We Are The Cops Of The World

SPECIAL REPORT. U.S. fomenting "constitutional coups" in BRICS alliance by Wayne Madsen Report

SPECIAL REPORT. U.S. fomenting "constitutional coups" in BRICS alliance

by Wayne Madsen Report
When President Obama flies over Brazil on his way from Cuba to Argentina, he will be flying over the latest member of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South African (BRICS) alliance to feel the effects of the Central Intelligence Agency's new brand of coup generation. After trying to mount an electoral defeat of Brazil's progressive leftist president, Dilma Rousseff, through a combination of presidential candidate assassination, "rent-a-mob" street demonstrations, and corporate media propaganda, the Langley spooks are now trying to run Rousseff from office through a "Made in America" impeachment process. Aware that Rousseff's progressive predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been targeted by Brazilian prosecutors on the CIA's payroll, for arrest and prosecution for bribery, she has appointed him to her government with ministerial rank. 

Bribery charges, involving Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras and, in the case of Lula, construction firms, have also been leveled against Rousseff. George Soros, whose operatives in Brazil have been involved in launching "themed revolution" street protests, has made no secret of his desire to see Petrobras totally privatized so he can sink his fangs into the company and drain it for all it is worth. Soros operatives have turned thousands of people out into the streets of Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, and Rio de Janeiro in the "green and yellow" revolution. Protesters carry green and yellow banners and signs and dressed in green and yellow clothes have been confronted by an equal number of government supporters dressed in the red color of the ruling Workers' Party.

The anti-Rousseff/Lula movement bears a signature Soros name, "Vem Pra Rua," Portuguese for "To the Street." As with the disastrous Soros-inspired and CIA-nurtured Arab Spring protests in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia and Euromaidan protest in Ukraine, the Vem Pra Rua movement is basically nothing more than a politically-motivated capitalist campaign using Facebook, Twitter, and pro-insurrection television and radio networks, newspapers, and websites.

Vem Pra Rua's protests were marked by quickly-manufactured inflatable dolls of Lula in black and white prison garb and a placard cartoon drawing of Rousseff with a red diagonal "No" sign drawn through it.

Brazilian prosecutors on Langley's payroll recently arrested the popular Lula after staging a massive police raid of his house. Police also arrested the former First Lady of Brazil, Lula's wife Marisa Leticia. Lula said he felt that he was kidnapped by the police. In 2009, Honduran troops actually kidnapped President Manuel Zelaya in the middle of the night and detained him in a military cell prior to expelling him from the country. That operation, like the one against Lula and Rousseff, was backed not only by the CIA and NSA, but by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami. The Honduran coup was also backed by the Supreme Court of Honduras. To prevent a further political arrest of her predecessor, Rousseff has made Lula her chief of staff, a cabinet position that affords Lula protection from continuing prosecutorial harassment and legal proceedings by the federal court.


Soros's and the CIA's latest themed uprising, the Green and Yellow Revolution in Brazil. Soros's "revolutions" only serve the interests of Wall Street, the Pentagon, and Israel.

On March 16, Judge Sergio Moro, who is in charge of Operation "Lava-jato" ("Carwash"), the two-year investigation of Petrobras and the alleged bribery involving Rousseff and Lula, released two taped intercepts of phone calls between the president and former president. The bugged phone conversation involved Rousseff's plans to appoint Lula to her cabinet as a way to afford him some protection from the CIA's judicial-backed coup operation now in play. When the classified National Security Agency documents leaked by whistleblower Ed Snowden illustrated how NSA had spied on Rousseff's office and mobile phones, President Obama said he had ordered an end to such spying on world leaders friendly to the United States.

Rousseff, in a 2013 speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, said the following about the NSA spying on Brazilians: "Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information, often of high economic and even strategic value,  was at the centre of espionage activity . . Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the permanent mission to the UN and the office of the president of the republic itself, had their communications intercepted." President Obama followed Rousseff on the General Assembly's podium and, in answer to Rousseff's blistering attack on the U.S. and NSA, stated, "We have begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so as to properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies, with the privacy concerns that all people share." Obama did not say that the U.S. would not use intercepted phone calls and email to bring down foreign leaders.

The NSA's wiretaps of Brazilian leaders and businessmen involved systems with such cover terms as SILVERZEPHYR, BLACKPEARL, FLYING PIG, and ROYALNET.

NSA spying on Rousseff and Lula continuing. Intercepted phone calls being turned over to Brazilian judge with CIA ties.

Judge Sergio Moro's name appears in one of the leaked State Department cables. On October 30, 2009, the U.S. embassy in Brasilia reported that Moro attended an embassy-sponsored conference in Rio de Janeiro held from October 4-9. Titled "Illicit Financial Crimes," the conference appears have been an avenue for the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies to train Brazilian federal and state law enforcement, as well as other Latin American police officials from Argentina, Paraguay, Panama, and Uruguay, in procedures to mount bogus criminal prosecutions of Latin American leaders considered unfriendly to the United States. Former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and members of her leftist political party also faced investigations by prosecutors and judges on the CIA's payroll. The State cable from Brasilia states: "Moro . . . discussed the 15 most common issues he sees in money laundering cases in the Brazilian Courts." Moro is also taking inspiration for his prosecution of Lula and Rousseff from the prosecutors in the Watergate affair that brought down President Richard Nixon.

The recent intercepts of Rousseff's phone conversations with Lula, believed to have been gathered by NSA and turned over to Moro by the U.S. embassy in Brasilia, shows that Obama lied. The American president's forthcoming visit to Latin America has avoided Air Force One touching down in Latin America's biggest power, Brazil. Obama, who once prepared Latin America analytical reports for CIA front company Business International Corporation, is keenly aware that Brazil is now undergoing a "constitutional coup" aided and abetted by the CIA and Soros. Obama cannot be seen giving the imprimatur of legitimacy to a government being actively targeted by Langley and other U.S. intelligence agencies, including NSA.

The transcript of one phone call between Rousseff and Lula is hardly a reason to impeach Rousseff and throw her and Lula into prison, regardless of the aims of Soros, the CIA, and their Brazilian lackeys:
Phone call between Rousseff and Lula, 16 March

Rousseff: Hello.

Lula: Hello.

Rousseff: Lula, let me tell you something.

Lula: Tell me, my love.

Rousseff: It’s this, I am sending Messias [Jorge Rodrigo Araújo Messias, deputy head of legal affairs at the cabinet office] round with the papers, so that we have them, just in case of necessity, that is the terms of office, right?

Lula: Uh-huh. Ok, ok.

Rousseff: That’s all, wait there, he is heading there.

Lula: OK, I’m here. I’ll wait.

Rousseff: Right?

Lula: OK.

Rousseff: Bye.

The phone call is hardly an impeachable offense but a tactical move to protect Lula from a runaway prosecutor.
----
The CIA previously used judicial cover in its coups against Honduras's Zelaya in 2009 and Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo in 2012. Both Zelaya and Lugo were ousted by a relatively new CIA methodology for deposing leaders its dislikes -- the "constitutional coup" -- using legislatures and high courts to justify ousters brought on by Soros-financed street demonstrations and manipulation of private media, including newspapers and television. Rousseff and Lula are using the legal powers afforded to the Brazilian presidency to bring charges against Moro.

Lula sees Moro as the CIA rat he is. He condemned Moro's witch hunt, saying that "with the press leading the investigative process they [the prosecutors] are going to re-found the republic. We have a totally cowardly Supreme Court, a totally cowardly High Court, a totally cowardly parliament  . . . a speaker of the house who is fucked, a president of the senate who is fucked, I don’t know how many legislators under threat, and everyone thinking that some kind of miracle is going to happen."

In South Africa, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which receives its support from Soros and the Jewish-dominated South African diamond and gold industry, is targeting president Jacob Zuma. The CIA has traditionally maintained strong influence over the DA, especially when it was led by Tony Leon, a former visiting fellow at the right-wing libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, DC. The tactics in South Africa are similar to those in Brazil. There are calls for Zuma to resign because of alleged bribes received by the wealthy Gupta family and influence peddling by the family. The charges against Zuma also extend to the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which has, since the apartheid era, been the target of the CIA. Even the South African Communist Party, a member of the ANC government, has taken on the taint of a Soros-infiltrated party by demanding Zuma reveal the full nature of his connections with the Guptas or face the political "consequences."

As far as Brazil is concerned, it is apparent that the CIA and Soros want to see Rousseff and Lula gone and in prison by the time the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics opens in August. The goal of the anti-government agitators in Brazil is to see a head of state chosen by the usual globalist suspects opening the Olympiad before an international audience.

Attention! Coup Attempt in Brazil!

17/03/2016 Miguel do Rosário

Por Diego

Don’t be mistaken, what is underway in Brazil is an attempt at a coup. 

Following the illegal tapping by the Federal Police of a private conversation between President Dilma Rousseff and former President Lula, at the orders of lower court judge and selectively disclosed by the media, we hereby express our deepest concern about the erosion of the rule of law in Brazil. Today’s events are extremely serious and have a real potential to escalate into social unrest and bloodshed.

On 31 March 1964 a military coup was trigged against the legally constituted government of João Goulart. This was a day that lasted 21 years. Only in 1988 was a new Constitution drafted and Brazil began its democratization process. Similarly, to 1964, the current coup attempt is backed by the largest Brazilian media group - Rede Globo. Unlike 1964, the current coup attempt is the result of an ideologically-driven judiciary that has three purposes: to overthrow a democratically elected President; prevent former President Lula from running in the 2018 elections; and ultimately making the Brazilian Workers Party illegal.

There is no doubt that Brazil is undergoing extremely serious political instability. President Dilma Rousseff was re-elected for her second term in 2014. At the beginning of her second term, Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned oil company, became involved in corruption scandals. However, only an extremely naïve person would believe that the Brazilian Worker’s Party invented corruption. In his memoirs, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former PSDB president reported that on he was told that a huge corruption scheme taking place at Petrobras while he was President. Unlike Dilma, Cardoso did not have the courage to initiate any investigation.

While the Cardoso administration carried out 48 federal police investigations in 8 years, under the Brazilian Worker’s Party 250 were carried out. Concomitantly to a significant increase in federal police operations aimed at tackled corruption, both the Lula and Rousseff administrations strengthened and devolved more powers to judiciary. Prior to 2003 most investigations were the responsibility of the government. 

Despite the fact that over the past several months the Federal Police has intentionally and illegally leaked information about ongoing investigations involving people linked to the Brazilian Worker’s Party, last week events escalated with the kidnaping for a few hours of former President Lula. Using the term ‘kidnapped’ is no exaggeration, as Brazilian legislation does not permit the occurrence of this type of event.

As a result of the above events, President Dilma decided to invite Lula to became the chief of staff of the government in order to re-establish governability. The opposition accused Dilma of offering this position so that Lula would enjoy an immunity granted to ministers. This is completely wrong … Those who make these claims forget that in this case Lula would be judged in the Supreme Court, a significant disadvantage as unlike all other citizens he would lose the benefits of surfing the various judicial spheres …

For those who did not see the coup coming, it is now more than evident. On the same day that Lula was appointed to the Cabinet, the Federal Police backed by a lower court judge, decided to publish conversations between Lula and Dilma with the intention to causing a social convulsion that could potentially lead to the overthrown of Dilma as President. 

Brazilians must ensure that the rule of law is re-established and that the democratically elected government can continue its mandate. Tomorrow we will take to the streets to defend the democratically elected president and demand respect for our constitution and for the rule of law! 

Não Passarão!

The Anti-Empire Report #144 by William Blum

The Anti-Empire Report #144


By William Blum – Published March 11th, 2016




14

American exceptionalism presents an election made in hell


If the American presidential election winds up with Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, and my passport is confiscated, and I’m somehow FORCED to choose one or the other, or I’m PAID to do so, paid well … I would vote for Trump.


My main concern is foreign policy. American foreign policy is the greatest threat to world peace, prosperity, and the environment. And when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is an unholy disaster. From Iraq and Syria to Libya and Honduras the world is a much worse place because of her; so much so that I’d call her a war criminal who should be prosecuted. And not much better can be expected on domestic issues from this woman who was paid $675,000 by Goldman Sachs – one of the most reactionary, anti-social corporations in this sad world – for four speeches and even more than that in political donations in recent years. Add to that Hillary’s willingness to serve for six years on the board of Walmart while her husband was governor of Arkansas. Can we expect to change corporate behavior by taking their money?


The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial the day after the multiple primary elections of March 1 which began: “Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States,” and then declared: “The reality is that Trump has no experience whatsoever in government.”


When I need to have my car fixed I look for a mechanic with experience with my type of auto. When I have a medical problem I prefer a doctor who specializes in the part of my body that’s ill. But when it comes to politicians, experience means nothing. The only thing that counts is the person’s ideology. Who would you sooner vote for, a person with 30 years in Congress who doesn’t share your political and social views at all, is even hostile to them, or someone who has never held public office before but is an ideological comrade on every important issue? Clinton’s 12 years in high government positions carries no weight with me.


The Times continued about Trump: “He has shamefully little knowledge of the issues facing the country and the world.”


Again, knowledge is trumped (no pun intended) by ideology. As Secretary of State (January 2009-February 2013), with great access to knowledge, Clinton played a key role in the 2011 destruction of Libya’s modern and secular welfare state, sending it crashing in utter chaos into a failed state, leading to the widespread dispersal throughout North African and Middle East hotspots of the gigantic arsenal of weaponry that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi had accumulated. Libya is now a haven for terrorists, from al Qaeda to ISIS, whereas Gaddafi had been a leading foe of terrorists.


What good did Secretary of State Clinton’s knowledge do? It was enough for her to know that Gaddafi’s Libya, for several reasons, would never be a properly obedient client state of Washington. Thus it was that the United States, along with NATO, bombed the people of Libya almost daily for more than six months, giving as an excuse that Gaddafi was about to invade Benghazi, the Libyan center of his opponents, and so the United States was thus saving the people of that city from a massacre. The American people and the American media of course swallowed this story, though no convincing evidence of the alleged impending massacre has ever been presented. (The nearest thing to an official US government account of the matter – a Congressional Research Service report on events in Libya for the period – makes no mention at all of the threatened massacre.)


The Western intervention in Libya was one that the New York Times said Clinton had “championed”, convincing Obama in “what was arguably her moment of greatest influence as secretary of state.” All the knowledge she was privy to did not keep her from this disastrous mistake in Libya. And the same can be said about her support of placing regime change in Syria ahead of supporting the Syrian government in its struggle against ISIS and other terrorist groups. Even more disastrous was the 2003 US invasion of Iraq which she as a senator supported. Both policies were of course clear violations of international law and the UN Charter.


Another foreign-policy “success” of Mrs. Clinton, which her swooning followers will ignore, the few that even know about it, is the coup ousting the moderately progressive Manuel Zelaya of Honduras in June, 2009. A tale told many times in Latin America. The downtrodden masses finally put into power a leader committed to reversing the status quo, determined to try to put an end to up to two centuries of oppression … and before long the military overthrows the democratically-elected government, while the United States – if not the mastermind behind the coup – does nothing to prevent it punish the coup regime, as only the United States can punish; meanwhile Washington officials pretend to be very upset over this “affront to democracy”. (See Mark Weisbrot’s “Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side The United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras”.)


In her 2014 memoir, “Hard Choices”, Clinton reveals just how unconcerned she was about restoring Zelaya to his rightful office: “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere … We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”


The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assembly, and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Washington, however, quickly resumed normal diplomatic relations with the new right-wing police state, and Honduras has since become a major impetus for the child migrants currently pouring into the United States.


The headline from Time magazine’s report on Honduras at the close of that year (December 3, 2009) summed it up as follows: “Obama’s Latin America Policy Looks Like Bush’s”.


And Hillary Clinton looks like a conservative. And has for many years; going back to at least the 1980s, while the wife of the Arkansas governor, when she strongly supported the death-squad torturers known as the Contras, who were the empire’s proxy army in Nicaragua.


Then, during the 2007 presidential primary, America’s venerable conservative magazine, William Buckley’s National Review, ran an editorial by Bruce Bartlett. Bartlett was a policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, a treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, and a fellow at two of the leading conservative think-tanks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute – You get the picture? Bartlett tells his readers that it’s almost certain that the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. So what to do? Support the most conservative Democrat. He writes: “To right-wingers willing to look beneath what probably sounds to them like the same identical views of the Democratic candidates, it is pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is the most conservative.”


During the same primary we also heard from America’s leading magazine for the corporate wealthy,Fortune, with a cover featuring a picture of Mrs. Clinton and the headline: “Business Loves Hillary”.


And what do we have in 2016? Fully 116 members of the Republican Party’s national security community, many of them veterans of Bush administrations, have signed an open letter threatening that, if Trump is nominated, they will all desert, and some will defect – to Hillary Clinton! “Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” says Eliot Cohen of the Bush II State Department. Cohen helped line up neocons to sign the “Dump-Trump” manifesto. Another signer, foreign-policy ultra-conservative author Robert Kagan, declared: “The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.”


The only choice? What’s wrong with Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate? … Oh, I see, not conservative enough.


And Mr. Trump? Much more a critic of US foreign policy than Hillary or Bernie. He speaks of Russia and Vladimir Putin as positive forces and allies, and would be much less likely to go to war against Moscow than Clinton would. He declares that he would be “evenhanded” when it comes to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as opposed to Clinton’s boundless support of Israel). He’s opposed to calling Senator John McCain a “hero”, because he was captured. (What other politician would dare say a thing like that?)


He calls Iraq “a complete disaster”, condemning not only George W. Bush but the neocons who surrounded him. “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.” He even questions the idea that “Bush kept us safe”, and adds that “Whether you like Saddam or not, he used to kill terrorists.”


Yes, he’s personally obnoxious. I’d have a very hard time being his friend. Who cares?
CIA motto: “Proudly overthrowing the Cuban government since 1959.”


Now what? Did you think that the United States had finally grown up and come to the realization that they could in fact share the same hemisphere as the people of Cuba, accepting Cuban society as unquestioningly as they do that of Canada? The Washington Post (February 18) reported: “In recent weeks, administration officials have made it clear Obama would travel to Cuba only if its government made additional concessions in the areas of human rights, Internet access and market liberalization.”


Imagine if Cuba insisted that the United States make “concessions in the area of human rights”; this could mean the United States pledging to not repeat anything like the following:


Invading Cuba in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs.


Invading Grenada in 1983 and killing 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers.


Blowing up a passenger plane full of Cubans in 1976. (In 1983, the city of Miami held a day in honor of Orlando Bosch, one of the two masterminds behind this awful act; the other perpetrator, Luis Posada, was given lifetime protection in the same city.)


Giving Cuban exiles, for their use, the virus which causes African swine fever, forcing the Cuban government to slaughter 500,000 pigs.


Infecting Cuban turkeys with a virus which produces the fatal Newcastle disease, resulting in the deaths of 8,000 turkeys.


In 1981 an epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever swept the island, the first major epidemic of DHF ever in the Americas. The United States had long been experimenting with using dengue fever as a weapon. Cuba asked the United States for a pesticide to eradicate the mosquito involved but were not given it. Over 300,000 cases were reported in Cuba with 158 fatalities.


These are but three examples of decades-long CIA chemical and biological warfare (CBW) against Cuba. We must keep in mind that food is a human right (although the United States has repeatedly denied this.


Washington maintained a blockade of goods and money entering Cuba that is still going strong, a blockade that President Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, in 1997 called “the most pervasive sanctions ever imposed on a nation in the history of mankind”.


Attempted to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro on numerous occasions, not only in Cuba, but in Panama, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.


In one scheme after another in recent years, Washington’s Agency for International Development (AID) endeavored to cause dissension in Cuba and/or stir up rebellion, the ultimate goal being regime change.


In 1999 a Cuban lawsuit demanded $181.1 billion in US compensation for death and injury suffered by Cuban citizens in four decades “war” by Washington against Cuba. Cuba asked for $30 million in direct compensation for each of the 3,478 people it said were killed by US actions and $15 million each for the 2,099 injured. It also asked for $10 million each for the people killed, and $5 million each for the injured, to repay Cuban society for the costs it has had to assume on their behalf.


Needless to say, the United States has not paid a penny of this.


One of the most common Yankee criticisms of the state of human rights in Cuba has been the arrest of dissidents (although the great majority are quickly released). But many thousands of anti-war and other protesters have been arrested in the United States in recent years, as in every period in American history. During the Occupy Movement, which began in 2011, more than 7,000 people were arrested in about the first year, many were beaten by police and mistreated while in custody, their street displays and libraries smashed to pieces. ; the Occupy movement continued until 2014; thus, the figure of 7,000 is an understatement.)


Moreover, it must be kept in mind that whatever restrictions on civil liberties there may be in Cuba exist within a particular context: The most powerful nation in the history of the world is just 90 miles away and is sworn – vehemently and repeatedly sworn – to overthrowing the Cuban government. If the United States was simply and sincerely concerned with making Cuba a less restrictive society, Washington’s policy would be clear cut:
Call off the wolves – the CIA wolves, the AID wolves, the doctor-stealer wolves, the baseball-player-stealer wolves.
Publicly and sincerely (if American leaders still remember what this word means) renounce their use of CBW and assassinations. And apologize.
Cease the unceasing hypocritical propaganda – about elections, for example. (Yes, it’s true that Cuban elections never feature a Donald Trump or a Hillary Clinton, nor ten billion dollars, nor 24 hours of campaign ads, but is that any reason to write them off?)
Pay compensation – a lot of it.
Sine qua non – end the God-awful blockade.


Throughout the period of the Cuban revolution, 1959 to the present, Latin America has witnessed a terrible parade of human rights violations – systematic, routine torture; legions of “disappeared” people; government-supported death squads picking off selected individuals; massacres en masse of peasants, students and other groups. The worst perpetrators of these acts during this period have been the military and associated paramilitary squads of El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Haiti and Honduras. However, not even Cuba’s worst enemies have made serious charges against the Havana government for any of such violations; and if one further considers education and health care, “both of which,” said President Bill Clinton, “work better [in Cuba] than most other countries” , and both of which are guaranteed by the United Nations “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the “European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”, then it would appear that during the more-than-half century of its revolution, Cuba has enjoyed one of the very best human-rights records in all of Latin America.


But never good enough for American leaders to ever touch upon in any way; the Bill Clinton quote being a rare exception indeed. It’s a tough decision to normalize relations with a country whose police force murders its own innocent civilians on almost a daily basis. But Cuba needs to do it. Maybe they can civilize the Americans a bit, or at least remind them that for more than a century they have been the leading torturers of the world.








14

Notes
“Libya: Transition and U.S. Policy”, updated March 4, 2016.
New York Times, February 28, 2016
Mark Weisbrot, “Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side The United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras”, Common Dreams, December 16, 2009
Roger Morris, former member of the National Security Council, Partners in Power (1996), p.415. For a comprehensive look at Hillary Clinton, see the new book by Diane Johnstone,Queen of Chaos.
National Review online, May 1, 2007
Fortune magazine, July 9, 2007
Patrick J. Buchanan, “Will the Oligarchs Kill Trump?”, Creators.com, March 08, 2016
William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (2005), chapter 14
Ibid., p.264
White House press briefing, November 14, 1997, US Newswire transcript
Fabian Escalante, Executive Action: 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro (2006), Ocean Press (Australia)
Huffington Post, May 3, 2012
Miami Herald, October 17, 1997, p.22A


Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to williamblum.org is provided.

SPECIAL REPORT. Scalia's hunting ranch was meeting place for secret society by Wayne Madsen Report

SPECIAL REPORT. Scalia's hunting ranch was meeting place for secret society
The story of the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia's last hours spent at the exclusive Cibolo Creek Ranch nestled in the Chinati Mountains, near Marfa, Texas, is as strange as the peculiar treatment his body received after his sudden death during his first night at the 30,000 acre compound. WMR's editor first speculated that there was more going on at ranch with Scalia and 35 other men during the Valentine's Day/President's Day weekend. First, it was a male-only "hunting" Valentine's Day weekend event for some influential married and family-oriented figures, including Scalia. Scalia's "friend" from Washington, who accompanied him from Washington to Houston where they boarded a private jet the Cibolo Creek Ranch airport, was also kept secret.

That was until the most unlikeliest of all sources, the "connected" Washington Post, revealed on February 24 that the hunting event attended by Scalia included a number of officials of the over three-century old International Order of St. Hubertus, founded in 1695 by Count Franz Anton von Sporck of the Kingdom of Bohemia, a vassal state of the Habsburg Empire. Today, the order is presided over by its "Grand Master His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary." The secretive hunting order, which upholds the Latin motto, "Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes” or “Honoring God by Honoring His Creatures,” claims royal protection under "His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain, the Grand Master Emeritus His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria," as well as Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen.

As far as its motto of "honoring God's creatures," King Juan Carlos of Spain ultimately fell from power after hunting scandals. In 2012, the king was photographed in front of an elephant in Botswana, which was shot to death by hunters. In 2006, the king rejected as false a rumor that he shot a bear in Russia that was plied with vodka. As a teenager, Juan Carlos shot and killed his brother Alfonso in an accident in Portugal. The pistol was allegedly given to Alfonso as a gift from General Franco, Spain's dictator. Spanish priest Josémaria Escriva founded the far-right wing Catholic Opus Dei sect, of which Scalia was a member, in 1928, under the patronage of Franco.

The circumstances surrounding Alfonso's death in 1956 remain clouded in mystery. Juan Carlos, a member of the royal House of Bourbon, abdicated the Spanish throne in 2014.


Juan Carlos's reign began to unravel after he was pictured with an elephant, shot to death by hunters in Botswana.

Ranch owner, Houston billionaire businessman John B. Poindexter, has been reticent about revealing the identities of the other 35 guests who stayed at the ranch with Scalia. Nor has Poindexter provided the names of other special guests who have participated in similar gratis functions held about three times a year. Poindexter did reveal that when he discovered Scalia's lifeless body, a pillow was partially covering his face.

It is now known, thanks to the Post article, which normally would be derided by the corporate media as "conspiracy theory" speculation had it appeared in any web-based publication, that Scalia's friend from Washington is C. Allen Foster, a prominent Republican trial lawyer who has argued cases before the Supreme Court. Foster ran as the Republican candidate for Attorney General of North Carolina in 1984.


Scalia attorney friend C. Allen Foster who left the U.S. for a trip to Argentina after Scalia's funeral in DC. Argentina's new right-wing president, Mauricio Macri, is affiliated with the right-wing Catholic sect Opus Dei. Foster is with the law firm of Whiteford Taylor Preston at 1800 M Street, NW Washington. The International Order of St. Hubertus, American chapter uses a UPS rental mailbox, or "suite," at 2100 M Street.

Last year, Poindexter's firm had an age discrimination case before the Supreme Court, which it, Scalia included, decided not to hear, providing a victory for Poindexter, the defendant. Foster could not be reached by the Post because his office said he was traveling in Argentina.


The 2013 investiture in Madrid of the International Order of St. Hubertus. Cibolo Creek Ranch owner John B. Poindexter is in front row. Poindexter is also the leader of the green-caped order's Southwest Priory, consisting of Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Arkansas. The order's Maltese Cross symbol suggests a tie-in with the Catholic Knights of Malta.
St. Hubertus's American chapter began in 1966 under the auspices of San Francisco's elite Bohemian Club, which sponsors an annual Bohemian Grove encampment in a dense forest north of San Francisco. The event has drawn the world's movers and shakers, including David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, and was once condemned by President Richard Nixon on White House tapes as "the most faggy Goddamn thing you could ever imagine." The event features male-only nudism as part of male bonding pagan ceremonies.

Poindexter and Foster are prominent members of the St. Hubertus Order as are two other guests from the hunting outing at Cibolo Creek at which Scalia died. The Post identified two private jets that arrived at Cibolo Creek airport from San Antonio just after that carrying Scalia and Foster arrived at noon from Houston. The two other jets, which departed Sunday, February 14, are owned by Wallace "Happy" Rogers III and A.J. Lewis III, both of San Antonio. Both are Republicans, in the restaurant business, and officers of the male-only Order of St. Hubertus.

So far, the description of Scalia's last outing sounds as if it is torn from the pages of a Dan Brown novel. But it gets better. WMR caught site of a number of Mexican "diablo" artifacts at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, which is odd for a Roman Catholic order like St. Hubertus.

    
Amid the Satanic artifacts, a baby's crib [left]. The ranch only has single beds, including made up beds found in the outside passageways [center], except for the king size bed found in Scalia's suite [right], remade after Scalia's death with door locked. Photos: WMR.
Outside of Scalia's room, the "El Presidente" suite, is a wood-burning pit. There was evidence that on the evening that Scalia died, there was a party outside his suite. There was ash still in the pit, some broken glass, and cigar ashes in the ashtray. Scalia was an avid cigar aficionado. Also found was a box of self-striking matches next to the ashtray, which was alleviated by the WMR editor as a "souvenir." Inside the corridor leading to Scalia's room was a statuette that can only be described as satanic in nature. Scalia's dinner, his last meal, was served under a phalanx of devil masks hanging from the ranch's dining room. A painting reproduction outside the dining room evoked memories of the pre-St. Valentine's Day Roman pagan holiday of Lupercalia, celebrated around February 14th and known for drinking and orgies.

 
Fire pit outside of Scalia's suite showed signs of a recent party: broken glass, cigar ashes, cigarette butts, and ash residue in the pit [left]. A box of strike-anywhere matches [right] was found next to the ashtray. Photos: WMR.


Paintings at ranch highly suggestive of Roman pagan Lupercalia festival in mid-February, a pre-Valentine's Day celebration of sex and orgies. Photo: WMR.


Statuette found in passageway not too far from Scalia's room. Photo: WMR

    
The strict Catholic Scalia had these devil masks staring down at him during his last meal in the ranch's dining room. Photos: WMR.

Discrepancy in Presidio Sheriff's report on Scalia By Wayne Madsen Report

 Discrepancy in Presidio Sheriff's report on Scalia By Wayne Madsen Report
On February 23,Presidio County, Texas Sheriff Danny Doinguez released his sheriff's report on the unattended death of Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. The report contains a major discrepancy on how Scalia's body was transported from the Cibolo Creek Ranch to the Sunset Funeral Home in El Paso, where it was embalmed. Scalia's body was found in his bed at the ranch on the morning of February 13 after he flew by private plane into the ranch's airport, arriving around noon on February 12.

Dominguez noted in his report noted that a pillow partially covered Scalia's eyes but that it “did not seem to have inhibited Scalia’s breathing.” No autopsy was performed on Scalia's body nor did a qualified medical professional conduct an inquest, which is required under Texas state law. Presidio County District Attorney Rod Ponton claimed that there was nothing suspicious about Scalia's death.

News reports stated that the Alpine Funeral Home in Alpine, Texas was notified that a hearse was needed to transport Scalia's body to the Sunset Funeral Home in El Paso for embalming before being flown back to Washington, DC. However, Dominguez's report states that Scalia's body was transported to El Paso by a hearse sent by the Sunset Funeral Home.




Presidio County judge Cinderela Guevara pronounced Scalia dead over a telephone call with Dominguez, who was at the ranch, at 1:52 pm on February 13. Sarah Vasquez, a reporter for theBig Bend Sentinel, the local newspaper with which Dominguez and the county government has a close relationship, wrote in the February 13 issue that "Alpine Memorial Funeral Home was called to scene" of Scalia's death. But the Sheriff's report states that "at approximately 11:30 pm the El Paso Funeral Home arrived at the ranch to retrieve Scalia's body, and return to the funeral home." It adds, "at approximately 12:00 am (midnight) the funeral home departed the premises with Scalia's body," along with U.S. Marshals and Dominguez. The procession of the hearse and the marshals continued to El Paso, a three hour drive, after arriving in Marfa. Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles accompanied the procession to El Paso. The same Big Bend Sentinel report stated, that Scalia's body was to be "flown to a funeral home in El Paso per the family’s request." The Cibolo Creek Ranch airport can accommodate Gulfstream and Lear jets. If Scalia's body was to be flown anywhere, it could just have easily been flown back to Washington, DC directly from the ranch's airport.

WFAA/Associated Press reported on February 14 that "a funeral home in neighboring Alpine was called to come collect the justice’s remains, which were then transported to El Paso." It is noteworthy that Marfa, which is closer to the ranch than Alpine, also has a funeral home that could have accommodated the needs of the Scalia family, yet it was not used.

The San Antonio Express-News carried a photograph of the Alpine Funeral Home Cadillac hearse leaving the Cibolo Creek Ranch at around 5:00 pm on February 13. The photograph is clearly taken during daylight hours. However, the Sheriff's report states that the El Paso Funeral Home hearse left around midnight on the 13th. Media reports had the hearse arriving at the El Paso funeral home around 2:30 am on February 13th. Why the discrepancy? The Los Angeles Timeslater reported that George Van Etten, the ranch's property manager who works for owner John B. Poindexter, decided to use the Alpine Funeral Home hearse as a decoy to confuse the press. But why would Scalia's body be kept at the ranch for over six hours in order to confuse the press? Only the San Antonio Express-News had a crew outside the ranch's main gate. And why the cloak-and-dagger involved in transporting Scalia's body to El Paso if he died of a heart attack from natural causes?


Alpine Funeral Home hearse leaving Cibolo Creek Ranch at 5:00 pm on February 13. This hearse reportedly did not contain Scalia's body.

The Sheriff's report also identifies, for the first time, the close friend who traveled with Scalia from Washington to the ranch. His name is Allen Foster. Scalia has a friend in Washington named C. Allen Foster, a noted trial lawyer who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.

A tale of two Cubans -- one an American hero, the other not so praiseworthy BY Wayne Madsen

 A tale of two Cubans -- one an American hero, the other not so praiseworthy
BY Wayne Madsen
There are some similarities but many fundamental differences between Cuban immigrants to the United States Otto Macias and Rafael Cruz. Macias, who abandoned Cuba during the throes of the Cuban Revolution, later enlisted in the U.S. Army and was sent to Vietnam. Today, he lives back in Cuba and has seen his veteran's benefits cut-off by the U.S. government. Suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome since Vietnam, Macias returned to Cuba in 1980 to visit relatives and decided not to return to the United States. Macias is a true American hero. He is richly deserving of retroactive payment of his paltry $60 a month veterans' pension, which was cut off by the Department of Veterans Affairs less than a year after her took up residence in Cuba.

Macias's decision to stay in Cuba after opposing Fidel Castro's revolution and fighting against the Communists in Vietnam stands in stark contrast to another Cuban who departed for American shores. In 1957, Rafael Cruz, a former salesman for the U.S. intelligence-linked RCA Corporation, left Cuba for the United States. Cruz claims he fought with Castro against the fascist government of Fulgencio Batista but soured on the revolution. However, Cruz left Cuba two years before the Castro revolution.

Cruz arrived in Austin where he enrolled in the University of Texas. This is a strange story since he claimed he left Cuba with only $100, which he said was sewn into his underwear. Cruz eventually gained U.S. permanent residency and a degree in mathematics from the University of Texas. In 1959, Cruz married Julia Ann Garza and, after Cruz graduated from the University of Texas in 1961, the couple moved to New Orleans from Dallas after the birth of their second daughter on November 18, 1962.

Cruz was in New Orleans during 1963, the year that New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison claimed his city was the focal point for the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. The plot involved a number of Cuban exiles. Accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald claimed, as part of his "fake defector" persona developed by the Central Intelligence Agency, to be a member of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The committee just happened to share an office address with Guy Bannister's private investigation agency.

Guy Banister Associates was located on the ground floor of the Newman Building at 5312 Lafayette Street while Oswald's "pro-Castro" Fair Play for Cuba Committee was located around the corner but on the ground floor of the same building but with an address of 544 Camp Street. Banister was a retired FBI agent who continued to carry out tasks for the bureau and the CIA. The Newman Building housed a number of anti-Castro groups, including the Cuban Revolutionary Council, Crusade to Free Cuba Committee, the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean, and Friends of Democratic Cuba. While living in New Orleans, Cruz was also active with anti-Castro movements and the chances that he did not cross paths with Banister and the other anti-Castro activists, including CIA agent Sergio Arcacha Smith, are highly unlikely for such a close-knit community at the time.

Otto Macias, disabled US Army Vietnam vet, living almost penniless in Havana

While living in New Orleans with his wife and two young daughters, Cruz claimed residency at two addresses, one a low-rent apartment building off of Jackson Avenue. Cruz worked for an oil company in New Orleans. He has been less than forthcoming about the details of his time in New Orleans and the time line that included his move from Dallas.

Cruz and his wife Julia divorced in New Orleans, allegedly in 1963, but this detail is also clouded in mystery. Cruz apparently registered for the draft in 1967 claiming the New Orleans' Jackson Street address. Draft registration was a requirement for resident aliens like Cruz. Cruz apparently waited until the age of 28 to register for the draft, which, because he waited so long, was a criminal offense at the time. While liable for the draft and possible service in Vietnam, a country where fellow Cuban immigrant Otto Macias gladly volunteered to serve, Cruz took off for Calgary, Canada with his second wife, Eleanor Darragh. Darragh, a native of Delaware who graduated from Rice University in Houston, worked for the same oil company in New Orleans that employed Cruz. Their son, Rafael "Ted" Cruz, Jr., now a candidate for president of the United States, claims that his mother and father worked for the same company in New Orleans but there is actually no record of an Eleanor Darragh Wilson Cruz living in New Orleans at the time.

Eleanor Wilson, married to Fort Worth, Texas native Alan Wilson, lived in London from 1960 to 1966. In 1965, their infant son Michael died from crib death. Alan Wilson, who still lives in London, told McClatchy News Service that Michael was not his son. In his autobiography, Senator Ted Cruz not only claims Michael was the son or his mother and Alan but also claims the baby died in 1965. In fact, Michael, according to London vital statistics records, died in 1966 and well after the Wilsons were divorced. Eleanor Cruz, who lives in Houston, has been mum on her marriage to Wilson and her marriage to Cruz, which lasted from 1969 to 1997. Ted Cruz was born in Calgary in 1970 and there is a major question about his eligibility to serve as president since Cruz maintained Canadian citizenship until 2013.

According to experts in Selective Service laws at the time, Cruz fits the description of a draft dodger. He only returned to the United States, with his 4-year old son Ted, Junior, in December 1974. In September 1974, President Gerald Ford offered amnesty for certain classes of draft evaders, including those like Cruz who registered late for the draft.

Cruz later claimed he became an evangelical Christian after returning to Canada from the United States to reunite with his wife and son. Today, Cruz [pictured left] is active with the Christian Dominionist movement that wants the United States transformed into a Christian theocracy.

It turns out that the oil company that Cruz and his wife worked for in Calgary was Rafael B. Cruz and Associates Ltd., which he sold to French-based Compagnie Générale de Géophysique (CCG) in 1974. CCG is linked to the large Schlumberger oil conglomerate, which, along with Halliburton, the two largest oilfield drilling companies in the world. Schlumberger had been active with the CIA and Zapata Offshore Company owned by George H. W. Bush. Moreover, Jean de Menil, the son-in-law of Schlumberger founder Conrad Schlumberger, was a key figure in the Permindex, the New Orleans-based CIA front headed up by Clay Shaw that was a key target of Garrison's investigation of the New Orleans connection to JFK's assassination in Dallas. Here, again, the senior Cruz's time line remains murky, an indication that he had some other sort of employment while in Calgary in Canada and New Orleans and Dallas in the United States.

Rafael Cruz, Sr. did not become a U.S. citizen until 2005. His early years remain clouded in mystery with strong suspicions that his later "finding Jesus" was after a long and clandestine career with the CIA, one that saw him cross paths with presidential assassins, oil company brigands, and other unsavory characters. Meanwhile, Otto Macias, a Vietnam War veteran and American hero, lives pensionless in Havana suffering from skin cancer and all-but-forgotten by the military for which he sacrificed so much. 

Why election anomalies are now the standard to be ignored by Wayne Madsen

 

Why election anomalies are now the standard to be ignored

by Wayne Madsen
After the "grand theft elections" of 2000 and 2004, where Republican election manipulators and engineers led by Karl Rove stole the electoral votes of Florida and Ohio for George W. Bush, the media ignores small electoral anomalies, especially from a few precincts in New Hampshire. But WMR does not ignore these anomalies because small glitches are always indicative of major election counting malfeasance.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin infamously said, "Those who cast the votesdecide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." Our present-day versions of Stalin, namely, the elitist presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush/Ted Cruz, live by Stalin's maxim. While Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump easily won the New Hampshire primary against their establishment foes, WMR noticed oddities in the election returns that merited no mention from the Tourette's afflicted and spittle-spraying Chris Matthews, the astoundingly stupid Wolf Blitzer, the Hillary-loving Rachel Maddow, the noted fabulist Brian Williams, or the team of carnival barkers at Fox News.

When we cover the election returns, we don't watch the bloviators on television but carefully watch the live returns coming in to media websites via the election reporting systems of state capital-based Secretaries of State. We do not trust the pooled news media election reporting services that have been so wrong in the past, such as the defunct Voter News Service made infamous in the 2000 election with its wrong calls on Florida.

In an system that promises one person, one vote, certain results should never be seen in election results, including a precinct where the statewide winner of an election does not receive a single vote. When weighed together, these precinct-by-precinct totals do not pass statistical probability muster.

Although most New Hampshire voting precincts use the Diebold AccuVote tabulating machines that optically scan paper ballots, these machines are, by no means, foolproof.

While Sanders and Trump were the runaway victors in New Hampshire, the real contest for the GOP was for the second- and third-place finishers, because these will be the candidates around which the establishment will gravitate toward in the upcoming primaries and caucuses. Ohio Governor John Kasich finished second and the third-place contest was a neck-and-neck race all night long between Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, with the two tied for third place at several points during the night. Cruz ended up winning third place. For Clinton, the game was to try to keep Sanders's percentage below the mid-fifty percentage range. The gambit failed.

Now for the anomalies, captured from Decision Desk HQ (a conservative website) and the New York Times by WMR during the evening. None of these have any rational explanation other than the fact that vote manipulation as seen in previous elections was at play:



From Decision Desk: We're to believe that Bush received an initial 95 votes and all others, including Trump, received no votes from Concord Ward 1?


From Decision Desk: Concord War 10 reports 154 votes for Bush, 100 for Cruz, 97 for Christie, 54 for Fiorina, and 26 for Carson, while first place finisher Trump and second place finisher Kasich have goose eggs?


From Decision Desk: Just like Concord Ward 10, Laconia Ward 6 reports 99 votes for Bush and none for the other candidates, including statewide winner Trump.


From Decision Desk: Barrington reported 357 votes for Cruz, 278 for Kasich, 93 for Fiorina, 2 votes for Jim Gilmore who received only 129 votes statewide, 31 votes for others, but no votes for Trump, Bush, Carson, or Rubio.


From Decision Desk: With 100 percent reporting, "other" received 4 votes and none for all the other candidates, including Trump with 31.3% statewide.


From the New York Times: Warren precinct reported 31.1% for Bush, 26.7% for Kasich, 15.6% percent for Cruz, but no votes for Trump. What is odd is that all the surrounding precincts broke for Trump by fairly wide margins:




Not to be outdone in the chicanery department, Croydon precinct showed Clinton at 77.3% with no votes for Sanders with the entire precinct reporting in. Later, Sanders won the precinct handily:



Sanders saw a flip in the results in Croydon after the precinct reported 100 percent of all votes at 77.3 percent for Clinton:

The CIA is responsible for ex-FBI agent's capture in Iran by Wayne Madsen

The CIA is responsible for ex-FBI agent's capture in Iran
by Wayne Madsen

Amid the euphoria over the release by Iran of five Iranian-American long term prisoners and ten U.S. Navy personnel briefly detained after their two patrol boats became dead in the water, drifting into sensitive Iranian waters, the family of Robert Levinson is not happy that the ex-FBI agent was not among those Americans freed by Iran. The five Iranian-Americans were exchanged for seven Iranians charged by the United States for violating sanctions imposed on Iran. Those sanctions have just been lifted as a result of Iran's compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear program.

The secret about Levinson is that he was caught up in an "off-the-books" Central Intelligence Agency operation to spy in southern Iran. Levinson was contracted by ten CIA personnel, none of whom had the authority to run clandestine agents or assets, to travel in 2007 to Iran's Kish island from Dubai. Levinson posed as a businessman retained by the American tobacco industry to investigate counterfeit American cigarettes being trafficked through Kish, an island that is a frequent destination for tourists visiting Dubai because of its more freewheeling life style.

When this editor visited Tehran in 2014, I had the opportunity to inquire about Levinson's whereabouts. I also made it clear that his release would be viewed with appreciation in the United States, something that would help bring about closer relations between the United States and Iran. However, a media blitz launched by the Israel Lobby in the United States, in which I was attacked for my presence in a conference in Iran, helped to derail my inquiries. Senator Mark Kirk, the closeted Republican homosexual from Illinois, led the charge. 

I was the only conference attendee who was invited to fly to Shiraz where I was driven to speak to an Islamic university in Fasa and a townhall meeting, presided over by a local ayatollah, in Jahrom. These cities lie at the heart of Iran's most conservative Shi'a belt. The area is akin to America's "Bible Belt" of the south. The region's conservative nature is why Lebanon's Hezbollah feels safe in training its military members at a training base in Jahrom.

I was the only American that many of the people in these towns had ever met. I preached good will by the American people to the people of Iran and my speeches were met with intense attention and warm applause. I answered some tough questions about U.S. support for the Shah, Israel's influence in the United States, and the CIA's overthrow of Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadeq. 

It is noteworthy that to win over the Iranian people on any deal that would see a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations, the goodwill of the conservative Shi'as of the south is an absolute necessity. I was glad to have contributed in a small way to that thaw. However, I do not expect any thanks from John Kerry or his  State Department.

Although the loud and arrogant Israel Lobby damaged any attempt to get a full reading on Levinson, I was able to ascertain some facts. This information was also passed to the FBI agents who visited me after my return to the States and inquired about my trip. I was shocked that they were not at all interested in any information on the fate of their fellow FBI agent, Levinson. Perhaps they already knew his fate.

Iranian sources indicated that Levinson was never held by the Iranian government. Kish island and the mountainous high desert of southern Iran is plagued by organized criminal syndicates. Although the Iranian government has tried to subdue these gangs, which are very much involved in smuggling in and out of Kish island, its efforts have not met with great success. Levinson's cover story about trying to track down smugglers of counterfeit brand name U.S. cigarettes may be what put a price on his head in the first place. The CIA agents who contracted with Levinson, three of whom were fired for running Levinson without authority, knew little about plausible cover stories. Seven other CIA agents received official reprimands in their personnel records. To send a cigarette smuggling investigator into Kish would be akin to sending an amateur narcotics smuggling investigator into Medellin.

Last photos seen of Robert Levinson. The poor English is a clue that his captors wrote the messages.

The CIA's massive error in allowing Levinson to travel with a problematic cover to Iran, resulted in the CIA paying Levinson's family $2.5 million to forestall a lawsuit that could have seen sensitive and embarrassing details of the CIA's botched operation coming to light. The CIA was also forced to change its operational policies in order to to restrict analysts, such as the ten who ran Levinson, running agents abroad.

Iran was loathe to admit to the United States that because it has little control over criminal gangs in the south, including the group Iran has been battling smuggling gangs in southern Iran, it had little information about Levinson's fate. The largest smuggling gang, the "Criminals of the Mountain" mafia, operates in the mountains overlooking Jahrom in Fars province where this editor inquired about Levinson. The mountains are also perfect hiding spots to keep hostages for ransom.

The White House and State Department, which continue to push the bogus story that Levinson was a "private citizen involved in private business in Iran" and that he "went missing during a business trip to Kish Island, Iran," actually may have come to some sort of agreement with Iran. The official cover story protects the CIA and the Obama administration from charges that they countenanced an authorized spying mission against Iran while Iran does not have to admit that Levinson ended up in the hands of brigands in the south over which Tehran has little control.

The last "proof-of-life" photograph of Levinson was received in early 2011 by his family, which includes seven children.

There may be another reason Levinson was never released. It is known that Criminals of the Mountain and other syndicates, including Baluchis and Arabs, operating in southern Iran and the Persian Gulf are used by the Saudis and Turks to conduct weapons smuggling and espionage in Iran. Levinson may have acquired intelligence about Saudi and Turkish interlocutors with Iranian criminal gangs, something that would have certainly ensured his execution. If the Turks or the Saudis paid the gang that kidnapped Levinson the requested ransom demand, the ex-FBI agent's fate would have been sealed.

We are the Cops of the World

Is Pennsylvania the center of the pedophile mafia? by Wayne Madsen Report

SPECIAL REPORT. Is Pennsylvania the center of the pedophile mafia?

 by Wayne Madsen Report
If the pedophile mafia operating at the highest echelons of the United States government had a central state, it might as well be Pennsylvania. Not only have Republicans and Democrats in the state banded together to unseat Pennsylvania's first female and Democratic Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, who has been undauntedly persistent in her attempt to rid the state of pedophile enablers, but they have rolled over and permitted convicted former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to receive a $211,000 check for his withheld state pension from his conviction for child molestation. Six percent interest was added by a state court that ruled the state Pension Forfeiture Act was improperly applied to Sandusky in 2012 after he was convicted of sexually molesting 10 boys. Sandusky's monthly state pension of $4900 a month will also resume this month. 

The same state court system indicted Kane for releasing so-called "grand jury protected" images obtained from the state's email system that showed that commonwealth supreme court justices, state prosecutors assigned to investigate Sandusky and his pedophile ring at Penn State, and state police officials sent and received pornographic images, some highly suggestive of pedophile content.

State Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin, a Republican who was sitting in judgement over the embattled Kane, was suspended from the court for sending and receiving pornographic emails, some involving the images of children. Earlier, Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffrey, a Democrat, stepped down after his involvement in the porn emails was discovered. Making matters worse is that Commonwealth Superior Court Justice Anne Covey, a conservative pro-life Republican, made no secret of her goal to downgrade the interpretation of pedophilia in her court deliberations concerning the NCAA fines levied on Penn State. Covey's defense of Penn State and pedophile conduct on campus also affected the criminal trial of former Penn State president Graham Spanier, senior vice president Gary Schultz, and athletic director Tim Curley. 

Covey attended a State College fund raiser for her that was sponsored by two former members of Sandusky's Second Mile Foundation's board, board chairman Bob Poole and board member Lance Shaner. Penn State's unapologetic cheerleader Franco Harris also held a fund raiser for Covey. Covey's malfeasance on behalf of Penn State as a member of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court was so egregious that the Pennsylvania Bar Association refused to endorse Covey for election to the Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania is a state that seems to reward pedophiles and their enablers and punishes those who combat against the scourge of child molestation and exploitation.

President Judge of the Commonwealth Court Dan Pellegrini, elected to the court in 1989, wrote in the court's opinion that the pension forfeiture law did not apply to Sandusky because he had previously retired from Penn State in 1999 and that the criminal charges against him were from a time period when he could no longer be considered an employee of Penn State. Such a weasel-worded ruling indicates that Pellegrini, himself, is, like his bench colleague Covey, more of a defender of the pederast elite than an unbiased example of jurisprudence. 

It was Pellegrini who, in 2013, issued an order calling for the cessation of the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses, particularly in tony Montgomery County, a band of wealthy suburbs west of Philadelphia, also known as the "Main Line." It was Montgomery County district attorney Risa Vetri Ferman who brought criminal charges against Kane in an attempt to have her removed from office. Vetri's brother is Hollywood producer Adam Vetri, who received a Director's Guild of America award nomination for a less-than-forgettable show called "Steve Austin's Broken Skull Challenge, Welcome to the Gun Show." Risa Vetri Ferman is a member of Beth Sholom synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, coincidentally the same synagogue where Benjamin Netanyahu and his father and mother were members when they lived in Elkins Park.

 
From "Uncle Eddie" Savitz [left] to Jerry Sandusky [right] Pennsylvania and its pedophile-enabling political leaders and judges have ensured that a safe haven has always existed in the state for child molesters and perverts.

Risa Ferman appears to have "advocacy washed" her resume by championing the battle against the exploitation of children on the Internet. Ironically, Ferman sought to prosecute Kane for trying to rid the state government of officials who trafficked in sexually-explicit images of children while they also blocked an aggressive investigation of Sandusky and his wider pedophile network. Ferman is adept at receiving awards for her alleged work against child abuse but Kane has actually sought to get to the root of the problem in Pennsylvania: Ferman's pals among the wealthy elite in the state who abet or participate in child molestation. Ferman is also a blogger for the George Soros-influenced Huffington Post.

One such member of the Philly elite who was convicted of child abuse was "Uncle Eddie" Savitz, who was also known as "Big Eddie," "Fat Eddie," and "Dr. Feel Good." Savitz was vice president and actuary of the Savitz Organization, a major Philadelphia insurance brokerage company where Savitz's brother, Sanuel, served as president.

Savitz, the son of a Philadelphia arcade owner (where else to prey on kids?), lived in the luxurious Wanamaker House on Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square where he became known as the "got to guy" for young teenage boys eager to receive quick cash or concert and sporting event tickets. The young boys merely exchanged their soiled underwear or such acts as oral/anal sex, vomiting or defecating into Uncle Eddie's mouth, engaging in penis "sword fights" with Savitz, or urinating on Savitz. Savitz stored the feces of the underage males in pizza boxes in his apartment. Although Savitz was a grotesque pervert, his first arrest in 1978 for indecent assault was suspended in lieu of a rehabilitation program. His criminal record was then expunged. The District Attorney of Philadelphia who cut the sweetheart deal for Savitz was Ed Rendell, the future mayor of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania's second Jewish governor after Shapp. In 1990, Savitz again eluded justice when he was found not guilty of purchasing a boy's soiled underpants.

                      Pennsylvania's de facto state motto: "Kids for Cash."

Not until 1992 was Savitz arrested in a sting operation after a court-ordered camera and wiretap was installed in his Rittenhouse Square home. When Savitz offered to pay two 15-year old boys for oral sex, detectives broke in and arrested Savitz. The police discovered 5000 pornographic photos of young boys and 312 bags of boys' soiled underpants. Savitz was also found to be HIV-positive. Common Pleas judge Howland Abramson the cut Savitz's bail from $20 million to a more affordable $4 million.

Unbelievably, after slashing Savitz's bail, Abramson said from the bench that he feared that Savitz would not only flee Philadelphia if he came up with the $4 million but would engage in the very same sordid activity. Had Savitz come up with the bail money, Abramson ruled that he would have had to check himself to the locked unit of the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital in West Philadelphia and submit to electronic monitoring. The deal is similar to that given to pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in West Palm Beach, Florida where his prison sentence consisted of mere night time stays at a country club jail with the right to travel out of state. It was clear that in Pennsylvania someone was pulling Abramson's judicial robe but in pedophile-friendly Pennsylvania, this should have come as no shock. Ed Rendell, the D.A. who cut the sweetheart deal with Savitz when he was first arrested and who, like Savitz, was also known as "Fast Eddie," was sworn in as mayor of Philadelphia a few months before Savitz's third arrest in March 1992.

In March 1993, Savitz is said to have died in prison from complications from AIDS a week before his trial was to begin. Members of Philadelphia's upper crust, habitués of the such august institutions as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia Orchestra, Philly Pops, and the National Museum of American Jewish History, expressed "shock" that one of their own was a vile sex pervert and pedophile.

Sources in Philadelphia believe that Savitz's operations were connected to those of Sandusky at Penn State and that both commercially trafficked in the type of pedophile filth found in Savitz's home in Philadelphia. Greg Bucceroni, a former child prostitute and Savitz victim claimed that in 1979 and 1980 Savitz brought him to a fundraiser for Sandusky's Second Mile Foundation near Harrisburg. Thornburgh, a future U.S. Attorney General, was governor at the time.

Pennsylvania's pederast elite has, according to WMR's sources, run rampant in state government at least since the governorship of Milton Shapp in the 1970s and continuing to the present governor, Democrat Tom Wolf. Other governors who tolerated pederasty in state government included Republican Richard Thornburgh, Tom Ridge, and Mark Schweiker, Democrats Bob Casey, Sr. and Ed Rendell, and Wolf's predecessor, Republican Tom Corbett. Corbett also failed to carry out an adequate investigation of Sandusky and his non-profit foundation, the Second Mile Foundation, which was accused of pimping out young boys in return for donations, while serving as the commonwealth's Attorney General.

It is clear that Ferman, stung by allegations that she was engaged in a political witch hunt against Kane, diverted attention by obtaining an indictment of Philly native Bill Cosby for an alleged 2004 sexual assault ofAndrea Constand in Montgomery County. It was Ferman's last official act. Hollywood's feminist firebrand lawyer Gloria Allred stormed into Elkins Park demanding justice for all of Cosby's alleged victims. However, as far as the Hollywood-connected Ferman was concerned, her persecution and prosecution of Attorney General Kane has little to do with seeking justice for the young male victims of Sandusky and the wider network involving "Fast Eddie" Savitz, "Fast Eddie" Rendell, Milt Shapp, and other pedophile enablers.