Mortifying:

With cheerful taken-for-grantedness of the ‘unassailable’ virtue of their motives, this panel at CFR discusses the prospect of “democratization” of “illiberal democracies” by having them accept non-White migrants and integration; i.e., cheerful acceptance of the destruction of our European genome. Primarily with the targeted “problem” of Eastern European countries Not accepting immigrants.

Published on Apr 23, 2018 by Council on Foreign Relations -

Speakers discuss the growing trend toward populism around the world and the current global state of democracy.

Speakers
Michael Abramowitz

President, Freedom House; Former White House Correspondent, Washington Post

Nicole M. Bibbins Sedaca

Chair, Global Politics and Security Concentration and Professor in the Practice of International Affairs, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown U; Former Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, US Department of State

Timothy Snyder

Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University; Author, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

Presider
Kati I. Marton

Author and Human Rights Activist

Kati I. Marton (15:56): We haven’t yet mentioned one of the most powerful motives for the rise of populism, which is the fear of refugees - migrants.  Most graphically on display in Hungary where you can’t go a block without seeing a billboard showing George Soros’s smiling face, and the headline over that face is, ‘don’t let him have the last laugh.’

Six months ago George Soros was known to a very small handful of Budapest literati. Now he is probably the second best known person in Hungary after Victor Orban. And this manipulation of the fear of migrants, of which by the way, there are virtually none in Hungary and very few in Poland, as opposed to over a million in Germany, where this problem doesn’t exist…is something that uh, that we haven’t really dealt with sufficiently.

We seem to step-by-step, accept that his is the way of the world now. I frequently ask myself what didn’t my Hungarian grandparents, whose lives didn’t end well, what didn’t they do in the 30’s? that we should be doing today? Rather than sleepwalking thought this rather dangerous passage.

So, the migration problem and how it relates to the rise of populism - AdF (eg) is entirely about fear of outsiders.

When an audience member suggest the problem of Eastern European countries having a bad track record with regard to democracy, Snyder draws comparisons -

Snyder: (36:00): When the Supreme Court decides in 2013 that racism is no longer a problem, twenty two states then pass voter suppression laws - that’s not democratization, whatever you think of the legality of it.

...its been very hard for the West European countries to extend democracy over second class citizens (empire/subject relation)...asking about the things that make democracy possible….which for me precisely have to do with integration - the European Union, whatever its chances are, is the hope for democracy.

Kati I. Marton (38:00) ...these countries are not destined to be undemocratic, there are a whole bunch of other factors and one of them, frankly, is the luck of leaders (Merkel!)

Ellen Brown on rising interest %

OpEdNews, “Fox in the Hen House: Why Interest Rates Are Rising”, 23 April 2018:

On March 31st the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate for the sixth time in three years and signaled its intention to raise rates twice more in 2018, aiming for a fed funds target of 3.5% by 2020. LIBOR (the London Interbank Offered Rate) has risen even faster than the fed funds rate, up to 2.3% from just 0.3% 2-1/2 years ago. LIBOR is set in London by private agreement of the biggest banks, and the interest on $3.5 trillion globally is linked to it, including $1.2 trillion in consumer mortgages.

Alarmed commentators warn that global debt levels have reached $233 trillion, more than three times global GDP; and that much of that debt is at variable rates pegged either to the Fed’s interbank lending rate or to LIBOR. Raising rates further could push governments, businesses and homeowners over the edge. In its Global Financial Stability report in April 2017, the International Moneteray Fund warned projected interest rises could throw 22% of US corporations into default.

Then there is the US federal debt, which has more than doubled since the 2008 financial crisis, shooting up from $9.4 trillion in mid-2008 to over $21 trillion in April 2018. Adding to that debt burden, the Fed has announced that it will be dumping its government bonds acquired through quantitative easing at the rate of $600 billion annually. It will sell $2.7 trillion in federal securities at the rate of $50 billion monthly beginning in October. Along with a government budget deficit of $1.2 trillion, that’s nearly $2 trillion in new government debt that will need financing annually.

If the Fed follows through with its plans, projections are that by 2027, US taxpayers will owe $1 trillion annually just in interest on the federal debt. That is enough to fund President Trump’s original trillion dollar infrastructure plan every year. And it is a direct transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy investors holding most of the bonds. Where will this money come from? Even crippling taxes, wholesale privatization of public assets, and elimination of social services will not cover the bill.

With so much at stake, why is the Fed increasing interest rates and adding to government debt levels? Its proffered justifications don’t pass the smell test.

“Faith-Based” Monetary Policy

In setting interest rates, the Fed relies on a policy tool called the “Phillips curve,” which allegedly shows that as the economy nears full employment, prices rise. The presumption is that workers with good job prospects will demand higher wages, driving prices up. But the Phillips curve has proven virtually useless in predicting inflation, according to the Fed’s own data. Former Fed Chairman Janet Yellen has admitted that the data fails to support the thesis, and so has Fed Governor Lael Brainard. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari calls the continued reliance on the Phillips curve “faith-based” monetary policy. But the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets monetary policy, is undeterred.

“Full employment” is considered to be 4.7% unemployment. When unemployment drops below that, alarm bells sound and the Fed marches into action. The official unemployment figure ignores the great mass of discouraged unemployed who are no longer looking for work, and it includes people working part-time or well below capacity. But the Fed follows models and numbers, and as of April 2018, the official unemployment rate had dropped to 4.3%. Based on its Phillips curve projections, the FOMC is therefore taking steps to aggressively tighten the money supply.

The notion that shrinking the money supply will prevent inflation is based on another controversial model, the monetarist dictum that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon”: inflation is always caused by “too much money chasing too few goods.” That can happen, and it is called “demand-pull” inflation. But much more common historically is “cost-push” inflation: prices go up because producers’ costs go up. And a major producer cost is the cost of borrowing money. Merchants and manufacturers must borrow in order to pay wages before their products are sold, to build factories, buy equipment and expand. Rather than lowering price inflation, the predictable result of increased interest rates will be to drive consumer prices up, slowing markets and increasing unemployment—another Great Recession. Increasing interest rates is supposed to cool an “overheated” economy by slowing loan growth, but lending is not growing today. Economist Steve Keen has shown that at about 150% private debt to GDP, countries and their populations do not take on more debt. Rather, they pay down their debts, contracting the money supply; and that is where we are now.

The Fed’s reliance on the Phillips curve does not withstand scrutiny. But rather than abandoning the model, the Fed cites “transitory factors” to explain away inconsistencies in the data. In a December 2017 article in The Hill, Tate Lacey observed that the Fed has been using this excuse ever since 2012, citing one “transitory factor” after another, from temporary movements in oil prices, to declining import prices and dollar strength, to falling energy prices, to changes in wireless plans and prescription drugs. The excuse is wearing thin.

The Fed also claims that the effects of its monetary policies lag behind the reported data, making the current rate hikes necessary to prevent problems in the future. But as Lacey observes, GDP is not a lagging indicator, and it shows that the Fed’s policy is failing. Over the last two years, leading up to and continuing through the Fed’s tightening cycle, nominal GDP growth averaged just over 3%; while in the two prior years, nominal GDP grew at more than 4%. Thus “the most reliable indicator of the stance of monetary policy, nominal GDP, is already showing the contractionary impact of the Fed’s policy decisions,” says Lacey, “signaling that its plan will result in further monetary tightening, or worse, even recession.”

Follow the Money

If the Phillips curve, the inflation rate and loan growth don’t explain the push for higher interest rates, what does? The answer was suggested in an April 12th Bloomberg article by Yalman Onaran, titled “Surging LIBOR, Once a Red Flag, Is Now a Cash Machine for Banks.” He wrote:

“The largest U.S. lenders could each make at least $1 billion in additional pretax profit in 2018 from a jump in the London interbank offered rate for dollars, based on data disclosed by the companies. That’s because customers who take out loans are forced to pay more as Libor rises while the banks’ own cost of credit has mostly held steady.”

During the 2008 crisis, high LIBOR rates meant capital markets were frozen, since the banks’ borrowing rates were too high for them to turn a profit. But US banks are not dependent on the short-term overseas markets the way they were a decade ago. They are funding much of their operations through deposits, and the average rate paid by the largest US banks on their deposits climbed only about 0.1% last year, despite a 0.75% rise in the fed funds rate. Most banks don’t reveal how much of their lending is at variable rates or is indexed to LIBOR, but Oneran comments:

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. bank, said in its 2017 annual report that $122 billion of wholesale loans were at variable rates. Assuming those were all indexed to Libor, the 1.19 percentage-point increase in the rate in the past year would mean $1.45 billion in additional income.

Raising the fed funds rate can be the same sort of cash cow for US banks. According to a December 2016 Wall Street Journal article titled “Banks’ Interest-Rate Dreams Coming True”:

“While struggling with ultralow interest rates, major banks have also been publishing regular updates on how well they would do if interest rates suddenly surged upward… Bank of America ... says a 1-percentage-point rise in short-term rates would add $3.29 billion. . . . [A] back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests an incremental $2.9 billion of extra pretax income in 2017, or 11.5% of the bank’s expected 2016 pretax profit ...”

As observed in an April 12 article on Seeking Alpha:

“About half of mortgages are ... adjusting rate mortgages [ARMs] with trigger points that allow for automatic rate increases, often at much more than the official rate rise. ...

“One can see why the financial sector is keen for rate rises as they have mined the economy with exploding rate loans and need the consumer to get caught in the minefield.

“Even a modest rise in interest rates will send large flows of money to the banking sector. This will be cost-push inflationary as finance is a part of almost everything we do, and the cost of business and living will rise because of it for no gain.”

Cost-push inflation will drive up the Consumer Price Index, ostensibly justifying further increases in the interest rate, in a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the FOMC will say, “We tried—we just couldn’t keep up with the CPI.”

A Closer Look at the FOMC

The FOMC is composed of the Federal Reserve’s seven-member Board of Governors, the president of the New York Fed, and four presidents from the other 11 Federal Reserve Banks on a rotating basis. All 12 Federal Reserve Banks are corporations, the stock of which is 100% owned by the banks in their districts; and New York is the district of Wall Street. The Board of Governors currently has four vacancies, leaving the member banks in majority control of the FOMC. Wall Street calls the shots; and Wall Street stands to make a bundle off rising interest rates.

The Federal Reserve calls itself “independent,” but it is independent only of government. It marches to the drums of the banks that are its private owners. To prevent another Great Recession or Great Depression, Congress needs to amend the Federal Reserve Act, nationalize the Fed, and turn it into a public utility, one that is responsive to the needs of the public and the economy.

This article was originally published on Truthdig.com

NPR, “An Anti-Immigration Speech Divided Britain 50 Years Ago. It Still Echoes Today”, 20 April 2018:

Heard on Morning Edition

Britain’s Conservative Party politician Enoch Powell, right, listens to two demonstrators in Canada in April 1968, reading a petition that describes him as a “racist.“AP

The woman who never was? Dr Burgess said, “boiling down the 200 names that we arrived at and managed to find one individual who matches most of the essential points in the letter. And I can actually put a name to the face by saying that she was Drucilla Cotterill.” Just like the pensioner Powell quoted, Drucilla Cotterill owned her own home, lost her husband in the Second World War and stopped letting out her rooms to lodgers when immigration increased. Other former residents of the street, which is now Brighton Mews, have confirmed to Document that excrement was pushed through a letterbox in this street and that nearly all those living here were black in the late 1960s.

Mr Powell said the woman lived in his Wolverhampton constituency. By 1968 it was almost entirely populated by immigrant families, except for a 61-year-old white woman living at number 4.

How we got here: Millennial Woes goes over the history of Powell’s speech from a native nationalist position.

Related: London Street Scenes 1967

Related: BBC, “The woman who never was?”, 22 Jan 2007

Ibid. In April 1968, the United States was grieving. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white nationalist. Cities burned with riots.

Across the Atlantic, Britain was debating the Race Relations Act, which made it illegal to deny a person employment, housing or public services based on race or national origin.

The law was intended to protect immigrants from Commonwealth nations, especially former colonies in the Caribbean, India and Pakistan. The first of these immigrants, 492 Jamaicans, had arrived 20 years earlier. Hundreds of thousands followed.

“The immigrants were called over,” says Sathnam Sanghera, an author whose Sikh parents emigrated from India during that time. “There was a labor shortage. There weren’t enough people to run the factories after the war.” Sathnam Sanghera’s Sikh parents emigrated from India. “There came the idea that white people would be crushed by the rights that black and Asian people demanded,” he says.

The immigrants were granted British citizenship and helped rebuild Britain after World War II. But they faced racism. Landlords wouldn’t rent to them. Some employers turned them away.

Tarsem Singh Sandhu, then a 23-year-old bus driver, lost his job when he refused to remove the turban he wore as part of his Sikh religion.

The Race Relations Act was intended to protect immigrants like him.

“But there came the idea that white people would be crushed by the rights that black and Asian people demanded,” Sanghera recalls.

The tension was especially obvious in Sanghera’s hometown, Wolverhampton, in England’s West Midlands, which he calls “one of the first cities in Britain to experience mass immigration.”

“A match onto gunpowder”

Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton in Parliament, feared a race war coming because of mass immigration.

On April 20, 1968, he took the stage at a Conservative Party event at the Midlands Hotel in Birmingham and gave an incendiary speech that would come to define him — and divide his country.

Even now, 50 years later, there was outcry in the U.K. when BBC Radio 4 decided to broadcast an actor’s reading of the speech last weekend.

In the speech, Powell warned, “That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic ... is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect.”

He attacked the bill that outlawed discrimination. He said it was whites who were facing deprivation and that Britain “must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting” large numbers of immigrants to enter.

“The discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and of resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come and are still coming,” he said. “This is why to enact legislation of the kind before Parliament at this moment is to risk throwing a match onto gunpowder.”

Smithfield meat porters march to Parliament to hand in a petition backing British politician Enoch Powell, on April 25, 1968, five days after Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech.

He quoted a constituent — “a middle-aged, quite ordinary working man employed in one of our nationalized industries” — who was encouraging his children to leave England.

“In this country,” Powell quoted the man as saying, “in 15 or 20 years, the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.”

“I can already hear the chorus of execration,” Powell continued. “How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation? My answer is that I do not have the right not to do so.”

Powell said inviting mass immigration was akin to “watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.”

An “evil speech” with repercussions

A classics scholar, Powell also quoted Virgil’s Aeneid. “As I look ahead,” he said, “I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.’ “

Powell’s address became known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech.

The Times of London immediately labeled it an “evil speech.” Conservative Party leader Edward Heath dismissed Powell from the party leadership.

“I consider the speech he made in Birmingham yesterday to have been racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions,” Heath said.

But polls showed a majority of Britons supported Powell. Many protested, saying, “Enoch was right.” The speech emboldened racists.

READ MORE...

Scooter Libby with Paul Wolfowitz in 2008

- Observes Majorityrights correspondent, Kumiko.

It waves a giant red flag as to how much Trump is down with the Zionist agenda.

Who even needed 9-11 when you had Scooter Libby!

When you have insiders like that to manipulate the evidence to create false warrant on behalf of Zionist Operation Clean Break, you don’t need massive false flag events.

Some background: from her comment #22, 23 January 2017 at 03:33, MR article, “Next-Level TRS” -

A key moment

In fact, if you look at the PBS piece titled “A Secret History of ISIS”, they actually reveal the precise moment at which Israel injected itself into the decision-making process in the lead up to the Iraq War in 2003, and thus shaped the outcome to their advantage.

From 11min 40sec onward in that video, the transcript:

COLIN POWELL: The speech, supposedly, had been prepared in the White House and in the NSC. But when we were given what had been prepared, it was totally inadequate and we couldn’t track anything in it. And when I asked Condi Rice, the National Security Advisor, “Where did this come from?”, it turns out the Vice-President’s office had written it.

NARRATOR: Powell would turn to the CIA to vet the speech.

NADA BAKOS: We [the CIA] had a copy of the speech that was sent over from the White House that Powell was preparing, and one of our senior analysts was working on it, editing, working on the language to ensure that it reflected our analysis.

NARRATOR: Just days later, Powell arrived at the United Nations.

POWELL: Walking into that room is always a daunting experience, but I had been there before. And we had projectors and all sorts of technology to help us make the case.

KAREN DEYOUNG: Powell was very nervous. Powell doesn’t like to read speeches; he likes to have a few note cards and then do his Powell thing. But this one he read from the text, every word.

NARRATOR: At the Counterterrorism Centre, Bakos was watching carefully to see what Powell would say about Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.

BAKOS: We’re sitting in our room at CTC watching the television with a copy of the speech in our hand. When he got to our portion, it went off our script fairly quickly. And we were looking around at each other saying, “Where’s he at, where’s he at?” We’re flipping through pages. And so, you know, right away, we could tell that this wasn’t reflecting the language that we had used.

NARRATOR: Powell used Zarqawi to make the connection between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

BAKOS: It drew conclusions in language that we would not use. So we were very, very, very careful about describing the relationship as we saw it, and it seemed to overinflate and not reflect our analysis.

INTERVIEWER: How did that happen, Nada?

BAKOS: Within the process of how it went, you know, where it went back to the White House and who worked on it after that, I don’t know how it was changed, or by who.

If anyone should want to know what happened at that crucial point, and how, the place to look would be at the office of the Chief of the Staff to the Vice President of the United States, who at the time was Scooter Libby.

If you understand that Scooter Libby was to Dick Cheney as Dick Cheney was to George W. Bush, then suddenly you become capable of seeing how it could be possible for the changes that Bakos is referring to, to have been made in the Vice-President’s office by Scooter Libby and his network of very Zionist associates.

In summary

There is no need for any kind of 9/11 conspiracy theory to explain what happened in Iraq.

The explanation has been right in front of everyone’s face from day one. The office of the Chief of the Staff to the Vice President of the United States was compromised by Israel, and as such, all decision-making processes that flowed through there were subject to having Israeli policy preferences injected into them.

It is not the only node that was compromised, but it is the most pivotal and significant one in this situation. I hope that clears up all possible questions and that everyone can draw a line under that issue and call it a closed case now.

Now for the BBC article:

BBC, “Scooter Libby: Trump pardons Cheney aide who leaked”, 13 April 2018:

US President Donald Trump has pardoned former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, who was convicted of lying about leaks to the media.

Lewis Libby, known as Scooter, was found guilty in 2007 following an investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity.

The White House said Libby was “fully worthy of this pardon”.

“I don’t know Mr Libby,” said Mr Trump, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.

“Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”

What’s the background to the case?

Libby was found guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements following an investigation into a leak that revealed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

His trial heard that Bush administration officials wanted to get back at Ms Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Mr Wilson had written a 2003 New York Times op-ed accusing Mr Cheney of doctoring pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

Libby was charged with lying to investigators about his contacts with reporters, but he maintained he simply misremembered the sequence of events.

He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 (£175,000).

But his sentence was commuted by then-President George W Bush.

What’s the reaction?

In an interview on Friday with MSNBC, Ms Plame condemned Mr Trump’s decision to pardon Libby.

“My personal sense is that I didn’t think my contempt for Donald Trump could go lower, but he surprises me each and every day,” she said.

“It’s very clear that this is a message he is sending, that you can commit crimes against national security and you will be pardoned,” she added.

Ms Plame has previously said her career as a CIA agent was finished “in an instant” once her identity was leaked.

She told the BBC in 2007 that “treason” had been committed in pursuit of political retribution.

Mr Cheney told the New York Times Mr Libby is “one of the most capable, principled and honourable men I have ever known.

“He is innocent and he and his family have suffered for years because of his wrongful conviction. I am gratedful that President Trump righted this wrong…”

On Friday, Democrats charged Mr Trump with hypocrisy for pardoning a man who leaked to the media, despite the president’s condemnation of such disclosures in his White House.

Mr Trump’s decision came on the same day that he savaged former FBI Director James Comey as a “proven LEAKER & LIAR”.

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff tweeted: “This is the President’s way of sending a message to those implicated in the Russia investigation: You have my back and I’ll have yours.”

What was Libby case’s political fallout?

Mr Cheney had pressured Mr Bush to pardon Libby in the final days of his presidency.

But Mr Cheney’s badgering reached the point where Mr Bush reportedly told his aides his vice-president was beginning to annoy him.

After consulting White House lawyers, Mr Bush decided it was best not to issue a pardon.

When he finally told Mr Cheney about his decision, Mr Cheney snapped at him, saying: “You are leaving a good man wounded on the field of battle.”

“The comment stung,” Mr Bush would write in his memoirs.

“In eight years, I had never seen Dick like this, or even close to this.

“I worried that the friendship we had built was about to be severely strained, at best.”

Key players in the 2007 CIA leak probe

What is a presidential pardon?

Libby’s pardon amounts to official forgiveness for his crime, but does not equate to exoneration or finding that he was innocent.

Presidential pardons can overturn consequences of a conviction such as being denied the right to carry out jury service, vote or run for political office.

Since the conviction, Libby has already had his law license reinstated.

And former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell restored his voting rights in 2013.

This is the third time Mr Trump has issued a pardon.

In August last year, he did so for former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt over his crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Last month he pardoned Kristian Saucier, a Navy sailor who took photos of classified areas inside a US submarine and served a year in federal prison.

Kumiko adds:  Last night’s strike was not what they wanted.

John Bolton and some middle eastern leaders are laying the metapolitical backdrop for that - they wanted a broad and longer engagement. .

Instead, they got a limited strike because the US Defence Dept prevented anything bigger.

Trump was upset but went with what he could do.

(Trump was wanting something bigger too)

Though Vice is a liberal program and they do their critical best to undermine Orban, this episode inadvertently illustrates the popularity of Orban and his ethnonationalist cause - encouraging:

New Observer, “Jews Force 11,000 Pro-Israel Changes to US School Textbooks”, 16 April 2018:

The Jewish lobby in America has forced through more than 11,000 changes to US school textbooks issued by National Geographic, Prentice Hall, Five Ponds Press, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill over the past several years, it has emerged.

According to a press release issued by the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) and posted at the Israel Lobby Archive, the latest changes were revealed in a set of changes demanded by the Jews in textbooks and teaching guides used in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Requested changes include:

– Deletion of references to Israel “occupying” territories captured during the 1967 Six-Day War and substituting “controlled.” International conventions clearly outline the responsibility of occupying powers and the illegality of collective punishment and population transfers.

– Changes to maps to recognize Israel’s declared “annexation” of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The U.S. and most other countries do not officially recognize Israeli annexation of either territory.

– Substitution of references to “occupied territories” to “captured areas.”

–  Substitution of references to “Jewish settlers” and “settlements” with “building of homes and communities.”

– Deletion of a lesson reviewing a video documentary by Iranian-American religious studies scholar, author, producer and television host Reza Aslan.

– Deletion of an activity based on reading the biography and work of Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi.

– Substitution of an editorial cartoon titled “The Mideast Peace Game Rules” with a cartoon of an Arab suicide terrorist holding a “Road Map to Peace” game hostage.

California-based Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS) proposed changes were submitted to the Virginia Department of Education on February 28 on behalf of the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, the Jewish Community Relations Committee (JCRC) of Richmond, and the JCRC of Tidewater.

In a January webcast on YouTube, ICS chief Aliza Craimer Elias claimed that “working behind the scenes” through state advocacy organizations ICS had successfully made more than 11,000 changes to U.S. textbooks.

Publishers of the textbooks targeted for changes include National Geographic, Prentice Hall, Five Ponds Press, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill.

Common themes in ICS requests to make changes to Virginia textbooks.

1. Qualify claims of Islam as “expressing Muslim religious belief” while referencing those of Judaism as “God’s covenant.”

2. Replace Christian versions of key texts (such as the Ten Commandments) with Judaic versions.

3. Emphasize the “Jewish ethnicity”“ of major American historical figures.

4. Eliminate terms such as “settlers,” “occupation,” “land theft” and “wall” or replace with more neutral terms such as “disputed,” “captured areas,” “security fence” and “controlled.”

5. Emphasize Arab culpability for crisis initiation (Israel’s 1948 War of Independence) leading to military action, but not Israeli culpability (e.g. surprise Israeli airstrikes on Egypt commencing the 1967 Six-Day War).

6. Discourage students from conducting open internet research on current events lest they run into controversial content. Instead recommend approved websites such as the ADL and the JewishVirtualLibrary.org

7. Eliminate or replace historical artwork created for predominately Christian audiences.

8. Add content that augments Israeli claims to occupied territory in the Middle East, such as changing maps of the Golan Heights as belonging to Israel rather than Syria.

9. Reference Israeli claims such as “Israel annexed East Jerusalem” as settled fact, without referencing lack of official recognition by other nation states.

10. Delete all references to “Palestinian Territories.”

11.Where ICS has already successfully lobbied for changes in national editions of textbooks, it demands that these changes also be made to State of Virginia editions.

Trump took over Republican party on behalf of the Jewish Right in tandem with disingenuous, deracinating, oligarchic, objectivist, propositional Right…through its kosher, paleocon safety net/valve, false opposition, (((the Alt-Right))).

After Trump committed what was to Republican insiders the great sin of saying “there were good and bad on all sides” at the Unite the Right rally…

(((Corey Lewandowski))): “He has to fight back. So when you accuse him of being a racist he doesn’t want to back up, he wants to double down to prove to you that that’s not true, and that’s what the President is.”

Trump: “What about the ‘Alt-Left?” Not to be confused with what we define as White Left, nor the Jewy, fraud “Alt-Left” that also goes by that name; Trump was certainly not addressing that anyway, but rather a trendy way of addressing the motley “left” as it is commonly known - the pivotal move - to redirect attention and blame to “the Left”  - in orchestration of the White Right through the “Unite the Right” rally.

In addition to Mnuchin using “Unite The Right” to offend Gary Cohn through it and Trump’s neutral response, to get Cohn out of the way, there were key Republican insiders that needed ingratiation for the Jewish Right to be able to take-over and join forces with the (deracinating) American right through front man Trump.

Following Trump’s first political victory on their behalf, the passing of the tax-cut bill:

Paul Ryan heaps saccharine, about face praise of Trump for making the rich, richer…

As Mitch McConnell has been kissing black ass since the days of “civil rights” when he marched with M.L. King, Trump had to be sure to burnish his pro-black credentials for him (note Uncle Tom/ Satchmo Step n’ Fetch-it type to Trump’s right).

Mitch McConnell: “You’ve made the case for the tax-bill (so that the rich could get richer and the poor, poorer - typical Repugs). We’ve cemented the Supreme Court to the right of center for a generation (pro-black women having babies). You’ve ended the over regulation of the American economy (pro-pollution). Thank you Mr. President, for all you’re doing.”

(((Corey Lewandowski))): “In essence this became Trump’s Republican party.

The testimony that people gave there is hard to take back”

- Oren Hatch, for example: “You’re one heck of a leader…and we’re going to make this the greatest Presidency that we’ve seen, not only in generations, but maybe ever.”

(((Corey Lewandowski))): “What the Republican establishment now know, is that Donald Trump is unequivocally the leader of the Republican party” (The Jewish Right-wing has taken over from Jewish liberals).

“He’ is the one who sets the tone of what takes place in Washington. He is the leader of our country - both politically and from a legislative side of things. I think they’ve learned that over the last year.”

Related Story: Unite the Right Charlottesville: successful neocon/liberal operation forces wedge against paleo-Cohn

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has evidence that Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, around the time a British spy says Cohen met with a Kremlin official there to discuss Russian interference in the U.S. election, sources have told McClatchy. Cohen, pictured on April 11, 2018, has vehemently denied ever visiting Prague. Mary Altaffer AP

McClatchyDC, 13 April 2018:

“Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier.”

WASHINGTON

The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White House. Undercutting Trump’s repeated pronouncements that “there is no evidence of collusion,” it also could ratchet up the stakes if the president tries, as he has intimated he might for months, to order Mueller’s firing.

Trump’s threats to fire Mueller or the deputy attorney general overseeing the investigation, Rod Rosenstein, grew louder this week when the FBI raided Cohen’s home, hotel room and office on Monday. The raid was unrelated to the Trump-Russia collusion probe, but instead focused on payments made to women who have said they had sexual relationships with Trump.

Cohen has vehemently denied for months that he ever has been in Prague or colluded with Russia during the campaign. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment for this story.

It’s unclear whether Mueller’s investigators also have evidence that Cohen actually met with a prominent Russian – purportedly Konstantin Kosachev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — in the Czech capital. Kosachev, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee of a body of the Russian legislature, the Federation Council, also has denied visiting Prague during 2016. Earlier this month, Kosachev was among 24 high-profile Russians hit with stiff U.S. sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s meddling.

But investigators have traced evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany, apparently during August or early September of 2016 as the ex-spy reported, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is confidential. He wouldn’t have needed a passport for such a trip, because both countries are in the so-called Schengen Area in which 26 nations operate with open borders. The disclosure still left a puzzle: The sources did not say whether Cohen took a commercial flight or private jet to Europe, and gave no explanation as to why no record of such a trip has surfaced.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, declined comment.

Unconfirmed reports of a clandestine Prague meeting came to public attention in January 2017, with the publication of a dossier purporting to detail the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia – a series of reports that former British MI6 officer Christopher Steele gathered from Kremlin sources for Trump’s political opponents, including Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Cohen’s alleged communications with the Russians were mentioned multiple times in Steele’s reports, which he ultimately shared with the FBI.

When the news site Buzzfeed published the entire dossier on Jan. 11, Trump denounced the news organization as “a failing pile of garbage” and said the document was “false and fake.” Cohen tweeted, “I have never been to Prague in my life. #fakenews.”

In the ensuing months, he allowed Buzzfeed to inspect his passport and tweeted: “The #Russian dossier is WRONG!”

Last August, an attorney for Cohen, Stephen Ryan, delivered to Congress a point-by-point rebuttal of the dossier’s allegations, stating: “Mr. Cohen is not aware of any ‘secret TRUMP campaign/Kremlin relationship.’”

However, Democratic investigators for the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which are conducting parallel inquiries into Russia’s election interference, also are skeptical about whether Cohen was truthful about his 2016 travels to Europe when he was interviewed by the panels last October, two people familiar with those probes told McClatchy this week. Cohen has publicly acknowledged making three trips to Europe that year – to Italy in July, England in early October and a third after Trump’s November election. The investigators intend to press Cohen for more information, said the sources, who lacked authorization to speak for the record.

One of the sources said congressional investigators have “a high level of interest” in Cohen’s European travel, with their doubts fueled by what they deem to be weak documentation Cohen has provided about his whereabouts around the time the Prague meeting was supposed to have occurred.

Cohen has said he was only in New York and briefly in Los Angeles during August, when the meeting may have occurred, though the sources said it also could have been held in early September.

Evidence that Cohen was in Prague “certainly helps undermine his credibility,” said Jill Wine-Banks, a former Watergate prosecutor who lives in Chicago. “It doesn’t matter who he met with. His denial was that I was never in Prague. Having proof that he was is, for most people, going to be more than enough to say I don’t believe anything else he says.”

“I think that, given the relationship between Michael Cohen and the president,” Wine-Banks said, “it’s not believable that Michael Cohen did not tell him about his trip to Prague.”

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