New Zealand launching ramp: built the world's first private space shuttle

May 22, 2017

The Californian Rocket Lab company has built the island's first private space shuttle into the world. It will be inaugurated with the launch of Electron

http://www.meteoweb.eu/2017/05/nuova-zelanda-in-rampa-di-lancio-cos...

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=y&...

Rocket Lab bets on New Zealand , which becomes the home of the world's first private space shuttle . The Californian company founded by Peter Beck has recently received approval to conduct three test launches of his Electron carrier from the remote Mahia peninsula, located on the eastern coast of the northern island.

The inaugural launch of Electron, a two-stage carrier capable of carrying loads up to 150 pounds , was set for today, but adverse weather conditions delayed the launch to date to be defined.

Spacecraft construction - explains the Italian Space Agency - was enthusiastically welcomed by the New Zealand government, which intends to convey ever-increasing investments in the sector thanks to the creation of the first national space agency. Among the various tasks of the new entity will also be to attract investments from private individuals from around the world.

"So far, only the great powers have been able to access space," commented Simon Bridges , Minister of New Zealand Economic Development, "for us to have the chance to be part of this elite is a big step forward." Spacecraft, according to Rocket Lab plans, should be able to launch every 72 hours , given the low air and sea traffic in the area; Once launched, it will carry 4 or 5 launches per month .

Rocket Lab wants to play an increasingly prominent role in providing small satellite devices with multiple uses - from environmental monitoring to internet services. To put them into orbit, it will use lightweight 'carbon-fiber' rockets with engines made by 3D printers . This is a commercial strategy quite different from that put in place by other competitors such as SpaceX , which uses heavily reusable heavy vectors to carry large load orbit.

Costs , according to forecasts, will be very low: around $ 5 million in launch due to the type of material used to build rockets and for limited use of fuel. The project is receiving the approval of many satellite manufacturing companies, and NASA and Moon Express , a launching company in Silicon Valley that is going to leverage the Moon's economic resources, will be launching NASA and Moon Express .

Hillary Clinton has a coughing fit while delivering Wellesley graduation speech - and has to stop to demand water and a lozenge before blaming allergies

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4545818/Hillary-Clinton-cou...

• Hillary Clinton returned to her alma mater, Wellesley College, on Friday - and her cough returned to the public stage too 
• The Democratic loser was there to deliver the commencement address
• But within minutes she stopped because of a coughing fit like the ones which bedeviled her  campaign and demanded water and a cough lozenge
• She blamed allergies - the same as she had for months in her campaign before she collapsed from pneumonia
• Suggested President Trump would be impeached - but didn't mention that her own husband was too

27 May 2017

Hillary Clinton made a dramatic return to the public stage on Friday - and so did her cough.

The Democratic presidential campaign loser gave the commencement address at her alma mater Wellesley - but had barely started her speech when she had a coughing fit.

After first trying to stifle the cough, Hillary eventually had to stop talking to cough. She was eventually handed a bottle of water by another woman on stage.

She then chalked up the cough to allergies.

Eventually the fit, which resembled those she had on the campaign trail, subsided and she was able to deliver her speech, in which she predicted Donald Trump would be impeached.

The then candidate had frequent coughing fits on the campaign trail last year - which she blamed on pollen.

The real cause of the coughing became the subject of huge speculation about her health, and months of denial of any long-term problem ended in embarrassment when she collapsed at a 9/11 memorial in New York and hours later her doctor said she was being treated for pneumonia.

She had kept her diagnosis from her staff - and voters - for days.

Clinton used the speech to suggest her campaign rival President Trump will get impeached, in sharp remarks where she brought up 'obstruction of justice' and warned of the steps to authoritarianism.

Speaking to gowned graduates at the school where she addressed students in 1969, Clinton brought up Richard Nixon – but it was clear to graduating students what she was referencing.

'We were furious about the past presidential election of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice,' the defeated presidential candidate said – as members of the crowd at the liberal campus erupted into cheers.

Then she brought up Nixon's 'firing the the person running the investigation into him at the Department of Justice' – a line that brought laughs and more cheers.

Both were obvious shots at Trump, who fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of an agency probe of Russian meddling in the U.S. elections.

She never mentioned her husband - who was impeached but whose trial ended in acquittal.

As she addressed students, Clinton also made references to 'authoritarian' regimes, in a criticism of Trump's constant attacks on the media and critics.

'When people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society,' she warned. 'That is not hyperbole, it is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done.'

'You are graduating at a time when there is a full-fledged assault on truth and reason,' she told graduates, referencing White House counselor Kellyanne Conway's defense of 'alternative facts.'

In yet another shot at Trump, Clinton said: 'Some were even denying things we see with our own eyes, like the size of crowds.'

'We got through that tumultuous time,' she told the students.

'We revved up the engine of imagination and innovation. We turned back a tide of intolerance and embraced inclusion,' she said.

'It was millions of ordinary citizens, especially young people, who voted, marched and organized' to bring changes, she said.

Clinton began with remarks about the 'amazing futures' of school grads. She encouraged them to seek office and take other steps to make the world better.

It didn't take long for her to break into a coughing fit, something that happened frequently during her campaign.

'And I’ve gotta get a lozenge,' she said, as the crowd clapped in support.

'Whatever your path, you dreamed big,' she told graduating students.

Back in 1969, Clinton spoke about the push and pull of politics to fellow graduates of her school.

'We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible,' she said. 'And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.'

Even as she went after President Trump by alluding to crimes, she also made light of her defeat.

'You may have heard that things didn’t go exactly the way I’ve planned. But you know what, I’m doing okay,' she said to laughs.

'I’ve gotten to spend time with my family, especially my amazing grandchildren,' she said.

'Long walks in the woods ...  Organizing my closets ... I won’t lie, chardonnay helped a little too,' she quipped.

ZetaTalk Newsletter - Issue 516, Sunday August 21, 2016

http://www.zetatalk.com/newsletr/issue516.htm

Per the Zetas, Hillary’s cough is caused by heart failure, the lungs starting to fill with water on occasion.

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A for July 2, 2016

Bill Clinton ambush of Lynch

http://www.zetatalk.com/ning/02jy2016.htm

What is the cause of Hillary’s mysterious cough, her reported fatigue, and on-and-off bloat and edema?  She has heart failure, a result of her almost constant anger over the years. The major symptoms of heart failure are edema, a cough as the failing heart puts fluid into the lungs, and fatigue. We have previously stated that Hillary also has MS, the reason for her occasional use of Fensel lenses for double vision. She takes steroids to counteract the MS, a move that aggravates her heart failure as steroids cause the body to hold water. Where is this heading, as her health and the looming indictment collide? Potentially hospitalization, or a sudden death from a fibrillating heart.

First Major media CBS 60 Minutes interview disclosure 5-28-17?

Bigelow Aerospace founder says commercial world will lead in space

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bigelow-aerospace-founder-says-commerci...

NASA and Las Vegas entrepreneur have partnered on a technology that could change how humans live and work in space

There's a new space race and it's not between the U.S. and Russia. It's between private companies and it's attracted multimillionaires and billionaires, like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. A less likely player is Las Vegas real-estate tycoon, Robert Bigelow, who, at 73, is making the biggest gamble of his life -- not on rockets -- but on expandable spacecraft, large, lightweight structures that inflate in space, a technology that could dramatically change how humans live and work in zero gravity. 

Robert Bigelow CBS News

NASA has partnered with Robert Bigelow, who's an unconventional figure in the aerospace world. He's more at home on the Vegas strip than at America's space agency, and he's obsessed with aliens and UFOs. In the spring of last year, he and NASA carried out an historic test to prove his high-flying technology is ready to support humans in space.

When Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket roared into the skies above Cape Canaveral, it was on a mission for NASA, carrying nearly 7,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station -- food, supplies and Robert Bigelow's expandable spacecraft.

Robert Bigelow: Flying to the International Space Station is a really big deal. It's an experimental spacecraft, which is a big deal. We don't know how it's gonna behave for sure.

Lara Logan: Does that make you nervous?

Robert Bigelow: I'm nervous because I'm a nervous person, I think, and I don't necessarily always expect things to go right.

Bigelow's inflatable was packed inside the rocket's cargo capsule, known as Dragon, which you see here making it's way to the space station. We sped up this video from NASA because it took two days to get there.

It was moved into place, then just over a month later, we joined Bigelow at Houston Mission Control to see it inflate, the last critical step. If it worked, it would make history, the first expandable structure for humans in space.

Lara Logan: So what is it like for you this moment watching this happen?

Robert Bigelow: Severe curiosity as to what's gonna happen next.

Some 250 miles above the Earth, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams injected air. It was supposed to last about an hour. But took two tries over two days.

Finally, it worked. In this time-lapse video, you're seeing it expand in seconds. Close to $300 million and 16 years to get here. But for Bigelow, it was just a beginning. 

Under 80-foot ceilings at his company in Las Vegas, he showed us his next generation plans for outer space. He calls this the Olympus, a mansion for the skies. It's so large the rocket powerful enough to launch it is still years away.

Lara Logan: Is there anything this big that astronauts are working in today?

Robert Bigelow: No, nothing even remotely close.

Bigelow said he can turn this into anything a client wants -- a first-ever orbiting hotel, hospital or inflatable research facility. The B330 is smaller than the Olympus. This is what it would look like if it were used as a space station.

Lara Logan: This can function on its own?

Robert Bigelow: Well, it can function as a standalone destination because it has all the facilities that it would take to keep people alive.

For countries hoping to make their mark in space, Bigelow said this offers an affordable way in. Private industry, he believes, is becoming more dominant in developing space.

Robert Bigelow: NASA and government still has a role because it is still in a sort of embryonic stage. And there will come a time when it's not necessary at all.  And the commercial world will absolutely be the leader for everything in space.

Lara Logan: What about the idea of national pride and what we do as nations. Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. He didn't do that for a private company. He did that for the United States of America and it meant something.

"...the commercial world will absolutely be the leader for everything in space."

Robert Bigelow: You bet it did. And that created a period of inspiration that hasn't been matched ever since. So now we're looking for a new era that says, "All right, how can we now shape this to where it's more accessible for a lot more folks at a lot less cost and still have safety and reliability at the same time?"

With no formal training in science or engineering, Robert Bigelow created an aerospace company with scientists and engineers that's achieved what no one else in the industry has done. His expandable spacecraft are the first and only alternative to the metal structures that have housed every astronaut in space for over half a century.

For Bigelow, it all began with growing up in a time of nuclear tests. As a young boy, he would watch the skies over Nevada light up with the bursts of atomic bombs.

Robert Bigelow: Witnessing those explosions in the 50s and 60s, you weren't aware of the ultimate ramifications of those kinds of things but there was a real strong feeling of energy and a secretiveness and so forth and it was cool.

Armstrong: "That's one small step for man…"

Later, he watched Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon, a moment in history he said still inspires him.

Robert Bigelow: The approach wasn't lightening fast…

But on this canyon road just outside Las Vegas, Robert Bigelow's story takes a turn that some may find, to put it lightly, improbable. He told us this is where his grandparents had a close encounter with a UFO.

Robert Bigelow: It really sped up and came right into their face and filled up the entire windshield of the car. And it took off at a right angle and shot off into the distance.

The story sparked his obsession, and explains the alien looking out from the side of Bigelow Aerospace.  And it made for the kind of conversation you don't ordinarily have with an accomplished CEO.

• Lara Logan: Do you believe in aliens?

  Robert Bigelow: I'm absolutely convinced. That's all there is to it.

  Lara Logan: Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth?

  Robert Bigelow: There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions -- I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.  

  Lara Logan: Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in UFOs and aliens?

  Robert Bigelow: I don't give a damn. I don't care.

  Lara Logan: You don't worry that some people will say, "Did you hear that guy, he sounds like he's crazy"?

  Robert Bigelow: I don't care.

  Lara Logan: Why not?

  Robert Bigelow: It's not gonna make a difference. It's not gonna change reality of what I know.

  Lara Logan: Do you imagine that in our space travels we will encounter other forms of intelligent life?

  Robert Bigelow: You don't have to go anywhere.

  Lara Logan: You can find it here? Where exactly?

  Robert Bigelow: It's just like right under people's noses. Oh my gosh. Wow.

   

The FAA confirmed to us that for years, it referred reports of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena to a company Bigelow owns. He told us he's had his own close encounters, but declined to go into detail.   

Robert Bigelow's quirky and he knows it, but when you have as much money as he does, no one -- not even NASA -- seems to care.

He bought the idea for his inflatable technology from the space agency. NASA had been working on this since the early 1960s -- but when Congress killed its program in 2000, Bigelow seized the opportunity and invested tens of millions of dollars to advance NASA's original idea.

It took him just six years to launch the first expandable spacecraft into orbit. His second followed a year later. But those were never meant for humans.

At that time, Bigelow was still trying to prove his inflatable structures would survive in space. A decade later, with both still circling the Earth intact, NASA felt the technology was ready to be tested for humans. Bigelow still monitors these spacecraft from his own mission control in Las Vegas.

https://theinternationalreporter.org/2017/06/04/fbi-nabs-hillary-cl...

FBI Nabs Hillary Clinton “Lost” Emails In Surprise Raid On Huma Abedin Home

The believed to be “lost” emails belonging to former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were recovered on 1 June when special agents of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided a home in Dearborn, Michigan, owned by a “shell company” belonging to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s brother and sister. 

from whatdoesitmean:

According to this bulletin, during the afternoon of 1 June, SVR intelligence analysts reported that a specialized team of FBI special agents and US Department of Justice prosecutors hurriedly left Washington D.C. enroute to Dearborn, Michigan, where upon landing they were sped by a large convoy to a multi-family home located at 7246 Jonathon Street that they promptly raided stating to the local press that they were “investigating a matter of national security” and further saying that: “There’s no threat to public safety in the area, so folks don’t need to be concerned about any dangerous situation.”

Important to note about this Jonathon Street home in Dearborn, this bulletin continues, is that it is owned by a subsidiary “shell corporation” established by the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs that’s long been known as a Abedin family business where Huma Abedin’s brother, Hassan Abedin, is a book-review editor and her sister, Heba Abedin, is an assistant editor.

Born into an illustrious family of Brotherhood leaders, this bulletin details, Huma Abedin has been labeled as “nothing short of a Muslim Brotherhood princess” who grew up barely two hours from Dearborn in Kalamazoo, Michigan—and who, in August, 2016, mysteriously broke off from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign to make a secret trip to Dearborn, that is now the largest Muslim city in America.

Just a few months before Huma Abedin’s secret visit to Dearborn, this bulletin says, she had been interviewed by the FBI investigating Hillary Clinton’s “lost” emails—and from her testimony, the FBI reported that a laptop containing a copy, or “archive,” of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server was apparently lost—in the postal mail—along with a thumb drive that also contained an archive of Clinton’s emails.

Twelve days ago, however, this bulletin explains, Huma Abedin’s husband, the now convicted sex-offender, and former US Congressman, Anthony Weiner, was indicted by a secret US grand jury, arrested by the FBI, and pled guilty to sex charges in a US Federal Court in the span of 2 hours, and that the SVR described at the time as being the fastest processing of such a case in American history—and that we detailed in our 22 May report titled “Most Secret Grand Jury In American History Paralyzes Washington Wit...”.

Being taken by surprise at her husband’s “lightning fast” arrest and conviction, and his facing up to 2 years prison time, this bulletin continues, Huma Abedin filed for divorce against Anthony Weiner just mere hour....

Three days ago, though, this bulletin notes, on 31 May, both Huma Abedin and her husband Anthony Weiner met with top level FBI agents in New York City—immediately after which they renewed the lease on their luxurious Union Square duplex and r....

Barely 24 hours after Huma Abedin and her husband Anthony Weiner moved back into their luxurious New York City home, this bulletin says, FBI special agents and US Department of Justice prosecutors raided the Abedin owned property in Dearborn—leading the SVR to conclude that during Huma Abedin’s secret trip to Dearborn last summer, she “secreted/hid” within that home critical evidence relating to Hillary Clinton’s “lost” emails—and maybe even the “lost” computer and thumb drive too.

With there being no doubt that both Huma Abedin and her husband Anthony Weiner are now in full cooperation with President Trump’s Department of Justice, this bulletin concludes, the US mainstream propaganda media, nevertheless, remains fixated on their “fake news” Russian hysteria campaign that President Putin suggests they need a “chill pill” to cure themselves of—but with the newest member of this elitist cabal of leftist journalists, named Megyn Kelly, shocking the world yesterday after she asked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “Are you on Twitter?” (Modi has the 2^nd most viewed Twitter feed in the world with over 30 million followers, 2^nd only to President Trump), once again proof is shown that only “uneducated idiots” are allowed to report the news in America today.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/19/chinese-broadcasting-satellit...

Chinese broadcasting satellite ends up in wrong orbit after rocket failure

June 19, 2017

Ground controllers could try to salvage a Chinese television broadcasting satellite deployed in a lower-than-planned orbit Sunday by a Long March 3B rocket.

A brief statement from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., a state-run contractor for China’s space program, confirmed an anomaly in the Long March 3B rocket’s third stage left the Chinasat 9A communications satellite in the wrong orbit following a liftoff from the Xichang space center.

An investigation into the cause of the launch failure is underway, CASC said.

The contractor said the Chinasat 9A satellite separated from the Long March 3B’s third stage after the anomaly and deployed its electricity-generating solar panels and antennas. The spacecraft is apparently healthy and in contact with engineers on the ground, who are taking “relevant efforts” to control the satellite, according to CASC.

Officials did not elaborate on what went wrong on the Long March 3B’s third stage, which is powered by a dual-nozzle YF-75 engine that burns a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

Sunday’s launch mishap was the first time one of China’s Long March 3-series rockets has failed to deliver a payload into its intended orbit since August 2009. Variants of the Long March 3 rocket, which include configurations with and without strap-on boosters, logged 49 straight successful launches in the last seven-and-a-half years.

China’s other Long March rockets, which use the same engine technology as the Long March 3-series, have suffered failures in recent years. A Chinese Earth observation satellite was destroyed during the botched launch of a Long March 4C booster Sept. 1, and a Long March 2D placed a pair of commercial Earth-imaging spacecraft into a lower-than-intended orbit in December, but those satellites recovered from the rocket mishap.

U.S. military tracking data indicated Chinasat 9A is orbiting around Earth at altitudes ranging between 120 miles (193 kilometers) and approximately 10,165 miles (16,360 kilometers), significantly lower than intended.

The rocket’s upper stage aimed to release Chinasat 9A in an egg-shaped elliptical orbit with an apogee, or high point, around 35,800 kilometers (22,300 miles) above Earth.

Chinasat 9A carried its own fuel to circularize its orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator following its deployment from the Long March 3B. If the satellite is able to overcome the altitude deficit after Sunday’s launch, it will have to consume more of its on-board propellant supply than expected, likely shortening its useful life.

In addition to the orbit-raising maneuvers needed to reach its final operating position, Chinasat 9A must also reshape its orbit, which is currently tilted 25.7 degrees to the equator, into one that always hovers over the equator.

The 184-foot-tall (56-meter) Long March 3B rocket lifted off with Chinasat 9A at 1611 GMT (12:11 p.m. EDT) Sunday from the Xichang launch base in southwestern China’s Sichuan province.

The liquid-fueled launcher, comprised of a three-stage core and four strap-on boosters, turned east from Xichang after blasting off at 12:11 a.m. Monday, Beijing time.

Chinese media did not release any photos of the launch, but an amateur video from Xichang shared on Twitter shows the rocket taking off just after midnight.

The early portion of the mission went according to plan, and the Long March shed its four boosters and first stage a few minutes after liftoff. A second stage firing also apparently performed well, and the third stage took over nearly six minutes into the flight for the first of two burns needed to place Chinasat 9A into a geostationary transfer orbit.

The third stage’s first engine firing was expected to cut off around 10 minutes after liftoff to propel Chinasat 9A into a preliminary low-altitude orbit, and a second burn a few minutes later was supposed to send the spacecraft toward its high-altitude target.

Chinasat 9A, with a launch mass estimated in excess of 11,000 pounds (5 metric tons), was scheduled to separate from the Long March 3B’s third stage less than a half-hour after liftoff.

Based on the DFH-4 satellite design built by the China Academy of Space Technology, Chinasat 9A is China’s first domestically-made communications satellite for direct-to-home television broadcasting, according to China Satcom, the craft’s owner and operator.

Chinasat 9A was supposed to enter service later this year in geostationary orbit over the equator at 101.4 degree east longitude, where its orbital velocity would match the speed of Earth’s rotation, making the satellite remain fixed over the same geographic coverage area.

The satellite’s 24 Ku-band transponders are designed to provide television broadcasts and other media services to China Satcom customers in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the company said.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/19/chinese-broadcasting-satellit...

Astounding statistics breach: "more than half of the American population"!!

Data on 198M voters exposed by GOP contractor

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/338383-data-on-198-million-...

Satellite Operator SES reconnects with AMC-9, sights possible fragments (UFO's?)

http://spacenews.com/ses-reconnects-with-amc-9-sights-possible-frag...

SES says the orbit for AMC-9 is understood and won't collide with operational satellites. Credit: SES

WASHINGTON — Satellite operator SES says it has regained the ability to communicate with AMC-9, a 14-year old satellite in the company’s fleet that stopped listening to commands June 17, but that the satellite continues to list westward from its geosynchronous orbital slot.

In a statement provided to SpaceNews July 2, Luxembourg-based SES said that two pieces of debris have also been spotted in the satellite’s vicinity. SES said it has not concluded yet if the objects broke off from AMC-9.

U.S. Air Force’s Joint Space Operations Center and ExoAnalytic Solutions, a commercial space situational awareness company with a network of more than 150 ground-based telescopes, are both monitoring the satellite, SES said. The operator turned off the satellite’s payload shortly after discovering the anomaly in June and has since transferred the majority of customers using the satellite to other SES spacecraft.

SES on June 27 reduced the forecasted impact on the operator’s 2017 revenue to “lower than EUR 20 million” ($22.9 million). Should SES and Thales Alenia Space, the satellite’s manufacturer, determine AMC-9 cannot be recovered, SES expects to take a single impairment charge of 38 million euros.

Here is SES’s full statement:

In the early hours of 1^st July, the SES Satellite Control reestablished contact to AMC-9. SES and the satellite manufacturer Thales are working around the clock to evaluate the status and define the next steps.

Tracking information received on 29 June had suggested that at least two separate objects were located in the vicinity of AMC-9. Their source has still to be determined. The new piece of information was included by Thales and SES in their investigations.

All relevant operators and agencies are being kept informed and will receive regular updates from SES. The current assessment is that there is no risk of a collision with other active satellites. AMC-9 and its status continue to being tracked by SES and agencies, including the Joint Space Operations Centre (JSpOC) and ExoAnalytic, a private firm and tracking service provider.

Since the incident on 17 June 2017, AMC-9 has been slowly moving westwards with its payload disabled and not causing interference. A majority of traffic has been transferred to other SES satellites and SES is working on a long-term plan to minimize disruption to customers.

https://youtu.be/BaytUNn2BRI

Wasserman-Schultz IT Aide Arrested While Attempting To Flee Country, Charged With Bank Fraud

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-25/wasserman-schultz-it-aide-...

Just a day after reports emerged that the FBI had seized a number of "smashed hard drives" and other computer equipment from the residence Imran Awan, the IT aide of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, we learn that Awan has been captured at the Dulles airport while attempted to flee the country.  According to Fox News, Awan has been charged with bank fraud.

Feds/USCP bust Hse IT staffer Imran Awan & charge him with multiple counts of bank fraud as part of Hse IT procurement scandal

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Feds/USCP picked up Imran Awan at Dulles Aiport last night as he was "trying to leave the country." Has been arraigned. Surrendered passport

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Inexplicably, or perhaps not, Awan has been kept on the payroll of former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz despite a rapidly escalating scandal that potentially involves multiple federal crimes.

Group of Hse Dems fired other Hse IT staffers probed by USCP. But Wasserman Schultz kept Awan on payroll. He was barred from Hse servers

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Fox is told that Hse IT staffer Imran Awan is still on Hse payroll for moment under Wasserman Schultz.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Meanwhile, here is a list of the 30 other Democrats that had the Awans on their taxpayer-funded payrolls.

Some of the #Democrats who had Pakistani IT workers (currently under investigation) on their payroll. #AwanBrothers https://t.co/XvrJ6H1iW9 pic.twitter.com/gVjNkfqWH3

— Nick Short ???????? (@PoliticalShort) May 22, 2017

For those who have managed to avoid this story, which wouldn't be difficult given that the mainstream media has made every attempt to ignore it, the Pakistani-born brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan are at the center of a criminal investigation by U.S. Capital Hill Police and the FBI.  Up until now, allegations of wrong doing have varied from overcharging taxpayers for congressional IT equipment to blackmailing members of Congress with secrets captured from the emails of their Democrat employers.

Just yesterday we learned that FBI agents reportedly seized a number of "smashed hard drives" and other computer equipment from the Awan's former residence in Virginia.

FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to an individual who was interviewed by Bureau investigators in the case and a high level congressional source.

 

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, the individual told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

 

The congressional source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, confirmed that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network” by Imran and three of his relatives, who had access to the emails and files of the more than two dozen House Democrats who employed them on a part-time basis.

 

Capitol Police have also seized computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker.

As background, Imran was first employed in 2004 by former Democrat Rep. Robert Wexler (FL) as an “information technology director”, before he began working in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s office in 2005.

The family was paid extremely well, with Imran Awan being paid nearly $2 million working as an IT support staffer for House Democrats since 2004. Abid Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, were each paid more than $1 million working for House Democrats. In total, since 2003, the family has collected nearly $5 million.

The staffer’s services were so important to congressional members, that on March 22, 2016, eight democrat members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a letter, requesting that their staffers be granted access to Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI). Of those that signed the letter were representatives Jackie Speier (CA) and Andre Carson (IN), the second Muslim in Congress, both of whom employed the Awan brothers.

The brothers were also employed by members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, such as: Jackie Speier (D-CA), Andre Carson (D-IN), Joaquín Castro (D-TX), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Robin Kelly (D-IL), and Ted Lieu (D-CA). Lieu has since openly called for leaks by members of President Trump's administration despite the fact that he may until recently have been under surveillance by a foreign entity.

One bombshell that has been all but ignored by the main stream media is that Imran Awan had access to Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s iPad password, meaning that the brothers also had direct access to the notorious DNC emails.

The brothers are accused of removing hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment from congressional offices, including computers and servers, while also running a procurement scheme in which they bought equipment, then overcharged the House administrative office that assigns such contractors to members.

Some congressional technology aides believe that the Awan’s are blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, due to the fact that these representatives have displayed unwavering and intense loyalty towards the former aides.

Meanwhile, back in March the Daily Caller reported that the Awan brothers were essentially holding their stepmother in "captivity" in order to extort her for money she had stashed away in Pakistan.

Congressional staffers allegedly held their stepmother in “captivity” with violent threats in a plan to use her to access money stashed away in the Middle East. The staffers are suspected of using their positions to enrich themselves.

 

Days before U.S. Capitol Police told House members three Pakistani brothers who ran their computer networks may have stolen congressional data, their stepmother called Fairfax County, Virginia police to say the Democratic staffers were keeping her from her husband’s deathbed.

 

A relative described the woman’s life as being completely controlled by the brothers for months while they schemed to take their father’s life insurance.

 

The brothers — who as IT professionals for Congress could read House members’ emails — allegedly used wiretapping devices on their own stepmother and threatened to abduct loved ones in Pakistan if she didn’t give them access to money stowed away in that country.

Of course, if Republicans and/or members of the Trump administration hired foreign-born IT specialists who were suspected of committing a laundry list of federal crimes and then smashed a bunch of hard drives just before skipping town...we're sure the media would still gloss right over it in much the same way they're doing for the the Democrats in this instance.

Car owners, police, fighter pilots, military: Sweden accidentally leaks huge trove of citizen data

https://www.rt.com/news/397400-sweden-citizen-data-leak-disaster/

25 Jul, 2017

There has been alot of noise from the establishment re: censoring "fake news". Censorship of grassroots news outlets has already begun...

John Podesta: Social Media Companies should police Fake News.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/08/john-podesta-social-media-c...

"I think that again the social media companies have a responsibility to try to do a better job of knocking off fake sites and be able to police to some extent the propagation of fake news,” Podesta said

Evidence of Google blacklisting of left and progressive sites continues to mount
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/08/goog-a08.html

A growing number of leading left-wing websites have confirmed that their search traffic from Google has plunged in recent months, adding to evidence that Google, under the cover of a fraudulent campaign against fake news, is implementing a program of systematic and widespread censorship.
Truthout, a not-for-profit news website that focuses on political, social, and ecological developments from a left progressive standpoint, had its readership plunge by 35 percent since April. The Real News , a nonprofit video news and documentary service, has had its search traffic fall by 37 percent. Another site, Common Dreams , last week told the WSWS that its search traffic had fallen by up to 50 percent.

(It is such kind of websites that engage in inquisitive journalism - hard hitting, connecting the dots & bringing different perspectives. This censorship lets the elite control flow of inconvenient information ala Podesta leaks. But more importantly as disclosure unfolds, we want brave minds asking the right questions, unencumbered by the elite's influence.

Real journalism that is out of the elite's control is being squeezed.. Im sure It will only get worse)

REPORT: Wikileaks Exposes 6 Top Republicans Bribed by Clinton to ‘Destroy Trump’

http://conservativefighters.com/news/report-wikileaks-exposes-6-top...

Let’s not forget, the Deep State has infiltrated the Republican party and IS out to get President Trump.

Wikileaks revealed in December what we’ve all been saying for some time now: the GOP is full of traitors and Clinton cronies, and they’ve been working day and night to ruin President Trump.

Paul Ryan, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain were all named in the latest Wikileaks release, and apparently were in the tank to not only ensure Trump lost the election, but to undermine him if he won; and that’s exactly what they’re doing.

This is a clear cut case of TREASON and should be treated as such.

These traitors should be immediately rounded up and removed from office, the sheer audacity and treacherous nature of these wretched people is almost unfathomable.

From Your News Wire

In an email from John Podesta to Huma Abedin, the pair discuss diverting Clinton campaign funds to various Republicans who were secretly on the Clinton payroll.

Conservativedailypost.com reports:

The email, sent in July of this year, describes how funds were being diverted from Clinton’s campaign to the Super PACS of Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, and John Kasich.

According to the email:
“JB, CF, and JK PACS will be noticeably silent for the rest of the campaign. Each will receive a significant allowance from advertising budget. HRC is in the loop and has talked to all three personally. Eyes only.”

Other emails that surfaced but do not refer to anything other than title have also surfaced that raised eyebrowS. It seems at a glance that the Clinton Foundation, or as I am calling it, the Pantsuit Mafia, has bought off several key members of the Republican Party to push the Clinton agenda. Such as:

“He is on board, will retract the invitation to speak. Eyes only.”

This email was dated days before Speaker of the House Paul Ryan withdrew the invitation to Donald Trump to speak at an event in Wisconsin. Even though we do not have the ‘smoking gun’ to say it was him, no other logical conclusion can be assumed.

Other emails hint at the money being moved to Republican elected officials in the House and Senate. For instance FEC reports shows that two large donations from PACS and private sources ln early October went to John McCain right after he attacked Trump publicly criticized Trump. That happened shortly after a slew of emails concerning moving money to support one candidate and move support from another.

Shortly thereafter, his challenger in this tight race, Kirkpatrick, lost several key donors and money and support lessened from the DNC and the DSCC in the last few weeks of the race. The thing to note is that McCain is one of the lead sponsors of a committee to investigate any Russian influence into the election.

Senator Lindsay Graham, another outspoken critic of Donald Trump and briefly candidate for President from July to December also it seems received help from the Clintons. An email that simply states, “Cleared the road for him in 2020,” could mean that there will be no strong or supported Democrat in the South Carolina Senate race when Graham is up for re-election.

As with McCain, Graham has publicly called for a look into the Russian influence in the election.

There were a lot of politicians who were opposed to Donald Trump. These, in particular, all share a common bond, however: Trump humiliated them on stage in front of hundreds of millions of people around the world. This is more than just politics or conscientious objecting, this was revenge.

Not just revenge. This is out and out treason. Our representatives took an oath to support our Constitution and its laws for our benefit, not theirs. This is why gridlock is prevalent in D.C.–the treachery and the corruption are on both sides of the coin.

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing who the true Republicans are and who are the ones that are fronts for the Clinton machine, the Pantsuit Mafia. The number of emails is too overwhelming to easily sift through them all to find all of the turncoat RINOs. We must be diligent to ferret out those that have sold their souls for power.

The only hope that we have for transparency of the Clintons anytime soon rests in an audit carried out by the IRS.

Behold, in recent days, there is a call to impeach the Commissioner of the IRS. Interesting times we live in to be sure. Only time and work on our part will push this audit forward.

Even though Hillary lost the Presidency, she is still a power behind the scenes with these revelations. With her Democratic allies in Pelosi and Schumer and her Republican lackeys in the form of Ryan and other Republicans, she will set the agenda and pull the strings. We the people will have no idea who is on our side and who is not.

For the Clintons, it will mean that even though the American people are supporting Trump and making America great again, they will set the agenda. We will be left scratching our heads and wondering how the GOP and Trump cannot accomplish anything. Clinton will be in control without having to ever show her hand or be responsible to the people.

The Soros-Clinton team will have killed the Republic and we will never know until it is too late.

This Russian news story perhaps is the ultimate coup for the Clinton Camp. She does not even have to be the winner of the Electoral College vote to have gained power. Should enough electors defect to Hillary or name another candidate in their votes (Electors are NOT legally bound to vote for their candidate), then that could throw the vote into the House and Senate.

The suspicious part of this simply is this, On January 20th a new president will be inaugurated. The Constitution in the 25th Amendment spells out the line of succession if there is still not a picked President, the Vice President shall become president (Kaine or Pence).

If the Senate has not picked a Vice-President by noon on the 20th, the Speaker of the House shall become President. Coincidence?

The Roman Republic lasted for centuries in the hands of the people before falling to become the Roman Empire. That change did not happen by a foreign invasion or foreign intrigue. No barbarian or forceful enemy defeated that Republic over 2000 years ago.

It was defeated from the inside by the treachery of the Senate and the blood of the slain Julius Caesar. Just as Caesar was stabbed in the back by men he thought were his allies, Trump is facing the same treachery.

In the coming days and months, without our help and diligence, President Trump may also be gasping…..”Et Tu, Paul?”

Massive Data Breach At Equifax: As Many As 143 Million Social Security Numbers Hacked

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-07/massive-data-breach-equifa...

Push to unseal the draft Whitewater indictment against Hillary Clinton gets court date

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article17445479...

A federal appeals court will hear a case brought by Judicial Watch on Friday to make public draft indictments of Hillary Clinton from the Whitewater scandal in the 1990s.

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that files Freedom of Information Act requests, wants copies of the documents that the National Archives and Records Administration has declined to release. It filed a FOIA request for the documents in March 2015 and in October 2015 the group sued for the 238 pages of responsive records.

According to Judicial Watch: “The National Archives argues that the documents should be kept secret, citing grand jury secrecy and Clinton’s personal privacy.”

But Judicial Watch says that because so much about the Whitewater case has already been made public, “there is no secrecy or privacy left to protect.”

The Times correspondent Mark Lander explains how Mrs. Clinton’s transformations through her life “chronicle, in some ways, the post-World War II history of the United States.”

The documents in question are alleged drafts of indictments written by Hickman Ewing, the chief deputy of Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel appointed to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s alleged involvement in fraudulent real estate dealings. Although others were sentenced for their role in the matter, neither Clinton was ever prosecuted.

Ewing told investigators he drafted the indictments in April 1995. According to Judicial Watch, the documents pertain to allegations that Hillary Clinton provided false information and withheld information from those investigating Whitewater.

Equifax: 2.5 million more Americans may be affected by hack

http://www.10tv.com/article/equifax-25-million-more-americans-may-b...

Credit report company Equifax said Monday that an additional 2.5 million Americans may have been affected by the massive security breach of its systems, bringing the total to 145.5 million people who had their personal information accessed or stolen.

Equifax said the company it hired to investigate the breach, Mandiant, has concluded its investigation and plans to release the results "promptly." The company also said it would update its own notification for people who want to check if they were among those affected by Oct. 8.

The information stolen earlier this year included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses — the kind of information that could put people at significant risk for identity theft.

While Equifax previously said up to 100,000 Canadian citizens may have been affected, it said Monday that the completed review did not bear that out and it determined that the information of only about 8,000 Canadian consumers was involved.

The update comes as Equifax's former CEO, Richard Smith, who announced his retirement last month, will testify in front of Congress starting Tuesday. He's expected to face bipartisan anger from politicians who have expressed outrage that a company tasked with securing vast amounts of personal data was unable to keep their security software up to date.

In prepared testimony, he apologized and said human error and technology failures allowed the data breach. He also apologized for the way the company handled the announcement of what happened.

"To each and every person affected by this breach, I am deeply sorry that this occurred," Smith said in his prepared remarks. "Whether your personal identifying information was compromised, or you have had to deal with the uncertainty of determining whether or not your personal data may have been compromised, I sincerely apologize. The company failed to prevent sensitive information from falling into the hands of wrongdoers."

Equifax also faces several state and federal inquiries and numerous class-action lawsuits. At least one state, Massachusetts, and the cities of San Francisco and Chicago have sued Equifax as well.

www.msn.com/en-my/money/technology/yahoo-says-all-three-billion-acc...

© REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration A photo illustration shows a Yahoo logo on smartphone in front of a displayed cyber code and keyboardYahoo on Tuesday said that all 3 billion of its accounts were hacked in a 2013 data theft, tripling its earlier estimate of the size of the largest breach in history, in a disclosure that attorneys said sharply increased the legal exposure of its new owner, Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N).

The news expands the likely number and claims of class action lawsuits by shareholders and Yahoo account holders, they said. Yahoo, the early face of the internet for many in the world, already faced at least 41 consumer class-action lawsuits in U.S. federal and state courts, according to company securities filing in May.

John Yanchunis, a lawyer representing some of the affected Yahoo users, said a federal judge who allowed the case to go forward still had asked for more information to justify his clients' claims.

"I think we have those facts now," he said. "It's really mind-numbing when you think about it."

Yahoo said last December that data from more than 1 billion accounts was compromised in 2013, the largest of a series of thefts that forced Yahoo to cut the price of its assets in a sale to Verizon.

Yahoo on Tuesday said "recently obtained new intelligence" showed all user accounts had been affected. The company said the investigation indicated that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information.

But the information was protected with outdated, easy-to-crack encryption, according to academic experts. It also included security questions and backup email addresses, which could make it easier to break into other accounts held by the users.

Many Yahoo users have multiple accounts, so far fewer than 3 billion were affected, but the theft ranks as the largest to date, and a costly one for the internet pioneer.

Verizon in February lowered its original offer by $350 million for Yahoo assets in the wake of two massive cyber attacks at the internet company.

Some lawyers asked whether Verizon would look for a new opportunity to address the price.

"This is a bombshell," said Mark Molumphy, lead counsel in a shareholder derivative lawsuit against Yahoo's former leaders over disclosures about the hacks.

Verizon did not respond to a request for comment about any possible lawsuit over the deal.

Verizon, the likely main target of legal actions, also could be challenged as it launches a new brand, Oath, to link its Yahoo, AOL and Huffington Post internet properties.

In August in the separate lawsuit brought by Yahoo's users, U.S. Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, ruled Yahoo must face nationwide litigation brought on behalf of owners accounts who said their personal information was compromised in the three breaches. Yanchunis, the lawyer for the users, said his team planned to use the new information later this month to expanding its allegations.

© REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo FILE PHOTO: A photo illustration shows a man in front of a Yahoo logo seen through a magnifying glass in front of a displayed cyber code

Also on Tuesday, Senator John Thune, chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, said he plans to hold a hearing later this month over massive data breaches at Equifax Inc (EFX.N) and Yahoo. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission already had been probing Yahoo over the hacks.

The closing of the Verizon deal, which was first announced in July, had been delayed as the companies assessed the fallout from two data breaches that Yahoo disclosed last year. The company paid $4.48 billion for Yahoo's core business.

A Yahoo official emphasized Tuesday that the 3 billion figure included many accounts that were opened but that were never, or only briefly, used.

The company said it was sending email notifications to additional affected user accounts.

The new revelation follows months of scrutiny by Yahoo, Verizon, cybersecurity firms and law enforcement that failed to identify the full scope of the 2013 hack.

The investigation underscores how difficult it was for companies to get ahead of hackers, even when they know their networks had been compromised, said David Kennedy, chief executive of cybersecurity firm TrustedSEC LLC.

Companies often do not have systems in place to gather up and store all the network activity that investigators could use to follow the hackers' tracks.

“This is a real wake up call,” Kennedy said. “In most guesses, it is just guessing what they had access to."

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil, Jim Finkle, Jim Christie, Jon Stempel, and David Shepardson; writing by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Andrew Hay and Lisa Shumaker)

Orban Launches Intelligence Probe Into George Soros' "Open Society" Network

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-27/orban-launches-intelligenc...

Apparently, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban thinks his propaganda campaign to discredit Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros - Orban’s political archnemesis - hasn’t been sufficiently effective.

As Orban’s ruling party gears up for parliamentary elections in April - where it is the prohibitive favorite to win largely thanks to its refusal to accept refugees under a plan devised by the European Commission - the prime minister has instructed his intelligence services to map what he described as the networks run by the billionaire financier’s “empire” targeting his country, Bloomberg reported.

Intelligence agencies will help evaluate what he sees as efforts by Soros to get Hungary punished by EU institutions pursuing a “mixed-population” continent, Orban said in an interview with Kossuth Radio on Friday.

The Associated Press added that the investigation will also focus on alleged Hungarian members of the network.

Intelligence agencies will help evaluate what Orban sees as efforts by Soros to get Hungary punished by EU institutions pursuing a “mixed-population” continent, Orban said in an interview with Kossuth Radio on Friday.

Orban speaks often of a coming split in Europe between “migrant-free zone” and those in the west who refuse calls to “haul” undocumented migrants away.

The unraveling of the friendship between Orban and Soros in some ways mirrors the falling out between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US-based cleric Fehtullah Gulen in terms of the extent of the deterioration.

Three decades ago, billionaire financier George Soros paid for a young Viktor Orbán to study in Britain. And as recently as 2010, Soros donated $1 million to Orbán’s government to help the cleanup effort following the infamous “red sludge” disaster.

But the once-warm relationship between the two men has deteriorated substantially over the past seven years, as Orban has drifted further to the right. In 2014, the leader of Hungary’s Fidesz party declared he would seek to model Hungary’s government after “illiberal” democracies like the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In response, Soros this summer denounced his former protege and accused him of creating a “mafia state” in Hungary.

Orban responded by accusing Soros's network of using the European Union to achieve its own aims, including the promotion of mass migration into Europe.

Orban was no doubt provoked to launch the probe by reports Soros has donated $18 billion from his family office to his “Open Society” foundation, his primary tool for influence policy throughout the west. The group funds a network of dozens of organizations that fund liberal, globalist causes throughout Europe and the US. At times, recipients of funding have included Black Lives Matter groups, and even Antifa.

But will Orban’s investigation morph into a full-on, Turkey-style purge of anyone with ties to Soros’ linked organizations, regardless of their actual complicity? That, of course, remains to be seen.

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

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s prime minister has claimed that a network funded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros is using the European Union to achieve its own aims, including the promotion of mass migration into Europe.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Friday on state radio that his country’s intelligence services need to uncover the extent and influence of the network, including its alleged Hungarian members.

Soros’ representatives have rejected similar claims by Orban before, saying they are meant to distract voters from domestic issues.

Orban, to seek his third consecutive term in April, has targeted Soros in negative publicity campaigns.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/10/30/tony-podesta-...

BREAKING: Tony Podesta Resigns as Mueller Closes in on Clinton Circle

Posted: Oct 30, 2017 1:30 PM

Washington D.C. lobbyist Tony Podesta, the brother of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, resigned from his firm Monday. The move comes after it was revealed last week Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating him as part of the larger probe into the 2016 presidential election. His departure also comes on the same day former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort surrendered to the FBI on 12-felony charges surrounding his personal business dealings. From POLITICO: 

Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.

Podesta is handing over full operational and financial control to longtime firm CEO Kimberley Fritts, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting. Fritts and a senior group of the Podesta team will be launching a new firm in the next one or two days. Sources said the transition has been in the works for the past several months.

Podesta has close to ties to Manafort, which is where Mueller likely got his lead. From NBC News: 

Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group are now the subjects of a federal investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, three sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

The probe of Podesta and his Democratic-leaning lobbying firm grew out of Mueller's inquiry into the finances of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to the sources. As special counsel, Mueller has been tasked with investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

 Manafort had organized a public relations campaign for a non-profit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU). Podesta's company was one of many firms that worked on the campaign, which promoted Ukraine's image in the West.

The sources said the investigation into Podesta and his company began as more of a fact-finding mission about the ECMU and Manafort's role in the campaign, but has now morphed into a criminal inquiry into whether the firm violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA.

In the indictment unsealed this morning, Manafort has been charged with violating FARA after failing to register as a foreign agent. The same could be in the future for Podesta.

Huge offshore data leak reveals financial secrets of global elite — from the Queen to former PMs

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paradise-papers-leak-1.4387338

A new, massive leak of offshore financial records includes the names of Queen Elizabeth II, left, and former prime minister Jean Chrétien. (Canadian Press)

An enormous new leak of tax-haven financial records — rivalling the Panama Papers in size and scope — is laying bare some of the financial secrets of the world's elite, from the Queen to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's chief fundraiser to U.S. President Donald Trump's commerce secretary, along with more than 120 politicians across the globe.

The 13.4 million records in what is being dubbed the Paradise Papers come largely from Appleby, one of the biggest offshore law firms on the planet, which was founded in Bermuda and has branches in tax havens around the world.

The records expose the assets and sometimes murky dealings of a host of characters, as well as the ways corporate giants like Apple, Nike and Uber avoid taxes legally through increasingly creative bookkeeping.  

The leak was obtained by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a network of more than 380 journalists in 67 countries, including CBC/Radio-Canada and the Toronto Star in Canada.  

The leaked Appleby files contain the names of more than 3,000 Canadians and Canadian entities, including hundreds of companies, wealthy individuals, lawyers, accountants, and people who inherited money stashed in their family's offshore accounts in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands.

After the news of the leak broke Sunday, John Power, a spokesperson for the minister of national revenue, said "the CRA is reviewing links to Canadian entities and will take appropriate action."

In fact, Canada ranks as one of Appleby's biggest sources of clients revealed in the documents, behind the United States, the U.K. and China.

This vast offshore industry makes "the poor poorer" and is "deepening wealth inequality," said Brooke Harrington, a wealth manager and Copenhagen Business School professor who is the author of Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent.

"There is this small group of people who are not equally subject to the laws as the rest of us, and that's on purpose," Harrington said.

Martin, Mulroney, Chrétien

Former prime ministers Paul Martin, left, and Brian Mulroney appear in the Paradise Papers in relation to companies that had dealings offshore. (Canadian Press)

In addition to the Queen, three former Canadian prime ministers have connections to the offshore world that show up in the Paradise Papers::

• Paul Martin's former shipping empire Canada Steamship Lines — now run by his sons — is one of Appleby's "biggest clients," according to a document in the leak. Martin offered no comment and CSL said it complies with all laws and regulations wherever it operates.  
• Brian Mulroney was on the board of Said Holdings, run by Syrian-born billionaire Wafic Said, who helped broker the biggest arms deal in British history. Through a lawyer, Mulroney said he considers Said "a good friend" and is "proud" to have served the company.
• Jean Chrétien lobbied for an East African oil venture called Madagascar Oil. A register of the company's investors lists him as the recipient of 100,000 stock options, but Chrétien told CBC/Radio-Canada he never got, or even heard of, any such options. He confirmed he did briefly do some consulting for the company, and his law firm at the time, Heenan Blaikie, was paid for his work.

One of the webs of offshore accounts and companies in the Paradise Papers leads to Trump's commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more than $68 million US in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• Explore the power players in the Paradise Papers leak

The revelation comes against a backdrop of growing concerns about the links between Russia and people close to Trump.

A spokesman for Ross said that the commerce secretary never met Putin's son-in-law or the Russian energy company's other owners, and that Ross recuses himself from matters that relate to international shipping and "has been generally supportive of the administration's sanctions" of Russian entities.

In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.

About half the 13.4 million Paradise Papers files come from Appleby and Bermuda-based corporate services provider Estera, which split off from Appleby late last year. The records span everything from correspondence with clients and financial statements to internal company memos, emails and database entries.

The rest of the leaked records are from another offshore services firm called Asiaciti Trust based in Singapore, as well as 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in other tax-haven jurisdictions.  

In addition to disclosures about heads of state and corporations, the files reveal details about the financial lives of the rich and famous.

Russian billionaires

While having an offshore account or company is often legal, the built-in anonymity of tax havens tends also to attract money launderers, drug and arms traffickers, tax evaders and others engaged in questionable conduct, the leaked records show.

Russian billionaire Arkady Rotenberg and his brother used offshore corporations to buy jets a year before they were hit with U.S. and Canadian sanctions for their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

Appleby, for example, is one link in a chain of offshore actors who helped Russian oligarchs and government officials to purchase jets, yachts and other luxury items. Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, two Russian billionaires and childhood friends of President Vladimir Putin, were able to buy jets worth more than $20 million US in 2013.

U.S. and Canadian authorities imposed sanctions on the Rotenbergs in 2014 for their material support of Putin-backed companies and projects. Appleby cut its ties with the brothers but, in one case, received approval from the government of the Isle of Man nearly two years after sanctions were imposed to disburse fees to keep one of the brothers' companies on the business registry there.

CBC used a slightly different methodology than ICIJ and found more than 100 additional Canadian entities in the data. (CBC)

The Rotenbergs did not reply to requests for comment.

PowerPoint presentations prepared internally by an Appleby employee and other documents cite examples of other controversial or disreputable characters who made their way onto the law firm's client list, including a corrupt Pakistani official, two children of the infamous Indonesian dictator Suharto and an alleged "blood diamond" dealer.

In some cases, Appleby quickly reported its suspicions about clients' activities to authorities, as required by law. In other cases, questionable clients raised no eyebrows for years.

'No evidence of any wrongdoing'

Appleby did not reply to a detailed list of questions sent by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists but released an online statement stating it had investigated the ICIJ's questions.

"We believe they are unfounded and based on a lack of understanding of the legitimate and lawful structures used in the offshore sector," the statement said.  "There is no evidence of any wrongdoing."

Appleby said it does not tolerate illegal behaviour and provides advice to clients "on legitimate and lawful ways to conduct their business."

"It is true that we are not infallible," the statement said. "Where we find that mistakes have happened, we act quickly to put things right."

Asiaciti did not respond to requests for comment.

Marwah Rizqy, a professor of tax law at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, said leaks like the Paradise Papers and last year's Panama Papers are vital to understanding how tax havens affect Canada.

"The 21st century will be noted for the fight against tax evasion, the fight against tax havens," Rizqy said. "They're a cancer that can be cured by political will."

Apple tax avoidance plan laid bare in leaked Panama Papers documents

http://www.livemint.com/Companies/QVvMa85eo0RpFoTNplnfkO/Apple-tax-...

Apple shifted much of its offshore wealth from Ireland to a tax haven in the British Isles, according to a review of leaked Paradise Papers documents

Paradise Papers Shine Light on Where the Elite Keep Their Money

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/paradise-papers.html

The offices of Appleby, an offshore law firm, in Hamilton, Bermuda. The company is at the center of leaked documents being called the Paradise Papers.CreditMeredith Andrews for The New York Times

It’s called the Paradise Papers: the latest in a series of leaks made public by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shedding light on the trillions of dollars that move through offshore tax havens.

The core of the leak, totaling more than 13.4 million documents, focuses on the Bermudan law firm Appleby, a 119-year old company that caters to blue chip corporations and very wealthy people. Appleby helps clients reduce their tax burden; obscure their ownership of assets like companies, private aircraft, real estate and yachts; and set up huge offshore trusts that in some cases hold billions of dollars.

The New York Times is part of the group of more than 380 journalists from over 90 media organizations in 67 countries that have spent months examining the latest set of documents.

As with the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers leak came through a duo of reporters at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and was then shared with I.C.I.J., a Washington-based group that won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the millions of records of a Panamanian law firm. The release of that trove of documents led to the resignation of one prime minister last year and to the unmasking of the wealth of people close to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

This week, The New York Times is publishing articles on the Paradise Papers that were reported in cooperation with our I.C.I.J. partners. Here is a roundup of the stories that have already been made public.

• Behind one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors, Yuri Milner, was hundreds of millions of dollars in Kremlin funding. The documents show that his stake in Twitter relied on money from a bank controlled by the Russian state. Funding from another government-controlled institution went toward a Facebook investment. Mr. Milner is also an investor in Cadre, a real estate technology company founded by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser.

• Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, invested in a shipping company with business ties to a Russian oligarch facing sanctions and President Vladimir V. Putin’s son-in-law. The ethics agreement Mr. Ross filed when taking office said he intended to retain several investment partnerships, but did not specify that they were used to hold his stake in the shipper, Navigator Holdings. The revelations led Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, to call for an investigation. Mr. Ross said he had done nothing wrong but would “probably” sell his Navigator shares.

• Apple has come under scrutiny by Congress for shifting much of its earnings to Irish subsidiaries, avoiding income taxes. Documents from the leak show that after its chief executive, Tim Cook, said that the company didn’t just “stash money on a Caribbean island,” it found a new tax haven — an island in the English Channel. The use of complex offshore structures has helped keep much of Apple’s more than $128 billion in profit abroad free from taxation.

• A bank in Utah is in the business of helping wealthy foreigners register private planes in the United States, which requires American citizenship or residency. The offshore files shed light on how a small financial institution, the Bank of Utah, served as a stand-in for citizenship purposes to allow Russia’s richest man, Leonid Mikhelson, whose energy company is subject to sanctions, register a $65 million Gulfstream jet.

• The fortunes of the superrich are growing more quickly than the wealth of everyone else, thanks in part to offshore companies the elite use to minimize their taxes. Queen Elizabeth II, Madonna and Bono have all taken advantage of such companies, the documents reveal. Americans are big customers: The hedge fund billionaire James H. Simons and his family were beneficiaries of a massive trust in Bermuda. And Warren A. Stephens, who aggressively grew a family investment bank in Arkansas, used an opaque company to hide his stake in a payday loan business accused of exploiting the poor.

• While young Americans are struggling with massive student debt, many of the country’s top universities are turbocharging investment returns on their endowments by using offshore companies to avoid taxes, the leaked files reveal. The records also show that some universities, despite declaring “green” investment goals, have invested in fossil fuels and iron mining through companies based in tax havens.

Who Are Appleby’s Clients?

The predominantly elite clients of Appleby contrast with those of Mossack Fonseca — the company whose leaked records became the Panama Papers — which appeared to be less discriminating in the business it took on. The records date back to 1950 and up to 2016.

Appleby has offices in tax havens around the world. In addition to its Bermudan headquarters, it works out of places like the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean; the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey off Britain; Mauritius and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean; and Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Americans — companies and people — dominate the list of clients. Past disclosures, such as the 2013 “Offshore Leaks” from two offshore incorporators in Singapore and the British Virgin Islands, the 2015 “Swiss Leaks” from a private Swiss bank owned by the British bank HSBC and another leak in 2016 from the Bahamas were dominated by clients not from the United States.

The Paradise Papers were leaked to the same two German reporters — Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier — who obtained the Panama Papers.

The documents come not only from Appleby, but also from the Singaporean company Asiaciti Trust and official business registries in places such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Lebanon and Malta.

Setting up companies offshore is generally legal, and corporations routinely do so to facilitate cross-border transactions such as mergers and acquisitions. Appleby, in a public statement on Oct. 24, after inquiries from I.C.I.J., said that it was “subject to frequent regulatory checks” in “highly regulated jurisdictions.”

“Appleby has thoroughly and vigorously investigated the allegations and we are satisfied that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or our clients,” the company said.

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The scope of Corporate and Personal wealth revealed concerning the Paradise and Panama Papers must be huge! Have a look:

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2014: US wealth inequality - top 0.1% worth as much as the bottom 90%

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-inequali...

Not since the Great Depression has wealth inequality in the US been so acute, new in-depth study finds.

Wealth inequality in the US is at near record levels according to a new study by academics. Over the past three decades, the share of household wealth owned by the top 0.1% has increased from 7% to 22%. For the bottom 90% of families, a combination of rising debt, the collapse of the value of their assets during the financial crisis, and stagnant real wages have led to the erosion of wealth.

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2015: Bernie Sanders is right: The top 0.1 percent have as much as the bottom 90 percent

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/19/bernie-sande...

In 2014, just 160,000 families, each with a net worth in excess of $20.6 million, counted themselves among the wealthiest 0.1 percent of households. Together, they owned nearly as much as everyone from the very poor to the upper middle class combined -- 90 percent of the country, some 145 million families in total.

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2016: Oxfam says wealth of world's richest 1% equal to other 99%

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35339475

The richest 1% now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined, according to Oxfam.

It uses data from Credit Suisse from October for the report, which urges leaders meeting in Davos this week to take action on inequality.

Oxfam also calculated that the richest 62 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.

It criticised the work of lobbyists and the amount of money kept in tax havens.

Oxfam predicted that the 1% would overtake the rest of the world this time last year.

It takes cash and assets worth $68,800 (£48,300) to get into the top 10%, and $760,000 (£533,000) to be in the 1%. That means that if you own an average house in London without a mortgage, you are probably in the 1%.

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2017: In America the Top 1% Are 70% Richer Than the Bottom 90%

https://www.investopedia.com/news/america-top-1-are-70-richer-botto...

Despite unemployment in the U.S. at record lows, wage inflation remains subdued, pushing real wages lower, and what wage inflation there is goes to those who are already wealthy. Post-crisis and the demise of the U.S. manufacturing sector saw many in the rust-belt area out of work. With little or no qualifications they were forced into low paying jobs with no room for wage negotiation. This shift has suppressed low income wages for a decade. "Median income increased 9 percent for the top income decile, between 5 and 8 percent for the middle three quintiles, and 3 percent for the bottom income quintile," the report said.

"These patterns are consistent with a widening of the income distribution between 2013 and 2016."

As with the income gap, the wealth gap is just as alarming. As the economy recovered after the Great Recession, the gap between rich and poor widened. The record-breaking U.S. equity market coupled with the housing market recovery saw the average net worth of all families increase 16 percent to $97,300. However, the mean net worth rose 26 percent to $692,100 – meaning the recovery has disproportionately helped the rich.

SpaceX rocket explodes during Texas test in blow for Elon Musk's firm

• Explosion on Sunday involved next generation of the company's Merlin engine
• The engine had never flown - but was scheduled to launch next year
• SpaceX is investigating the cause but says it should not affect launch schedules

SpaceX has revealed one of its next-generation rocket engines has exploded during a test. 

The explosion on Sunday involved the company's Merlin engine, nine of which power its Falcon 9 rocket, during what the company called a 'qualification test.'

No one was injured, and the company said it is 'now conducting a thorough and fully transparent investigation of the root cause' of the explosion.

Scroll down for video 

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'SpaceX is committed to our current manifest, and we do not expect this to have any impact on our launch cadence,' the firm said.

A SpaceX spokesman told the Washington Post the engine that exploded was a new engine that hasn't yet flown, although is is believed is was scheduled for launch late next year.

Testing on the engine, known as the 'block 5' version of the engines in the Falcon 9, will be suspended while the company looks into what went wrong. 

The company will also start repairing the test bay the engine exploded on, which should take two to four weeks to complete, according to The Verge. 

In 2015, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket exploded a couple of minutes after lifting off from Cape Canaveral en route to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. 

 Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5063937/SpaceX-rocke...;

Security Breach and Spilled Secrets Have Shaken the N.S.A. to Its Core

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/us/nsa-shadow-brokers.html

A serial leak of the agency’s cyberweapons has damaged morale, slowed intelligence operations and resulted in hacking attacks on businesses and civilians worldwide.

WASHINGTON — Jake Williams awoke last April in an Orlando, Fla., hotel where he was leading a training session. Checking Twitter, Mr. Williams, a cybersecurity expert, was dismayed to discover that he had been thrust into the middle of one of the worst security debacles ever to befall American intelligence.

Mr. Williams had written on his company blog about the Shadow Brokers, a mysterious group that had somehow obtained many of the hacking tools the United States used to spy on other countries. Now the group had replied in an angry screed on Twitter. It identified him — correctly — as a former member of the National Security Agency’s hacking group, Tailored Access Operations, or T.A.O., a job he had not publicly disclosed. Then the Shadow Brokers astonished him by dropping technical details that made clear they knew about highly classified hacking operations that he had conducted.

America’s largest and most secretive intelligence agency had been deeply infiltrated.

“They had operational insight that even most of my fellow operators at T.A.O. did not have,” said Mr. Williams, now with Rendition Infosec, a cybersecurity firm he founded. “I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. Whoever wrote this either was a well-placed insider or had stolen a lot of operational data.”

The jolt to Mr. Williams from the Shadow Brokers’ riposte was part of a much broader earthquake that has shaken the N.S.A. to its core. Current and former agency officials say the Shadow Brokers disclosures, which began in August 2016, have been catastrophic for the N.S.A., calling into question its ability to protect potent cyberweapons and its very value to national security. The agency regarded as the world’s leader in breaking into adversaries’ computer networks failed to protect its own.

“These leaks have been incredibly damaging to our intelligence and cyber capabilities,” said Leon E. Panetta, the former defense secretary and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “The fundamental purpose of intelligence is to be able to effectively penetrate our adversaries in order to gather vital intelligence. By its very nature, that only works if secrecy is maintained and our codes are protected.”

With a leak of intelligence methods like the N.S.A. tools, Mr. Panetta said, “Every time it happens, you essentially have to start over.”

Fifteen months into a wide-ranging investigation by the agency’s counterintelligence arm, known as Q Group, and the F.B.I., officials still do not know whether the N.S.A. is the victim of a brilliantly executed hack, with Russia as the most likely perpetrator, an insider’s leak, or both. Three employees have been arrested since 2015 for taking classified files, but there is fear that one or more leakers may still be in place. And there is broad agreement that the damage from the Shadow Brokers already far exceeds the harm to American intelligence done by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor who fled with four laptops of classified material in 2013.

Mr. Snowden’s cascade of disclosures to journalists and his defiant public stance drew far more media coverage than this new breach. But Mr. Snowden released code words, while the Shadow Brokers have released the actual code; if he shared what might be described as battle plans, they have loosed the weapons themselves. Created at huge expense to American taxpayers, those cyberweapons have now been picked up by hackers from North Korea to Russia and shot back at the United States and its allies.

Photo

A screenshot taken as ransomware affected systems worldwide last summer. The Ukrainian government posted the picture to its official Facebook page.

Millions of people saw their computers shut down by ransomware, with demands for payments in digital currency to have their access restored. Tens of thousands of employees at Mondelez International, the maker of Oreo cookies, had their data completely wiped. FedEx reported that an attack on a European subsidiary had halted deliveries and cost $300 million. Hospitals in Pennsylvania, Britain and Indonesia had to turn away patients. The attacks disrupted production at a car plant in France, an oil company in Brazil and a chocolate factory in Tasmania, among thousands of enterprises affected worldwide.

American officials had to explain to close allies — and to business leaders in the United States — how cyberweapons developed at Fort Meade in Maryland came to be used against them. Experts believe more attacks using the stolen N.S.A. tools are all but certain.

Inside the agency’s Maryland headquarters and its campuses around the country, N.S.A. employees have been subjected to polygraphs and suspended from their jobs in a hunt for turncoats allied with the Shadow Brokers. Much of the agency’s arsenal is still being replaced, curtailing operations. Morale has plunged, and experienced specialists are leaving the agency for better-paying jobs — including with firms defending computer networks from intrusions that use the N.S.A.’s leaked tools.

“It’s a disaster on multiple levels,” Mr. Williams said. “It’s embarrassing that the people responsible for this have not been brought to justice.”

Who Are The Shadow Brokers?

A National Security Agency hacking tool leaked in April by an elite group called the Shadow Brokers has now been used in a cyberattack on computers in more than 150 countries. Intelligence officials say North Korean-linked hackers are likely suspects.

By NATALIE RENEAU and MARK SCHEFFLER on Publish Date May 15, 2017. Photo by Ritchie B. Tongo/European Pressphoto Agency. Watch in Times Video »

In response to detailed questions, an N.S.A. spokesman, Michael T. Halbig, said the agency “cannot comment on Shadow Brokers.” He denied that the episode had hurt morale. “N.S.A. continues to be viewed as a great place to work; we receive more than 140,000 applications each year for our hiring program,” he said.

Compounding the pain for the N.S.A. is the attackers’ regular online public taunts, written in ersatz broken English. Their posts are a peculiar mash-up of immaturity and sophistication, laced with profane jokes but also savvy cultural and political references. They suggest that their author — if not an American — knows the United States well.

“Is NSA chasing shadowses?” the Shadow Brokers asked in a post on Oct. 16, mocking the agency’s inability to understand the leaks and announcing a price cut for subscriptions to its “monthly dump service” of stolen N.S.A. tools. It was a typically wide-ranging screed, touching on George Orwell’s “1984”; the end of the federal government’s fiscal year on Sept. 30; Russia’s creation of bogus accounts on Facebook and Twitter; and the phenomenon of American intelligence officers going to work for contractors who pay higher salaries.

Photo

The Shadow Brokers have mocked the N.S.A. in regular online posts and released its stolen hacking tools in a “monthly dump service.”

One passage, possibly hinting at the Shadow Brokers’ identity, underscored the close relationship of Russian intelligence to criminal hackers. “Russian security peoples,” it said, “is becoming Russian hackeres at nights, but only full moons.”

Russia is the prime suspect in a parallel hemorrhage of hacking tools and secret documents from the C.I.A.’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, posted week after week since March to the WikiLeaks website under the names Vault7 and Vault8. That breach, too, is unsolved. Together, the flood of digital secrets from agencies that invest huge resources in preventing such breaches is raising profound questions.

Have hackers and leakers made secrecy obsolete? Has Russian intelligence simply outplayed the United States, penetrating the most closely guarded corners of its government? Can a work force of thousands of young, tech-savvy spies ever be immune to leaks?

Some veteran intelligence officials believe a lopsided focus on offensive weapons and hacking tools has, for years, left American cyberdefense dangerously porous.

“We have had a train wreck coming,” said Mike McConnell, the former N.S.A. director and national intelligence director. “We should have ratcheted up the defense parts significantly.”

America’s Cyber Special Forces

At the heart of the N.S.A. crisis is Tailored Access Operations, the group where Mr. Williams worked, which was absorbed last year into the agency’s new Directorate of Operations.

Photo

The N.S.A.’s headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland. Cybertools the agency developed have been picked up by hackers from North Korea to Russia and shot back at the United States and its allies. Credit Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency

T.A.O. — the outdated name is still used informally — began years ago as a side project at the agency’s research and engineering building at Fort Meade. It was a cyber Skunk Works, akin to the special units that once built stealth aircraft and drones. As Washington’s need for hacking capabilities grew, T.A.O. expanded into a separate office park in Laurel, Md., with additional teams at facilities in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii and Texas.

The hacking unit attracts many of the agency’s young stars, who like the thrill of internet break-ins in the name of national security, according to a dozen former government officials who agreed to describe its work on the condition of anonymity. T.A.O. analysts start with a shopping list of desired information and likely sources — say, a Chinese official’s home computer or a Russian oil company’s network. Much of T.A.O.’s work is labeled E.C.I., for “exceptionally controlled information,” material so sensitive it was initially stored only in safes. When the cumulative weight of the safes threatened the integrity of N.S.A.’s engineering building a few years ago, one agency veteran said, the rules were changed to allow locked file cabinets.

The more experienced T.A.O. operators devise ways to break into foreign networks; junior operators take over to extract information. Mr. Williams, 40, a former paramedic who served in military intelligence in the Army before joining the N.S.A., worked in T.A.O. from 2008 to 2013, which he described as an especially long tenure. He called the work “challenging and sometimes exciting.”

T.A.O. operators must constantly renew their arsenal to stay abreast of changing software and hardware, examining every Windows update and new iPhone for vulnerabilities. “The nature of the business is to move with the technology,” a former T.A.O. hacker said.

Long known mainly as an eavesdropping agency, the N.S.A. has embraced hacking as an especially productive way to spy on foreign targets. The intelligence collection is often automated, with malware implants — computer code designed to find material of interest — left sitting on the targeted system for months or even years, sending files back to the N.S.A.

The same implant can be used for many purposes: to steal documents, tap into email, subtly change data or become the launching pad for an attack. T.A.O.’s most public success was an operation against Iran called Olympic Games, in which implants in the network of the Natanz nuclear plant caused centrifuges enriching uranium to self-destruct. The T.A.O. was also critical to attacks on the Islamic State and North Korea.

It was this arsenal that the Shadow Brokers got hold of, and then began to release.

Like cops studying a burglar’s operating style and stash of stolen goods, N.S.A. analysts have tried to figure out what the Shadow Brokers took. None of the leaked files date from later than 2013 — a relief to agency officials assessing the damage. But they include a large share of T.A.O.’s collection, including three so-called ops disks — T.A.O.’s term for tool kits — containing the software to bypass computer firewalls, penetrate Windows and break into the Linux systems most commonly used on Android phones.

Evidence shows that the Shadow Brokers obtained the entire tool kits intact, suggesting that an insider might have simply pocketed a thumb drive and walked out.

But other files obtained by the Shadow Brokers bore no relation to the ops disks and seem to have been grabbed at different times. Some were designed for a compromise by the N.S.A. of Swift, a global financial messaging system, allowing the agency to track bank transfers. There was a manual for an old system code-named UNITEDRAKE, used to attack Windows. There were PowerPoint presentations and other files not used in hacking, making it unlikely that the Shadow Brokers had simply grabbed tools left on the internet by sloppy N.S.A. hackers.

Photo

After 15 months of investigation, officials still do not know what was behind the Shadow Brokers disclosures — a hack, with Russia as the most likely perpetrator, an insider’s leak, or both.

Some officials doubt that the Shadow Brokers got it all by hacking the most secure of American government agencies — hence the search for insiders. But some T.A.O. hackers think that skilled, persistent attackers might have been able to get through the N.S.A.’s defenses — because, as one put it, “I know we’ve done it to other countries.”

The Shadow Brokers have verbally attacked certain experts, including Mr. Williams. When he concluded from their Twitter hints that they knew about some of his hacks while at the N.S.A., he canceled a business trip to Singapore. The United States had named and criminally charged hackers from the intelligence agencies of China, Iran and Russia. He feared he could be similarly charged by a country he had targeted and arrested on an international warrant.

He has since resumed traveling abroad. But he says no one from the N.S.A. has contacted him about being singled out publicly by the Shadow Brokers.

“That feels like a betrayal,” he said. “I was targeted by the Shadow Brokers because of that work. I do not feel the government has my back.”

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

Inside the N.S.A., the declaration was like a bomb exploding. A zip file posted online contained the first free sample of the agency’s hacking tools. It was immediately evident that the Shadow Brokers were not hoaxsters, and that the agency was in trouble.

The leaks have renewed a debate over whether the N.S.A. should be permitted to stockpile vulnerabilities it discovers in commercial software to use for spying — rather than immediately alert software makers so the holes can be plugged. The agency claims it has shared with the industry more than 90 percent of flaws it has found, reserving only the most valuable for its own hackers. But if it can’t keep those from leaking, as the last year has demonstrated, the resulting damage to businesses and ordinary computer users around the world can be colossal. The Trump administration says it will soon announce revisions to the system, making it more transparent.

Mr. Williams said it may be years before the “full fallout” of the Shadow Brokers breach is understood. Even the arrest of whoever is responsible for the leaks may not end them, he said — because the sophisticated perpetrators may have built a “dead man’s switch” to release all remaining files automatically upon their arrest.

“We’re obviously dealing with people who have operational security knowledge,” he said. “They have the whole law enforcement system and intelligence system after them. And they haven’t been caught.”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NSA breach: Possible leaker reportedly could still be at work

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nsa-breach-shadow-brokers-michael-morell/

A reported breach at the National Security Agency has been described as "catastrophic" and even worse than Edward Snowden's massive data leak. The New York Times reports a group called the Shadow Brokers has been releasing information on NSA cyberweapons since August 2016.

It's now being used against the United States.

The Times reports the government does not know if the secrets were leaked or hacked or whether the possible leaker is still at work.

"We don't know what else the leakers may have, and most important... we don't know how this information got out of the National Security Agency. And that's 15 months after the first leak occurred," CBS News senior national security contributor Michael Morell said Monday on "CBS This Morning." "That's what's most scary to me because that says we don't know the totality of this, and more important, we don't know if they're stealing information as we sit here right now."

Morell, a former deputy and acting director of the CIA, agreed that this could be worse than the Snowden leak "because [Snowden] leaked descriptions of these tools. These are the actual tools themselves." Morell said the tools are used "to collect intelligence on our adversaries to protect the country."

"We've now made that much more difficult to collect that intelligence that's so important," Morell said.

While Morell said some are pointing fingers at Russia, he's not so sure.

"If Russia had access to NSA in terms of cyber, internet access, or in terms of an insider, why would they go public and give that up? I tend to think this is either a disgruntled insider or an outside group," Morell said.

After Slamming Bitcoin As A Money Laundering Tool, JPMorgan Busted For Money Laundering

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-16/after-slamming-bitcoin-mon...

Score one for the poetic irony pages.

Two months after JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon lashed out at bitcoin, calling it a "fraud" which is "worse than tulip bulbs, warning it won't end well", will "blow up" and "someone is going to get killed" and threatened that "any trader trading bitcoin" will be "fired for being stupid" as it was merely a tool for money-laundering, today Swiss daily Handelszeitung reported that the Swiss subsidiary of JPMorgan was sanctioned by the Swiss regulator, FINMA, over money laundering and "seriously violating supervision laws."

As the newspaper adds, the Swiss sanctions relate to breaches of due diligence in connection with money laundering standards. In other words, JPMorgan was actively aiding and abeting criminal money laundering.

The report further notes, the Finma decision was issued on June 30 and should have been published the following week but JPMorganm tried to prevent the publication of the judgment. More recently, the Federal Administrative Court dismissed the appeal.

In response to money-laundering violation, JPM said that in support of safety and soundness of global monetary system, “we have made and continue to make significant enhancements to the firm’s AML program to ensure we are meeting regulatory expectations,” according to an emailed statement sent to Bloomberg.

Unfortunately, JPMorgan also said that it can’t, or rather won't, provide further details since the Finma resolution from June 2017 isn’t public.

This means that anyone wondering if Jamie Dimon's bank was using (and thus trading) bitcoin to circumvent Swiss anti-money laundering regulations, will just have to ask Jamie Dimon in person during his next public appearance. 

Clandestine Zuma SpySat’s SpaceX Liftoff Postponed Indefinitely to Resolve Payload Fairing Issue

https://www.universetoday.com/137904/clandestine-zuma-spysats-space...

18 Nov, 2017

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Liftoff of the clandestine spy satellite codenamed ‘Zuma’ on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has been postponed indefinitely to resolve a lingering issue with the testing of a payload fairing for another customer.

SpaceX announced today, Friday, Nov 17, that they will ‘stand down’ to allow engineers the additional time needed to carefully scrutinize all the pertinent data before proceeding with the top secret Zuma launch.

“We have decided to stand down and take a closer look at data from recent fairing testing for another customer,” said SpaceX spokesman John Taylor.

The super secret ‘Zuma’ spysat is a complete mystery and it has not been claimed by any U.S. government entity – not even the elusive NRO spy agency! The NRO does claim ownership of a vast fleet of covert and hugely capable orbiting surveillance assets supporting US national security.

Zuma’s goals are veiled in virtually complete darkness. And as far as the taxpaying public is concerned its ownerless.

Originally scheduled for Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. EST Nov 15, the Zuma launch from the Florida Space Coast had already been postponed twice this week before today’s decision to called it off indefinitely.

The initial 24 hour delay to Thursday was to deal with unspecified ‘mission assurance’ issues.

The second days delay to Friday was pinned more specifically on the payload fairing or nose cone.

SpaceX has also had to deal with an engine testing problem that caused a fire on a test stand while preparing to hot fire a Block 5 Merlin 1... on Nov. 4. It is not known if this was part of the ‘mission assurance’ issues.

No new targeted launch date has been announced.

“Though we have preserved the range opportunity for tomorrow, we will take the time we need to complete the data review and will then confirm a new launch date,” Taylor stated.

SpaceX had been planning an ambitious launch campaign of 4 or more launches by the end of this year – including the maiden launch of the triple barreled Falcon Heavy. That seems very unlikely now.

Just exactly what the fairing problem is has not been disclosed. Its also not known if the two delays are related or not.

The fairing is jettisoned three minutes after liftoff. Any failure to deploy would result in a total loss of the mission.

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A for November 30, 2017

http://www.zetatalk.com/ning/30no2017.htm

What is Zuma’s secret mission? Clearly not so secret that the public was not allowed to be aware of the launch. Is this to spy on Nibiru? Zuma is headed for low Earth orbit, so at best would get a view of Nibiru equivalent to what current Satellites receive. Other probes, more than the public knows, have been sent throughout the inner Solar System and been steadfastly delivering updates on Nibiru’s location and trajectory. Earth based observatories are peeking at Nibiru, as are star mapping enterprises such as WISE. Zuma’s purpose is to avoid the eyes of the Deep State.  

To date, when a satellite or probe is sent aloft, the equipment must match the stated purpose to the extent that the public would not get confirmation of Nibiru. Leaks are greatly feared, and the chain of informants would potentially be extensive – manufacture of the parts, assembly and delivery, planning and scheduling, loading the payload, collecting the data delivered from aloft, and analysis of the results. What would be most damaging is for several of these points to leak information, which would then corroborate each other.

Space X is considered a restricted environment, outside of the normal federal program development process. Federal expenditures require approval and tracking, auditors, Congressional oversight, and many civil servants who cannot be fired or bypassed. At the present time, the Junta in charge of the US and Heads of State in China and Russia are most concerned that they, in government, are able to compute when the Last Weeks are approaching. Zuma’s payload will include infrared and dozens of other sensors which can help estimate the approach of the passage. The Deep State, with its many agendas, will not be privy to this information.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/general-john-hyten-nuclear-tru...

Russia Just Lost a Brand-New Satellite After Mystery Glitch During Rocket Launch

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-loses-contact-brand-new-satellite-af...

The launch of Russia’s newest satellite—its second ever from a multibillion-dollar spaceport unveiled last year—has failed to reach target orbit, state news agency Itar-Tass reports.

The exact fate of the satellite launched in the early hours of Tuesday morning is unclear, but the Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed by noon local time that they are not receiving signal from Meteor-M 2-1. Mission control is investigating the reason for that, but reports from sources within the agency—speaking on the condition of anonymity—suggest the rocket went awry.

One industry source told the Interfax news agency that it appears the upper segment of the rocket carrying the Russian satellite did not release it effectively into orbit and may have sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. Another similar source told Itar-Tass that the upper stage of the rocket may have exploded as soon as the engine, meant to carry the satellite into orbit, switched on. "It is not clear at the moment what exactly happened," the source said, wondering if the signal to release the satellite faltered or there was an issue with the Fregat booster. Officially the agency has left open the possibility that the satellite is in orbit but simply the wrong orbit.

The Kremlin made it clear that the Russian government is awaiting information on the likely mishap but has no information.

“I do not think that there is detailed information about what happened and for what reason,” Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin told Interfax.

The satellite was intended to spend five years in orbit, collecting imagery and data for Russia’s state-run weather agency Roshydromet. It is the main one of 19 satellites, most of which are smaller, flying on the same rocket from the spaceport in Russia's Amur region on Tuesday. 

The botched satellite launch follows the maiden launch of a spacecraft from Russia’s newly unveiled Vostochny Cosmodrome, which Putin has hailed as Russia’s biggest building project. The spaceport is located in eastern Russia and seeks to reduce Moscow’s dependence on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in neighboring Kazakhstan, developed when the two ex-Soviet states were bound by one space program.

The Soyuz-2 spacecraft with Meteor-M satellite and 18 additional small satellites launches from Russia’s new Vostochny Cosmodrome, near the town of Tsiolkovsky in the Amur region of Russia, on November 28. Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

The first launch last year occurred with a slight but very public delay due to a malfunctioning cable, and the attending Putin scolded officials to do better. Overall, the success of the launch was a welcome success for Russia’s space sector after multiple funding cuts and other difficulties, curbing the capabilities of the once-great space power.

Although hugely successful in setting milestones in space exploration during the Cold War, Moscow’s space ambitions today are much more impressive at the planning stages than at the execution.

Russian scientists are currently aiming to send a robot into space over the next decade, potentially piloting the country’s next spacecraft toward the International Space Station.

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19 spacecraft go missing after Russian weather satellite launch goes awry

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/19-spacecraft-go-missing-russias-mete...

Russia’s Meteor-M 2-1 weather satellite and 18 nanosatellites went missing today after their launch aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East.

Among the lost spacecraft were 10 satellites that were supposed to be put in orbit for San Francisco-based Spire Global and become part of the company’s Lemur-2 Earth observation network. Two remote-sensing satellites from Astro Digital, a Silicon Valley space venture, were lost as well.

The launch failure is likely to raise new questions about the capabilities of the Russian space program and its controversial multibillion-dollar effort to create the Vostochny launch complex as an alternative to the decades-old Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Roscosmos space agency reported that today’s liftoff proceeded as planned, using a Soyuz-2-1b variant of Russia’s workhorse rocket. But it said contact was lost after the Fregat upper stage separated for deployment of the satellites. “The information is being analyzed,” Roscosmos said in a statement.

In separate reports, Interfax and Space Intel Report quoted unnamed sources as saying speculation about the cause of the failure focused on an erroneous command in the Fregat’s control software.

The Meteor-M satellite was supposed to become part of Russia’s constellation of weather satellites in low Earth orbit. In addition to the satellites from Spire Global and Astro Digital, six other CubeSat spacecraft from Russia, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Japan were being carried as secondary payloads.

Today’s launch was the second to be conducted from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, which has been under construction for six years. The project has weathered a long-running series of reports about corruption and construction setbacks.

Netanyahu in freefall with new developments in Israel...

Israel Police Question Netanyahu for Sixth Time Over Illicit Gifts

Nov 19, 2017

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.823666

Interrogation will focus not only on cigars and champagne, but also on other suspected bribes

Police arrived at the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday afternoon to question him for a sixth time over the allegations that he accepted gifts from wealthy businessmen.

Netanyahu is suspected of accepting gifts worth hundreds of thousands of shekels, including expensive cigars, champagne and jewelry, from several businessmen, including Arnon Milchan. In return he allegedly advanced the their interests, including helping Milchan obtain a U.S. visa after the American government canceled it.

Ten days ago, Netanyahu was questioned by the police for the fifth time.

The investigation, led by Brig. Gen. Koresh Barnour, is expected to focus not only on the cigars and champagne allegedly gifted by Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer to the Netanyahu family, but also on other presents and favors given to Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, that have apparently not yet been investigated.

To date, Milchan has been questioned by the police four times, and is suspected of bribery after investigations that took place in London.

While the police look to conclude their probe into the so-called “Case 1000,” Milchan has held a series of consultations in London with his associates, lawyer Boaz Ben Zur and communications adviser Ronen Tzur.

At this point police do not intend to question Milchan again, despite the investigation seemingly making him a suspect, says a source close to the matter. The source added that ultimately, Milchan will not be indicted and will instead be used as a key witness in the case.

Last week, testimony from Milchan’s personal assistant, Hadas Klein, was revealed on Israeli television. Klein was reportedly responsible for transferring the champagne bottles and cigars to the prime minister’s residence, as per the Netanyahus’ alleged requests.

“Sara requested champagne bottles in cases of 6 or 12, Bibi asked for cigars, and knew the amount of champagne his wife received. The company driver would drive especially to Jerusalem to deliver the champagne and cigars,” Klein reportedly told the police.

Klein also told of strange requests by Netanyahu, including a demand that someone come to fix a leak in the residence. “I didn’t approve the request, and then Sara called and yelled that Milchan and I were blowing her off after a few hours. Netanyahu himself called and said it’s not OK what Milchan and Packer were doing to his wife, and that they needed to understand what she’s trying to communicate,” Klein reportedly said.

Netanyahu is expected to be questioned at least two more times relating to the so-called Case 2000, in which the prime minister is suspected of negotiating with Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes for positive coverage in the daily.

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

Tens of thousands of Israelis protest against Netanyahu, corruption

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-netanyahu-protests/tens-o...

December 2, 2017

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - About 20,000 Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday against government corruption and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is under criminal investigation over allegations of abuse of office.

The demonstration was by far the largest of weekly anti-corruption protests sparked by corruption allegations against Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing.

The four-term leader is suspected of involvement in two cases. The first involves receiving gifts from wealthy businessmen and the second involves negotiating a deal with a newspaper owner for better coverage in return for curbs on a rival daily.

Saturday’s protest was prompted by a draft law expected to be ratified by parliament next week, which would bar police from publishing its findings in two investigations of Netanyahu.

A Reuters cameraman and Israeli media put the number of demonstrators at about 20,000. Police would not provide an official estimate.

Critics say the draft law is a blatant attempt to protect Netanyahu and keep the public in the dark about his investigation. Supporters of the legislation say it is meant to protect suspects’ rights.

Netanyahu has said he has no interest in promoting personal legislation but he has not ordered its two sponsors, close confidants in his Likud party, to withdraw the bill.

Netanyahu has described himself as a victim of a political witch hunt and said of the cases against him: “There will be nothing because there is nothing.”

If charged, he would come under heavy pressure to resign or could call an election to test whether he still had a mandate.

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

Netanyahu's Right-hand Man David Bitan Suspected of Bribery and Money Laundering

Suspicions against coalition whip Bitan also include fraud, breach of trust ■ On Saturday, tens of thousands of Israelis marched against government corruption

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.826416

Dec 03, 2017

David Bitan, the government's coalition whip and a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was interrogated Sunday morning on suspicion of bribery, money laundering, fraud and breach of trust during his time as deputy mayor of Rishon Letzion, a city near Tel Aviv.

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As part of the investigation, the police arrested 17 public employees – at least six of whom have direct ties to Bitan – on suspicions of corruption and links to organized crime.

The suspects include senior officials at the Rishon Letzion municipality, well-known businesspeople and a major organized crime figure from the Tel Aviv area who had previously been arrested in connection to cases involving serious violence. Law enforcement officials suspect that the municipal officials promoted the interests of a crime organization at a construction site in the city.

Police stated Sunday that the mayor of Rishon Lezion, Dov Tzur, is now suspected of bribery felonies and his arrest was extended Sunday by five days.

Tzur is also suspected of extortion, fraud, breach of trust and money laundering. Judge Amit Michlis told the court on Sunday that Tzur acted to hide his illegal actions over the years. "The picture that is being painted and was presented to me is worrying," Judge Michlis said.

Tzur's deputy, Eyal Moshayev, is also suspected of bribery and his arrest has been extended by five days.

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

Smelling Defeat, Netanyahu Surrendered and Abandoned His Lackeys

Dec 04, 2017

The stench of corruption within Netanyahu's Likud party is so strong that tens of thousands took to the streets of Tel Aviv to demonstrate - and forcing the heads of the coalition parties to recalculate their route

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.826572

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corrupt proxy war to cripple the police and conceal from the public their conclusions on the investigations against him was dealt a resound defeat. The man who “when I want something, I get it” has surrendered unconditionally. He proved, and not for the first time, that no one compares to him when it comes to fighting to the last drop of blood — of the sycophants who do his bidding and of his cowardly and morally inured partners in Likud and the coalition.

The moment he realized there was a real possibility of not being able to muster a majority for the bill, that something was going wrong, he cut his losses. He fled, setting aside his “pride” and leaving behind, rain-soaked, the honorable cabinet members and Knesset members who had humiliated themselves for his sake with excuses and explanations that seem even more pitiful today than when they were first uttered.

The prime minister’s latest moves reveal a person who has lost his judgment and mental balance. First it was the “French law,” intended to halt the investigation of Case 1000 (involving allegations that Netanyahu and his family received lavish gifts from two businessman) and Case 2000 (involving his recorded conversations with Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes over positive coverage), and if not them, then looking ahead to Case 3000 (involving allegations of illegal conduct by Netanyahu’s personal lawyer in the purchase of German boats and submarines) and Case 4000 (involving alleged misconduct by Bezeq executives and a Communication Ministry official, including two of the prime minister’s close associates).

This idiotic endeavor was nipped in the bud. Then, as a consolation prize for the VIP suspect, a bill popped up that became known as the “recommendations bill.” Since the winter session of the Knesset started, Netanyahu and his pair of accomplices, David A., a past suspect, and David B. a new suspect now being questioned on serious suspicions of bribery and ties to organized crime, have brought Likud to the lowest point yet. They painted their party in criminal hues, they gave Likud the identity of a party drowning in corruption.

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

Under pressure over corruption, Israel's Netanyahu calls for change to police bill

Netanyahu has called for the controversial bill to be redrafted so that it doesn't to apply to two corruption probes against him. Critics charge the bill was designed to protect him from corruption investigations.

http://www.dw.com/en/under-pressure-over-corruption-israels-netanya...

December 4, 2017

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for changes to a controversial draft bill critics say is designed to shield him from ongoing corruption investigations.

The apparent reversal came after tens of thousands of people protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday denouncing corruption and demanding the prime minister step down.

Parliament was expected to vote on a second reading of the so-called "recommendations bill” on Monday, but after Netanyahu's call that looks less likely.

The draft legislation would block Israel's police from publishing findings and limit its ability to issue recommendations to the prosecutor's office on indictments related to public officials. Recommendations would only be sent if the prosecutor's office asked for them.

The prime minister is suspected of corruption and abuse of office in two investigations, which have raised speculation he may be forced to step down if there is an indictment.

Netanyahu wrote on Facebook that he asked lawmakers from his right-wing Likud Party to redraft the bill.

"For the debate on the bill to be topical and not be used for political propaganda, I have asked ... that (it) be worded so that it does not cover the ongoing investigations in my matters," Netanyahu wrote.

While calling for the changes, Netanyahu defended the bill as necessary to protect suspects' rights and prevent smear campaigns through leaks.

Corruption allegation

Multiple corruption investigations are swirling around Netanyahu and his allies, but only two involve the four-term prime minister directly.

The first, known as Case 1000, involves allegations that Netanyahu received cigars, champagne, cash and other gifts from Israeli-born Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. The case also implicates his wife Sara and son Yair.

Netanyahu has said the gifts were tokens of friendship, and that no favors were done in exchange.

The second, known as Case 2000, involves allegations that Netanyahu sought to negotiate positive coverage with the owner of Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in exchange for cutting circulation of the pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom.

The free circulation Israel Hayom has become Israel's largest newspaper and is backed by US casino magnate and major political donor Sheldon Adelson.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the chance of an indictment against Netanyahu in Case 2000 increased after the prime minister's former aide, Ari Harow, turned state witness.

Police have seized Harow's phone, which had recordings of conversations between Netanyahu and Arnon Mozes, the publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth.

Netanyahu: 'witch hunt'

Netanyahu has said the allegations against him are part of a witch hunt carried out by his opponents.

Several people close to Netanyahu have been implicated in other corruption scandals, including the so-called "Submarine Affair" and another involving the Communications Ministry and telecom giant Bezeq.

Separately on Sunday, police questioned Likud lawmaker David Bitan, a close ally of Netanyahu and coalition whip viewed as one of the main proponents of the controversial recommendations bill.

The investigation relates to suspicion of corruption and links between organized crime and the municipality of Rishon LeZion near Tel Aviv.  Seventeen members of the municipality were arrested, including several with close ties to Bitan.

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

Zetas Right Again!

http://www.zetatalk.com/newsletr/issue538.htm

While not obviously under house arrest, he is suddenly under investigation for corruption by the Israeli police and under pressure by a UN mandate to return land to the Palestinians and to stop building settlements. Netanyahu retained his Prime Minister post by election fraud on March 17, 2015, and has operated in an arrogant and criminal manner all this life.

On December 10, 2016 the Zetas stated that the cabal that included Jewish bankers and Netanyahu were going to be taken down. On December 24, 2016 the UN voted a mandate against Israel, the US abstaining in the vote for the first time in years. On December 26, 2016 Fulford stated that an essential blockade of Israel was in place, essentially house arrest for the country. On December 27, 2016 news that Netanyahu was being investigated for corruption in Israel appeared in the press. This is a long way from when Netanyahu visited Congress while snubbing the White House in March 18, 2015. How far he has fallen!

Trump recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital in historic move

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-expected-declare-jerusalem-cap...

In a momentous shift in United States policy in the Middle East, President Donald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday and initiated the process of relocating the U.S. Embassy to the city from Tel Aviv.

"My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to conflict between Israel and the Palestinians," Trump said from the White House, where he was joined by Vice President Mike Pence. Trump described it as a "long overdue step to advance the peace process."

"While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver," he added. "Today I am delivering."

His remarks were broad in nature — an intentional choice, according to a U.S. official and a source close to the White House who spoke to ABC News before the announcement.

Trump said Wednesday that "the U.S. would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides."

"Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world," Trump said. "Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, Christians and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and beliefs."

Until the new embassy in Jerusalem opens, current law requires the president to sign a waiver that keeps the embassy in Tel Aviv operable. The process of relocating the embassy is expected to take years.

Trump said the process of hiring "architects, engineers and planners" will begin "immediately." The new embassy "will be a magnificent tribute to peace," he added.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement after Trump's speech that "the State Department will immediately begin the process to implement" the decision to move the embassy. He added that "the safety of Americans is the State Department's highest priority" and that the department has "implemented robust security plans."

...........

A number of world leaders, including Pope Francis, spoke out against the decision Wednesday. Francis' comments came during a previously scheduled meeting with a Palestinian delegation of religious and intellectual leaders before Trump's address.

"My thoughts now go to Jerusalem," Francis said. "In this regard, I cannot keep silent about my deep concern over the situation that has arisen in recent days and, at the same time, a heartfelt appeal so that everyone would be committed to respecting the status quo of the city, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations.”

French President Emmanuel Macron called the action an "unfortunate decision" and said, "France does not approve it."

"It goes against international law and the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council," he said. "The status of Jerusalem is a security issue for the entire international community. The status of Jerusalem must be determined by Israelis and Palestinians in the framework of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations."

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

Israel’s days are numbered if Jerusalem is recognized as Capital

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/israels-days-numbered-jerusale...

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (10:38 A.M)- The end of the state of Israel could be close as the United States moves to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of ‘the Jewish state’.

Israelis as well as zionists, the world over, currently rejoice in the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of their state, but at what cost will such a move come to them?

srael are currently in perhaps the weakest position they have ever found themselves in, within the region.

Israel’s current position in the Middle-East (briefly):

Israel’s position, perhaps for the first time since its inception, is one of weakness and true desperation in the Middle-East. A strong alliance formed between Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other resistance factions has left the Israeli state on the back foot.

The possibility of an Israeli attack upon Lebanon – although they threaten carrying it out – would at this point be a suicide mission for the state. Lebanon’s Hezbollah has developed into a fully capable army, gaining newly acquired fighting experience in Syria as well as having the experience of fighting Israel itself.

The group (Hezbollah), which successfully crushed the IDF invasion back in 2006 is now much more capable of taking the fight to Israel and would more than likely be fighting inside of Israeli occupied territory in a new confrontation, rather than simply defending Lebanese territory.

Syria’s forces have all but cleansed Daesh (IS) from their territory and have gained the much needed fighting experience, necessary to confront Israel, as well as forming a strong alliance with Russia, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon.

The Iraqi army has also undergone a massive recovery and has proven strength through its latest victory against Kurdish forces in Kirkuk. Notably, in the process of defeating Kurdish forces and taking back their oil fields, they knocked out roughly around 77% of Israel’s cheaply imported oil.

Iran also has proved its military capabilities and is a supporter of all the mentioned Arab governments and resistance organizations. If Israel was to indeed launch an attack upon Iran – as it has alluded to doing – this would surely be a suicide mission.

Israel has a strong air-force, but this would not prevent any sort of counter attack upon the state. Often Israeli officials brag about the US granted Iron Dome defense system, unfortunately for these officials, in practice the overly hyped air defense system hasn’t lived up to the challenges it faced. Another note on Iron Dome is that it only operates in major Israeli cities.

The zionist entity could not even win in any onslaught upon Hamas in Gaza, in fact they ended ‘operation protective edge’ back in 2014 out of fear. The sheer amount of casualties it would’ve inevitably taken, fighting Hamas forces in a ground invasion scared the state enough to end the fighting. Hamas are now notably receiving most of their support from Iran.

The Israeli state is surrounded by tough opponents, that for the first time in history, have a real chance at inflicting significant damage upon them. This is largely their own doing, creating the environments in which such resistance organizations and strong Arab armies could form.

Israel’s domestic position (briefly):

The Likud party have come under fire from both the left and right in Israel. Many right wing Israeli’s are turning to other political parties who they see as much more fit for the role of commanding the state. Netanyahu’s government has attempted to restore his image amongst the Israeli right, through offering much support to illegal settler organizations and groups who seek to expand illegal colonies, also destroying Palestinian villages in area C of the West Bank.

The left wing also seem to have had enough with Netanyahu and Likud. The recent corruption investigations have even fueled sizable protests. Historically the descent in Israeli society has been present but at a very minimal level, with the current demonstrations proving to be foreign to the government. Israelis, in general, are not angry at the oppressive policies of their government against the Palestinians, but still non-the-less are fighting amongst themselves and seem lost in terms of their political approach to their states direction. Such a toxic environment, which can be very vividly illustrated by simply observing the state of Israeli Knesset meetings, is one of real unrest.

Possible national suicide?

With the recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of the Israeli state, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has basically been given an ultimatum, resist or completely submit to Israeli land theft and oppression.

Recognition by the United States of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital means that the international consensus, which calls for a two state settlement of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, will be completely nullified.

A unity deal between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was struck back in September of this year, means that both major Palestinian governmental parties are united in their struggle against their occupier. Unity between Palestinians is very key, as now the only option left for the PA is resistance.

Three days of rage have been called upon by the PA, the al-Aqsa brigades have begun talks of reforming/reacting, Hamas have also issued a warning and along with this, Fatah have threatened an intifada.

With Israel in such a weak position in the region and falling apart internally, it has desperately been attempting to form open alliances with similar states to itself – namely Saudi Arabia – but is not seeming to help itself greatly in doing so.

What comes next is something incredibly difficult to predict, but as it stands, Israel may be facing its final days.

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

Syria's liberation from ISIS is complete; Syrian land under ISIS control does not exist

http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/12/syrias-liberation-from-isis-is-com...

Syria is completely liberated from the militants of the terrorist organization ISIS (banned in Russia). The remnants of the militants were defeated in Deir ez Zor by General Hassan Suhel. This was stated by Army General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces.

"All the gang-formations in the territory of Syria have been destroyed, and the territory itself has been liberated."

"Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu reported this an hour ago to the supreme commander-in-chief, President Vladimir Putin," Gerasimov said, and again emphasized that "In Syria to date territory under ISIS control does not exist. "

The other day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the liberation of almost the entire territory of Syria from the terrorists, including places of traditional Christian residence.

Earlier it was reported that the Russian government plans to reduce the military contingent in Syria.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that the coalition led by the United States instead of confronting ISIS contributed to the occupation by terrorists of the territory of Syria.

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Russia declares Syria ‘completely liberated’ from ISIS

http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/061220172

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Russia’s defence minister has informed President Vladimir Putin of the defeat of ISIS in Syria and the “complete” liberation of that country. 

“All ISIS formations in Syria have been defeated. Syria has been liberated from terrorists,” General of the Army Valery Gerasimov stated Wednesday evening, adding that Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Putin of this “about an hour ago.”

Russia has been a key ally of Syria, propping up Damascus during the civil war and backing regime forces. 

Announcing the liberation of four villages in Deir ez-Zor province, “there are no territories controlled by ISIS in Syria today,” Gerasimov said. 

The military operations were overseen by Russian military advisers “operating in every grouping of the government troops,” according to a statement from Russia’s Ministry of Defence. 

“Units of Kurdish militia and tribes from the East Euphrates operating under the leadership of the joint staff and Russian military advisers have made a large contribution to the liberation of territories located to the east from the Euphrates,” Gerasimov added. 

On Sunday, in a joint press conference with Russian military officials, the Kurdish armed force YPG announced the defeat of ISIS in the rural areas of Deir ez-Zor province, east of the Euphrates River. 

The YPG, fighting under the SDF flag, had led the offensive with the backing of the US-led global coalition. 

Russia has been backing the Syrian regime, which ran a parallel military operation against ISIS across the river. 

The two sides came briefly into conflict with Russia warning the United States in September that they would target the SDF if provoked. 

Coalition spokesperson Col. Ryan Dillon categorically denied Russia’s assertions that they supported Kurdish forces in Deir ez-Zor province, saying in a question and answer on Twitter, “such claims are false.”

The closer ties between the Kurdish forces and Russia come as the United States has said it is adjusting its support for the YPG as the focus shifts to stabilization.

There are fewer than 3,000 ISIS militants remaining in Iraq and Syria, according to coalition figures. The group has been defeated in the urban areas they once controlled in both countries, but some pockets remain in the deserts along the Iraq-Syria border. 

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Zetas Right Again!

http://www.zetatalk.com/newsletr/issue533.htm

"There is a natural domino effect from the slipping grip of the cabal. The success of the Trump campaign shows this, a reaction against what is called Globalism whereby the top down control benefits from trade deals while the common man suffers. Immigration to create chaos, long a Soros tool, will be blocked while war mongers such as ISIS and Turkey and Israel are halted. "

UN Regrets US Pulling Out of Migrant Pact

https://www.voanews.com/a/un-us-migrant-refugee-pact/4148969.html

UNITED NATIONS — 

The United Nations says it regrets the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the Global Compact on Migration, but that there is still time for the United States to re-engage in the process.

“This should not disrupt the clear, unanimous outcome of the New York Declaration for such a global compact – which will be non-legally binding, grounded in international cooperation and respectful of national interests,” U.N. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement that the compact is not consistent with American immigration policies.

"While we will continue to engage on a number of fronts at the United Nations, in this case, we simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders," Tillerson said.

He said the United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, “but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal."

The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants was adopted on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual leaders gathering in September 2016. It is the beginning of a process to draft a multilateral agreement that covers all aspects of safe, orderly and regular migration.

The U.S. announcement came just before the start Monday of a global conference on migration in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The meeting participants will discuss their recommendations and shape their vision for the global compact.

A State Department spokesperson on Tuesday clarified the U.S. has only decided to end its participation in the U.N. process to develop a Global Compact on Migration and that "the Global Compact on Refugees is a separate process with separate intended outcomes."

U.N. Special Representative for International Migration Louise Arbour spoke with VOA from Mexico on the U.S. decision.

“I think it is unfortunate not to have the benefit of the experience – the very long, positive experience of the United States with migration -- but the process very much has its own momentum and is moving forward very nicely,” she said.

Arbour said the U.S. delegation had engaged in preliminary topical discussions for the past six months and gave her no advance warning that it would withdraw from the process.

The U.N. estimates that there are about 244 million migrants in the world – or just over three percent of the world’s population. The U.N. considers a migrant to be anyone who changes their country, regardless of the reason.

Arbour says migration is an “overwhelmingly positive” story that is often misunderstood.She notes migrants contribute billions of dollars to the economies of their home countries.

“It’s a huge tool of development and a great contribution to every country that’s been hosting migrants in history," she said.

Divided administration

The U.S. mission to the U.N. said in a statement Saturday that the declaration “contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies and the Trump Administration’s immigration principles.”

Foreign Policy magazine reported that President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the negotiations “highlighted the enduring influence of Stephen Miller, the 32-year-old senior White House policy advisor who has championed the Trump administration’s efforts to sharply restrict immigration” to the United States.

The magazine said White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Attorney General Jeff Sessions “strongly backed a pullout," while U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley opposed it.

Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, reportedly took the position that Washington could influence the global negotiations on migration if it participated in the Mexico meeting, but she was “ultimately overruled by the president.”

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

Zetas Right Again!

http://www.zetatalk.com/newsletr/issue533.htm

"There is a natural domino effect from the slipping grip of the cabal. The success of the Trump campaign shows this, a reaction against what is called Globalism whereby the top down control benefits from trade deals while the common man suffers. Immigration to create chaos, long a Soros tool, will be blocked while war mongers such as ISIS and Turkey and Israel are halted. "

President Trump Declares National Emergency Over Global Rights Abuses and Corruption

https://www.theepochtimes.com/president-trump-declares-national-eme...

President Donald Trump at the White House on Sept. 24. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on Dec. 21 in response to severe human rights abuses and corruption around the world.

In his executive order, the president said that rights abuses and corruption “have reached such scope and gravity that they threaten the stability of international political and economic systems.”

“I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat,” Trump said.

The executive order allows for the freezing of assets, within U.S. jurisdiction, of foreigners who commit severe human rights abuses, or corruption, for the most part outside of the United States.

The executive order also targets foreigners and U.S. nationals who have assisted, sponsored, or provided financial or material aid to the foreign nationals who committed the crimes.

Offending individuals will be identified by the Treasury Department in consultation with the Secretary of State and Attorney General.

The executive order targets individuals, entities, and government officials.

In effect, the executive order allows for the United States to crack down on international criminal networks who engage in human rights abuses, such as child traffickers.

It also allows the United States to target individuals within regimes who have committed human rights abuses, such as in China or North Korea.

“Human rights abuse and corruption undermine the values that form an essential foundation of stable, secure, and functioning societies; have devastating impacts on individuals; weaken democratic institutions; degraded the rule of law; perpetuate violent conflicts; facilitate the activities of dangerous persons; and undermine economic markets,” Trump wrote in the executive order.

While it is unclear what the scope of the national emergency will be, 13 individuals have already been identified as serious human rights abusers and corrupt actors.

In addition, the Treasury Department said that it has identified 39 affiliated individuals and entities under the new order.

Among those initially targeted by the sanctions are Gao Yan who was the director of the Beijing Public Security Bureau Chaoyang Branch. During Gao’s tenure, human rights activist Cao Shunli died in detention in March 2014.

“Cao fell into a coma and died from organ failure, her body showing signs of emaciation and neglect,” said the Treasury department in a statement.

China has seen widespread human rights abuses over the years. Among them is the persecution of practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong.

In June 2016, the House passed a resolution expressing concern about the “persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, including from large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.”

Officials involved in these abuses could now be targeted under the national emergency.

It also includes Mukhtar Hamid Shah, a Pakistani surgeon specializing in kidney transplants who Pakistani police believe to be involved in kidnapping and the removal of and trafficking in human organs.

A full list of the individuals targeted can be found here.

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

United States Sanctions Human Rights Abusers and Corrupt Actors Across the Globe

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0243

FBI launches new Clinton Foundation investigation

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/367541-fbi-launches-new-clinto...

The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of State, law enforcement officials and a witness tells The Hill.

FBI agents from Little Rock, Ark., where the foundation was started, have taken the lead in the investigation and have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, and law enforcement officials said additional activities are expected in the coming weeks.

The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the probe is examining whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for largesse to their charitable efforts or whether donors made commitments of donations in hopes of securing government outcomes.

The probe may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or political use and whether the foundation complied with applicable tax laws, the officials said.

One witness recently interviewed by the FBI described the session to The Hill as “extremely professional and unquestionably thorough” and focused on questions about whether donors to Clinton charitable efforts received any favorable treatment from the Obama administration on a policy decision previously highlighted in media reports.

The witness discussed his interview solely on the grounds of anonymity. He said the agents were from Little Rock and their questions focused on government decisions and discussions of donations to Clinton entities during the time Hillary Clinton led President Obama's State Department.

The FBI office in Little Rock referred a reporter Thursday to Washington headquarters, where officials declined any official comment. 

The Wall Street Journal reported late last year that several FBI field offices, including the one in Little Rock, had been collecting information on the Clinton Foundation for more than a year. The report also said there had been pushback to the FBI from the Justice Department.

A renewed law enforcement focus follows a promise to Congress late last year from top Trump Justice Department officials that law enforcement would revisit some of the investigations and legal issues closed during the Obama years that conservatives felt were given short shrift. It also follows months of relentless criticism on Twitter from President Trump, who has repeatedly questioned why no criminal charges were ever filed against the “crooked” Clintons and their fundraising machine.

For years, news media from The New York Times to The Daily Caller have reported countless stories on donations to the Clinton Foundation or speech fees that closely fell around the time of favorable decisions by Clinton's State Department. Conservative author Peter Schweizer chronicled the most famous of episodes in his book "Clinton Cash" that gave ammunition to conservatives, including Trump, to beat the drum for a renewed investigation.

Several GOP members of Congress have recently urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel to look at the myriad issues surrounding the Clintons. Justice officials sent a letter to Congress in November suggesting some of those issues were being re-examined, but Sessions later testified the appointment of a special prosecutor required a high legal bar that had not yet been met.

Officials also said the Justice Department was re-examining whether there are any unresolved issues from the closed case into Clinton's transmission of classified information through her personal email server. Former FBI Director James Comey in 2016 concluded Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling that classified information and that there was some evidence of legal violations, but he declined to recommend charges on the grounds that he could not prove Clinton and her top aides intended to break the law.

His decision was roundly criticized by Republicans, and recent revelations that his statement was watered down by edits and that he made the decision before all witness interviews were finished have led to renewed criticism.

A senior law enforcement official said the Justice Department was exploring whether any issues from that probe should be re-opened but cautioned the effort was not at the stage of a full investigation.

One challenge for any Clinton-era investigation is that the statute of limitations on most federal felonies is five years, and Clinton left office in early 2013. 

A Bombshell House Intelligence report exposing extensive FISA abuse could lead to the removal of senior government officials

https://saraacarter.com/a-bombshell-house-intelligence-report-expos... 

A review of a classified document outlining what is described as extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse was made available to all House members Thursday and the revelations could lead to the removal of senior officials in the FBI and Department of Justice, several sources with knowledge of the document stated. These sources say the report is “explosive,” stating they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into President Trump and his associates.

The House Intelligence Committee passed the motion along party lines Thursday to make the classified report alleging extensive ‘FISA Abuse’ related to the controversial dossier available to all House members. The report contains information regarding the dossier that alleges President Trump and members of his team colluded with the Russians in the 2016 presidential election. Some members of the House viewed the document in a secure room Thursday.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., offered the motion on Thursday to make the Republican majority-authored report available to the members.

“The document shows a troubling course of conduct and we need to make the document available, so the public can see it,” said a senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the document. “Once the public sees it, we can hold the people involved accountable in a number of ways.”
The government official said that after reading the document “some of these people should no longer be in the government.”

The document also apparently outlines “several problematic” issues with how FISA warrants were “packaged, and used” state several sources with knowledge of the report.

Over the past year, whistleblowers in the law enforcement and intelligence community have revealed to Congress what they believe to be extensive abuse with regard to FISA surveillance, as previously reported. 

The dossier was used in part as evidence for a warrant to surveil members of the Trump campaign, according to a story published this month. Former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier in 2016, was hired by embattled research firm Fusion GPS. The firm’s founder is Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who has already testified before Congress in relation to the dossier. In October, The Washington Post revealed for the first time that it was the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC that financed Fusion GPS.

Congressional members are hopeful that the classified information will be declassified and released to the public.

“We probably will get this stuff released by the end of the month,” stated a congressional member, who asked not to be named.

But the government official, who viewed the document said “it will be tough for a lot of people to see this and especially the media, which has been attempting to deemphasize the dossier. It’s going to punch a hole in their collusion narrative.”

The House vote to make the report available to all members is a major step in exposing the long-guarded classified documents obtained by the House Intelligence Committee over the past year. It allows members of the House to view the report and could quickly lead to a motion to declassify the report for the public, numerous House members told this reporter.

“It’s a (House Intelligence) committee document that deals with the assessment on the Department of Justice, FBI and the oversight work that is being conducted by the committee,” said a congressional source, which spoke on condition that they not be named.

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

Meanwhile this bill quietly passes on through.....

FBI Director Wray "Shocked To His Core" By FISA Memo, McCabe 'Removed' Next Day, More Heads To Roll: Report

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-30/fbi-director-wray-shocked...

FBI Director Christopher Wray was allegedly "shocked to his core" after viewing the four-page FISA memo Sunday night - hours before asking Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe to step down, according to journalist Sara Carter. 

Hannity sat down once again with journalist Sara Carter, whose sources say McCabe may have instructed FBI agents to alter their "302" forms - the paperwork an agent files after interviewing someone: 

6) The 302 reveals the content of interview as well as identify ALL PARTICIPANTS. The 1023 outlines who met who, where, when, and why.

— TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 5, 2018

Carter: What we know tonight is that FBI Director Christopher Wray went Sunday and reviewed the four-page FISA memo. The very next day, Andrew McCabe was asked to resign. Remember Sean, he was planning on resigning in March - that already came out in December. This time they asked him to go right away. You're not coming into the office. I've heard rep[orts he didn't even come in for the morning meeting - that he didn't show up.

Hannity: A source of mine told me tonight that when Wray read this, it shocked him to his core.

Sara Carter: Shocked him to his core, and not only that, the Inspector General's report - I have been told tonight by a number of sources, there's indicators right now that McCabe may have asked FBI agents to actually change their 302's - those are their interviews with witnesses. So basically every time an FBI agent interviews a witness, they have to go back and file a report. 

Hannity: Changes? So that would be obstruction of justice? 

Carter: Exactly. This is something the Inspector General is investigating. If this is true and not alleged, McCabe will be fired. I heard they are considering firing him within the next few days if this turns out to be true. 

Carter said that McCabe "quitting" is just the beginning, and that more resignations will be coming.

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

House Intel Votes To Make "Shocking" FISA Memo Public

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-29/house-intel-committee-vot...

In a highly anticipated decision, on Monday evening the House Intelligence Committee voted to make public the memo alleging what some Republicans say are “shocking” surveillance abuses at the Department of Justice regarding the Trump presidential campaign.

The decision weeks of speculation over whether the memo, which was drafted by staff for committee chairman Devin Nunes (R- Calif) would be made public. At the same time, it intensifies the dispute over what Democrats say is an all-out assault by Republicans to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Now the fate of the 4-page FISA memo is in the hands of Donald Trump: as we discussed earlier, the document will not be immediately released as under the House rule Republicans used to override the classification of the four-page memo, President Trump now has five days to review and reject its publication.

These Are The 6 Traders Who Were Just Arrested For Manipulating The Gold Market

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-29/these-are-6-traders-who-w...

On Monday morning we reported that a number of traders - currently or formerly employed by UBS, HSBC and Deutsche Bank (as usual, no JPMorgan US banks were touched) - would be perp-walked and charged in an unprecedented cross-agency crackdown between the CFTC, DOJ and FBI seeking to punish spoofers of futures. This was confirmed moments ago by a CFTC press release which announced criminal and civil enforcement actions against three banks and six individuals involved in commodities fraud and spoofing schemes.

Here is what got far less publicity: it wasn't just any futures that were spoofed - all the banks and traders busted were charged for spoofing the precious metals market, i.e. gold and silver. We bring this up because there are still the occasional idiots out there who say gold and silver were never manipulated.

The banks in question, and their penalties:

Deutsche Bank will pay a $30 million civil monetary penalty and undertake remedial relief. The Orders finds that "from at least February 2008 and continuing through at least September 2014, DB AG, by and through certain precious metals traders (Traders), engaged in a scheme to manipulate the price of precious metals futures contracts by utilizing a variety of manual spoofing techniques with respect to precious metals futures contracts traded on the Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX), and by trading in a manner to trigger customer stop-loss orders."

UBS will pay a $15 million civil monetary penalty and undertake remedial relief.  The Order finds that from "January 2008 through at least December 2013, UBS, by and through the acts of certain precious metals traders on the spot desk (Traders), attempted to manipulate the price of precious metals futures contracts by utilizing a variety of manual spoofing techniques with respect to precious metals futures contracts traded on the Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX), including gold and silver, and by trading in a manner to trigger customer stop-loss orders."

HSBC will pay a civil monetary penalty of $1.6 million, and cease and desist from violating the Commodity Exchange Act’s prohibition against spoofing, after an Order found HSBC engaged in numerous acts of "spoofing with respect to certain futures products in gold and other precious metals traded on the Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX). The Order finds that HSBC engaged in this activity through one of its traders based in HSBC’s New York office."

For those keeping count, this is roughly the 4th time HSBC has been found guilty of manipulating markets after the bank nearly lost its charter and swore it would never manipulate markets again.

* * *

And here are the 6 traders who spoof and otherwise manipulated the precious metals market:

market:

• Krishna Mohan

The CFTC today announced the filing of a federal court enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas against Krishna Mohan of New York City, New York, charging him with spoofing (bidding or offering with the intent to cancel before execution) and engaging in a manipulative and deceptive scheme in the E-mini Dow ($5) futures contract market on the Chicago Board of Trade and the E-mini NASDAQ 100 futures contract market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

• Jiongsheng Zhao

The CFTC today announced the filing of a federal court enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Defendant Jiongsheng Zhao, of Australia, charging him with spoofing and engaging in a manipulative and deceptive scheme in the E-mini S&P 500 futures contract market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

• James Vorley & Cedric Chanu

The CFTC announced the filing of a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against James Vorley, a U.K. resident, and Cedric Chanu, a United Arab Emirates resident, charging them with spoofing and engaging in a manipulative and deceptive scheme in the precious metals futures markets.

• Jitesh Thakkar & Edge Financial Technologies

The CFTC today announced the filing of a federal court enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, charging Jitesh Thakkar of Naperville, Illinois, and his company, Edge Financial Technologies, Inc. (Edge), with aiding and abetting spoofing and a manipulative and deceptive scheme in the E-mini S&P futures contract market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (E-mini S&P).

An amusing tangent: recall that according to court docs related to the prosecution of "May 2010" flash crash scapegoat Navinder Sarao, the former S&P spoofer allegedly asked the abovementioned founder of the trading-software company Edge Financial Technologies Inc. to modify a program to allow him to automate some trading functions.

The CFTC and Department of Justice said in their complaint that those modifications were designed to help him spoof the markets more efficiently.

It gets better: as the WSJ reported, the now arrested Jitesh Thakkar, the founder of Edge Financial and a former member of a CFTC technology-advisory committee, said in an interview that the CFTC had sent [Sarao] a letter asking him to retain all documents related to Mr. Sarao.

“I’ve spoken out against spoofing,” he said. “We didn’t create anything that does anything illegal.”

Two years later Thakkar was arrested for just that, but it also now appears that Thakkar may have used Sarao's algo himself.

* * *

Finally, our old friend, Andre Flotron, formerly of UBS, who as we reported on several prior occasions was arrested and charged with gold-rigging after a lengthy career of doing just that at the largest Swiss bank:

The CFTC announced the filing of a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut against Andre Flotron, of Switzerland, charging him with engaging in a manipulative and deceptive scheme and spoofing in the precious metals futures markets on a registered entity.

* * *

Meanwhile, the S&P500 manipulation by the Fed and spoofing by HFTs continues apace, and will as long as the market keeps levitating because it is only when stocks crash, that the fingerpointing begins.

Read More HERE

Clinton, Podesta And Others In Senate Crosshairs Over Dossier; Given Two Weeks To Respond

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-27/clinton-podesta-and-other...

GOP Congressional investigators have written six letters to individuals or entities involved or thought to be involved in the funding, creation or distribution of the salacious and unverified "Trump-Russia dossier" believed to have been inappropriately used by the FBI, DOJ and Obama Administration in an effort to undermine Donald Trump as both a candidate and President of the United States. 

Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SCS) wrote six Judiciary Committee letters requesting information from: John Podesta, Donna Brazille, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Robbie Mook, the DNC, and Hillary For America Chief Strategist Joel Benenson.

A brief refresher of facts and allegations: 

• The DNC and Hillary Clinton's PAC was revealed by The Washington Post  to have paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS for the creation of a dossier that would be harmful to then-candidate Donald Trump. 
• Fusion commissioned former UK spy Christopher Steele to assemble the dossier - which is comprised of a series of memos relying largely on Russian government sources to make allegations against Donald Trump and his associates.
• According to court filings, Fusion also worked with disgraced DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and hired his CIA-linked wife, Nellie Ohr, to assist in the smear campaign against Trump. Bruce Ohr was demoted from his senior DOJ position after it was revealed that he met with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson as well as Christopher Steele - then tried to cover it up. 
• Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, denied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he knew about the dossier's funding, while Clinton's former spokesman, Brian Fallon, told CNN that Hillary likely had no idea who paid for it either. 
• Current and past leaders of the DNC, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) also denied knowledge of the document's funding.
• Podesta met with Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson the day after the Trump-Russia dossier was published by Buzzfeed News. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee letters read in part: 

In October 2017, the Washington Post reported that Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee had funded, via Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele's creation of a series of memos relying largely on Russian government sources to make allegations against Donald Trump and his associates. A letter from the law firm Perkins Coie acknowledged that, " [t]o assist in its representation of the DNC and Hillary for America, Perkins Coie engaged Fusion GPS in April of2016" and that "the engagement concluded prior to the November 2016 Presidential election

the Committee has been investigating the FBI' s relationship with Christopher Steele during this time his work was funded by Hillary for America and the DNC. The scope of our review includes the extent to which the FBI may have relied on information relayed by Mr. Steele in seeking judicial authorization for surveillance of individuals associated with Mr. Trump. It also includes whether any applications that may have been made for permission for such surveillance fully and accurately disclosed:

(1) the source of Fusion GPS's and Mr. Steele's funding;

(2) the degree to which his claims were or were not verified;

(3) the motivations of Mr. Steele, his clients, and his sources; and

( 4) representations about their contacts with the press.

The letter then goes on to list twelve questions - the last being a request for all communications between a list of 40 individuals or entities - including Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, Glenn Simpson and former CIA Director John Brennan. 

READ MORE HERE

Australian Government's Secret 'Cabinet Files' Were Found In ... An Old Cabinet

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/31/582088546/austra...

Australia's government is holding "an urgent investigation" into how hundreds of classified documents about the interior workings of several recent administrations found their way to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The ABC says the thousands of pages of documents had been left in two filing cabinets, which the government then sold off at a secondhand shop. The cabinets were bought cheap, the network says, because they were locked and the keys had been lost.

Inside the cabinets were records of five separate governments that spanned nearly 10 years; some of them refer to current members of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Cabinet.

The ABC began publishing parts of the files this week, revealing the embarrassing inner workings of government — and, today, reporting that the trove of documents also include references to at least two other previously unknown breaches, in which hundreds more secret and sensitive documents were either lost or left unsupervised.

Dubbing the documents the Cabinet Files, the network calls it "one of the biggest breaches of cabinet security in Australian history," adding that "the story of their release is as gripping as it is alarming and revealing."

Among the revelations from the files:

• Former immigration minister Scott Morrison, who's currently Turnbull's treasurer, acted in late 2013 to limit the number of approved asylum seekers by arranging to "delay security checks so that people close to being granted permanent protection would miss the deadline" — a move that reportedly affected 30 asylum seekers each week.

• Looking to cut spending under Prime Minister Tony Abbott, his top treasury and finance officials considered denying welfare to anyone who's under 30. A range of scenarios were considered that targeted "job snobs," the ABC says, but the plan was shelved over a potential backlash.
• After controversial commentator Andrew Bolt was successfully accused of breaking the Racial Discrimination Act in 2011, the Cabinet later asked Bolt about changing the law's "unreasonably restrictive" reach — and "was the only person specifically named as having been consulted," the ABC says, citing draft legislation that is part of the files.

• "Nearly 200 top-secret code word protected and sensitive documents were left in the office of senior minister Penny Wong when Labor lost the 2013 election," the ABC says. The materials dealt with topics ranging from details of counterterrorism operations to how to defend the United Arab Emirates from Iran. Those documents were eventually found by security staff, who saw them destroyed.
• Nearly 400 national security files went missing from the Australian Federal Police over the course of five years, from 2008-2013. The ABC says those classified records were from "the powerful National Security Committee (NSC) of the cabinet, which controls the country's security, intelligence and defense agenda."
• "The cabinet secretariat's general practice was to give up searching and write off lost documents if they could not be found" after repeated attempts.

When ABC began publishing some of the news from the documents this week, it triggered speculation about a possible leak in the current government that Turnbull has led since 2015. But the network says there was no leak and that no one broke the law — instead, someone finally got around to drilling out the locks on the two heavy cabinets that had been sold without any matching keys.

"The documents were in two locked filing cabinets sold at an ex-government sale in Canberra," the ABC says. "A nifty person drilled the locks and uncovered the trove of documents inside."

The cabinets and their contents were bought "for small change" in a sale that could have been made to anyone, the network says. It adds, "The thousands of pages reveal the inner workings of five separate governments and span nearly a decade. Nearly all the files are classified, some as 'top secret' or 'AUSTEO,' which means they are to be seen by Australian eyes only."

The ABC isn't releasing any names or details about who bought the old, information-rich cabinets, or how it learned about them. Citing confidential sources, the network says it will "protect their privacy at all costs."

After news of the massive security breach broke, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet provided no more details, releasing a statement saying only that it's looking into "the circumstances around the disposal of two Commonwealth Government filing cabinets that allegedly contained classified material."

Under Australian law, the Cabinet records would have become public only after at least 20 years had passed. But thanks to those other, more common cabinets, they're being scrutinized now.

U.S. Designates Zhao Wei Network as Transnational Criminal Organization

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-treasury-department-pla...

The U.S. has designated the Zhao Wei network, which operates throughout southeast Asia, as a transnational criminal organization, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.

The Laos-based network facilitates much of its criminal activity through a Laotian casino, which the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targeted with its latest designations.

"The Zhao Wei crime network engages in an array of horrendous illicit activities, including human trafficking and child prostitution, drug trafficking, and wildlife trafficking," said Sigal Mandelker, under secretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. "We are targeting key figures in this transnational criminal organization, which stretches from the Kings Romans Casino in Laos throughout Southeast Asia."

The network also engages in money laundering and bribery in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, an area known for opium production.

"OFAC is designating the Zhao Wei network as part of a broader strategy to disrupt the financial infrastructure of transnational criminal organizations that pose a threat to the United States and our allies," Mandelker added.

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on four individuals and three entities across Laos, Thailand, and Hong Kong for involvement with the Zhao Wei network. The U.S. assets of all entities designated by the OFAC are now frozen, and Americans are forbidden from dealing with them.

Treasury officials said the network operates largely through the Kings Romans Casino to store and distribute heroin, methamphetamine, and other narcotics for illicit networks, in addition to human and wildlife trafficking and child prostitution.

One of the sanctioned individuals is Zhao Wei, a Chinese national and co-owner or director of three companies linked to the Kings Roman Casino. The OFAC also sanctioned another Chinese national, a Thai national, and an Australian national, all of whom have high-level connections to the casino.

The Treasury Department noted that Tuesday's designation was conducted in close coordination with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/02/02/read-controver...

Read the controversial Devin Nunes memo on the FBI

The White House declassified a GOP memo on the Russia probe Friday, clearing way for the House panel to release allegations of FBI misconduct.

February 02, 2018

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/02/02/state-department-releas...

State Department releases batch of Hillary Clinton emails.

Feb 2nd 2018 11:14AM

The State Department has released a batch of emails between Hillary Clinton and her associates sent to and from her private email account.

More than 50 emails appeared on the department's Freedom of Information Act portal on Thursday, and showed her interacting with aides such as Huma Abedin and her then chief of staff Cheryl Mills.

They show her and Abedin used @clintonemail.com addresses to set up travel plans and meetings with foreign dignitaries, as well as requests to print documents such as discussions of aid to Haiti.

Some portions, such as discussion of a call with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in July 2011 and a trip in October 2009, have been largely redacted.

The emails have been declassified as of the end of January, and follow the late December release of another tranche of messages that were stored on the backup program Abedin shared with her husband, disgraced New York congressman Anthony Weiner.

Transparency and conservative groups such as Judicial Watch have sued for emails related to Clinton's work at the State Department.

Her use of a private email server for official business including some classified information became a major focus of her critics during the campaign, though then FBI Director James Comey said that she her actions were "extremely careless" but did not rise to the level of a crime.

Comey announced in a letter to Congress shortly before the 2016 election that investigators were looking into the server again after emails were found on a laptop during the sexting probe into disgraced New York congressman Anthony Weiner, who is married to Abedin

President Trump, who says that the investigation into his campaign’s potential collusion with Russia is a “witch hunt” has also berated the FBI for not pushing for a Clinton prosecution.

Nunes- FISA Memo Just "Phase One," Now Targeting State Department In "Phase Two"

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-03/nunes-fisa-memo-just-phas...

Devin Nunes (R-CA) said that the investigation leading up to the four-page FISA memo released on Friday was only "phase one," and that the House Intelligence Committee is currently in the middle of investigating the State Department over their involvement in surveillance abuses. 

"We are in the middle of what I call phase two of our investigation, which involves other departments, specifically the State Department and some of the involvement that they had in this," said Nunes. 

"That investigation is ongoing and we continue work towards finding answers and asking the right questions to try to get to the bottom of what exactly the State Department was up to in terms of this Russia investigation."

While it is unclear what role the State Department may have in surveillance abuses, the Washington Examiner's Byron York noted last month that former MI6 spy, Christopher Steele, was "well-connected with the Obama State Department," according to the book Collusion: Secret meetings, dirty money, and how Russia helped Donald Trump win" written by The Guardian correspondent Luke Harding and published last November.

Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele

Harding notes that Steele's work during the World Cup soccer corruption investigation earned the trust of both the FBI and the State Department: 

The [soccer] episode burnished Steele's reputation inside the U.S. intelligence community and the FBI. Here was a pro, a well-connected Brit, who understood Russian espionage and its subterranean tricks. Steele was regarded as credible. Between 2014 and 2016, Steele authored more than a hundred reports on Russia and Ukraine. These were written for a private client but shared widely within the State Department and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to the Ukraine crisis. Many of Steele's secret sources were the same sources who would supply information on Trump. One former State Department envoy during the Obama administration said he read dozens of Steele's reports on Russia. The envoy said that on Russia, Steele was "as good as the CIA or anyone." Steele's professional reputation inside U.S. agencies would prove important the next time he discovered alarming material, and lit the fuse again.

Aside from the infamous 35-page "Trump-Russia" dossier Steele assembled for opposition research firm Fusion GPS (a report which was funded in part by Hillary Clinton and the DNC), Congressional investigators have been looking into whether Steele compiled other reports about Trump - and in particular, whether those other reports made their way to the State Department, according to The Examiner. 

...they are looking into whether those reports made their way to the State Department. They're also seeking to learn what individual State Department officials did in relation to Steele, and whether there were any contacts between the State Department and the FBI or Justice Department concerning the anti-Trump material.

It will be interesting to see how the State Department - and in particular Secretary of State Rex Tillerson - responds to "phase two."

Zetas right again!  http://www.zetatalk.com/ning/31oc2017.htm

"But to counter the criminal Clinton elements still trying to manipulate public sentiments, many crimes are going to be exposed in the media."

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

Declassified Grassley Document Confirms FISA Memo's Explosive Claims

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-07/declassified-grassley-doc...

• A declassified document from the Senate Judiciary Committee confirms that the FBI "relied heavily" on an unverified dossier in order to obtain FISA surveillance warrants on one-time Trump advisor Carter Page
• Unredacted portions of the document reveal the FBI's extensive involvement with the creator of the dossier, former UK spy Christopher Steele
• Despite Steele lying to the FBI which led to the agency ending their relationship, they still used his unverified memo and vouched for his reputation to obtain the FISA warrants
• The unredacted memo clarifies that the FBI notified the FISA court of the dossier's political origins "to a vaguely limited extent"
• The FBI has withheld the notes from their meetings with Steele
• Steele received information for an unpublished second dossier from the Obama State Department led by John Kerry at the time
• Much of the information in this "Grassley Memo" matches with the contents of the "Nunes Memo" released by the House Intelligence Committee last Friday.

A largely unredacted version of a criminal referral made against Fusion GPS operative Christopher Steele reveals several new bombshells, and confirms that the FBI heavily relied on an unverified dossier created by the former UK spy - along with a Yahoo News article which used Steele's information, to obtain a FISA surveillance warrant on one-time Trump advisor Carter Page. 

The previously redacted sections of the document notably covered up the FBI's extensive working relationship with Steele - who was paid $168,000 to create the dossier used in the FISA applications. The fact that he was considered reliable was used as an argument to the FISA court to make up for the fact that the underlying dossier was unverified.

11) CONFIRMS that Comey and the FBI had an extended relationship with Steele and relied heavily on him and the #SteeleDossier "Mr. Steele himself was considered reliable due to his past work for the Bureau" (page 2) pic.twitter.com/z00ORLZWRs

— TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) February 7, 2018

15) #GrassleyMemo demonstrates that the sole source for the FISA warrant was Christopher Steele. A source that was NEVER VERIFIED. Thus, an unverified source was used to spy on Americans. Grassley puts the FBI and DOJ firmly on the hook for not verifying and for omission. (p7-8) pic.twitter.com/BUt3I5lVjq

— TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) February 7, 2018

Indeed, the documents we have reviewed show that the FBI took important investigative steps largely based on Mr. Steele's information - and relying heavily on his credibility. Specifically, on October 21, 2016, the FBI filed its first warrant application under FISA for Carter Page. [redacted] The bulk of the application consists of allegations against Page that were disclosed to the FBI by Mr. Steele and are also outlined in the Steele dossier. The application appears to contain no additional information corroborating the dossier allegations agast Mr. Page, although it does cite to a news article that appears to be sourced to Mr. Steele's dossier as well. 

“Mr. Steele’s apparent deception seems to have posed significant, material consequences on the FBI’s investigative decisions and representations to the court,” wrote Grassley and Graham.

Moreover, the less-redacted document reveals that the FBI misled the FISA court:

13) FBI lied to the court by omission!
October 2016 FBI suspends relationship with Steele for leaking to the press yet repeatedly tells the court they do not believe it was intentional! #GrassleyMemo reveals Steele leaked PRIOR to Oct 2016. FBI withheld this from the court (pg4) pic.twitter.com/0jIHZbskw0

— TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) February 7, 2018

3) The FBI was still claiming to the FISA Court Steele hadn't talked to the media when they knew he had. They did this during EACH of the three renewals of the warrant.

— Stealth Jeff (@drawandstrike) February 7, 2018

Remember, the FBI had to *pretend* to the FISA Court they didn't know Steele was reporter Michael Isikoff's source for that Yahoo News article they proffered to the Court to corroborate the dossier allegations about Carter Page.

— Stealth Jeff (@drawandstrike) February 7, 2018

Or did they?

As I read para 2 of this page, the FISC was informed by the FBI (in the Jan 2017 FISA renewal) that Steele had been suspended because of unauthorised leaks to the media.

QS : how on earth did a FISC judge renew a Title 1 warrant knowing this?

The FISC is also in the frame. https://t.co/lO91j0tAlQ

— Imperator_Rex (@Imperator_Rex3) February 7, 2018

Political origins

The declassified Grassley Memo also clears up a dispute over the extent to which the FBI notified the FISA court that the Steele dossier was an opposition research document. 

The "Nunes memo" released last Friday from the House Intelligence Committee states that "Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials." 

Ranking House Intel Committee Democrat Adam Schiff disputed that the FISA court wasn't notified of the dossier's political origins, calling it "inaccurate" and stating that the court was aware that there was a "likely political motivation" behind the Steele dossier. 

From the Grassley Memo:

"FBI noted to a vaguely limited extent the political origins of the dossier. In footnote 8 the FBI stated that the dossier information was compiled pursuant to the direction of a law firm who had hired an "identified U.S. person" -- now known as Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS."

The Grassley memo also notes that the FBI never told the FISC that Mr. Steele was "desperate" to see that Mr. Trump was not elected President - as told to the FBI by DOJ official Bruce Ohr, who was demoted for failing to disclose that he met with Fusion GPS and Steele. 

#GrassleyMemo CONFIRMS that Comey and the FBI worked for the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Perkins Coie got paid. #FusionGPS got paid. Steele got paid. Are we to believe that Comey did not get paid in some form? Why the slavish devotion? (page 3) pic.twitter.com/DyGfD7ndTX

— TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) February 7, 2018

"In short, it appears the FBI relied on admittedly uncorroborated information, funded by and obtained for Secretary Clinton's presidential campaign, in order to conduct surveillance of an associate of the opposing presidential candidate. It did so based on Mr. Steele's personal credibility and presumably having faith in his process of obtaining the information."

>To sum up; anti-Trump FBI agents used an unverified dossier from an anti-Trump opposition research firm, Fusion GPS, which commissioned an anti-Trump former British spy to assemble anti-Trump memos using high level Kremlin officials as sources. To top it off, Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for it.

Previewing "Phase Two"

In an interview following the release of the House Intelligence Committee "Nunes Memo" last Friday detailing the FBI's FISA abuse, Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) said that the investigation leading up to the four-page FISA memo released on Friday was only "phase one," and that the House Intelligence Committee is currently in the middle of investigating the State Department over their involvement in surveillance abuses. 

"We are in the middle of what I call phase two of our investigation, which involves other departments, specifically the State Department and some of the involvement that they had in this," said Nunes.

#BREAKING: Devin Nunes says this is just the first memo to be released. He says there will be another one dealing specifically with the State Department’s role in everything that happened. pic.twitter.com/kpHVDQ44WX

— Ryan Saavedra ???? (@RealSaavedra) February 3, 2018

The Grassley memo also points to a second anti-Trump dossier which Steele and the Obama State Department involved in, along with Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer. 

According to the referral, Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. In a convoluted scheme outlined in the referral, the foreign source gave the information to an unnamed associate of Hillary and Bill Clinton, who then gave the information to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, who then gave the information to Steele. Steele wrote a report based on the information, but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.

Published accounts in the Guardian and the Washington Post have indicated that Clinton associate Cody Shearer was in contact with Steele about anti-Trump research, and Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer was a connection between Steele and the State Department during the 2016 campaign. -Washington Examiner

Shearer's late sister was married to Strobe Talbott, the chief authority on Russia in President Bill Clinton’s State Department, while his brother served as an ambassador during the Clinton administration, according to ProPublica.

"We caught them. It's so much fun." -- Trump on the Nunes memo pic.twitter.com/Yrr1ZcnVzY

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 5, 2018

MORE HERE

Putin's Phone Call With Netanyahu Blew Whistle on Further Israeli Strikes in Syria

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/putin-s-call-with-netanyahu-cal...

Prior to Saturday call, senior Israeli officials were still taking a militant line and it seemed Jerusalem was considering further military action

Russian President Vladimir Putin blew the whistle to stop the confrontation between Israel and Iran in Syria and both sides accepted his decision. That’s the apparent conclusion to be reached from the chain of events this past weekend.

On Saturday afternoon, after the second wave of bombardments by the Israel Air Force against Syrian targets and Iranian installations in Syria, senior Israeli officials were still taking a militant line and it seemed as if Jerusalem was considering further military action. Discussion of that ended not long after a phone call between Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The official announcement by the Russian Foreign Ministry objected to the violation of Syrian sovereignty by Israel and totally ignored the event that provoked the eruption – the infiltration of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace. In the conversation with Netanyahu a few hours later, Putin asked him to avoid moves that could lead to “a new round of dangerous consequences for the region.”

The Russians are also concerned about the proximity of the Israeli bombings to sites where their soldiers and advisers are serving, including base T-4 near Palmyra, where the Iranian control post from which the anti-aircraft missile was fired was bombed.

The quiet after the Netanyahu-Putin call shows once again who’s the real boss in the Middle East. While the United States remains the region’s present absentee – searches are continuing for a coherent American foreign policy – Russia is dictating the way things are going. Moscow has invested too much effort and resources in saving Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in recent years to allow Israel to foil its strategic project. One can assume messages of this nature were conveyed during the phone call with Netanyahu.

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

Police Instructed to Wait With Recommending Charges Against Netanyahu

Attorney general tells police not to submit recommendations until top court rules on a petition against making them public

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/police-instructed-to-wait-with-...

Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit instructed the police on Sunday not to submit their recommendations about the investigations of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until a ruling is made on a petition that was filed with the High Court of Justice against making them public.

The recommendations were supposed to be published by Tuesday.

Sources in law enforcement said Sunday that it would look like dishonest to publish the recommendations while the petition is still pending. On Monday, the state will ask the court to dismiss the petition, and the court is expected to rule on it in a few days, so the delay is not expected to take long.

The petition was filed by attorney Yossi Fuchs, an member of the Habayit Hayehudi party. Fuchs argues that although the law that restricts the issuing of police recommendations passed in December does not apply to the Netanyahu cases, the previous law also doesn’t permit the police to recommend prosecuting suspects.

Law enforcement officials said they expected the police to announce they have found enough ev... to charge Netanyahu with taking bribes in what the police call Case 1000 – which involves the prime minister’s alleged receipt of lavish gifts from businessmen.

They also expect police to recommend indicting Netanyahu in Case 2000, though the police haven’t decided whether to recommend charging him with bribery or breach of trust.

That case involves discussions between Netanyahu and Arnon Mozes, publisher of the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, in which Yedioth would grant Netanyahu favorable coverage in exchange for legislation to curb Yedioth’s main rival, Israel Hayom.

Netanyahu, wife questioned 'under caution' in corruption Case 4000

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-corrupti...

"We are not alone."

Q has emphasised that his words are carefully chosen. That "nothing is random" and "everything has meaning".

With this in mind, the timing and content of one recent post seems very significant..

https://qanonposts.com/

Q Says - Watch the Water! 
http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/q-says-watch-the-water

For those who are not familiar, since last October the enigmatic Q has been posting leaks on what is going on in the US government, and elsewhere, in the form of codes and puzzles. Q is the highest security level with the US intel, and he is suspected of being a member of the US Military Intel, thus. He obviously has permission to post, and has an accuracy track record.

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A for March 31, 2018
http://zetatalk.com/ning/31mr2018.htm

When Obama was under constant assassination attempts by the crowd who did not want him to admit the presence of Nibiru, Dunford sought to expedite the announcement by running Jade Helm 2015 to manage any riots that might emerge. When Obama lacked courage and failed, Dunford stepped in. The US has been run by a Junta ever since – Mattis, Dunford and his Marines. We have stated that behind the scenes, Hillary and hundreds of others were tried by military tribunals, and their laundered stolen funds taken from them. Fort Knox Gold has now been reinstated.

Meanwhile, the announcement admitting Nibiru is dragging, though the public no longer trusts the media. The Deep State wanting to wrest control of the US from Trump and his Junta has become vicious, like a trapped animal. It has been rumored that there are 1,400 sealed indictments allowing arrests of the Deep State and the Bush/Clinton cabal, and this is true though the number is multiples higher. Arrests and interrogations have garnered more names. But how to take those under House Arrest out of circulation? How to inform the public?

Trials await, and this latest EO by Trump allows them to proceed according to Military Law. Does this not imply that the true situation in the Trump administration, that it is being run by a Junta, will be admitted? One of the blocks to admitting the Junta was the state of matters adjudicated in civil and criminal courts. Trumps March 1 EO clarifies. It does not cover matters already adjudicated. Does this trial by tribunal of Deep State crimes not require, in step, an admission that Nibiru exists? More later re all of that.

In "Stunning Judicial Ruling", South Africa's Zuma Hit With Corruption Charges

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-16/stunning-judicial-ruling-...

Just weeks after his forced resignation as South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma was charged with corruption on Friday over a $2.5 billion state arms deal, an outcome which Reuters  called "a stunning judicial ruling on a continent where political ‘Big Men’ rarely face their day in court."

South Africa's chief prosecutor, Shaun Abrahams, said that he would bring back a case against Mr Zuma relating to a 1990s arms deal to buy European military kit that had cast a shadow over politics in Africa’s most industrialized economy for decades.  As a result, Zuma will face 16 charges relating to 783 counts of corruption over the 30 billion rand ($2.5 billion) deal.

Abrahamas told a media conference that Zuma’s attempts to head off the charges that have been hanging over him for more than a decade had failed.

“After consideration of the matter, I am of the view that there are reasonable prospects of successful prosecution of Mr Zuma on the charges listed in the indictment,” Abrahams said and added that "I am of the view that a trial court would be the most appropriate forum for these issues to be ventilated and to be decided upon."

The charges were initially dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) shortly before Zuma ran for president in 2009. Then deputy president, Zuma was linked to the arms deal through Schabir Shaikh, his former financial adviser who was jailed for corruption.

The 75-year-old Zuma disputed all the allegations against him, he added. Since his election, his opponents fought a lengthy legal battle to have the charges reinstated. Zuma countered with his own legal challenges.

As Reuters adds, Zuma has also been implicated by South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog in a 2016 report that alleges the Gupta family, billionaire friends of Zuma, used links with him to win state contracts. The Guptas and Zuma have denied any wrongdoing.

According to commentators, the crackdown against Zuma is further proof that Ramaphosa is turning a new leaf in South Africa politics. However, while Although USDZAR edged initially lower on the headlines, it has been unable to rally significantly. And, as Citi adds, "after all, Zuma has been ousted and right now, South Africa assets are preoccupied with broader EM FX sentiment, and locally, the Moody's rating review next week and the land expropriation bill."

Facebook Plunges as Pressure Mounts on Zuckerberg Over Data

BLOOMBERG reports:  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-19/facebook-s-zucke...

Facebook Inc. shares posted their steepest drop since 2015 as U.S. and European officials demanded answers to reports that a political advertising firm retained information on millions of the social network’s users without their consent.

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are calling on Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to appear before lawmakers to explain how U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica, the data-analysis firm that helped Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency, was able to harvest the personal information.

Facebook has already testified about how its platform was used by Russian propagandists ahead of the 2016 election, but the company never put Zuckerberg himself in the spotlight with government leaders. The pressure may also foreshadow tougher regulation for the social network.

U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, have called on the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to bring in technology company CEOs, including from Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, for public questioning.

In a letter Monday to Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, Klobuchar and Kennedy said they have “serious concern regarding recent reports that data from millions of American was misused in order to influence voters.”