by Frank Sellers, The Duran:
This new bank has been developed for the purpose of bypassing American imposed sanctions
Yesterday kicked off a two day diplomatic visit between the leaders of Venezuela and Palestine.
The first item on the agenda was the signing of an agreement to create a bi-national bank to fund infrastructure, technology, and industry between the two countries.
Additionally, a business council spanning economic and financial matters was agreed upon.
by Jayson Veley, Natural News:
The Deep State is alive and well, according to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
Appearing on “The Laura Ingraham Show” a few weeks ago, the libertarian-leaning former presidential candidate explained that individuals currently in national security positions are essentially free to exercise their power without any checks from elected representatives.
“Absolutely, there is a deep state, because the deep state is the intelligence agencies that do not have oversight,” Paul explained. “Only eight people in Congress know what they’re doing, and traditionally, those eight people have been a rubber stamp to let the intelligence communities do whatever they want. There is no skeptic among the eight people that are supposedly overseeing the intelligence community.”
from ZeroHedge:
Update: According to Fox News and CBS News’s Pat Milton just answered the question of why McCabe stepped down Monday when he would become eligible for his full pension benefits n March: McCabe was reportedly forced to step down. According to Fox News, McCabe was “removed” from his post as deputy director, “leaving the bureau after months of conflict-of-interest complaints from Republicans including President Trump.”
In both cases, his early departure suggests that he was forced out.
Several media outlets reported that McCabe is using his remaining vacation days to go on “terminal leave” and that his official retirement from the agency won’t happen until March, allowing him to collect the full pension.
As we noted last week, FBI Director Wray threatened to resign after being pressured by AG Jeff Sessions.
* * *
In a move that was widely expected (although not for another month or so), Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe is stepping down effective Monday, NBC reported.
McCabe, who briefly served as acting director last year after Trump fired Comey, first let it slip to the Washington Post late last year that he would be retiring in the coming months as Congressional Republicans targeted him for criticism surrounding his pro-Clinton bias (McCabe’s wife even secured campaign funding from Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, something he initially failed to disclose).
BREAKING: Andrew McCabe has stepped down effective today as FBI deputy director, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell @ NBC News pic.twitter.com/kLrhDjzq7B
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 29, 2018
Around the time of the reports of his impending retirement, McCabe had spent several marathon sessions answering questions from Congressional committees behind closed doors.
Read More @ ZeroHedge.com
by Alisha Sherron, Squawker:
Who were your ancestors? What is your ethnic background composed of? Sites like Ancestry.com and 23andme have always been some go to sources in answering all of your toughest questions. But how accurate are they? In a recent interview with Cracked, one of the major ancestry testing companies, (which specific company is unknown) spilled the beans on what really happens when you purchase an ancestry kit. While I can’t say I’m surprised, you may be shocked to learn that these ancestry sites aren’t always as accurate as they claim to be. Beyond this, they’ve also admitted to tampering with the result to “screw with racists”.
When Inside Edition had a set of triplets send their spit in toAncestry.com and 23andMe, they got wildly different results from both services. Neither gave each triplet the same ancestry results. “Tests can be a crapshoot. For DNA tests, they use genetic markers, which are little variations in the DNA one or several groups may have, but others do not. The more markers there are, the more accurate the test will be.”
Shocked yet? Yeah, I didn’t think so. A lot of my friends have taken these types of DNA Tests, and most of them come back saying, “I don’t think this is entirely accurate…”
Remember when white supremacist Craig Cobb found out that he was 14% black? Well as it turns out, there’s a possibility that those numbers could have been fudged with.
Morgan and his colleagues were caught between a rock and a really-want-to-mess-with-racists place. It would’ve been fun to throw a “10 percent West African” in there, but then they might have a pissed-off, dangerous person at their office, waving a gun. “Since we couldn’t do anything to the results (and we wanted to), what we did was add ‘< 1 percent’ to each African category of ethnicity. That way we weren’t lying, and they would both be wondering how much under a percentage point was. We always try to round to the nearest number because we sometimes hear about percentage points, but for them, we leave it open to whether it’s a one or a zero.”
It’s a compromise that’s elegant in its passive-aggressive simplicity. And it got a result. “The near-N-bomber wrote to us asking what that meant, and we wrote back that it meant it was under 1 percent. And we were not saying zero. Unless they got another test, that was going to bother them. Maybe they weren’t 100 percent Caucasian. I mean, they were, according to the results, but this way it leaves it open, and they’ll always be wondering.”
This is beyond shady and deceptive, people pay more than they can really afford sometimes, just to find out the truth about their heritage. What about this is acceptable? How does this turn a racist into a “non racist”? It doesn’t. There’s nothing but high levels of dishonesty in these companies. Unfortunately, this doesn’t even fully cover the other things they do behind closed doors.
With a massive database of genetic information, the company can turn around and sell that data to other companies. Plenty of those companies are doing scientific research that can only be done with access to large amounts of genetic information. Even government agencies like the National Institutes of Health use the data to better understand the hereditary causes of diseases.
Read More @ Squawker.org
from Antonius Aquinas:
If a world conflagration, God forbid, should break out during the Trump Administration, its genesis will not be too hard to discover: the thin-skinned, immature, shallow, doofus which currently resides in the Oval Office!
This past week, the Donald has continued his bellicose talk with both veiled and explicit threats against purported American adversaries throughout the world. In a cryptic exchange with reporters during a dinner with military leaders, he quipped:
You guys know what this represents?
Maybe it’s the calm before the storm. It could be the
calm. . . before. . . the storm.*
A reporter asked if he meant Iran or Isis which the POTUS responded, “you’ll find out.” Instead of threatening supposed overseas foes with nuclear annihilation, none of whom have taken any concrete military action against the US, why not go after someone who has actually compromised the country’s security, namely Hillary Rodham Clinton!
While some dismissed the comments as typical Trumpian bluster, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders added further ominous overtones when questioned saying they were “extremely serious.”
Later in the week, Trump continued to threaten tiny North Korea, this time in not so veiled terms:
Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years,
agreements made and massive amounts of money paid hasn’t worked, agreements
violated before the ink was dry, making fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only
one thing will work.**
If war erupts either on the Korean Peninsula or in any other part of the globe that the U.S has wantonly poked its nose into, it can be safely assured that neither Trump nor any of the other “military leaders,” with which he recently had dinner with, will be in the midst of hostilities as the bombs and bullets are being cast about. No, these laptop bombers will be in safe quarters far away from enemy lines, giving orders, making speeches, and praising the troops while Congress will be hurriedly passing more “defense” funding legislation further lining the pockets of the military industrial complex.
The Warmonger-in-Chief, who has repeatedly bragged about America’s military prowess, had a chance to become a part of the organization he constantly gushes over during his youth at the time of the Vietnam War. Yet, he escaped military service, due to the machinations of his father, because of a mysterious foot/toe malady.
For all those who avoided being conscripted into America’s disastrous imperial exercise in Southeast Asia during those years, whether it was from phony medical conditions, escaping to Canada or beyond, or going to jail, they did so for justifiable reasons. The war was immoral, since Vietnam had taken no hostile action against the US and what made it worse, the government drafted thousands of America’s youth to fight it. It is reprehensible that those who got out of military service then are now at the forefront in advocating mass murder (war).
One resolution that would certainly curtail warmongering in the future would be that any legislator, president, cabinet officer, or ambassador that promotes military intervention abroad should be required to directly participate in field operations. This would quickly put the brakes on threatening talk from the likes of Trump and his crazed UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley.
A country’s leadership personally conducting military operations has had a long tradition in Western history. During the crusading era, princes and kings led their retinues and forces into battle risking life and limb such as the great Norman prince, Bohemond, whose courage, tenacity, and military acumen won the day for Christian forces at the battle of Antioch.
by Mark O’Byrne, GoldCore:
We are delighted to announce a very special guest for our next episode of the Goldnomics Podcast, due for release later this week.
We recently had the opportunity to speak with the legendary investor and adventure capitalist Jim Rogers.
Jim is an American businessman, investor, traveler, financial commentator and author. He is the Chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests, Inc. He was the co-founder of the Quantum Fund and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index.
