Good Behavior Trump Debate Thread

[freedomforall]

Warmongering...hatemongering = what's the difference? It takes hatemongers to stir up people to becoming warmongers, and it starts with attempting to brainwash people's minds into standing next to the hatemonger and internalizing every fiery dart's message coming forth out of their mouth.

Repetitive dissemination of hate filled gossip can warp other minds until their come to think and act the same way as the hatemonger. Then the cycle continues until a conflict occurs and people die.

There is wisdom in paying heed to what was said about not being troubled; that it is all part of that which has been prophesied that will eventually destroy the wicked. Why become as the people being torn asunder by listening to and maybe even agreeing with one who is belligerent, disrespectful and likely to be as forceful as a tyrant?

They say misery loves company. Is there someone acting miserable attempting to acquire company on this very forum?

Um yep! It seems that person is now on a rampage. Is he making himself miserable, after all, wickedness never was happiness.

Hate cancers the soul, we are told to forgive for our own happiness, it works!

Wait until Silver and IWrite come to an impasse, a situation where one or the other disagrees and neither will budge, won't that be a hoot? :ymparty:
There exists at least one impasse already. This thread was supposed to be all about good behavior, yet more backbiting, contention and hateful speech has permeated it. Some of us are appalled at the constant barrage of hateful innuendo and awful name calling, so, we're at an impasse.

[eddie]

Warmongering...hatemongering = what's the difference? It takes hatemongers to stir up people to becoming warmongers, and it starts with attempting to brainwash people's minds into standing next to the hatemonger and internalizing every fiery dart's message coming forth out of their mouth.

Repetitive dissemination of hate filled gossip can warp other minds until their come to think and act the same way as the hatemonger. Then the cycle continues until a conflict occurs and people die.

There is wisdom in paying heed to what was said about not being troubled; that it is all part of that which has been prophesied that will eventually destroy the wicked. Why become as the people being torn asunder by listening to and maybe even agreeing with one who is belligerent, disrespectful and likely to be as forceful as a tyrant?

They say misery loves company. Is there someone acting miserable attempting to acquire company on this very forum?

Um yep! It seems that person is now on a rampage. Is he making himself miserable, after all, wickedness never was happiness.

Hate cancers the soul, we are told to forgive for our own happiness, it works!

Wait until Silver and IWrite come to an impasse, a situation where one or the other disagrees and neither will budge, won't that be a hoot? :ymparty:
There exists at least one impasse already. This thread was supposed to be all about good behavior, yet more backbiting, contention and hateful speech has permeated it. Some of us are appalled at the constant barrage of hateful innuendo and awful name calling, so, we're at an impasse.

Impasse= " A situation in which no progress is possible."

There's one in a million chance that I write and Silver will break-up, so I'm saying there's a chance!

[iWriteStuff]

I'm curious how friends of the Trumpster interpret his comments:

Some of the Fake News Media likes to say that I am not totally engaged in healthcare. Wrong, I know the subject well & want victory for U.S.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017

and

“Frankly, I don’t think we should leave town unless we have a health insurance plan, unless we can give our people great health care,” Trump said during a lunch with senators at the White House.

Ok, and then today he's all like:

3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017

Translation: "I said all along that we should let ObamaCare implode and then I insisted we pass something to fix it immediately. Then when that didn't work out I told you my plan to let it fail was working perfectly. Stand by for my new position tomorrow."

Whence cometh this seeming contradiction? Roy Cohn, The Donald's mentor, explains it best:
"Even when you lose, declare victory!"

The fact of the matter is Trump needs to overhaul health insurance so he can do tax reform. You don't get one without the other, at least not in any meaningful way. So the fact that he and his Republicans can't pass anything (which is a good thing - ObamaCare 2.0 was even worse than the original) means the rest of his agenda is DOA. As I said, this is a good thing. No health insurance legislation is better than bad health insurance legislation. Unfortunately, Trump is trying to have it both ways - declare victory if they "fix" it and declare victory if they can't "fix" it and it dies anyway.

[Silver]

Rand Paul must be getting some great fan mail lately. I really like the way he is making a stand on issues. He's not quite as strong as his father but much better than 99.9% of the Gadianton liars in Washington.

It's especially cool when he stands up the Senate majority leader who is also the senior senator in KY which Paul represents. Oh, this feels like a cool time to point out what a Gadianton puppet Trump is. The Secretary of Transportation is Elaine Chao. Elaine is the wife of McConnell, the Senate majority leader. Chinese money keeps electing McConnell.

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive! Walter Scott
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quot ... 18003.html

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/34428 ... -bill-vote

Paul blocks McConnell from setting up defense bill vote
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 07/28/17 09:37 AM EDT

Paul blocks McConnell from setting up defense bill vote
TheHill.com

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blocked Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) request early Friday morning for the chamber to advance the annual defense funding bill.

McConnell made the request in the immediate aftermath of the Senate's shocking rejection of a scaled-back bill to repeal parts of ObamaCare, asking for unanimous consent to proceed to the defense legislation.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who rejected Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) request on Thursday to pause the healthcare debate and move on to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), said after the healthcare vote that he would let the bill move forward.

But Paul, who has been among the Senate's most vocal ObamaCare critics, voiced an objection to McConnell's request without explaining why, stalling proceedings on the NDAA, which is typically among the least controversial of spending bills.

Instead, the Senate will take up judicial nominations when lawmakers meet on Monday.

"Senator Rand Paul requested two bipartisan amendments, one on ending indefinite detention and one on AUMFs," said Paul communications director Sergio Gor, referring to authorizations for the use of military force.

"He looks forward to working with leadership and the committee to get this done soon."

[Silver]

More murder, but nobody cares as long as McDonalds is open and the credit card works. This is why sackcloth and ashes will be all the rage in fashion someday.

https://theintercept.com/2017/07/22/don ... an-empire/

DONALD TRUMP AND THE COMING FALL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE
Jeremy Scahill
July 22 2017, 9:50 a.m.

EVEN AS PRESIDENT DONALD Trump faces ever-intensifying investigations into the alleged connections between his top aides and family members and powerful Russian figures, he serves as commander in chief over a U.S. military that is killing an astonishing and growing number of civilians. Under Trump, the U.S. is re-escalating its war in Afghanistan, expanding its operations in Iraq and Syria, conducting covert raids in Somalia and Yemen, and openly facilitating the Saudi’s genocidal military destruction of Yemen.

Meanwhile, China has quietly and rapidly expanded its influence without deploying its military on foreign soil.

A new book by the famed historian Alfred McCoy predicts that China is set to surpass the influence of the U.S. globally, both militarily and economically, by the year 2030. At that point, McCoy asserts the United States empire as we know it will be no more. He sees the Trump presidency as one of the clearest byproducts of the erosion of U.S. global dominance, but not its root cause. At the same time, he also believes Trump may accelerate the empire’s decline.

McCoy argues that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the beginning of the end. McCoy is not some chicken little. He is a serious academic. And he has guts.

During the Vietnam War, McCoy was ambushed by CIA-backed paramilitaries as he investigated the swelling heroin trade. The CIA tried to stop the publication of his now classic book, “The Politics of Heroin.” His phone was tapped, he was audited by the IRS, and he was investigated and spied on by the FBI. McCoy also wrote one of the earliest and most prescient books on the post-9/11 CIA torture program and he is one of the world’s foremost experts on U.S. covert action. His new book, which will be released in September, is called “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.”

[Silver]

Every day a new proof. The Trump supporters need to wake up.

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/arc ... ket-bubble


Trump's Mistake In Taking Ownership Of The Stock Market Bubble
7/28/2017
By Liberty Report Staff

Let's start at the beginning. Bubbles and Busts are both created by The Federal Reserve.

Presidents are merely along for the ride. They like to credit themselves for the bubbles, and then look for scapegoats, usually the (non-existent) free market during the busts.

But it is The Fed that creates them both.

President Trump has made a big (yet understandable) mistake. He's tried to portray himself as the cause of the current bubble in the stock market. He wants credit where credit is due.

In this case, credit is not due.

As we already mentioned, the Fed created the current bubble, and did so a long time ago.

One look at a chart of the S&P 500 says it all:

popping the stock market.png (123.69 KiB) Viewed 1457 times

Chances are, Trump realizes that most people won't look at a chart of the stock market and he just wants some good PR.

The president wants people to think that he is the reason for the stock market bubble.

This is a big mistake.

The Fed is the premier member of the so-called "Deep State". In fact, without The Fed, there would hardly be a "Deep State" to speak of.

The Fed sits at the top of the Deep State. They have the ultimate power (that no human beings should ever have) to create new money out-of-thin-air.

In case Trump hasn't figured it out yet, the Deep State does not like him.

Should a major decline in the stock market occur during Trump's Administration, guess who will take the blame?

President Trump.

After all, he took ownership of the bubble!

Should the market tumble, the mainstream media (that also despises Trump) will have plenty of his quotes, YouTubes, and Tweets to use against him.

The economic woes will be pinned on Trump.

Will Trump deserve the blame? No, but it'll be too late.

​This is not to say that a major decline will occur during Trump's tenure. Bubbles can take on a life of their own, and this one may last during Trump's full term.

But that's a risky gamble to make.

This bubble is going on almost 10 years now without a serious decline.

Should we see a major selloff, Trump has very few friends in the major power centers that will come to his aid.

As Peter Schiff points out in this fantastic clip below: The Fed now has their fall guy:

[Silver]

Maybe Trump supporters will read the common sense of Dr. Paul and open their eyes. Our youth are dying for iron ore and poppy seeds. It's a sin. Literally, it's a sin.

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/arc ... r-minerals


Killing and Dying for Minerals
7/27/2017

end warmongering.png (818.09 KiB) Viewed 1445 times

By Jacob G. Hornberger

Americans might soon have a new reason to thank the troops for their service, at least in Afghanistan, where the troops have been killing and dying for almost 16 years. According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, “President Trump, searching for a reason to keep the United States in Afghanistan after 16 years of war, has latched on to a prospect that tantalized previous administrations: Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth, which his advisers and Afghan officials have told him could be profitably extracted by Western countries.”

If that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what does. How do empire and foreign interventionism become more morally perverse than that?

Maybe Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment are sensing that the American people are no longer buying into the “They’re protecting our rights and freedom” jargon. Maybe they feel the need to come up with a new and exciting rationale for their forever occupation of Afghanistan — minerals!

Just think, every time we see an American soldier, we can say, “Thank you for your service. The cobalt and the iron ore you are helping to bring to America are fantastic.” Imagine the eulogies at funerals of U.S. military personnel: “She was a great soldier and gave her life in Afghanistan so that we could have more copper and aluminum here at home.” Imagine the tears that will produce among friends and family members.
​
I’ve got a better idea, one that is based on the notion of a limited-government republic rather than on imperialism and interventionism: Bring all the troops home now. They have been there killing and dying in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) long enough. Liberate America’s private sector to engage in economic enterprise in Afghanistan and the rest of the world. Limit the U.S. government to defending the United States. Prohibit U.S. presidents from sacrificing U.S. troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere for minerals, regime change, empire, power, or money.

[Silver]

People make policy. The elites who control Trump had him name Jefferson Sessions as Attorney General and conservatives lose. It's so obvious that the Gadiantons are still in charge and Trump is just another wasted presidency.

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/arc ... an-liberty


Jeff Sessions Has Damaged American Liberty
7/25/2017

Picture
By Chris Rossini

President Trump may have very little to show for the first 6 months of his administration, but unfortunately the same can't be said for his Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In such a short period of time, Sessions has really beat-up on American liberty.

So much so, that even statist publications like Vox call him "the most effective member of the administration by far."
Vox sums it up:
On criminal justice, Sessions has instructed US attorneys to take a much more aggressive line in charging drug, gun, and immigration offenses than they previously had — including undoing an Obama-era policy that allowed attorneys to avoid charging drug offenders with the harshest possible sentence...He’s expanded police powers to seize property from people who haven’t yet been convicted of a crime — including in states whose governments have banned the practice. He’s frozen Department of Justice efforts to oversee police departments accused of overly aggressive or discriminatory practices.

President Trump may have his problems with Jeff Sessions.

American liberty has some big problems as well.

[Silver]

Dear Reader,
Insert your "Yeah, but what about Obama?' protest [here].

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -golf-club

Trump visits Virginia golf club
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 07/30/17 10:09 AM EDT 449

hey watch me stare into the camera like I care about the peons pose.jpg (38.73 KiB) Viewed 1423 times

President Trump visited his golf course in Virginia on Sunday morning.

The presidential motorcade arrived at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., shortly after 9:30 a.m., according to a White House pool report.

It’s unclear whether Trump is golfing at the club. He was spotted in a red cap — believed to have his “Make America Great Again” slogan on it — and a white polo shirt.

This marks Trump’s 43rd trip to one of his golf properties since taking office, according to a NBC News tracker.

Trump also dined at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., with members of his Cabinet, their spouses and new White House chief of staff John Kelly on Saturday night.

He tweeted about healthcare on Sunday morning prior to the golf course visit.

[Silver]

By William Banzai 7

McCain.jpg (537.82 KiB) Viewed 1404 times

The thing is, if Trump wanted to put McCain behind bars, where he belongs, a quick call to the Attorney General is all it takes. And as a comment in the article from which the artwork came from noted, if the Republican Party Conference wanted to, they could remove McCain from all his committee positions. That neither Trump nor the Conference takes those actions is all the proof you need to know that there's this club, and you ain't in it.

Stop trusting people who are Gadianton puppets.

[iWriteStuff]

By William Banzai 7
McCain.jpg

The thing is, if Trump wanted to put McCain behind bars, where he belongs, a quick call to the Attorney General is all it takes. And as a comment in the article from which the artwork came from noted, if the Republican Party Conference wanted to, they could remove McCain from all his committee positions. That neither Trump nor the Conference takes those actions is all the proof you need to know that there's this club, and you ain't in it.

Stop trusting people who are Gadianton puppets.

The day of reckoning rapidly approaches for Senator McCain.

[Silver]

Bloody, bloody Trump.

http://original.antiwar.com/Edward_Hunt ... raq-syria/

Killing Civilians in Iraq and Syria
by Edward Hunt Posted on July 27, 2017
The ongoing effort of the United States to eradicate the Islamic State by aggressively launching airstrikes against targets that include noncombatants is causing significant harm to civilians in Iraq and Syria.

Estimates of civilian deaths from airstrikes range from the hundreds to the tens of thousands. Although the U.S. government says that it has killed 603 civilians in airstrikes since the start of military operations in 2014, the monitoring group Airwars estimates that airstrikes have killed at least 4,500 civilians, including nearly 1,000 children.

Some of the strikes have been horrific. One attack in Mosul last March killed at least 100 civilians and injured countless more. “Dozens of Iraqi civilians, some of them still alive and calling out for help, were buried for days under the rubble of their homes in western Mosul after American-led airstrikes flattened almost an entire city block,” The New York Times reported.

Officials in Washington deny any wrongdoing. They insist that they are taking every precaution to protect civilians. They also argue that they are not intentionally killing civilians, despite the fact that President Trump promised during his presidential campaign to go after civilians. When it comes to terrorists, “you have to take out their families,” Trump said.

Others argue that civilian deaths cannot be avoided. Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of coalition forces, said during a press conference last March that civilian deaths result from the fog of war. “And this is why it’s not a war crime to accidentally kill civilians,” Townsend said, in a misinterpretation of the law.

Still, US officials know that they are responsible for killing civilians in Iraq and Syria. For over the past year, at least, they have been deliberately striking targets that they know will result in civilian casualties.

Clear evidence emerged in January 2016 after US forces bombed a site in a civilian area of Mosul that the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) had been using to store money. “US commanders had been willing to consider up to 50 civilian casualties from the airstrike due to the importance of the target,” CNN reported.

Around the same time, officials in the Obama administration loosened restrictions designed to limit civilian casualties. According to a report by USA Today, administration officials granted military officials permission to strike targets that came with higher probabilities of civilian deaths. “Before the change,” USA Today reported, “there were some limited cases in which civilian casualties were allowed.” With the change, “there are several targeting areas in which the probability of 10 civilian casualties are permitted.”

For others, US military forces were still dealing with too many restrictions. Upon entering office, President Trump moved to implement a more aggressive military campaign. “We have not used the real abilities that we have,” Trump said. “We’ve been restrained.” Expanding the Obama administration’s program of exterminatory warfare, which by that point had already killed about 60,000 IS fighters, Trump decided to implement what administration officials call “annihilation tactics.” According to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Trump “directed a tactical shift from shoving ISIS out of safe locations in an attrition fight to surrounding the enemy in their strongholds so we can annihilate ISIS.”

The Trump administration’s tactical shift has had significant consequences for civilians. By surrounding targets to annihilate them, coalition forces have been killing far more civilians in Iraq and Syria. It “appears that the number of civilian casualties has risen in recent months,” The Los Angeles Times reported in April. The New York Times agreed, reporting in May that the “number of civilians killed in American-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria spiked this year.” Earlier this week, The Daily Beast provided additional confirmation, reporting that “all parties agree that casualty numbers are steeply up.”

Military officials recognize the consequences of their actions. “We’re not perfect,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigian, the commander of US Air Forces Central Command, commented during a press briefing last May, when asked about civilian casualties from airstrikes. Commander Townsend has even suggested that civilian casualties are inevitable. Undoubtedly, “civilians will get caught in the crossfire,” Townsend said earlier this month. “Civilians will get hurt. Civilians will get killed.”

Still, US officials continue to insist that they are not to blame. They characterize civilian deaths as accidents or mistakes. In other words, they keep shifting the blame elsewhere, just as Townsend did when he once again blamed the fog of war. The entire situation is “sad and it’s an unavoidable part of war,” he said.

But civilian casualties are not unavoidable. They are not mistakes. For the past year, civilian casualties have been a direct result of US policy. By embracing policies that allow for civilian casualties, officials in both the Obama and Trump administrations have permitted US forces to kill civilians. Indeed, US officials are ensuring through their actions and policies that civilians in Iraq and Syria will continue to die.

[Silver]

It's The New American, the John Birch Society's flagship monthly publication. The article contains several links worth pursuing as well.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/i ... ny-charity

Monday, 31 July 2017
China’s Mystery Man Dumps $18 Billion Into N.Y. “Charity”
Written by William F. Jasper

The stakes just got much higher in Communist China’s investment strategy to penetrate and control key areas of the U.S. economy and the U.S. political landscape. This past week, Guan Jun, the largest shareholder in HNA Group Co., the global Chinese conglomerate, reportedly donated $18 billion to a recently formed Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation Inc. in New York City. That’s $18 billion, making the bequest one of the largest ever, and putting Guan Jun, as the New York Times noted on July 26, “in the same league as donors like Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffet and almost matched the combined giving of all American corporations in 2016.”

So, who is this generous “donor,” Guan Jun? That’s the question everyone is asking. Like many other news groups and financial analysts, Bloomberg News referred to this magnanimous benefactor as the “HNA Mystery Man.” As the Times story noted, “it has not been disclosed how that man, Guan Jun, who is in his 30s, came to own such a large piece of one of China’s biggest conglomerates. His registered address in Beijing is a modest apartment at the end of a dingy hallway littered with discarded furniture and bags of trash.”

The obvious answer, which the establishment media and investment analysts seem to be taking extraordinary pains to ignore, is that Guan Jun is merely a front man for HNA, just as HNA is a front group for the Chinese government and the Communist Party of China (CPC). Guan Jun assists the fiction that HNA Group is a legitimate business enterprise, and HNA Group assists the fiction that the criminal regime in Beijing operates a legitimate market-oriented economy.

Contrary to decades of propaganda, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never “gone capitalist.” The “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” launched by Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping in 1978 is “state capitalism,” in which the communist state owns most major businesses (State-Owned Enterprises, SOEs) and rigidly controls those that it doesn’t own outright. And, since China’s “private” companies operate under very opaque conditions, it is really impossible for western banks and companies that partner with these Chinese companies to know who the actual owners are. As we have explained in previous articles, Deng Xiaoping was a Marxist Leninist, and his “market socialism” hearkened back to Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) in Soviet Russia, which Lenin admitted was a ploy to get capital, technology, and other aid from the West to prop up his totalitarian state.

Now, after decades of prospering from this Western aid and trade, China is using its weaponized global investment strategy to penetrate key sectors of the American economy (see here, here, here, and here). HNA Group has played a major role in that strategy, taking on, according to Bloomberg, $73 billion in debt to finance a worldwide buying binge. Some of its most high-profile purchases have been big stakes in Hilton Hotels, Red Lion Hotels, Uber (the new global transportation phenomenon), and Deutsche Bank, the German banking behemoth. Most of this debt comes in the form of loans from China’s state banks, which indicates strategic support from the Chinese Communist Party that runs the Beijing regime. The sprawling HNA empire now encompasses marquis hotels, airlines, luggage handling services, prime real estate, high-tech manufacturing, banking and financial services, and much more.

We noted in March of this year that real estate purchases in the United States by HNA and other Chinese corporations are already posing serious security problems. “A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned that the federal General Services Administration (GSA) is leasing ‘high security’ office space in the United States for the FBI, Secret Service, DEA, Social Security, IRS, and other agencies from foreign-owned companies based in China,” we reported. “The risks of national security compromise — not to mention personal privacy and security compromise dangers to ordinary citizens — from exposing U.S. agencies and data bases to espionage in Chinese-owned properties would seem to be so self-evident as to require neither special comment nor official cautionary policies. However, the Obama administration, apparently, saw no problem with the practice. And these security risks will certainly escalate, if the PRC is allowed to continue its buying splurge of American properties.”

Scaramucci, Goldman Sachs, Soros, Beijing

Interestingly, the Red Chinese conglomerate has longstanding, close ties to globalist left-wing financier George Soros. “HNA’s chairman, billionaire Chen Feng, got his start in 1995 with an investment of $25 million from Soros, with whom he has maintained relations,” we reported earlier this year.

HNA Group also has indirect ties to the Trump administration, in the form of Anthony Scaramucci, as well as Goldman Sachs and the Blackstone Group, the Wall Street investment titans. On July 21, Scaramucci, a member of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations, was named to serve as President Trump’s White House communication director, replacing Sean Spicer. We reported on the concerns over Scaramucci’s sale of his hedge fund, SkyBridge Capital, to HNA Group this past January, along with other troubling ties to China by top Team Trump personnel, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman. Although the Scaramucci-Beijing connection dropped out of the equation when Trump announced on July 31 that Scaramucci was out as Communications Director, ten days after his initial appointment. That does not, however, resolve the problematic ties by other Trump insiders to China.

Will those connections inhibit a vigorous investigation of the huge new donation by the HNA Mystery Man to the mysterious Chinese “charity” in New York City? Considering the direct efforts by the PRC to place its agents into top political posts in the Big Apple, (see here, here, here, and here), the massive bequest by the PRC’s HNA Group to the Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation should cause red flags to go up everywhere, and should spur immediate investigations by city, state, and federal authorities, including the appropriate committees of Congress.

[Silver]

The must-read Goldman Sachs article:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/p ... pire-squid

Thursday, 16 March 2017
Team Trump’s Troubling Tentacles: The Goldman Sachs Vampire Squid
Written by William F. Jasper

Team Trump’s Troubling Tentacles: The Goldman Sachs Vampire Squid
"I know the guys at Goldman Sachs,” Candidate Donald Trump declared on February 19, 2016, as he headed into the South Carolina primary. “They have total, total control over him [Senator Ted Cruz],” he charged, “just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton."

Some of Trump’s most memorable (and effective) attacks on his leading Republican opponent in the 2016 GOP primaries and his Democratic opponent in the general election concerned their ties to the Wall Street banking behemoth Goldman Sachs, which Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi famously described as a “great vampire squid,” and which has become synonymous with too-big-to-fail/too-big-to-jail financial institutions and political pay-for-play corruption. The global financial firm was heavily involved in marketing the subprime collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and credit default swaps that brought on the 2008 mortgage crisis. Rather than being prosecuted for its predatory lending practices, Goldman was rewarded by the politicians with huge bailouts — courtesy of the American taxpayers.

Thanks to legislation sponsored by former Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas), the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a limited audit of the Federal Reserve, which revealed that the Fed had pumped out a mind-boggling $16.1 trillion (that’s trillion) dollars in loans/bailouts to the banks to cover their toxic mortgages and other noxious debts.

Goldman Sachs received more than $814 billion through the Fed’s “Broad-Based Emergency Programs.” It was not the biggest beneficiary (that honor went to Citigroup, which received more than $2.5 trillion!), but nevertheless was notorious for being the most politically connected of the Wall Street vulture firms. Donald Trump realized, better than any other candidate in 2016, the smoldering resentment harbored by millions of American voters toward these banksters and crony capitalists who were growing incredibly wealthy by skimming off enormous wealth from our economic system, while saddling the rest of us with an ever-increasing mountain of debt.

Trump repeatedly hit Senator Cruz with his two unreported campaign loans from Goldman Sachs, as well as the fact that Cruz omitted an important detail from his wife Heidi’s résumé: her position as a managing director for Goldman Sachs.

And Trump, along with Hillary Clinton’s Democratic rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, pummeled Hillary with the fact that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have been closely tied to Goldman for decades, and have profited handsomely from the relationship. Secretary Clinton, along with her senate and presidential campaigns, the Clinton Foundation, and the Clinton Global Initiative, received millions of dollars from Goldman Sachs, from Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein (who endorsed her campaign), and from other Goldman executives.

Clinton’s stubborn refusal to release the transcripts of three speeches she gave to elite Goldman Sachs gatherings — for which she was paid an astronomical $675,000 (a tidy $225,000 per hour) — was a major issue with both Democrat and Republican voters, and became a topic of one of the Trump/Clinton televised debates (see below).


So how did Donald Trump, the only billionaire candidate in the crowded field for the 2016 presidential run, manage to cast himself as the anti-Wall Street, populist candidate? How is it that he, the super-wealthy real estate mogul of the gleaming Trump Towers, the owner of a globe-straddling empire of luxury properties and a gold-gilt home estate (Mar-a-Lago), became a hero to a huge and devoted following of blue-collar working class and white-collar middle class voters? He was asked that a number of times by media interviewers. Invariably he responded that he has always identified with the working people and is not liked by the big guys on Wall Street. Trump repeatedly has stressed that his personal wealth has enabled him to be independent of those Big Money influences that own Clinton and other politicians. He was able, he pointed out, to self-fund his campaign and maintain an independence that other candidates did not have.

Was Trump's Wall Street Slam a Sham?

However, Candidate Trump and President Trump appear to be two very different individuals, when it comes to the issue of Wall Street and Goldman Sachs (GS). Since at least December, there have been troubling signs of a great reversal in Trumpland on this vital issue. Here are the key names in President Trump’s growing contingent of Goldman Sachs veterans:

Steve Bannon — This first GS connection did not seem that significant, and might not have meant that much — if he were the lone outlier. Yes, Bannon had been a GS banker for a few years, but that was in the 1980s, three decades ago. Not exactly a scarlet letter in the big scheme of things. But it appears he did keep some Goldman channels open, because in 2006 GS joined Bannon in investing in a company known as Internet Gaming Entertainment. The provocative former CEO of Breitbart News served as Trump’s campaign manager, and, following Trump’s election victory, was named assistant to the president and White House chief strategist. According to the MSM Trump demonization choir, besides being Trump’s Rasputin, Bannon is a “racist,” “white supremacist,” “white nationalist,” “misogynist,” and “xenophobe.” His leftist media accusers never provide any evidence to substantiate these smears, of course. No surprise there; that’s simply standard operating procedure on the Left. What should be of more concern are the verifiable connections to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street insider firms noted below.

Steven Mnuchin — The second GS-linked name to pop up in Camp Trump was Mnuchin, whom Trump named as his national campaign finance chairman in April 2016, and later as U.S. treasury secretary. (Mnuchin was confirmed to that post by the U.S. Senate on February 13, 2017.) Like Bannon, it had been a number of years since he had worked at Goldman (he left in 2002, after 17 years there, but his ties to the gold-plated firm were more extensive. His father had been a partner in the 1950s-1960s, and Steven graduated to partner level in 1994. After leaving GS, he joined up with left-wing billionaire George Soros to found Soros Fund Management. He subsequently founded Dune Capital and RatPac-Dune Entertainment, which has financed a number of Hollywood films, including such profitable franchises as the X-Men and Lego movies. Although he was an early supporter of Donald Trump, Mnuchin, like most other Goldman alums, has contributed far more, and far more often, to liberal Democrat politicians. He has donated in the past to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Kamala Harris, and John Kerry, among others. His appointment and confirmation as treasury secretary is especially alarming because it represents a dangerous extension of the near lock-hold on that post Goldman alums have claimed for more than two decades. Robert E. Rubin (a 26-year GS veteran and co-chairman and chairman of the firm) headed the Treasury for Bill Clinton 1995-1999. He was followed by Lawrence Summers (1999-2001), who had earned huge fees as a Goldman speaker. Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Henry M. Paulson headed Treasury for George W. Bush 2006-2009. Now Mnuchin heads a growing list of GS operatives in the Trump administration.

Anthony Scaramucci — Known affectionately among his Wall Street cronies as “the Mooch,” Scaramucci launched his high-finance career at Goldman Sachs (1989-1996) before launching his own hedge funds — Oscar Capital, and then SkyBridge Capital, which is currently reported to have $12 billion in assets under management. The gregarious and well-connected investment manager serves as impresario at the annual SkyBridge Alternatives (SALT) conference in Las Vegas, a sort of mini-Davos that attracts the movers and shakers (as well as wannabes) of the political and financial worlds. In January of this year, Scaramucci announced the sale of his remaining 45 percent stake in SkyBridge (for a reported $180 million) along with his plans to join the Trump administration as a top assistant to the president. He had originally endorsed Governor Scott Walker and then Governor Jeb Bush in the 2016 primaries, before being named to the Trump campaign finance committee in May of last year. In November he was named to the president-elect’s transition team, and in January 2017 he was named director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs. By the end of January, however, Scaramucci had not been confirmed and the spot slotted for him had been filled by George Sifakis, the founder and former CEO of Ideagen. Concerns over the shadowy buyers of SkyBridge (HNA Capital and RON Transatlantic) may have had something to do with the decision to drop Scaramucci. HNA, the giant Chinese conglomerate that has been on a multi-billion-dollar global buying spree that includes buying up important U.S. companies (recent acquisitions: Hilton Hotels and tech company Ingram Micro), is, like all Chinese companies, closely tied to the country’s ruling Communist Party, and keeps its financial books, investors, and operations shrouded in secrecy. According to Bloomberg, HNA and its associates announced or completed more than $34 billion in acquisitions in 2016, and the company’s valuation is over $100 billion, making it “one of the world's 100 biggest non-financial companies — larger than Boeing Co., Walt Disney Co. or Coca-Cola Co.”

HNA’s chairman, billionaire Chen Feng, got his start in 1995 with an investment of $25 million from George Soros, with whom he has maintained relations. HNA’s partner in the SkyBridge buyout is also somewhat sketchy. RON Transatlantic, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands, appears to be owned by Danilo Diazgranados Manglano, a Venezuelan banker who, according to a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks, worked closely with the regime of Marxist strongman Hugo Chávez. A New York Post story on February 3 cited unnamed “Wall Street insiders” who said Scaramucci may still have a post in the Trump administration, thanks to the intervention of Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, which, like Goldman Sachs, is a top partner with Chinese companies, including HNA. As we reported on March 9 in “More Dangerous China Trade? Globalist Push vs. Trump Promise,” Schwarzman has been named chair of the president’s Strategic and Policy Forum.

Gary Cohn — While the past and tangential ties of Bannon, Mnuchin, and Scaramucci to Goldman Sachs raised eyebrows, the announcement in December that Gary D. Cohn would become the director of the National Economic Council in the Trump administration set off alarm bells. The only other possible appointment with bigger ties to the vampire squid would be Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein himself. Cohn joined GS in 1990, and since 2006 has served as president and co-chief operating officer and director of the investment colossus. On leaving the firm to join the Trump administration, Cohn received a severance package reported to be in the range of $285 million. Obviously, Blankfein and the other principals at GS have generously blessed Cohn's departure because he will be even more beneficial to their interests in his new government post. During his reign at GS, Cohn played key roles in debacles that scalped investors and taxpayers worldwide, while enriching Goldman Sachs — debacles such as the 2008 mortgage crisis and the Greek debt crisis.

Jay Clayton — President Trump announced in January his nomination of elite Wall Street lawyer Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. As SEC chief, Clayton will be policing many of his former high-priced clients, including Goldman Sachs (where his wife Gretchen is employed as vice president of private wealth management). Clayton’s erstwhile employer, Sullivan & Cromwell, is global insider law firm of storied establishment connections. Among its famous alums are the Dulles brothers, both of whom were founders a century ago of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the leading American brain trust undermining U.S. sovereignty and promoting world government. Allen Dulles would serve as director, secretary, vice president, and president of the CFR, as well as director of the CIA. During World War II, he knowingly collaborated with communist Noel Field, a member of Alger Hiss’s Soviet spy ring. John Foster Dulles, besides serving as U.S. secretary of state, also held top posts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (where he promoted Soviet agent Alger Hiss), the Rockefeller Foundation, and the liberal-left Federal Council of Churches/National Council of Churches.

Dina Habib Powell — In January, President Trump named Dina Powell, the head of philanthropic investing at Goldman Sachs (and CFR member), to be his economic assistant and senior counselor for economic initiatives.

Jared Kushner — Married to President Trump’s daughter Ivanka, Kushner is one of the president’s most trusted advisors. He has stepped away from running the Kushner Companies, a multi-billion-dollar real estate and publishing empire owned by his family, to serve in the White House. Although not formally tied to Goldman Sachs, he is rumored to be “the connection” that is funneling personnel from GS, Blackstone, and other Wall Street firms into the new administration. On January 29, the Jerusalem Post featured an article entitled “Kushners Host Shabbat Dinner for Trump Cabinet Members,” reporting that the guests at the Kushners' new Washington, D.C., home included “Department of Commerce nominee Wilbur Ross and his wife Hilary Geary Ross; Trump Strategic Communications Director Hope Hicks; Ivanka Trump’s unofficial adviser Dina Habib Powell also joined the celebration; former president of Goldman Sachs and top economic policy adviser Gary Cohn; and Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin and his partner Louise Linton.” The British tabloid the Daily Mail, which had photographers staked outside the home, captured shots of the guests’ arrivals and departures. Kushner could be facing some of the same issues as Anthony Scaramucci (reportedly a friend of Kushner) for a huge, recent business deal with another dodgy Chinese company. At issue is the Kushner Companies’ recently-concluded $4 billion deal with China’s Anbang Insurance Group involving the Kushners' flagship New York City skyscraper, valued at $2.85 billion. The hot property sale at 666 5th Avenue (honest, we’re not making this up) is raising concerns because of what some observers are calling the “unusually favorable” terms involved for the Kushners. “The planned $4-billion transaction includes terms that some real estate experts consider unusually favorable for the Kushners,” Bloomberg reported. “It would provide them with both a sizable cash payout from Anbang Insurance Group for a property that has struggled financially and an equity stake in a new partnership.” The cash payout could be more than $400 million. Obviously, if Anbang is paying significantly more than the property is worth, it raises questions about what they are really (or think they are really) buying — such as access to the political and financial centers of American power. Anbang, with around $300 billion in assets, is tightly tied to China’s top Communist Party leadership. Anbang Chairman Wu Xiaohui is married to the granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping, China’s “paramount leader” from 1978 to 1989. As we noted recently, Anbang’s many property purchases include the 2014 acquisition of the Waldorf Astoria, the historic luxury hotel, for nearly $2 billion. That deal was brokered by the Blackstone Group, whose chairman, Stephen Schwarzman, now chairs President Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum.

Not a Pretty Picture

The new Trump administration is looking more and more like yet another replay of “Government Sachs,” which means we are less and less likely to see White House support for the types of fundamental economic reforms that we so desperately need, and that Candidate Trump at least gave some hope of finally effecting. That is especially true with regard to auditing the secretive cabal known as the Federal Reserve, which has turned the U.S. economy into the private reserve of the Wall Street banks, whose agents run the Fed. On January 24, 2017, Bloomberg ran a story entitled “Mnuchin Backs Fed Independence and Signals Reform Isn’t Priority,” which reported on his confirmation hearing for treasury secretary. “The Federal Reserve is organized with sufficient independence to conduct monetary policy and open market operations,” Mnuchin said, in response to a question from Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). “I endorse the increased transparency we have seen from the Federal Reserve Board over recent years.”

“Increased transparency” at the Fed? Where? When? How about demanding real transparency through real audits? Jeff Hauser from the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington commented that judging by Mnuchin’s statements, “he seems to be OK with the status quo.” And that status quo is the equivalent of allowing a pedophile to remain in charge of the nursery school — and then not even checking up on him. After all, William C. Dudley (a Goldman Sachs banker from 1986-2007) is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and vice-chairman of the bank’s important Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Robert Steven Kaplan, a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, is president of the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas. Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, was Goldman Sachs vice president in San Francisco. And former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former head of GS) brought Kashkari along with him to Treasury and put him in charge of the TARP fund — which Kashkari used to carry tons of cash to Goldman.

But we’re supposed to forget all of that; let it go down the memory hole. The Fed and Treasury officials have learned from their “mistakes” and have sufficiently reformed, Mnuchin says, so we must not compromise their “independence.” These angelic operatives and their fellow Wall Street banking cronies from JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Carlyle Group, etc. are incorruptible and would, of course, never succumb to the temptation to abuse the vast powers and privileged information at their disposal!

Secretary Mnuchin’s remarks seem to be a pretty solid indication the Trump administration is not inclined toward supporting the “Federal Reserve Transparency Act” introduced in the Senate (as S. 16) by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and in the House (as H.R. 24) by Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). If signed into law, the Paul-Massie bill would require a full audit of the Fed's Board of Governors and the privately owned regional Fed banks by the comptroller general of the United States. Candidate Trump indicated he would support this type of move toward true transparency. However, President Trump’s appointments and Mnuchin’s comments are signaling something entirely different. Liberty-minded Americans must realize that whatever positive things President Trump may accomplish in other areas will amount to very little in the long run — and may be fairly easily reversed by a subsequent administration — if the Wall Street banksters running the fraudulent Federal Reserve system are allowed to continue carte blanche pillaging the American economy, robbing the American people, and amassing even more unchecked power.

[Silver]

Is this the way to run the federal government, greater and greater national debt? In record time Trump is breaking all his fake campaign promises. The sheeple sleep on though.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-3 ... rs-debt-q4

Treasury To Issue Half A Trillion Dollars In Debt In Q4

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Jul 31, 2017 3:53 PM

In the first warning sign that the US Treasury is burning through more cash than previously expected, at 3pm today the Treasury Department announced that in its latest forecast of end-of-September cash balance it anticipated only $60 billion of cash on hand, nearly half the $115 billion it forecast in its previous report in May, according to the Department’s marketable borrowing estimates. The treasury also expects to borrow $96 billion in net marketable debt in the current quarter, down from $98 billion forecast previously.

This drawdown in cash, and jump in government outlays, was to be expected following the latest Monthly Statement from the Treasury which showed a surge in government outlays, which hit a record high $429 billion in June, for reasons discussed previously.

Happy Trumpsters.jpg (18.31 KiB) Viewed 1371 times

However, the second, and more troubling warning sign was that in its initial forecast of calendar Q4 marketable borrowing needs, the Treasury now expects a near record $501 billion in net marketable debt to be issued from October through December. This amount will be nearly equal to the actual marketable debt borrowed in the last 4 quarters, which amounts to $527 billion. The full sources and uses can be found here.



Also, as shown in the chart below, this amount of upcoming quarterly issuance will be just shy of the previous record hit in the months of the financial crisis, and represents a dramatic change in the recent direction of declining borrowing.



Source: Reuters

One reason for this surge in Q4 debt issuancem coupld with the low level of borrowing in 3Q suggests the debt ceiling will be a “significant limiting factor on auction sizes” as it doesn’t allow for upsizes or provide space for new tenors, Jefferies economists Ward McCarthy and Thomas Simons write.

They also adds that the borrowing announcement suggests coupon sizes will increase in 4Q, since it’ll be difficult to put together “a feasible auction calendar” that increases borrowing by more than $500b “focused entirely in bills,”

Treasury said it expects to borrow $96b in 3Q, with quarter-end cash balance of $60b; expects to borrow $501 billion in 4Q, with quarter-end cash balance of $360 billion.

As a result, the borrowing projections reflect a “high degree of uncertainty regarding the timeline for Congress to address the debt ceiling."

The good news is that much of this debt will go toward building a cash cushion, as the projected debt needs are only $179 billion for the 4th calendar quarter, leaving an estimated $360 billion in cash as of December 31, 2017.

The Treasury also reported that in the April through June quarter, it issued $35 billion in net marketable debt, compared with its May prediction of $26 billion, and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $181 billion, down from the initial estimate of $200 billion. In April 2017, Treasury estimated net marketable borrowing of $26 billion and assumed an end-of-June cash balance of $200 billion. The increase in borrowing was driven primarily by lower receipts.

[Silver]

Trump is either stupid or he's lying. Which do you prefer? More info and video at the link.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... gly-bubble

Trump Tweets Dow 22,000 Today: Embraces Big, Fat, Ugly Bubble

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Aug 1, 2017 8:56 AM
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Having dismissed the "big, fat, ugly bubble" during his campaign, President Trump seems more than willing - in his apparently desperate search for a win - to embrace the bubble now. Continuing the trend over the weekend, Trump's first tweet of the morning crows of his massive market gains since election...

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Stock Market could hit all-time high (again) 22,000 today. Was 18,000 only 6 months ago on Election Day. Mainstream media seldom mentions!
7:49 AM - Aug 1, 2017
8,937 8,937 Replies 6,806 6,806 Retweets 26,266 26,266 likes
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We tend to agree with Peter Schiff on this - it's a mistake for Trump to 'own' the stock market's gains...

Chances are, Trump realizes that most people won't look at a chart of the stock market and he just wants some good PR.

The president wants people to think that he is the reason for the stock market bubble.

This is a big mistake.

The Fed is the premier member of the so-called "Deep State". In fact, without The Fed, there would hardly be a "Deep State" to speak of.

The Fed sits at the top of the Deep State. They have the ultimate power (that no human beings should ever have) to create new money out-of-thin-air.

In case Trump hasn't figured it out yet, the Deep State does not like him.

Should a major decline in the stock market occur during Trump's Administration, guess who will take the blame?

President Trump.

After all, he took ownership of the bubble!

Should the market tumble, the mainstream media (that also despises Trump) will have plenty of his quotes, YouTubes, and Tweets to use against him.

The economic woes will be pinned on Trump.

Will Trump deserve the blame? No, but it'll be too late.

?This is not to say that a major decline will occur during Trump's tenure. Bubbles can take on a life of their own, and this one may last during Trump's full term.

But that's a risky gamble to make.

This bubble is going on almost 10 years now without a serious decline.

Should we see a major selloff, Trump has very few friends in the major power centers that will come to his aid.

As Peter Schiff points out in this fantastic clip below: The Fed now has their fall guy:



President Trump went on to say...

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
"Corporations have NEVER made as much money as they are making now." Thank you Stuart Varney @foxandfriends Jobs are starting to roar,watch!
8:03 AM - Aug 1, 2017
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But there is one big problem with that...

[iWriteStuff]

Trump is either stupid or he's lying. Which do you prefer? More info and video at the link.

Here's my favorite comment from below the article itself:

I'm not sure why zero hedge is finally waking up to these facts over the last few days. "I'm a globalist and a nationalist" Mr Trump. The guy speaks out of both sides of his mouth all day. It's a bubble now its great. The Clintons are good people, they need to be investigated.

Truly, he speaks/tweets out of both sides of his mouth. One day we need to replace ObamaCare, the next day it should die on its own. One day the market is a huge "bubble" spurred by low interest rates, the next day it's "Market loves my awesomeness!" and "Janet Yellen is doing an awesome job keeping interest rates down!" (even though she's not). One day NATO is obsolete, the next day we're BFFs again. One day China is a currency manipulator, the next day they're not. We seriously can't seem to make up our mind.

The good news is most reasonable people have stopped caring what he says. And why? Because he can't seem to do anything aside from tweet or visit Mar-a-Lago.

[Silver]

Trump was trumpeted as the great deal maker and yet now both Russia and China are ready for trade wars, both Iran and North Korea are preparing for attacks by us, while Mexico and Canada no longer trust their sandwiched neighbor. Yes, yes, I know each of those countries have their own problems and the lack of true liberty is acute even in other North American countries. However, did Trump supporters really vote for us to be on a war footing with so many countries (I didn't even mention Iran or Iraq or Libya or Afghanistan or Yemen or Syria) all at the same time?

Trump should arrest Bill Clinton for giving away vital defense technology to the Chinese, not pester the Chinese over the same sort of thing that America is doing. Trump should make Hillary do the perp walk for allowing Russia to get at some uranium, not ramp up the tension with Russia.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... etaliation

President Kimball warned us about being a warlike people. We shoulda listened.

[Silver]

You know that sick feeling? That feeling in your gut when you know you've been had? That somebody has jumped you from behind, whether physically or professionally or financially?

You should feel that way now if you are a Trump supporter. The chatter is getting stronger. Cohn appears to be the guy for the next head of the Federal Reserve System. Yeah, I know. Disgusting, isn't it? Trump supporters have absolutely no leg to stand on if Cohn is the candidate that is put forward for the position.

You've been had. An adult would admit it and prepare for the evil consequences of the actions of an evil government.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ad-the-fed

Trump’s top economic adviser, a Goldman alum, is a front-runner to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve.
By Jeanna Smialek , Max Abelson , and Dakin Campbell

In their decades of dominating the intersection of Wall Street and Washington, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers have captured many of the world’s most powerful economic and financial positions. Gary Cohn, a longtime Goldman president and Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, is now within arm’s reach of the holy grail—chairman of the Federal Reserve. Trump has signaled that he’s strongly considering Cohn for the job, telling the Wall Street Journal on July 25 that he’s “certainly” in the mix to replace Janet Yellen when her term as chair ends in February. And while publicly shrugging it off, Cohn seems interested in the job, according to two White House officials.

[iWriteStuff]

bumpity bump bump!

[Silver]

Here's a good example of why Trump is worse than Obama. Since Trump wears a fake Republican badge, many nominal conservatives think he's going to do something great for America. Like jobs! Yeah, jobs.

Today Trump tweeted:
"Excellent Jobs Numbers just released - and I have only just begun."

Excellent? Not when the tax revenue being paid to the IRS is down. The truth is revenues are down. Which means the federal government will borrow more to meet the shortfall. Which means the status of any American reader of this post as a debt slave has worsened.

What kind of jobs are behind the fake Tweet from Fake Trump?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... a-or-lower

Only Employment Gains In The Past Year: Those With A High School Diploma Or Lower

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Aug 4, 2017 10:22 AM

In its latest, July, snapshot of the US economy, the NY Fed observed something startling, and which hasn't received much discussion in the media: when looking at the June report, over the past year the only employment gains have gone to less educated Americans, or as the NY Fed puts it, "over the last year, the employment-to-population ratio has risen for the less educated." It added that "for those with less than a high school degree and for high school graduates, the employment-to-population ratio rose by 0.4 percentage point and 0.9 percentage point, respectively.

Meanwhile, "the employment-to-population ratio for the more highly educated has been on a downward trend, with the ratio for those with a college degree 0.2% percentage point lower in June relative to a year ago."

Now that we have the July data we can update the NY Fed data, and find... more of the same: as the chart below shows, while on both a 1-month and 1-year basis, the Employment-to-Population ratio for workers with "some college" or "a bachelor's degree and higher" declined or remained flat again, the biggest increase on both a 1-month and 1-year basis was for those with "less than a high school diploma" or "high school" graduates.

employment by education.jpg (16.64 KiB) Viewed 1264 times

In retrospect, this should not come as a surprise: in an economy where wage growth is "inexplicably" failing to materialize, in which waiters and bartenders were the hottest hiring sector last month and over the past 7 years, and where part-time workers soared in July, it makes sense that the best job prospects are for those who never went to college. As for the adverse structural consequences for the US economy as a result of lack of demand for those with a college education, that is self-explanatory and is a giant hint as to the unprecedented collapse in US economic productivity in recent years.

[Silver]

Way to go Trump. Those weapons you sold to the Saudis are being put to such good use. <sarc>

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... n-citizens

Footage Of Saudi Siege Against Own Citizens

by Tyler Durden
Aug 4, 2017 1:53 PM

The Saudi regime is in the midst of an extreme and brutal crackdown against its own citizenry in the country's Eastern province - a situation now spiraling out of control with rising civilian deaths, entire neighborhoods turned to rubble, and new reports that water and electricity have been cut to the now completely besieged town of Al-Awamiya. Though local activists continue to upload shocking ground level videos to social media revealing that entire districts have been leveled, international and US media have remained largely silent.

Tensions have been simmering in the heavily Shia populated Qatif governate throughout the past year, especially after the January execution of prominent Shia cleric and Al-Awamiya native Nimr al-Nimr. Additionally, 14 Shia citizens, among them young Mujtaba al-Sweikat - a student enrolled at Western Michigan University - currently await execution upon the signature of King Salman. The torture and mass trial of the group, charged with "protest-related" crimes has further inflamed tensions in the region. Large protests against the Saudi monarchy and security services have been frequent in Qatif going all the way back to the start of the so-called "Arab Spring" - though major international media outlets have tended to ignore such protests occurring under US/UK friendly regimes.

This was especially the case when in 2011 hundreds of Saudi tanks crossed the King Fahd Causeway to quell a popular uprising against neighboring Bahrain's Sunni monarchy. Western media treated the event as a relatively minor hiccup, with some reports even subtly framing Saudi actions as actually motivated by the protection of civilians from Bahraini security forces, while in reality it was a massive show of force pitting tanks against civilians in order to preserve the embattled Bahraini autocratic regime.

This week, things have escalated dramatically as Saudi authorities have concentrated a barrage of fire on Awamiya's four-hundred year old walled historic Al-Mosara neighborhood, including reported use of air power, heavy artillery, RPGs, snipers and armored assault vehicles in the area. Earlier this year the Saudi regime announced plans to demolish the neighborhood and hand it over to private developers in a kind of Saudi version of "eminent domain"; however, the presence of Shia militants hiding amidst its narrow roads and concealed alleyways appears the be the real motive for razing the district. Though sporadic fighting has occurred throughout the summer, the siege began in the last week of July when bulldozers and armored vehicles poured into the town to initiate demolition while security forces simultaneously attempted to root out Shia militants. Multiple Middle East based news outlets reported at least 5 civilians killed during the initial entry of Saudi forces - online activist accounts are now reporting many dozens slain since the start of the recent incursion.

Screenshot of Al Mayadeen News broadcast footage purporting to show a Saudi soldier firing into Awamiya town from a rooftop.

Before and during the start of the siege local citizens were promised government-sponsored "relocation", though activists describe it as a concealed sectarian-based cleansing of the Shia population, which has been historically persecuted by the Sunni Wahhabi state. Regional news outlets have published footage which they say reveals active sectarian anti-Shia cleansing on the part of Saudi forces currently underway:


Follow
Alahednews English @AlahednewsEn
This is how #Saudi regime displaced #awamiyah residents, forcing them to raise white flags as they left their houses! | #Awamiasiege #Qatif
5:34 AM - Aug 2, 2017
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Photo purporting to show destruction in Awamiya. Photo source: Albawaba News citing activist social media.

An activist originally from Awamiya named Ameen Nemer told Middle East Eye that there is a conscious effort on the part of the authorities to forcibly change the identity of the town:

What I see from the first day there is a collective punishment... there is a plan for forced displacement. It has nothing to do with Al-Mosara and development, it has to do with punishing this town for being vocal for calling for rights, calling for reforms since 2011.
A press release issued in May by the UN Human Rights Commission responded to previously announced Saudi plans to demolish residential areas for commercial development. The UN statement hints that the town's identity is indeed what is at stake here:

The UN experts warned the development plan for the Al-Masora quarter threatens the historical and cultural heritage of the town with irreparable harm, and may result in the forced eviction of numerous people from their businesses and residences.
UN experts seemed to have forewarned that the the whole initiative would involve forceful evacuation using extreme coercive measures, yet stopped short of condemning the plans outright:

Residents have been pressured in many ways, including through power cuts, to vacate their homes and businesses without adequate alternative resettlement options, leaving them at best with insufficient compensation and at worst, with nowhere to go...

It appears that the demolition has been announced without any meaningful consultation with the residents, and without having considered less damaging alternatives, like restoration, or adequate notice informing them about the demolition plans.

Follow
Angry Qatifi @AngryQatifi
Destruction of #Mosawarah of #Awamia followed by SSSF bullets. #Awamiasiege #Qatif #Saudi
7:13 PM - Jul 31, 2017
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Gunfire as government bulldozers destroy civilian infrastructure: ground footage of Saudi authorities razing Shia neighborhoods in the country's eastern province. Some videos are reportedly being uploaded to personal social media pages by Saudi soldiers themselves to brag about their role in the siege, after which the footage is culled by opposition activists.

And now the assault has reached a violent crescendo. On Thursday Al-Masdr News reported that Saudi regime forces fired upon a civilian bus as it tried to flee Awamiya, killing the bus driver (other unconfirmed reports further mention the wounding of women and children). A Reuters report, however, presented conflicting accounts of the incident, while also attempting to justify the whole brutal siege of Awamiya merely as Saudi security attempting to apprehend "gunmen behind attacks on police." While details and the accuracy of various reports of atrocities are unclear, with activists citing dozens of civilians killed at the hands of the government and state-aligned media claiming Shia fighters have killed multiple police, lack of independent media access has made assessing the day to day situation difficult.

This week, Beirut-based Al Mayadeen News was the first Arabic language satellite broadcaster to feature video footage coming out of besieged Awamiya. The report references military jets flying over the town and shows a uniformed man firing an RPG into an urban area. Saudi opposition activists say the man is a Saudi soldier. View the report with English subtitles here:

Follow
Walid @walid970721
.@AlMayadeenNews report on #AwamiaSiege with English subtitles talks about the dire situation in the Shia town in the Qatif region in #KSA
6:42 AM - Aug 3, 2017
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Meanwhile, Middle East Eye has obtained a document which activists say is being placed on homes in and around the besieged town. It is a property seizure notice ordering residents to relocate and is stamped by the Saudi government's National Joint Counterterrorism Command (NJCC). It gives instructions on relocation procedures - Middle East Eye cited activists as saying displaced families have yet to be rehoused.

Requisition order stamped by the Saudi National Joint Counterterrorism Command (NJCC) and obtained by Middle East Eye.

Though still not widely reported in US press, the Canadian government has come under fire for providing armored military vehicles that the Saudis may be using in their crackdown against civilians. In 2013 Canada struck its own record breaking deal - worth over $13 billion - to supply Saudi Arabia with an undisclosed number of Light Armored Vehicles manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS).

Last week Canada's The Globe and Mail published an investigative report which found that, "video footage and photos have surfaced on social media allegedly showing the Islamic kingdom using Canadian weaponized equipment against Saudi civilians" specifically as part of the Awamiya assault which resulted in civilian deaths. The report confirmed, based on expert analysis, that Canadian vehicles are being used - though images analyzed showed Gurkha RPVs, made by Terradyne Armored Vehicles (based in Newmarket, Ontario) - and not the General Dynamics vehicles of the 2013 contract. It appears other private companies in Canada have been making their own deals with the Saudi government - all of which are now coming under scrutiny.

Footage out of Awamiya shows Canadian made armored vehicles in civilian neighborhoods.

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Another Canadian-made @TerradyneArmor appeared used by #Saudi SSSF in #Awamiasiege against citizens. #Awamia #Qatif
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The report prompted a response by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: "We are looking at these claims very seriously... and have immediately launched a review". Various Canadian parliamentarians have urged the current Liberal government to cancel the contract on the grounds that it allegedly violates Canada's weapons export-control rules. Rights monitoring groups also weighed in. Amnesty International Canada secretary-general Alex Neve called on the government to stop all armored vehicle exports, saying:

Indications that Canadian-made armored vehicles are perhaps being utilized as Saudi forces mobilize in the east of the country highlight how crucial it is that the government intervene and put an immediate end to the Canadian/Saudi LAV deal.
The US and UK remain Saudi Arabia's largest suppliers of advanced weaponry and have a long history of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. Ironically, the kingdom's increasingly restive Shia population is concentrated in an eastern region which produces much of the world's oil. In 2012, a pipeline explosion possibly at the hands of Shia militants in the same region, caused the price of crude to momentarily rocket upward on fears that the "Arab Spring" had entered the oil-rich province.

It's been widely acknowledged that since Saudi Arabia's founding, Shia citizens have been marginalized on religious grounds by the official Wahhabi state religion which sees them as heretics in league with Iranian interests, especially since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Saudi Shia communities have been perpetual historic flashpoint areas witnessing cycles of protests, shootings, mass detentions, and long-term economic neglect. Demonstrations have long been banned throughout all of Saudi Arabia - a fact rarely highlighted in Western press reports.

Currently, unconfirmed reports issued by Iran-aligned media claim Yemeni opposition fighters have sacked Saudi bases and small outposts in the southwestern Jizan region, inflicting troop casualties on Saudi soil for the first time. While Qatif in the east spirals out of control, blowback from Saudi Arabia's two year long air war on Yemen is looking increasingly likely.

As we've reported recently in Saudi Arabia’s March Towards Civil War combined tensions and fissures at multiple levels of the Saudi state, including within the royal family itself, are nearing a breaking point. Could this latest round of extreme measures against Shia dissent - which appear increasingly desperate and are now going public - mark the beginning of a permanently fractured kingdom?

[Silver]

Why won't anyone ask the hard questions: Why did Trump hire McMaster in the first place? Who advised Trump to hire a globalist?

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/p ... -obamaites

Friday, 04 August 2017
Globalist McMaster Purges Trump Loyalists, Protects Obamaites
Written by Alex Newman

Another CFR.jpg (8.3 KiB) Viewed 1245 times

Globalist McMaster Purges Trump Loyalists, Protects Obamaites

President Donald Trump's controversial National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster (shown), a Bilderberg attendee and a member of the globalist swamp known as the Council on Foreign Relations, is firing key Trump loyalists within the administration who seek to protect the president and implement his “America First” agenda, according to multiple sources and reports. One of the pro-Trump victims of the national security adviser’s purge was reportedly fired just for highlighting in a report the unholy alliance against the president by Islamists and globalists.

By contrast, McMaster is said to be protecting and elevating radical Obama appointees dedicated to globalism, neoconservativism, and the infamous “swamp” that Trump promised to drain. Indeed, McMaster sent a letter to Susan Rice, Obama's extreme national security adviser, waiving legal requirements and promising her continued access to classified information — a month after the start of a congressional investigation into her involvement in lawlessly unmasking the identities of Americans whose communications were intercepted.

Much of McMaster's scheming has been happening without Trump's knowledge, inside sources and reports said. But now, with scandal swirling around the national security adviser, Trump is reportedly thinking of replacing McMaster and sending him off to Afghanistan. And among Trump's supporters, a movement of sorts aimed at getting McMaster and other establishment globalists fired is gathering steam, with multiple hashtags calling for McMaster's ouster spreading across social media.

Perhaps the most stunning revelation on McMaster's purge of pro-Trump officials in recent days involves the firing of a top National Security Council official, NSC Director for Strategic Planning Rich Higgins, for outlining the powerful forces working to subvert Trump and their strategy. In a memo explaining the full-blown assault being waged against the Trump administration and the agenda the president successfully articulated to voters, Higgins offered accurate insight into what was and still is happening.

The official argued that the “Maoist insurgency model” was being used by subversive forces, both in and out of government, to crush Trump's “America First” agenda that Americans voted for in massive numbers. Among other elements is the debunked conspiracy theory alleging that Trump was essentially put into office by the Kremlin, according to Higgins, who was reportedly an ally of anti-globalist White House strategist Steve Bannon and other anti-establishment forces in the administration.

Globalists, bankers, the “deep state,” and Islamists were all involved, he said. “Through the campaign, candidate Trump tapped into a deep vein of concern among many citizens that America is at risk and slipping away,” said the memo, first reported by The Atlantic, calling for the assault to be treated as a national security priority. “Globalists and Islamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed.… Islamists ally with cultural Marxists because, as far back as the 1980s, they properly assessed that the left has a strong chance of reducing Western civilization to its benefit.”

Highlighting the many facets of political warfare being deployed against Trump, using both violent and non-violent means, Higgins' analysis was prescient. “Because the left is aligned with Islamist organizations at local, national and international levels, recognition should be given to the fact that they seamlessly interoperate through coordinated synchronized interactive narratives,” he wrote. “These attack narratives are pervasive, full spectrum and institutionalized at all levels. They operate in social media, television, the 24-hour news cycle in all media and are entrenched at the upper levels of the bureaucracies.”

For putting those truths down on paper, Higgins was fired by McMaster, apparently without Trump's knowledge. But he was not the only one. Another recent victim of the globalist-led purge was Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the NSC's senior director for intelligence hired by non-globalist National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who himself appears to have been strategically taken down by the establishment and swamp creatures early on in Trump's term. Senior Middle East director Derek Harvey, another Flynn appointee, was ousted about a week ago, too. Yet another, Adam Lovinger, had his security clearance pulled by McMaster for attending a bar mitzvah in Israel, according to well-connected journalist Mike Cernovich. That forced him to leave his post.

And the purges of patriots are not over yet. Indeed, according to multiple sources quoted by the Washington Free Beacon, McMaster was on the “warpath” after learning of the memo outlining the subversive forces trying to quash Trump. As part of his globalist efforts to undermine the America First agenda, the national security adviser has been furiously targeting longtime Trump loyalists who have clashed with career bureaucrats and officials appointed by Obama while trying to “drain the swamp.” In fact, he reportedly ordered Trump's people to quit pointing out that Obama “holdovers” were sabotaging Trump's efforts and leaking information to the increasingly hysterical anti-Trump media.

An administration insider familiar with the purge, for instance, was quoted as saying that McMaster has a “list” of even more senior Trump officials that he intends to target and “phase out” in the coming weeks. “They're taking out people who were chosen to best implement the president's policy that he articulated during the campaign,” the source said, with at least four more pro-Trump senior NSC officials said to be in the crosshairs.

Other sources said the reason for the developments was that McMaster has a different agenda than Trump does. Among other issues, the swamp creatures backed by McMaster have supported the unconstitutional United Nations “Paris Accord” on “climate,” more war in Syria, Obama's globalist and unconstitutional Iran deal, and more, while Trump loyalists have supported America First policies that reject those schemes.

Lieutenant General McMaster appears to be a firmly committed globalist and a willing tool of the establishment. As The New American has been reporting since his appointment in February, McMaster has a solid globalist pedigree dating back more than a decade. Perhaps the most damning evidence of his globalist worldview and subservience to the establishment's anti-American agenda is his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations. Despite its roster of powerful members, the CFR pushes an ultra fringe agenda that virtually no mainstream American would support if they understood it.

Prominent patriotic Americans, including CFR members, have been sounding the alarm about the dangerous organization for generations. The late U.S. Admiral Chester Ward, for example, who served as the judge advocate of the U.S. Navy, was a CFR member for 16 years before resigning in disgust. “In the entire CFR lexicon, there is no term of revulsion carrying a meaning so deep as America First,” said Admiral Ward, whose comments on the CFR shed light on why the group would be entirely hostile to Trump's central promise as a pro-America, anti-establishment political candidate who lambasted globalism and the “cabal” behind it.

But the reality is even worse than just hating America First policies and advocates. “The main purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations is promoting the disarmament of U.S. sovereignty and national independence, and submergence into an all-powerful one-world government,” the admiral warned, adding that “this lust to surrender the sovereignty and independence of the United States is pervasive throughout most of the membership.” In other words, not everyone in the CFR is a fanatical globalist determined to sell out America's sovereignty, but most are.

That sinister agenda becomes clear even from reading the CFR's own mouthpiece, known as Foreign Affairs. In April 1974, for example, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Richard Gardner explained how the agenda for world government would be pursued. “In short, the house of world order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down,” he wrote. “An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old fashioned assault.” The magazine also regularly promotes regional government, war, and attacks on national sovereignty.

And there is plenty of evidence — including the fruits of his tenure in the Trump administration — suggesting McMaster is among the majority of CFR members who support the globalist agenda. In June, he even attended the premier establishment gathering known as Bilderberg. And among other key policies, McMaster was the architect of the unconstitutional half-baked missile strike on Syrian authorities following a likely false-flag operation — a chemical attack that evidence suggests was probably carried out by globalist-backed jihadists hoping for more U.S. military support. The unconstitutional strike sparked outrage among Trump's staunchest supporters, but was widely celebrated by the establishment and its lackeys.

A decade ago, McMaster joined the globalist-minded International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London as a “senior research associate.” According to the organization itself, his mandate was to “conduct research to identify opportunities for improved multi-national cooperation and political-military integration in the areas of counterinsurgency, counter-terrorism, and state building.” In short, his job was to find ways to advance globalism and what globalists often refer to openly as the “New World Order.”

In recent days, the trickle of information on McMaster's purges and anti-Trump sentiments has turned into a flood. Various reports, though, have suggested that Trump is also becoming increasingly frustrated with McMaster. According to supposed anonymous sources cited by left-wing establishment organ Bloomberg, Trump has clashed frequently with the national security advisor, even complaining in front of McMaster about “the general undermining my policy.” From McMaster's efforts to quash Trump's use of the term “radical Islamic terrorism” and his refusal to get rid of Obama holdovers suspected of leaking, to his purge of Trump loyalists and hostility to the America First agenda, the president is said to be nearing the end of his patience with McMaster.

Unfortunately, as The New American has documented extensively, McMaster is not the only establishment-backed globalist swamp creature haunting the administration and seemingly betraying the American people who voted for Trump. In fact, there are a number of CFR members and Bilderberg attendees burrowed into strategic positions all across the administration. If Trump truly hopes to Make America Great Again, he will have to begin with a purge of globalists and establishment operatives. Considering the ongoing purge of Trump's most loyal people by McMaster, the national security advisor might be a good place to begin draining the swamp — before the swamp manages to drain Trump.

[Silver]

Trump supports civil asset forfeiture. So does his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. Tap dance time for their supporters...again.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... m-its-head

Rand Paul Rages "Civil Asset Forfeiture Turns The American Justice System On Its Head"

Aug 6, 2017 3:00 PM
Authored by Rand Paul via Rare Liberty,

“Innocent until proven guilty” is the bedrock of American jurisprudence. Civil asset forfeiture, a legal process in which the government confiscates your property without a guilty verdict, turns that justice on its head.

Take the case of the Motel Caswell in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. In 2009, owner Russ Caswell found himself the target of a civil forfeiture claim by the federal government and his local police department, even though he had never been accused – much less convicted – of a crime. It should also be noted that, historically, the motel had a good working relationship with the police, even providing them with free rooms for stakeouts and contacting them about suspicious activities.

The government’s basis for seizing the property? Fifteen “drug-related incidents” over a 14-year period – out of around 196,000 rooms rented.

In its reporting on the case, WBUR recounted how a DEA agent testified that it was his job “to seek out targets for forfeiture by watching television news and reading newspapers” and to check the Registry of Deeds after discovering properties where drug crimes had taken place. The Motel Caswell, with a more than $1 million value and lack of mortgage, became the focus of a combined effort between the DEA and the local police, according to the agent.

If the Caswells had lost, the federal government and local police department could have split the proceeds of selling the property under so-called “equitable sharing” – with the police department keeping up to 80 percent of the profit.



With the help of the Institute for Justice, which took on their case pro bono, the Caswells triumphed in court. But not every story gets such a happy ending.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration is moving in the wrong direction on this issue — Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to increase civil forfeitures. Sessions reversed a 2015 ban on adoptive seizures, which occur when state law enforcement officers circumvent state limitations on civil forfeiture by turning seized property over to federal officials for forfeiture in exchange for up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the forfeited property. The Department of Justice has perversely incentivized police to turn civil forfeiture into an industry by allowing police to keep most of the proceeds from forfeiture. In 2014 alone, the federal government took more cash and property from Americans than did burglars.

A major problem with civil forfeiture is that it does not reflect the fundamental presumption of innocence that is vital to our nation’s criminal justice system. The Fifth Amendment protects Americans from being deprived of their property without due process of law, yet civil forfeiture allows the government to take an individual’s property without first proving guilt. To add insult to injury, as Justice Clarence Thomas recently wrote, “These forfeiture operations frequently target the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings.”

Civil forfeiture must be reined in, which is why I led my colleagues in a bipartisan letter to the Department of Justice asking for Attorney General Sessions to rescind its expanded use. Additionally, earlier this year, I introduced the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (“FAIR”) Act. This bill would restore the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” and would require the government to bear the burden of proof that a property owner knew his property was used in criminal activity before it could be confiscated. It would remove the profit incentive of civil forfeiture and restore the motivation to law enforcement of public safety, not financial rewards.

Finally, the bill would eliminate the federal equitable sharing program and ensure that law enforcement cannot ignore state law.

We should not let criminals keep the profits of their crimes, but we must also uphold the fundamental idea that the government should not be able to deprive Americans of their right to property before proving guilt.

[eddie]

Huh?