CIA backed Gülen forces' failed coup drives Erdogan into Putin’s arms

First Published in Blasting News

After the failed CIA coup in Turkey, Presidents Recep Erdogan and Vladimir Putin foster new relationship based on shared interests in peace.

Since the neocons overthrew the American government Dec. 12, 2000 and dragged the world into hot wars for profit across the globe, America and the world have been on a deadly march to World War III.  Like a schoolyard bully refusing to “give” even as his eyes are blacked, lip split and head full of lumps the neocons are willing to destroy America rather than admit defeat.

Neocon World Hegemony

There is no winning in bombing the world to bits for in the end, there’s no spoils to claim, only rubble.  The neocons have been successful in occupying the foreign lands they covet yet they have failed to win the hearts and minds of the occupied people.  The examples abound in Turkey, Ukraine, Burkina Faso, Yemen, Syria, and on and on.  Erdogan has come to the realization that Turkey is aligned with Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, NATO and the EU.  When Turkey, with the tacit approval of Washington, blew a Russian fighter jet out of Syria’s sky it was an act of war and could have started World War III had Putin not remained the cool headed adult. 

EU and NATO turn on Turkey

The EU and US made a grave error in turning on Recep Erdogan of Turkey.  After embedding CIA backed loyalists of Imam Fathullah Gülen in the police, military, universities, schools and  government, they foolishly believed the Turkish people would support NATO and the EU against Erdogan.  Once the coup attempt began, NBC News began disseminating false information that Erdogan had fled the country.  That false information was disseminated throughout the American media in rapid fire succession.  It has now been reported the NBC’s source was former NATO commander, General John F. Campbell.

EU and NATO members whose obligation it was to defend their fellow NATO member remained quiet spectators, waiting for the Gülen terrorists to do their dirty deeds and seize control of the government.  But rather than embracing the coup, a deeply disappointed Turkish people rose up against the coup.  As Ozan Ceyhun wrote in The Daily Sabah, “Thanks to the courage of Turkish citizens, media, police and army officers who resisted the coup and defended democracy, the coup attempt was repelled and Turkey was relieved from the dangerous threat of a fascist regime.” 

After Erdogan had narrowly escaped the assassination attempt by Gülenist soldiers, John Kerry and the EU issued warnings to Erdogan demanding the Turkish state treat the coup plotters with compassion lest Turkey jeopardize their ascension into the EU.   It was only President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people who offered Erdogan and Turkey “unconditional support” during the coup attempt.

Putin and Erdogan mend relations

Now the ham fisted US, NATO and EU can only helplessly stand by as Putin and Erdogan seek to repair their frayed relations.  Now the egg-faced neocons in Washington are making baseless accusations that Putin is trying to interfere with the American Presidential election and working for the Donald Trump campaign.  Trump, who has pledged to open libel laws and hold the press accountable as well as disbanding the outdated NATO, has been on the neocons hit list. 

The allegations are just more neocon dirty tricks peddled as facts by a corrupt, compliant press trying to drag Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump down to their own sophomoric level.  A President Trump would be a partner for peace that that is what scares NATO and the EU.

By Patricia Baeten

Tim Kaine the face of Disaster Capitalism and the betrayal of America

*First published in Blasting News

Hillary’s choice of Tim Kaine as Vice President is a betrayal of all Americans and is the epitome of Disaster Capitalism.

Hillary and her Veep choice Tim Kaine went on 60 minutes to make their case to America as to why they should be elected President and Vice President of the United States.  When asked by Scott Pelley if their platform is DOA in a Republican congress, Kaine proffered the “bipartisan” budget deal reached by Paul Ryan and Patti Murry as the kind of accomplishments Americans can expect in a Clinton-Kaine Administration.  Really?

The Ryan-Murray Budget

The Ryan-Murray “bipartisan” budget is the perfect example of Disaster Capitalism.  According to Naomi Klein, “Disaster Capitalism” is a violent system that sometimes requires terror to do its job.  And what could be more terrorizing than having your Social Security Disability cut by 20% and having your Medicare Part B insurance premiums rise 52 percent?  Ryan-Murray raises spending by $80 billion over two years by excluding $3 billion in emergency war funding from the bottom line.

The war funding hole is made up by an extension of the 2 percent cut in Medicare payments that was passed in the “bipartisan” sequester deal of 2014.  Those were the first significant “cuts” to Social Security since the 1983 Reagan O’Neill deal.  And what did Bernie Sanders, the great defender of social programs, have to say about the Ryan-Murray budget?  “I think it’s not too bad,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said of the deal before ducking into the chamber for an afternoon vote.” 

Pentagon missing $8.5 Trillion as Vets get cuts

Under Ryan-Murray military retirees will lose $77,000-$120,000, a breach of trust between those who have and are serving in uniform, and their civilian managers.”  All of those cuts to veterans and current military members came as it was revealed $8.5 trillion was missing at the Pentagon.  A Reuters’ investigation revealed $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for.

Millionaire Congress

While our “elected” leaders made the deepest slashes to food stamps in two decades for the 47 million Americans living in poverty, they live in luxury.   For the first time in history, most members of Congress are millionaires.  Of 534 current members of Congress, at least 268 had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012. 

It was reported in Politico that Tim Kaine received more than $160,000 in gifts from 2001 to 2009.  Those gifts included an $18,000 Caribbean vacation, $5,500 in clothes and a trip to watch George Mason University play in the NCAA basketball Final Four.  Bernie Sanders’ supporters are protesting and disrupting the Democrats’ Disaster Capitalism Convention in Philadelphia today. 

Sanders’ supporters claim Sanders is a man of impeccable liberal values.  Poor dears, they have no idea of Bernie’s true record. Author Ashley Smith wrote in “A Socialist in the Senate? The Unfortunate Truth about Bernie Sanders” in spite of claims of being antiwar Sanders supported the 1999 Kosovo War.  Not only did he support the war but when antiwar activists occupied Sanders’ office he had them arrested.  

With Tim Kaine on her ticket Hillary 2016 has become the Democratic Ticket of the Shock Doctrine and Disaster Capitalism.  Fortunately, the choice of Tim Kaine will be the end of the Democratic Party as we know it and that is a good thing.

By Patricia Baeten

The End of NATO and EU: Brexit, Turexit and Donald Trump

First published on Blasting News:

The implosion of NATO and the EU has begun, first with Brexit to be followed with Turexit and the imminent election of anti-NATO Donald Trump.

NATO and the European Union are in shambles and with the defection of Erdogan the war of terror unleased by the Bush Administration is imploding.  Erdogan, Turkey’s leader who was installed by the CIA, has survived the CIA lead coup to dislodge him.  Unlike previous puppets that thwarted the New World Order like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, Erdogan is in a very strong position possessing NATO’s second largest military.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

What is happening in Turkey follows an all too familiar pattern.  Wash, US installs a reliable puppet as leader in a “democratic election.”  Rinse, corporate media markets the puppet as a democratic paragon of democracy in an undemocratic area of the world.  Repeat, puppet loses their usefulness and is branded a terrorist despot to be discarded. 

Installation of the puppet

Erdogan was installed in office by the CIA in 2003 after the Turkish government refused to allow US Troops to launch their attack on Iraq from Turkey.  Erdogan met with G.W. Bush on July 4^th, 2001 and by August he established the AKP party naming himself the leader.  A lawsuit launched by Turkey’s Chief State Prosecutor determined Erdogan an ex-convict was banned from forming and leading a political party.  By 2002 the AKP was the ruling party and passed a constitutional change to lift the ban on Erdogan who was then installed President.

Puppet turns on puppet master

Erdogan has been diminishing Turkey’s military reliance on the West and in 2015 Erdogan rejected bids by his NATO allies for a missile-defense system in favor of a Chinese-built one that is incompatible with the West’s technology.  As a NATO member Turkish independence is not an option so the media branding of Erdogan as a tyrant and despot laid the groundwork for the military coup backed by NATO.   

Coup coup cachoo the puppet strikes back

On the first night when it appeared the coup might succeed, US Secretary of State John Kerry called for “stability and continuity” in Turkey.  It wasn’t until Erdogan’s loyalists rose up against the Western backed coup that Kerry and Obama called for support of the “democratically elected” Erdogan government.  Erdogan immediately began purging the state and military apparatus of the CIA agents infuriating Secretary Kerry who then warned Erdogan, Turkey could lose its NATO membership and be disqualified from joining the EU.   

Turkey at a crossroads

The coup attempt has put Turkey is at a crossroads.  Turkey can continue aiding the CIA’s terror and chaos or Turkey can adopt a positive role in the emerging Eurasian system of China and Russia building energy and rail infrastructure with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

According to William Engdahl “Turkey has a beautiful opportunity to partner with Russia and change the world power balance. It will require a lot of will. But if done in a good open way, Turkey could enjoy prosperity as never before and be a genuine “good neighbor.”

Since its inception NATO has been a subsidy program for other NATO members, allowing those members to focus on their budgets, infrastructure and domestic spending with a declining America footing the bill.  Whichever way Turkey decides to go, the gauntlet has been tossed and NATO and the EU are imploding. When President Trump takes office in January 2017, he will only have to clean up the debris.

By Patricia Baeten

Oligarchs quash democratic elections in Britain and America

The Oligarchs’ coup installs right-wing Theresa May as PM stopping an election as GOP installs right-wing Mike Pence as Trump’s running mate.

The people of the UK voted to exit the European Union rejecting the conservative government of David Cameron rebuffing the repressive austerity forced upon them by European oligarchs.  In America the voters, exhausted by GOP imposed austerity and wars for profit voted overwhelmingly for anti-austerity, anti-NATO candidate Donald Trump.  Now the oligarchs that control the elections have quashed Democracy overturning the will of the people.

Theresa May Britain’s new Iron Lady chosen by Rupert Murdoch

The right wing conservatives in the Tory Party kicked aside even the pretense of Democracy and installed Theresa May as prime minister.  The vote was supposed to select two candidates with the most support from their fellow lawmakers to run for prime minister.  May was installed in a coup described by The Intercept as “a vast, right-wing conspiracy of media barons, led by Rupert Murdoch.

New prime minister same as the old prime minister

In May’s first speech as PM she promised to continue the widely-despised conservative policies of David Cameron.  According to World Socialist Website “May’s will be a government of class warfare, of savage austerity, attacks on democratic rights” and continued militarism and war.  May, a Thatcherite much like the GOP Reaganites in America, ruthlessly defends the interest of the oligarchy class. 

May has vowed to continue with billions in cuts to Universal Credit that will cost families as much as £3,000 a year, a four-year freeze in benefit rates, and cuts of £30 a week for people found too sick to work. The National Health Service is also on the chopping block for the unelected May.  Meanwhile the right wing of the Labour Party is mounting a coup to remove worker rights champion, Jeremy Corbyn as party leader.

Murdoch picks Pence for Trump running mate

Donald Trump who favored the Brexit and wants to end NATO is the presumptive GOP candidate. Thursday Rupert Murdoch’s media empire initiated a media blitz announcing the choice of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as Trump’s running mate.  Pence was not only a supporter of the Iraq war but co-sponsored the war authorization resolution.  In 2007 Pence, supporting troop escalation in Iraq, visited Baghdad proclaiming the war torn city to be “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”

Although favored by the Taliban wing of the GOP, Pence is universally despised by Republicans and Democrats.  A rabid homophobe, Pence supports “gay conversion therapy” and signed “religious liberty” into law effectively legalizing discrimination against LGBT citizens.   A religious extremist, Pence has signed into law the most draconian anti-abortion bill in the country including banning abortions of fetuses with “lethal fetal anomaly.”   

We’ve seen this manipulation before, in 2000 the Democratic Leadership Council forced Al Gore to take Joe Lieberman as his running mate.  Funding for the DLC was provided by Citigroup whose majority stock holder is the Saudi Royal Family as well as General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Raytheon.  Lieberman sabotaged Gore’s campaign and helped install Bush and Cheney.

The oligarchs have profited immensely from the Iraq War and the subsequent wars along with their “allies” Saudi Arabia and Turkey.  

By installing an unelected anti-Brexit prime minister the oligarchs have maintained control of the levers of power in the U.K. and can control the “Brexit” process, if allowed to take place.

By Patricia Baeten

Violence caused by the Neoconservative and Neoliberal Destruction of American Society

Painting of the Sharpeville Massacre of March 1960

The violence against black citizens by police is the culmination of a planned restructure of  American society by billionaire think tanks.    

When five partisan Republican Supreme Court Justices overturned the American presidential election in 2000 a new wave of racially hate filled policies and laws were instituted by the George W. Bush Administration.  The gains made during the Civil Rights movement were systematically dismantled and replaced with white rights legislation by members of the GOP.  Bush is a staunch worshiper of Ronald Reagan, an extreme racist whose dog whistle campaign was launched in 1980. 

 Limited government power and unlimited corporate power

Reagan chose the Neshoba County Fair to give his speech on “state’s rights” a place that was located about 7 miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town associated with the 1964 murders of civil rights workers.  In his speech Reagan said “I believe in states' rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level.”

Reagan promised a restoration of power to states and local governments appealing to Southern white voters much like Nixon’s divide and conquer Southern strategy.  Today’s GOP is funded by billionaires like the Koch Brothers who demand limited government power and unlimited corporate power.  In the 1970s RAND Corporation released a study that concluded, when services such as police and fire protection were withdrawn, the numbers of people in the neglected areas will decrease.

Bush’s $6.6 trillion tax cuts and “planned shrinkage”

The Bush tax cuts and No Child Left behind were designed to achieve “planned shrinkage” by  slashing city services such as police patrols, garbage removal, street repairs, public education and fire protection, from neighborhoods cause urban decay, crime, and poverty.  According to Pulitzer prize-winning reporter David Kaye Johnston the Bush tax cuts cost American families $6.6 trillion from 2001 through 2012, one-third of the country’s GDP.

According to Johnston, "We're not investing in the future of America, because we have less revenue, we are not putting the same money we used to put into research, infrastructure or education.”  "The empirical evidence that tax cuts produce jobs just doesn't exist."  When Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993 the GOP, unable to override a veto, shut down the government.  

Those taxes funded over 20 million good paying jobs.

Classroom to prison pipeline

Barack Obama, also a Reagan devotee not only embraced Bush’s No Child Left Behind but expanded it with Race to the Top creating a classroom to prison pipeline wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. According to the ACLU, “For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of qualified teachers, and insufficient funding for "extras" such as counselors, special education services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational environments.”

In Republican run States like Wisconsin and Michigan the “planned shrinkage” model has the Detroit public schools facing bankruptcy and in Milwaukee the GOP repealed the 1938 residency requirement for police and firefighters removing them from the communities they serve.   The neoconservative and neoliberal policy must be abandoned.  Until the Bush tax cut are repealed and investments are made in America’s greatest resource, our people, the violence we see on our streets not only continue but it will escalate.

By Patricia Baeten

Why Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton incite hatred from the GOP: It’s the Hedge Funds Stupid

Ex-Hedge Fund Executive and Board of Directors Member of the convicted terrorist and drug cartel money launderer HSBC Bank turned FBI Director, James Comey appeared before Paul Ryan’s congressional committee to justify his failure to indict Hillary Clinton after career prosecutors at the FBI found no criminal wrong doing. 

After the take down of Hillary Clinton by FBI Director James Comey after announcing that career investigators at the FBI found no credible evidence of wrong doing on the part of Hillary Clinton, Matt Miller of the Washington Post wrote “When FBI Director James B. Comey stepped to the lectern to deliver his remarks about Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, he violated time-honored Justice Department practices for how such matters are to be handled, set a dangerous precedent for future investigations and committed a gross abuse of his own power.” 

“… In fact, his willingness to reprimand publicly a figure against whom he believes there is no basis for criminal charges should trouble anyone who believes in the rule of law and fundamental principles of fairness.”

Before Comey was tapped by Obama to become the FBI director he was an executive at the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates and a member of the Board of Directors of HSBC, the London-based bank that was convicted of money laundering for terrorists and drug cartels through their U.S. banks.   According to LaRouche Pub:

Feb. 15—A novel civil lawsuit, filed recently in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas, holds HSBC responsible for scores of murders, including of U.S. Federal agents and U.S. consular officials, that were carried out by Mexico’s violent drug cartels. HSBC, formerly the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, was the original British Crown chartered bank for laundering opium proceeds during the time of the Nineteenth Century British Opium Wars against China.

A 2012 U.S. Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee report thoroughly documented the role of HSBC as the number one money-laundering bank for the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. The civil lawsuit holds HSBC accountable as an integral part of that international drug and murder apparatus. Were it not for the Obama Administration’s policy of “too big to jail,” HSBC would have had its charter to do business in the United States cancelled immediately after the release of the Senate investigation, and top executives would have been thrown in jail as part of a narcotics racketeering prosecution.

How, you may ask did HSBC get away with murder?  From LaRouche Pac:

Not only is the Attorney General of the United States, Lorretta Lynch, the US Attorney who gave drug money laundering bank, HSBC, a free pass with a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, but the head of the FBI, James Comey, was plucked by Obama from a plum job at HSBC, which Comey took in January, 2013, just after HSBC got the deferred prosecution deal…

In addition, Stuart Levey, Obama's Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for administering sanctions against terrorist supporters and closing off terrorist and criminal money laundering left the Obama administration to become HSBC's Chief Legal Officer, a top position in the London headquarters along with the board of Directors.

So how is HSBC doing since Loretta Lynch gave them a free pass for money laundering and murder now that Obama’s handpicked watch dog is their Chief Legal Officer?  Not so well.  The Daily Mail is reporting that the independent “monitor” installed by the US government has significant concerns.  It seems Cherie Blair’s law firm Omnia Strategy accepted a £210,000 payment from conman and terrorist Abdulla Uameen, laundered through HSBC via a clothing import export business.  HSBC’s anti-money laundering systems should have detected and blocked the transaction, but failed to do so.

As for HSBC it announced it made a £13.2billion profit last year and dished out £2.4 billion in bonuses to staff, including HSBC’s chief executive Stuart Gulliver, who received a £7.3 million pay package.

My, my, my.  Seems the more things change the more they stay the same.  What you may say does that have to do with Hillary Clinton?  Well the Comey hearings served no purpose other than to give Paul Ryan and his vigilantes an excuse to initiate another multi-million dollar investigation against Hillary Clinton.  The banks are quaking in their boots at the thought of a President Hillary Clinton.  Why?

Clinton has laid out a plan to remove Wall Street Bankers from the Federal Reserve Banks’ Regional boards where the monetary policy and regulatory decisions are made. As Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi put it:

“Clinton clearly understands how the Fed functions…  Most people do not know that they are staffed with chief executives from Morgan Stanley, Comerica, KeyCorp and private-equity firms like Silver Lake.”  “In her quiet way, tinkering with the inner workings of a near-century old quasi-government institution that is arcane to most, Clinton has a chance to achieve radical, lasting financial reform.”

However Jeb Hensarling, one of the Republicans “grilling” Comey, has presented the GOP’s Wall Street crafted banking reform bill called the Financial Choice Act.  The Texas Republican’s bill would dismantle key parts of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, do away with the Volcker Rule, which restricts a bank’s ability to make risky speculative investments and repeal the Consumer Protection Bureau’s authority to ban financial services or products it considers “abusive” to consumers.  In addition Hensarling proposes more than two dozen financial regulation relief bills for community banks.

I have one thing to say to the Bernie Sanders’ supporters, take off your rose colored glasses, wake up and smell the coffee.  In 2000 you succumbed to Ralph Nader’s “if not now when” campaign.  In 2008 you fell for Obama’s “if you don’t give it to the black guy there will be a race war” campaign.  You gave us George W. Bush and his mirror image Barack Obama, please make an informed decision and vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, for they are the only two people who really represent you and the interests of the American people.

By Patricia Baeten

Donald Trump Blasts the Chamber of Commerce and Globalization as GOP plots Convention Coup

First published on Blasting News 

Donald Trump has taken on PNAC’s New World Order and globalization enraging the financial elite who fund the GOP and now they are plotting a coup at the Republican Convention overruling the voters.   

Trump sings the Working Man’s Blues

Donald Trump has enraged the “Dump Trump” financial elite who have profited from the one world order and the European Union.  Speaking in Monessen, PA Trump said "Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy ... but it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache.”  Later in the week Trump delivered a second blow to the financial elite taking on the Chamber of Commerce.  Speaking in Bangor, ME Trump said “They want to have T.P.P., the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the worst deals, and it’ll be the worst deal since Nafta.”

The High Cost of Low Taxes 

The Chamber who has backed GOP candidates favoring low corporate taxes, right to work laws and union busting hit back claiming Trump’s plans would lead to high prices, millions of job losses and a recession.  But would it?  Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota took office in January of 2011 after Chamber backed Tim Pawlenty left after serving two terms as Governor (2003-2011).

Pawlenty left the rust belt state with a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7% unemployment rate.  In his six years at the helm, Pawlenty failed to generate any substantial new revenue and created only 6,200 new jobs in six years.  Dayton, the billionaire heir to the Target fortune inherited a mess.  Dayton promised his balanced approach to taxes and spending and investments in education would make Minnesota one of the best places in the country to live, raise a family and run a successful business.

Proof is in the Pudding

According to Collective Evolution “Between 2011 and 2015 over 172,000 new jobs were added to Minnesota’s economy compared to the 6,200 his predecessor managed to create. Minnesota now stands tied with the 7th lowest unemployment rate in the United States at 3.5%, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in December of 2015.”  The minimum wage in Minnesota is $9.00/hour, the highest in the Midwest.  Overall as a state, there are expectations of a nearly $2 billion budget surplus through 2017.

 A Tale of two Rust Belt States

While Minnesota has become one of the best places to live in the nation, next door GOP Scott Walker’s Wisconsin has become one of the worst.  A new national report shows that life for children of color in Wisconsin has deteriorated, for minorities in educational and financial achievement Wisconsin ranks 50^th in the nation.  Wisconsin was the first state in the US to eliminate all teacherlicensing standards, not even requiring a high school diploma.

One of Walker’s first acts as governor was to privatize the state’s economic development agency.   Walker, as Chairman of the Board of WEDC controlled a staggering amount of taxpayer dollars: $519 million in bonds, grants, loans, and tax credits in 2011-2012 alone. The agency is rife with corruption, incompetence and has granted loans to campaign contributors that were never paid back.  In new business start-ups, Wisconsin has dropped to 50th from 45th last year.  

In his speech Donald Trump said “I want you to imagine how much better our future can be if we declare independence from the elites who've led us to one financial and foreign policy disaster after another.

Trump is spot on singing the working man’s blues.  The voters have voted for the Trump agenda rejecting the agenda of the political elite.  The GOP is plotting to overthrow will of the voters and stop the Trump Revolution, a move sure to destroy the Republican Party.

By Patricia Baeten