close as possible to their countries of departure, so that asylum requests could be considered before migrants illegally tried to cross the EU’s external borders. Charter flights would then be organised to safely take to Europe those who really deserved refugee status, thereby weakening the smugglers’ business model and avoiding unnecessary deaths at sea. Since the number of people reaching Europe in such a manner would be smaller and better controlled, a distribution scheme could be more easily agreed among EU member states. For those who nonetheless try to reach Europe illegally by sea, the joint Maltese–Italian plan requires the creation of controlled centres (“hotspots”) in all countries of the EU-28 and common policies to force the countries of departure to take their citizens back. It rejects the idea of having all migrants on the Central Mediterranean route landing in Italy before their relocation to other countries. It also calls for NGO vessels to be kept out of the search & rescue zones of Libya and other third countries.

Salvini to Macron: “Italy will not be France’s refugee camp”

This plan was rejected at Helsinki, as both Germany and France supported Seehofer’s plan. The League’s leader, Matteo Salvini, confirmed in a statement released on the day after a meeting in Helsinki on July 17 between ministers from France, Germany, Italy and Malta that the Franco-German proposal was unacceptable to Italy, as “simply redistributing refugees will leave hard-to-expel illegal immigrants in the first country of arrival”. And while Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced preparations for a new meeting between interior ministers of all four countries in Malta in September, France’s Christophe Castaner announced that he was inviting ministers from the “coalition of the willing” to Paris on July 22 in order to go ahead with the Franco-German scheme.This infuriated Italy’s Matteo Salvini, who refused to take part in the Paris meeting, choosing instead to send a “technical” delegation to block any new joint declaration. On July 19, Salvini wrote his French counterpart a letter in which he expressed his surprise at the fact that only the Franco-German proposal was to be discussed in Paris,pointing out that the Maltese–Italian proposal had “gathered broad support” among EU countries. In that letter, the League’s leader insisted again on the need to review the rules on search and rescue operations in order to put an end to behaviours which encourage illegal and uncontrolled immigration, and to make NGOs comply with both international and national laws. According to Salvini, many at the Justice and Home Affairs Council held in Helsinki had “positions very close to the one expressed by Italy, in particular as regards a strict commitment to a migration policy based on the protection of the EU’s and the Schengen Area’s external borders”.

After the announcement by President Macron of an agreement reached under his auspices and supported by 14 countries (of which only eight, including France, were named and said to be ready to participate “actively”), Italy’s interior minister published a video on his Facebook profile with his own virulent reaction, mocking French leaders and saying directly to Macron, whom he called by his first name, that if he wanted ports open to migrants he should open France’s own ports in Marseilles, Corsica and elsewhere. He added that Italy would not take orders from France and would not be France’s refugee camp, as it is not a French colony.

Italy under pressure from France and Germany to take back illegal immigrants as per the Dublin Regulation

Salvini’s tone was no surprise to observers, who have been witnessing deteriorating relations between France and Italy since those whom the French president contemptuously calls “populists” and “nationalists” formed a coalition government in Rome over a year ago. Salvini’s mockery and verbal attacks have mostly come in response to Macron’s own highly arrogant and undiplomatic criticism of Italy’s leaders, particularly Matteo Salvini, which resembles some of the language he has used against the leaders of Poland and Hungary, as when he publicly asked last autumn in Bratislava: “What are these leaders doing with these crazy minds and lying to their people?”. Salvini’s anger is further fueled by the fact that, while French leaders call for Italy to open its ports to migrants for humanitarian reasons,the French authorities have been enforcing border controls for years between Ventimiglia and Menton on the Mediterranean coast, and they send back illegal immigrants to Italy, including, according to some media reports, when those immigrants are caught at some distance from the Italian border, in which case such ‘hot returns’ are in breach of European rules. The Italians have also accused Germany of breaking the rules when returning migrants to Italy as per the Dublin Regulation (the so-called “Dubliners”). Apart from being asked by Germany and France to reopen its ports to illegal immigrants, as the first country of arrival Italy is under great pressure from other EU member states to take back some 46,000 immigrants. As a consequence of the mass disembarkation which took place under the auspices of Matteo Renzi’s government, the number of asylum seekers sent back to Italy has tripled in just five years, with most of the 188,000 requests for transfer made since 2013 coming from Germany, Switzerland, France and Austria.

To make things worse, on the eve of the Paris meeting of July 22, SOS Méditerranée, an NGO based in the French city of Marseilles, announced the launch of a new joint search and rescue operation together with the Franco-Swiss NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), using a new boat said to be larger and faster than the Aquarius, which has remained blocked at the request of Italian prosecutors. The Ocean Viking left the Polish port of Szczecin flying the Norwegian flag and heading towards Libyan shores. SOS Méditerranée and MSF estimate the cost of this operation at around €14,000 per day. In a press release published on July 12, the city of Paris had announced that it would contribute €100,000 to this expensive operation. The grant made by the French capital was announced at the same time as the award of a medal to Carola Rackete and Pia Klemp, two German NGO vessel captains who are facing serious charges in Italy for allegedly aiding illegal immigration, including – in the case of Klemp – through active collusion with smugglers.

France’s responsibility for the situation in Libya

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Salvini tells Richard Gere to fly the 160 stranded migrants to Hollywood and house them in his villas

Voice of Europe, 12 August 2019:

Hollywood millionaire Richard Gere has called upon the Italian government to assist migrants who have been stranded on a Spanish charity boat in the Mediterranean for more than a week.

The Italian government needed to stop “demonizing people”, the actor said.

Gere boarded the vessel, which has been blocked from entering Italian waters, on Friday.

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini hit back, saying Gere should take the 160 migrants to Hollywood.

Gere, who visited the Open Arms ship in a show of support, also joined a news conference on the Italian island of Lampedusa calling for the migrants to be allowed to dock.

He made comparisons between Salvini, who has made repeated efforts to block migrant ships from docking in Italy, and US President Donald Trump, who has faced widespread criticism for his immigration policies.

“We have our problems with refugees coming from Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico… It’s very similar to what you are going through here”, he said, accusing both politicians of demonizing migrants.

“This has to stop everywhere on this planet now. And it will stop if we say stop”, he added.

It didn’t take Salvini long to respond.

“Given this generous millionaire is voicing concern for the fate of the Open Arms migrants, we thank him: he can take back to Hollywood, on his private plane, all the people aboard and support them in his villas. Thank you Richard!”, he said in a statement. Over the course of a career spanning more than 40 years, Gere, 69, has starred in films including Pretty Woman, American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman.

A campaigner for environmental causes and AIDS awareness, he is also a Buddhist who pays regular visits to Dharamshala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Richard Gere is worth an estimated £100million according to the website celebritynetworth.com.

Salvini, whose party made sweeping gains in last year’s Italian general election, has pledged to deport 500,000 migrants by 2023. Earlier this week he tabled a motion of no confidence in his own government, in a bid to force through a snap election and take control from his coalition partners Five Star Movement.

Blacks as a biological weapon of the right

Threat, intimidation, shock and awe, extortion:

Just because public money in the form of Welfare, Foodstamps, Medcaid, Social Security, Government Programs, Scholarships and so on, is not considered “private”, i.e., “their per capita income”, does not mean that black woman have a disadvantaged economic basis, one which is in important ways more secure, not exactly at a disadvantage, in crucial life matters such as the capacity to have children - quite the opposite: they do not have to work and can just take their time and headspace to have children at everyone’s expense, who then register as more “blacks” come black women who have “five dollars a year net worth.”

Ridiculous.

There is also a factor of money that might funnel to them through crime - which might be spun by liberals into an expression of victimization. But if they get away with that additional income, it is not as if their only other recourse was welfare.

Blacks have an advantage when it comes to education through school or college of any kind, public or private.

After their educational advantage, educated black women make more money than White women. 

If they do not choose to go to college, or trade school, blacks have a tremendous advantage with government jobs, such as the US Post Office or Public Transit or universities - which offer excellent benefits and retirement plans - if they do care to work. Actually, they have advantage with private business and corporations as well! In a word, what the hell are you talking about when you expect me to feel sorry for these people?

And all many of us White people want to do with them is nothing. We are repulsed from joining these public situations with them knowing that it will lead to straight out lineal extinction, a harrowing nightmare for what White children do survive for a time or Mulatto grandchildren, ultimately.

There is also a factor now of above board wealth among blacks that is not being factored into these statistics parceled out discreetly as ‘black woman poverty’ (which frankly is not my concern anyway).

In addition, there are the intangibles - black solidarity, the taboo and danger of criticizing and discriminating against them - “racism!” - to go along with their warrior gene, high testosterone hyper assertiveness and lack of impulse control that makes them a great weapon of fecundity, disingenuous self righteousness - along with the ever present threat of violence and riot to extort the system - and when you look like many of them do and cannot rise to wealth through protracted intellectual effort, what do you have to lose? - now even seeking reparations for slavery on top of the trillions they’ve already received in a program of White r-p-a-c-m-nt (a word forbidden to be used by us “privileged people”), on behalf of those who would wallpaper over the decency and expense of those offering the coordination of White Left ethnonationalism.

Do you seriously expect me to care about these people who are so destructive to ordinary and working class Whites? These blacks, who Right Wingers brought to bear against us, to the destruction of millions of our loving brothers and sisters, would-be sons and daughters? Whites who are not even allowed to organize in group defense? Not to mention the Caribbean and other Native American Indians. 

Blacks know the ropes of the American system and work it much better than other groups, for example, some White peoples who are often more recently immigrated and not powerfully supported as a group by YKW language games. 

While right wingers and lucky liberals intermarry with the YKW and continue this pig game…

This is how marginalized White men are made into cows along with the rest of the working/labor surplus world, to pay to make these fat asses even fatter (some now hidden beneath a burka) and more fecund to the detriment of all…to supply their feral sons and their feral black fathers with veritable harems as they go on to impregnate naive Hispanic, Indio and White women..and yes, Asian women too, in order to mix away the would-be left ethnonationalist unions/coalition in favor of one ruler, Abrahams’ favorite sons and daughters.

Stop wallpapering Whites, depicting all White men as powerful, privileged elite. Stop characterizing White right wingers, elite traitors that they are, taking the payoff with “fellow Whites” YKW - the truly organized oppressors - as if they represent us - they do not.

Stop using black biopower, its ugly violent element with nothing to lose, against us to destroy our marginals- who would otherwise begin to help manifest the union bounds that could form coalitions to hold right wing perfidy, betrayal and exploitation to account.

Just like Muslims, many blacks are well suited to be biological weapons of the right wing by nature, and those who seek to bring them to bear against other solidarities/unions, in the name of pity and self righteousness are perpetrating atrocity. Those women who bring them to bear and exploit against other peoples, pretending that it is out of sensitivity and compassion ought rather go and live with them in the societies that stem from their nature.

There has been a ramped-up effort since 2008 to identify White activism with “the right” and to join forces, even to the point of amalgam with YKW against “the left”....but if Non-White left ethnonationalists join forces with the Jewish, anti-White program - that Whites are responsible for the world’s problems - all of them! - to the point of wallpapering over White left ethnonationalism, it will be at the loss of one of their greatest potential allies in staving off their becoming a part of an ongoing disaster of Brazilification, for all its human and other ecological disaster - while these people who you rightfully hate get away with it.

Univsersity of Chicago Schmoozer Kathleen Belew…

ROTHERHAM Council Tell Grooming Gang Victims To Add Rapist’s Names To Birth Certificates So They ‘Have Parental Rights’

        Sammy was just 14 when her rapist began grooming her, leading to the birth of her child.

Sammy Woodhouse@sammywoodhouse1

Rotherham council have offered convicted rapist access to my son.

The Times: ‘Jailed rapist given chance to see his victim’s child’.

Votewatch, 4 Aug 2019:

IN another outrageous betrayal of the many Rotherham grooming gang victims and rape survivors across backward Britain, councils are now forcing women who have had children as the result of being raped by Muslim paedophile gangs to add the name of the ‘father’ to their children.

Taking to social media today to vent her anger as another distraught victim came to her to inform her of the outrageous approach by Rotherham’s disgraced council to insist that the victim place her rapist’s name on her child’s birth certificate so that they had parental rights.

“Absolutely disgraceful how Rotherham Council are still treating women and children” wrote Sammy. “Yet again talking absolute shite and favouring convicted rapists. They are now telling women to change birth certificates to ensure rapists are on the certificate and are allowed rights”.

       

The issue is a grave one; with the end result being that paedophiles who rape children are being given protection by the establishment to have rights to children – yet another backward, illogical policy in 21st century PC Britain.

https://twitter.com/sammywoodhouse1/status/1067412305888067584

This is happening all over the UK and must stop! An investigation and change in law is needed. https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1067189356887183361?s=12 …

       

In 2018, grooming gang rapist Arshid Hussain, who was jailed for 35 years in 2016 for raping Woodhouse, was contacted by Rotherham Council about care proceedings and his parental rights as the ‘father’ of Woodhouse’s child.

At the time, Sammy told the BBC that she was “shocked” when she was informed of the council’s approach.

Ms Woodhouse rightly described Hussain as “a danger to myself and to other children”.

In a video posted on Twitter she urged the government “to change the law to ensure rapists can’t gain access to children conceived through rape”.

‘What about my rights?’ she understandably added.

Hussain, known around Rotherham as Mad Ash, was one of three brothers behind the grooming and sexual abuse of more than 50 girls, including Ms Woodhouse.

She was just 14 when she was first groomed by him.

Just a handful of the many vile child groomers who were member of the gang that raped over 2,000 children in Rotherham.

In response to yet another backward decision by Rotherham Council, the Ministry of Justice said that urgent efforts would be taken to “address the failings in this case”.

Yet – two years down the line – nothing has happened, and victims of the horrific Rotherham grooming scandal that saw over 2,000 children raped and of which Sammy helped to expose, now face even more stress and betrayal.

Other victims have recently reported the horror of having to see their rapists walking down their streets, with one woman stating that upon seeing her tormentor, who had been released on bail by a weak justice system, she had felt so terrified that she ran into a nearby shop and wet herself.

The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.

by Whitney Webb Mintpress News, 7 Aug 2019:

As billionaire pedophile and alleged sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein sits in prison, reports have continued to surface about his reported links to intelligence, his financial ties to several companies and “charitable” foundations, and his friendships with the rich and powerful as well as top politicians.

While Part I and Part II of this series, “The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail,” have focused on the widespread nature of sexual blackmail operations in recent American history and their ties to the heights of American political power and the U.S. intelligence community, one key aspect of Epstein’s own sex-trafficking and blackmail operation that warrants examination is Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and his ties to the “informal” pro-Israel philanthropist faction known as “the Mega Group.”

The Mega Group’s role in the Epstein case has garnered some attention, as Epstein’s main financial patron for decades, billionaire Leslie Wexner, was a co-founder of the group that unites several well-known businessmen with a penchant for pro-Israel and ethno-philanthropy (i.e., philanthropy benefiting a single ethnic or ethno-religious group). However, as this report will show, another uniting factor among Mega Group members is deep ties to organized crime, specifically the organized crime network discussed in Part I of this series, which was largely led by notorious American mobster Meyer Lansky.

By virtue of the role of many Mega Group members as major political donors in both the U.S. and Israel, several of its most notable members have close ties to the governments of both countries as well as their intelligence communities. As this report and a subsequent report will show, the Mega Group also had close ties to two businessmen who worked for Israel’s Mossad — Robert Maxwell and Marc Rich — as well as to top Israeli politicians, including past and present prime ministers with deep ties to Israel’s intelligence community.

One of those businessmen working for the Mossad, Robert Maxwell, will be discussed at length in this report. Maxwell, who was a business partner of Mega Group co-founder Charles Bronfman, aided the successful Mossad plot to plant a trapdoor in U.S.-created software that was then sold to governments and companies throughout the world. That plot’s success was largely due to the role of a close associate of then-President Ronald Reagan and an American politician close to Maxwell, who later helped aid Reagan in the cover-up of the Iran Contra scandal.

Years later, Maxwell’s daughter — Ghislaine Maxwell — would join Jeffrey Epstein’s “inner circle” at the same time Epstein was bankrolling a similar software program now being marketed for critical electronic infrastructure in the U.S. and abroad. That company has deep and troubling connections to Israeli military intelligence, associates of the Trump administration, and the Mega Group.

Epstein appears to have ties to Israeli intelligence and has well-documented ties to influential Israeli politicians and the Mega Group. Yet, those entities are not isolated in and of themselves, as many also connect to the organized crime network and powerful alleged pedophiles discussed in previous installments of this series.

Perhaps the best illustration of how the connections between many of these players often meld together can be seen in Ronald Lauder: a Mega Group member, former member of the Reagan administration, long-time donor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s Likud Party, as well as a long-time friend of Donald Trump and Roy Cohn.

From cosmetics heir to political player

One often overlooked yet famous client and friend of Roy Cohn is the billionaire heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune, Ronald Lauder. Lauder is often described in the press as a “leading Jewish philanthropist” and is the president of the World Jewish Congress, yet his many media profiles tend to leave out his highly political past.

In a statement given by Lauder to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman in 2018, the cosmetics heir noted that he has known Trump for over 50 years, going back at least to the early 1970s. According to Lauder, his relationship with Trump began when Trump was a student at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, which Lauder also attended.

President-elect Trump walks with Ronald Lauder after meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Dec. 28, 2016, in Palm Beach, Fla. Evan Vucci | AP

Though the exact nature of their early friendship is unclear, it is evident that they shared many of the same connections, including to the man who would later count them both as his clients, Roy Cohn. While much has been said of the ties between Cohn and Trump, Cohn was particularly close to Lauder’s mother, Estee Lauder (born Josephine Mentzer). Estee was even counted among Cohn’s most high-profile friends in his New York Times obituary.

A small window into the Lauder-Cohn relationship surfaced briefly in a 2016 article in Politico about a 1981 dinner party held at Cohn’s weekend home in Greenwich, Connecticut. The party was attended by Ronald Lauder’s parents, Estee and Joe, as well as Trump and his then-wife Ivana, who had a weekend home just two miles away. That party was held soon after Cohn had helped Reagan secure the presidency and had reached the height of his political influence. At the party, Cohn offered toasts to Reagan and to then-Senator for New York Alfonse D’Amato, who would later urge Ronald Lauder to run for political office.

Two years later, in 1983, Ronald Lauder — whose only professional experience at that point was working for his parent’s cosmetics company — was appointed to serve as United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs. Soon after his appointment, he served on the Dinner Tribute Committee for a dinner hosted by the Jewish fraternal and strongly pro-Israel organization B’nai B’rith, the parent organization of the controversial Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in Roy Cohn’s honor. Cohn’s influential father, Albert Cohn, was the long-time president of B’nai B’rith’s powerful New England-New York chapter and Roy Cohn himself was a member of B’nai B’rith’s Banking and Finance Lodge.

The dinner specifically sought to honor Cohn for his pro-Israel advocacy and his efforts to “fortify” Israel’s economy, and its honorary chairmen included media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump and then-head of Bear Stearns Alan Greenberg, all of whom are connected to Jeffrey Epstein.

During his time as deputy assistant secretary of defense, Lauder was also very active in Israeli politics and had already become an ally of the then-Israeli representative to the United Nations and future prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Lauder would go on to be one of the most important individuals in Netanyahu’s rise to power, particularly during his upset victory in 1996, and a major financier of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party.

In 1986, the year that Roy Cohn died, Lauder left his post at the Pentagon and became the U.S. ambassador to Austria, where his tenure was shaped by his confrontations with the then-Austrian president and former Nazi collaborator, Kurt Waldheim. Lauder’s interest in Austrian politics has continued well into recent years, culminating in accusations that he sought to manipulate Austrian elections in 2012.

After leaving his ambassadorship, Lauder founded the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation in 1987 and later went on to run for Mayor of New York against Rudy Giuliani in 1989. Lauder was encouraged to run by then-Senator Alfonse D’Amato, who had close ties to Roy Cohn and his long-time law partner Tom Bolan, who was D’Amato’s adviser. At the aforementioned 1983 B’nai B’rith dinner honoring Cohn, D’Amato was the featured speaker.

The likely reason was that Giuliani, though once an ally of the “Roy Cohn machine,” was at the time deeply disliked by the late Cohn’s associates for prosecuting Cohn’s former law partner, Stanley Friedman, for racketeering, conspiracy and other charges. Giuliani also had a history of bitter disagreements with D’Amato. Lauder’s primary campaign, though unsuccessful, was noted for its viciousness and its cost, as it burned through more than $13 million.

A few years later, in the early 1990s, Lauder would join a newly formed group that has long evaded scrutiny from the media but has recently become of interest in connection with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal: the Mega Group.

Lauder, Epstein and the mysterious Austrian passport

Before getting to the Mega Group, it is worth noting one particular act apparently undertaken by Lauder while he was U.S. ambassador to Austria that has recently come to light in relation to the arrest in early July of Jeffrey Epstein, a finding first reported by journalist Edward Szall. When police recently discovered an Austrian passport with Epstein’s picture and a fake name after raiding his Manhattan residence, the source and purpose of the passport came under media scrutiny.

According to the Associated Press, Epstein’s defense lawyers specifically argued that “a friend gave it to him [Epstein] in the 1980s after some Jewish-Americans were informally advised to carry identification bearing a non-Jewish name when traveling internationally during a period when hijackings were more common.” This claim appears to be related to concerns that followed the hijacking of Air France Flight 139 in 1976 when Israeli and Jewish hostages were separated from other hostages based largely on the passports in their possession.

Given that Epstein was unable to meet the conventional qualifications for an Austrian passport — including long-term residency in Austria (the passport lists him as a resident of Saudi Arabia) and fluency in German — it appears that the only way to have acquired an Austrian passport was by unconventional means, meaning assistance from a well-connected Austrian official or foreign diplomat with clout in Austria.

Ronald Lauder, right, and Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima pose with students from the Lauder Chabad School in Vienna, Austria in 1999. Martin Gnedt | AP

Lauder, then-ambassador to Austria for the Reagan administration, would have been well-positioned to acquire such a passport, particularly for the reason cited by Epstein’s attorneys that Jewish-Americans could be targeted during travel, and in light of Lauder’s very public concerns over threats Jews face from certain terror groups. Furthermore, the passport had been issued in 1987, when Lauder was still serving as an ambassador.

In addition, Lauder was well-connected to Epstein’s former patron — former head of Bear Stearns Alan Greenberg, who had hired Epstein in the late 1970s immediately after the latter was fired from the Dalton School — and Donald Trump, another friend of Lauder and Greenberg who began his friendship with Epstein in 1987, the same year the fake Austrian passport was issued. In 1987, Epstein also began his relationship with his principal financier, Leslie Wexner, who is also closely associated with Lauder (though some sources claim that Epstein and Wexner first met in 1985 but that their strong business relationship was not established until 1987).

Though Epstein’s defense attorney declined to reveal the identity of the “friend” who provided him with the fake Austrian passport, Lauder was both well-positioned to acquire it in Austria and also deeply connected to the Mega Group, which was co-founded by Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexner and to which Epstein has many connections. These connections to both the Austrian government and to Epstein’s mentor make Lauder the most likely person to have acquired the document on Epstein’s behalf.

Furthermore, Epstein and the Mega Group’s ties to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, also suggest Lauder was involved in procuring the passport, in light of his close ties to the Israeli government and the fact that Mossad has a history of using ambassadors abroad to procure false, foreign passports for its operatives.

Lauder himself has been alleged to have ties to Mossad, as he is a long-time funder of IDC Herzliya, an Israeli university closely associated with Mossad and their recruiters as well as Israeli military intelligence. Lauder even founded IDC Herzliya’s Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.

Furthermore, Lauder co-founded the Eastern European broadcasting network CETV with Mark Palmer, a former U.S. diplomat, Kissinger aide and Reagan speechwriter. Palmer is better known for co-founding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization often described as an accessory to U.S. intelligence, and one whose first president confessed to the Washington Post that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” A 2001 report in the Evening Standard noted that Epstein once claimed that during the 1980s he worked for the CIA, but Epstein later backed away from that assertion.

The origins of the Mega Group Mafia

The Mega Group — a secretive group of billionaires to which Lauder belongs — was formed in 1991 by Charles Bronfman and Leslie Wexner, the latter of whom has received considerable media scrutiny following the July arrest of his former protege Jeffrey Epstein. Media profiles of the group paint it as “a loosely organized club of 20 of the nation’s wealthiest and most influential Jewish businessmen” focused on “philanthropy and Jewishness,” with membership dues upwards of $30,000 per year. Yet several of its most prominent members have ties to organized crime.

Mega Group members founded and/or are closely associated with some of the most well-known pro-Israel organizations. For instance, members Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt formed Birthright Taglit with the backing of then- and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Steinhardt, an atheist, has stated that his motivation in helping to found the group was to advance his own belief that devotion to and faith in the state of Israel should serve as “a substitute for [Jewish] theology.”

Other well-known groups associated with the Mega Group include the World Jewish Congress — whose past president, Edgar Bronfman, and current president, Ronald Lauder, are both Mega Group members — and B’nai B’rith, particularly its spin-off known as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The Bronfman brothers were major donors to the ADL, with Edgar Bronfman serving as the ADL’s honorary national vice-chair for several years.

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Texas Walmart shooting: El Paso gun attack leaves 20 dead

BBC, 3 Aug 2019:

Twenty people have been killed and 26 injured in a mass shooting at a Walmart store in the Texas city of El Paso.

Governor Greg Abbott described it as “one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas”.

Police are investigating whether the attack, which happened a few miles from the US-Mexico border, was a hate crime.

A 21-year-old man is in custody. Police said the suspect lived in Allen, Dallas, about 650 miles (1,046km) east of El Paso.

He has been named by US media as Patrick Crusius.

CCTV images said to be of the gunman and broadcast on US media show a man in a dark T-shirt wearing ear protectors and brandishing an assault-style rifle.

The Texas shooting is believed to be the eighth deadliest in modern US history.

It came less than 24 hours before another mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, and less than a week after a teenage gunman killed three people at a California food festival.

The police and FBI are investigating whether an anonymous white nationalist “manifesto”, shared on an online forum, was written by the gunman. The document claims the attack was targeted at the local Hispanic community.

The Walmart, which is near the Cielo Vista Mall, was full of shoppers buying back-to-school supplies at the time of the shooting.

US President Donald Trump described the attack as “an act of cowardice”.

“I know that I stand with everyone in this country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people,” he wrote on Twitter.

The victims have not yet been named but Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among the dead, according to Reuters news agency.

“We as a state unite in support of these victims and their family members,” Mr Abbott said.

“We must do one thing today, one thing tomorrow and each and every day after this - we must unite.”

What happened?

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said reports of an active shooter were received at 10:39 local time (16:39 GMT), and law enforcement officers were on the scene within six minutes.

The 21-year-old is the only suspect in custody and police say no officers fired their weapons while arresting him.

Mr Allen said the ages of victims were “numerous” as he described the situation as “horrific”.

Kianna Long said she was at the Walmart with her husband when they heard gunfire.

“People were panicking and running, saying that there was a shooter,” Ms Long told Reuters. “They were running close to the floor, people were dropping on the floor.”

Ms Long said she and her husband ran through a stock room before taking cover with other customers.

Another witness, Glendon Oakly, told CNN he was in a sporting goods store in the nearby shopping mall when a child ran inside “telling us there’s an active shooter at Walmart”.

Mr Oakly said no-one took the child’s claim seriously but just minutes later he heard two gunshots.

“I just thought about getting the kids out of the way,” he said.

El Paso Police Department had earlier tweeted that blood donations were “needed urgently”.

Nation Revisited # 154 August 2019:

‘England, My Country’ was an independent A5 magazine edited by Robert Baggs in support of English Nationalism.

The four nations of the United Kingdom have been together for hundreds of years but they have never lost their national characteristics.

I was born in London in the last days of the British Empire. We were proud to be British but less sure of our Anglo-Saxon identity. We knew about Alfred the Great who fought the Danes and burned the cakes, and poor King Harold who perished at the Battle of Hastings. And we sang William Blake’s stirring anthem “Jerusalem the Golden.” But with the rise of Sinn Fein, the Scottish Nationalist Party, and Plaid Cymru, an English response was inevitable.

Preserving the ancient traditions of England is a worthy task but we must remember that the British Empire was a joint venture.

Vic Sarson posted the following piece to his mailing list.

I am no fan of Corbyn, I have been hostile to him for decades. I have also been hostile to political parties believing them to be a corrupting influence on the politics of the nation. I have also consistently argued that employment in the civil or other government service at any level should preclude membership of political parties or engagement in partisan political activity.

The current mischievous campaign to undermine Corbyn by rumour I think gives force to my arguments.

The overwhelming majority of people employed within the civil service are Labour Party members and many are political activists whether Blairites or Corbynites and often abuse their positions whenever possible.

Civil servants are releasing political propaganda to influence the accepted political processes to a political direction of their preference: in this case it is Blairites. It was Blair who corrupted the Civil Service..

International Finance

The great international banks came to grief in 2008 by trading in worthless mortgages but their national governments came to the rescue.They are now restrained from gambling but high street banking makes very little money compared with the casino side of the business. Last year, money on deposit returned half of one percent interest but the leading investment funds made 25%.

The banks are only part of a worldwide movement of money that includes insurance, reinsurance, fund management, and construction and property speculation. The United Kingdom is a top nation for inward investment. The figures are staggering. £351 bn from the US, £744 bn from Europe, £128 from Asia. These are not loans, they are investments in British companies.

But we are still living beyond our means..Last year we borrowed £48 bn and paid £42 bn in interest on existing loans.

We exported and imported goods and services worth imported goods worth £5610 Billion

Money is sent home by immigrants working in the UK and by Brits working abroad. Nobody know the real figures but the World Bank estimates that £8 billion is sent abroad, mainly to Pakistan and Somalia.

When Oswald Mosley attacked The Money Power he was aiming at the rootless cosmopolitans that dominated international finance in the Thirties. Today, the market is totally global and the big players are likely to be Chinese and Korean. Far removed from the cartoon images of rich Jewish bankers that appeared in the Nazi newspapers.

The only way to control globalism is to divide the world into manageable economic areas, such as North America, South America, China, the Russian Federation, and the European Union, Brexit is a temporary aberration that will soon be forgotten. The great realignment is well under way.
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Interesting Times

Attempts to label political parties according to the layout of the French Parliament are not very accurate. Those on the Left are supposed to be libertarians but all too often they are authoritarians. And those on the Right are meant to be royalists and supporters of the ancient regime, but there was nothing more revolutionary than a republican fascist. The manifesto of the Italian Social Republic (RSI) was entirely progressive but, unfortunately, it was too late

Political theories are ten a penny but running a modern economy takes skill and patience. It doesn’t matter if the government is Left, Right or Centre, It still has to collect enough money to pay for the services that we demand. We knew what to expect from the Old Gang, but we now have four parties competing for power; Labour; Tory; Lib-Dem, and the Brexit Party. Nobody knows what to expect.

The Labour Party is trying to be all things to all men. But there’s a limit to how many factions can be accommodated. They have always boasted of being a broad church but it would take a very broad church to incorporate its bitterly hostile factions.

The Tories have had their civil war and the hard Right has seized power. The One Nation Tories will be confined to the back benches fot daring to support the EU.

The Brexit Party is a one trick pony with massive support in the depressed areas. Nobody knows what they stand for but health and social security are not thought to be amongst their priorities.They probably stand for the usual reactionary causes; bring back hanging, bring back conscription, and lock up all “Nancy Boys.”

It’s almost impossible to predict the result of the coming general election. We can only hope that the public sees through Boris “Fuck Business"Johnson.

He is riding high at the moment but he should hope that history doesn’t repeat itself. His great grandfather was a prominent Turkish journalist and politician, Ali Kamal Bey, who was lynched by an angry mob in 1922.

Prosperity

My local supermarket is being redeveloped and just before it closed, some of the shelves were empty. A Russian man once told me that one of the worst things about the old Soviet Union was the sight of empty shelves at the supermarket. It was, he said, a sign of desperation.

We have come to expect prosperity, almost as a right. Food used to be seasonal but now everything is available throughout the year, and what used to be considered exotic is now common.

In the Old Days we would be greeted by a grocer, served by a shop assistant and handed over to a cashier. Nowadays, we have to help ourselves to the goods and even operate the check out. Times change but so long as the supermarket shelves are full most of us will be alright.

Of course, some poor souls can’t afford to go shopping. We spend millions of pounds on social security but some people slip through the net. It’s a disgrace for an advanced country like Britain to have food banks to help the poor. Some of them have contributed to their situation by spending their money on drink or drugs, but most of them are victims of an efficient but uncaring capitalist system.

The main reason for poverty is the high cost of rents and mortgages. The average rental value for new tenancies in London is £1,611 a month, but the average salary is only £2,964. If the Government ever sorts out the Brexit fiasco it should prioritize the elimination of poverty.

Nation Revisited

This blog seeks reform by legal means. All articles are by Bill Baillie unless otherwise stated. The opinions of guest writers are entirely their own. We are protected by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19: “We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share ideas with other people.”

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Our flag was designed by John Bean in 1957 for his National Labour Party. It is used by Nation Revisited with his blessing.The cross represents our nation and the radiant star represents Socialism.