Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner, Cause there's no hiding place
From the Kingdom's Throne
Rod Stewart: People Get Ready, Album/Studio Version HQ
Document Reveal Top FDIC Personnel Ran Operation Choke Point
The supposedly scandal-free Obama administration did some really shady stuff. Besides Operation Fast & Furious, one of the big examples was Operation Choke Point. The measure sought to throttle industries President Obama failed to approve of, including the firearm industry.
Even today, we may still be seeing some of the fruits of that effort as we watch countless financial companies sever ties with companies that haven’t been accused of wrongdoing.
New documents reveal just who was running the operation for the Obama White House, and it’s not who you might have thought.
Last week brought new revelations regarding Operation Choke Point, the Obama administration’s effort to freeze politically disfavored businessesout of the financial system. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), who helped lead a multi-year effort to shut the program down, highlighted some of theses newest findings and pointed out that stopping Operation Choke Point is not a partisan issue.
Luetkemeyer’s legislation to prevent a redo of Choke Point – The Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2017 – overwhelmingly passed the House, with only two nay votes. Operation Choke Point was an egregious affront to the rule of law, so it is good to see that so many lawmakers want to prevent a repeat.
For those unfamiliar, Choke Point consisted of bureaucrats in several independent federal agencies taking it upon themselves to shut legal businesses – such as payday lenders and firearms dealers – out of the banking system. Given the nature of the U.S. regulatory framework, this operation was easy to pull off.
Officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), for instance, simply had to inform the banks they were overseeing that the government considered certain types of their customers “high risk.” The mere implication of a threat was enough to pressure banks into closing accounts, because no U.S. bank wants anything to do with extra audits or investigations from their regulator, much less additional operating restrictions or civil and criminal charges.
Banks are incredibly sensitive to any type of pressure from federal regulators, and they know that the regulators have enormous discretion. The new revelations are quite scary because they show exactly what federal regulators can do with that discretion – even to law-abiding citizens. As Rep. Luetkemeyer points out:
In one example of blatant intimidation, a bank terminated its relationship with a legal business after threats from the FDIC. The bank eventually surrendered to the pressure, and when the bank notified the FDIC of the decision, they admitted that a risk assessment showed the business “pose[d] no significant risk to the financial institution, including financial, reputation, and legal risk,” yet they still terminated the banking relationship.
For years, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency officials have continually denied any wrongdoing, yet in the newly-unsealed documents we see proof of a conscious decision to work in conjunction with the FDIC against payday lenders.
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/11/10/document-reveal-top-fdic-personnel-ran-operation-choke-point/
Ukraine in 2018 is a Dystopia Cooked Up by Western Imperialists: Human Rights Nowhere, Thuggery and Corruption Everywhere
The democratic revolution that ensued in Ukraine in 2014 was in fact a revolution against democracy, unleashing the dogs of thuggery and gangsterism.
Someone who made the mistake of falling foul of those with a vested interest in the corruption that is a hallmark of today's Ukraine was Katerina Gandzyuk. The anti-police corruption activist was murdered in an acid attack in Kherson, southern Ukraine. Before succumbing to her injuries, Gandzyuk alleged that "corrupt" high ranking police officers might have been behind the attack, though as yet no one has been prosecuted in connection with it. Prominent members of the far-right group Right Sector are suspected however, begging the question of where the far-right ends and the police begin?
The treatment of Russian journalist Kirill Vyshinsky sheds even more light on Ukraine's failed experiment in pro-Western democracy. The head of the Russian RIA Novosti news bureau in Ukraine, Vyshinsky was arrested in May on treason charges by Ukrainian authorities and has been held in detention ever since. Even in the face of a call for the journalist's release by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a Ukrainian court has ruled that Vyshinsky's detention be extended until the end of December.
When things reach the stage that even the neocons over at the Atlantic Council are no longer able to put lipstick on the pig of the far-right swamp that is Ukraine in 2018, rock bottom has surely been reached.
Hark:
"Since the beginning of 2018, C14 and other far-right groups such as the Azov-affiliated National Militia, Right Sector, Karpatska Sich, and others have attacked Roma groups several times, as well as anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, an event hosted by Amnesty International, art exhibitions, LGBT events, and environmental activists. On March 8, violent groups launched attacks against International Women's Day marchers in cities across Ukraine. In only a few of these cases did police do anything to prevent the attacks, and in some they even arrested peaceful demonstrators rather than the actual perpetrators."
Furthermore:
"International human rights groups have sounded the alarm. After the March 8 attacks, Amnesty International warned, "Ukraine is sinking into a chaos of uncontrolled violence posed by radical groups and their total impunity. Practically no one in the country can feel safe under these conditions."
It all sounds so very Munich 1923, when a young Adolf Hitler and his Nazi gang of fascist thugs were shooting up beer halls on the way to turning Germany into a vast Dodge City of far-right violence, intimidation, and criminality.
Where now are Victoria Nuland, Catherine Ashton, not to mention the various other Western politicians and leaders who descended on Maidan Square in Kiev during the unrest at the start of 2014, lending fulsome support to the 'democratic revolution' the world was assured was underway? And what now of the boast of the recently departed John McCain, who told the protesters that "Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better."
https://www.sott.net/article/400301-Ukraine-in-2018-is-a-Dystopia-Cooked-Up-by-Western-Imperialists-Human-Rights-Nowhere-Thuggery-and-Corruption-Everywhere
Here's a dirty little secret: 'Think tanks' are among the West's top actors in the media disinformation crisis
Most consumers are unaware off the mainstream media's dirty little secret. Think tanks are increasingly taking advantage of tight news budgets to influence the press agenda in favour of their sponsors.
One thing it's not about is Russia. But Western media, egged on by think tank "experts," keeps banging this drum. And here is a case in point this week.
The Los Angeles Times sent a correspondent to Uzhgorod, a Ukrainian border city. And rather than merely report from the ground, the writer spends a huge amount of the article referring to Russia and intimating that Orban is operating in lock-step with Moscow. Which is laughable to anybody who understands the Hungarian PM's political methods. And which reeks of disinformation.
And who is used to "back up" these assertions? Only one Peter Kreko, "director of the Political Capital Institute, a Budapest think tank," who is concerned Orban's moves "help Russia hamper Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration."
Now, isn't that a weird sort of thing for a Hungarian analyst to be worrying about? Well, it wouldn't be if the LA Times were transparent and disclosed Kreko's funding. You see, here's who bankrolls the "Political Capital Institute, a Budapest think tank."
Institute of Modern Russia (plaything of disgraced former 90's oligarch and Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky)
National Endowment For Democracy (a US neoconservative outlet dedicated to "regime change" and promoting a pro-US outlook in Eastern Europe, whose chair has dubbed Ukraine "the big prize")
Open Society (George Soros, who needs no introduction)
And here are some of the "most important international and domestic professional partners" of the Political Capital Institute:
Atlantic Council (NATO's propaganda wing)
European Values (a Soros-funded Prague lobby group which smeared hundreds of European public figures as "useful idiots" for appearing on RT. Including Jeremy Corbyn and Stephen Fry).
German Marshall Fund of the United States (proprietors of the infamous 'Hamilton 68' dashboard)
Thus, the agendas at play are pretty clear here. Yet, the LA Times keeps its readers ignorant of Kreko's paymasters. Which is especially interesting when you see RT, almost always, referred to as "the Kremlin-funded Russia Today," or some version thereof, when described in Western media. And this is fine, because it's true, but when the same rules don't apply across the board, the bias is obvious.
The second case comes courtesy of "the Rupert Murdoch controlled Times of London" (see what I did there?) This week, it alleged around 75,000 Russians in London alone are Kremlin informants. All based on an "investigation" by the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a neoconservative pressure group which seems to have successfully mounted a reverse takeover of the once venerable paper. With its leader writer, for instance, being a founding signatory of the concern.
Anyway, HJS, apparently based on a mere 16 interviews, with unnamed sources, concluded that "between a quarter and a half of Russian expats were, or have been informants." And the Times splashed it.
https://www.sott.net/article/400282-Heres-a-dirty-little-secret-Think-tanks-are-among-the-Wests-top-actors-in-the-media-disinformation-crisis