10 Transnational Crime – Page 168 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/10/22

4th Media: Looting the Pension Funds: Wall Street is Grabbing Money Meant for Public Workers + Pensions Lost RECAP

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption

Looting the Pension Funds: Wall Street is Grabbing Money Meant for Public Workers

Oct 21st, 2013 @ 10:13 pm › Kiyul Chung

In the final months of 2011, almost two years before the city of Detroit would shock America by declaring bankruptcy in the face of what it claimed were insurmountable pension costs, the state of Rhode Island took bold action to avert what it called its own looming pension crisis. Led by its newly elected treasurer, Gina Raimondo – an ostentatiously ambitious 42-year-old Rhodes scholar and former venture capitalist – the state declared war on public pensions, ramming through an ingenious new law slashing benefits of state employees with a speed and ferocity seldom before seen by any local government.

Detroit’s Debt Crisis: Everything Must Go

Called the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011, her plan would later be hailed as the most comprehensive pension reform ever implemented. The rap was so convincing at first that the overwhelmed local burghers of her little petri-dish state didn’t even know how to react. “She’s Yale, Harvard, Oxford – she worked on Wall Street,” says Paul Doughty, the current president of the Providence firefighters union. “Nobody wanted to be the first to raise his hand and admit he didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about.”

Soon she was being talked about as a probable candidate for Rhode Island’s 2014 gubernatorial race. By 2013, Raimondo had raised more than $2 million, a staggering sum for a still-undeclared candidate in a thimble-size state. Donors from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital and JPMorgan Chase showered her with money, with more than $247,000 coming from New York contributors alone. A shadowy organization called EngageRI, a public-advocacy group of the 501(c)4 type whose donors were shielded from public scrutiny by the infamous Citizens United decision, spent $740,000 promoting Raimondo’s ideas. Within Rhode Island, there began to be whispers that Raimondo had her sights on the presidency. Even former Obama right hand and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel pointed to Rhode Island as an example to be followed in curing pension woes.

What few people knew at the time was that Raimondo’s “tool kit” wasn’t just meant for local consumption. The dynamic young Rhodes scholar was allowing her state to be used as a test case for the rest of the country, at the behest of powerful out-of-state financiers with dreams of pushing pension reform down the throats of taxpayers and public workers from coast to coast. One of her key supporters was billionaire former Enron executive John Arnold – a dickishly ubiquitous young right-wing kingmaker with clear designs on becoming the next generation’s Koch brothers, and who for years had been funding a nationwide campaign to slash benefits for public workers.

Read rest of article.

Continue reading “4th Media: Looting the Pension Funds: Wall Street is Grabbing Money Meant for Public Workers + Pensions Lost RECAP”

2013/10/12

Jon Rappoport: Who Really Runs America (Into the Ground)?

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption

Who really runs things in America?

By Jon Rappoport

October 11, 2013

The infamous Trilateral Commission still exists.

Many people think the TC, created in 1973 by David Rockefeller, is a relic of an older time.

Think again.

Patrick Wood, author of Trilaterals Over Washington, points out there are only 87 members of the Trilateral Commission who live in America. Obama appointed eleven of them to posts in his administration.

Keep in mind that the original stated goal of the TC was to create “a new international economic order.” Knowing that you have to break eggs to make an omelette, consider how the following TC members, in key Obama posts, can help engender further national chaos; erase our sovereign national borders; and install binding international agreements that will envelop our economy and money in a deeper global collective: a new world order:

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2013/10/122013/10/12

Owl: GOOGLE EVIL + ALEC EVIL = UBBER EVIL

03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Idiocy

Evil Is as Evil Does

“Google Inc. is now aligned with the notorious ALEC. Quietly, Google has joined ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — the shadowy corporate alliance that pushes odious laws through state legislatures. In the process, Google has signed onto an organization that promotes such regressive measures as tax cuts for tobacco companies, school privatization to help for-profit education firms, repeal of state taxes for the wealthy and opposition to renewable energy disliked by oil companies. ALEC's reactionary efforts — thoroughly documented by the Center for Media and Democracy — are shameful assaults on democratic principles. And Google is now among the hundreds of companies in ALEC. Many people who've admired Google are now wondering: How could this be? Well, in his recent book Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, Robert W. McChesney provides vital context. “It is true that with the advent of the Internet many of the successful giants — Apple and Google come to mind — were begun by idealists who may have been uncertain whether they really wanted to be old-fashioned capitalists,” he writes. “The system in short order has whipped them into shape.”

More:
Google: Doing Evil with ALEC

2013/10/092013/10/09

Owl: Do Koch Brothers Own Speaker Boehner?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government

Koch Brothers and Boehner Plot to Take Down – or Over – the Government

The government shutdown and debt ceiling crises is getting wilder and more dangerous by the day. Here's writings, if true, showing very rich right-wing extremism at work behind Boehner:

“The Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires who provoked the government shutdown and now are angling for an even more devastating credit default see themselves as the people who deserve to rule the United States without interference from lesser citizens, especially those with darker-colored skin. Their “masters of the universe” world view is that they or their daddies or their daddies’ daddies were the ones who “built America” and, thus, it’s their right to tear down the remarkable edifice of U.S. law, politics and economics created over the past two-plus centuries — if the country’s less-deserving inhabitants insist on raising taxes on the rich to fund programs benefiting the poor and the middle class. Oil billionaires David and Charles Koch. That is what we’re watching now, what might be called the Koch Brothers’ “Samson Option,” pulling down the temple to destroy their enemies even if doing so is also destructive to them and their fortunes…Now, in 2013, the Republican Right has doubled down on that strategy, merging a government shutdown with an impending credit default in an effort to extort more concessions from Obama and the Democrats. But the larger goal is to create a new constitutional structure in which the Right, regardless of its minority status, gets to dictate what the federal government can and cannot do. To make this strategy work, however, requires a readiness to play Samson and to pull down the temple on your enemies as well as yourself. That appears to be the extreme option that the Koch Brothers and their fellow right-wing billionaires have chosen. If they can’t rule America, they will reduce the country to economic rubble through a fiscal crisis and a premeditated financial collapse. Then, perhaps out of the rubble, a chastened American people will emerge to accept their subordinate position in this new plutocratic structure. In the future, they will know better than to do something that the Koch Brothers and their right-wing friends don’t like. All that stuff about a government of the people, by the people and for the people will finally have perished from the earth.

More:

Koch Brothers “Samson Option”

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2013/10/07

Jon Rappoport: SHOCK – Deaths from Medical Drugs and Vitamins Far Exceed Deaths from Wars

07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government

Shock: Comparing deaths from medical drugs, vitamins, and all US wars

People want to believe medical science gives us, at any given moment, the best of all possible worlds.

And of course, the best of all possible worlds must have its enemies: the quacks who sell unproven snake oil.

So let’s look at some facts.

As I’ve been documenting in my last several articles, the medical cartel has been engaged in massive criminal fraud, presenting their drugs as safe and effective across the board—when, in fact, these drugs have been killing and maiming huge numbers of people, like clockwork.

I’ve cited the review, “Is US Health Really the Best in the World?”, by Dr. Barbara Starfied (Journal of the American Medical Association, July 26, 2000), in which Starfield reveals the American medical system kills 225,000 people per year—106,000 as a direct result of pharmaceutical drugs.

Continue reading “Jon Rappoport: SHOCK – Deaths from Medical Drugs and Vitamins Far Exceed Deaths from Wars”

2013/10/04

Berto Jongman: Environmental Crimes and Insecurity

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime

Environmental crimes increasingly linked to violence, insecurity

NEW YORK, 3 October 2013 (IRIN) – Organized environmental crime is known to pose a multi-layered threat to human security, yet it has long been treated as a low priority by law enforcers, seen as a fluffy “green” issue that belongs in the domain of environmentalists.

But due to a variety of factors – including its escalation over the past decade, its links to terrorist activities, the rising value of environmental contraband and the clear lack of success among those trying to stem the tide – these crimes are inching their way up the to-do lists of law enforcers, politicians and policymakers.

The recent terror attack on the popular Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, has placed environmental crimes like the ivory and rhino horn trade under increased scrutiny. Al-Shabab, the Islamist militant group that has taken credit for the attack, is widely believed to fund as much as 40 percent of its activities from elephant poaching, or the “blood ivory” trade. The Lord’s Resistance Army, a brutal rebel group active in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, is also known to be funded through elephant poaching.

Rising incomes in Asia have stimulated demand for ivory and rhino horn, leading to skyrocketing levels of poaching. Over the past five years, the rate of rhino horn poaching in South Africa has increased sevenfold as demand in Vietnam and other Asian countries for the horn – used as cancer treatments, aphrodisiacs and status symbols – grows.

“Drop in the ocean”

On the international stage, politicians – alarmed by increasing evidence of links between terrorist organizations and organized environmental crime – are taking a more visible stand against wildlife trafficking. In July, US President Barack Obama set up a taskforce on wildlife trafficking and pledged US$10 million to fight it.

But this is a mere “drop in the ocean”, says Justin Gosling, a senior adviser on environmental organized crime for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, which was recently launched in New York.

“If developing countries really want to assist, they need to put up quite a bit of cash,” he added.

Funded by the governments of Norway and Switzerland, the Global Initiative is a network of leading experts in the field of organized crime, which aims to bring together a wide range of players in government and civil society to find ways to combat illicit trafficking and trade.

At the Global Initiative conference, Gosling presented a draft of The Global Response to Transnational Organized Environmental Crime, a report documenting environmental crimes around the world. Such crimes are on the rise in terms of “variety, volume and value”, the report says, and their impact is far greater than the simple destruction of natural resources and habitats. “They affect human security in the form of conflict, rule of law and access to essentials such as safe drinking water, food sources and shelter,” the report says.

The crimes documented range from illicit trade in plants and animals and illegal logging, fishing and mineral extraction to production and trade of ozone-depleting substances, toxic dumping, and “grey areas” such as large-scale natural resource extraction.

Most vulnerable

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2013/09/292013/09/29

Kevin Barrett: Saudis Threaten Russian Olympics, Israeli False Flag in Syria, US Spins Round and Round

03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War

Phi Beta Iota: We have no direct knowledge. The growth of credible voices denouncing the “official” story on Syria as a web of lies is noteworthy. As best we can tell, the 900 lb gorilla is now captive to financial and religious forces few comprehend, while the BRICS are emergent as the alternative world order, with a third amorphous autonomous Internet and non-state network of networks in gestation. Earth will survive humanity — whether humanity will survive its own arrogance and ignorance remains an open question.

US/Al-Qaeda threatened Olympics through Saudi proxy

Voice of Russia (listen to the interview)

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, stepped forward regarding the Syrian chemical weapons attack and said: “This was an Israeli false flag.”

He cited his intelligence sources as saying that it was actually the Israelis that killed all those people with gas.

He was just one of many people going “way off script” in the US regarding the heinous attack.

Dr. Kevin Barrett in an exclusive interview with the Voice of Russia was very candid when he said it was stunning that someone like Saudi Prince Bandar would come to Putin and threaten to bomb the Winter Olympics and claim that he was acting with the full support of the US Government.

According to Dr. Barrett the US government, threatening to bomb the Olympic Games with Al-Qaeda, through its Saudi proxy, turns the whole “War on Terror Paradigm” on its head.

Continue reading “Kevin Barrett: Saudis Threaten Russian Olympics, Israeli False Flag in Syria, US Spins Round and Round”