Labor Watchdog Calls on Biden to Repudiate ‘Corrupt’ Union Ally

Ex-UAW leaders have admitted to bribery, corruption charges

A labor watchdog group is urging presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden to reject the support he's received from corrupt union leaders after a top party ally pleaded guilty to embezzlement in June.

National Right to Work Committee president Mark Mix sent a letter to Biden on Thursday, calling on the Democrat to "put the rights of workers above the demands of union bosses" and "disavow the support" from top brass at the United Auto Workers union. Just weeks earlier, former UAW president Gary Jones pleaded guilty to embezzlement, racketeering, and tax evasion. Jones, a prominent Democratic ally, admitted to spending more than $1 million in union funds on miscellaneous luxuries such as premium cigars and liquor, fine dining, vacation rentals, golf outings, and clothing. The union endorsed Biden in April, prior to Jones's guilty plea.

"It seems as though UAW officials are deliberately stalling in a clinical ploy to ‘run out the clock' on the Trump Justice Department, in the hopes that your administration will let them off the hook," Mix's letter states. "It is no surprise, therefore, that these same union bosses are currently spending millions to get you elected."

The UAW is still under investigation after a federal probe into the union began more than five years ago. The investigation has led to the convictions of at least 11 top union officials, including former UAW vice president and DNC delegate Norwood Jewell, who admitted to receiving illegal benefits from Fiat Chrysler executives.

Biden has repeatedly praised the union throughout the probe, saying he was "proud to stand with UAW" as GM employees went on strike in September 2019. Nine union officials had admitted wrongdoing at the time, including former Region 5 director Vance Pearson, who participated in negotiations with GM days before attending a Missouri federal court hearing. Pearson pleaded guilty to embezzlement in February. The UAW has spent more than $2.3 million on legal fees stemming from the investigation, its latest Labor Department filing shows.

Top Democrats on the House Committee on Education and Labor ignored Republican calls to investigate the union in November. Democrats on the committee have taken more than $300,000 in UAW money, and Biden accepted at least $10,000 in direct contributions from the union as a member of Congress. UAW leaders have given more than $4.25 million to Democrats since the FBI's corruption investigation began in 2015.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/labor-watchdog-calls-on-biden-to-repudiate-corrupt-union-ally/

Did Clinton Stage a Hoax at Srebrenica ? Eye-Witness Account of a Former United Nations Military Observer in Bosnia

By General Major Carlos Martins Branco

I was on the ground in Bosnia during the war and, in particular, during the fall of Srebrenica.

One may agree or disagree with my political analysis, but one really ought to read the account of how Srebrenica fell, who are the victims whose bodies have been found so far, and why the author believes that the Serbs wanted to conquer Srebrenica and make the Bosnian Muslims flee, rather than having any intentions of butchering them. The comparison Srebrenica vs. Krajina, as well as the related media reaction by the “free press” in the West, is also rather instructive.

There is little doubt that at least 2,000 Bosnian Muslims died in fighting the better trained and better commanded VRS/BSA. Yet, the question remains, WHEN did most of these casualties of combat occur? According to the analysis below, it was before the final fall of Srebrenica: the Muslims offered very little resistance in the summer of 1995.

I was UNMO [United Nations Military Observer] Deputy Chief Operations Officer of the UNPF [United Nations Population Fund] (at theatre level) and my information is based upon debriefings of UN military observers who where posted to Srebrenica during those days as well as several United Nations reports which were not made public.

My sources of information are not Ruder & Finn Global Public Affairs. My name is not included in their database.

I do not wish to discuss numbers and similar matters pertaining thereto. There is reason to believe that figures have been used and manipulated for propaganda purposes. These figures and information do not provide a serious understanding of the Yugoslavian conflict.

The article is based upon TRUE information and includes my analysis of the events. The story is longer than what I have presented here in this article.

It is my hope that it will contribute to clarifying what really happened in Srebrenica.

Was Srebenica a Hoax?

It is now two years since the Muslim enclave, Srebenica, fell into the hands of the Serbian army in Bosnia. Much has been written about the matter. Nonetheless the majority of reports have been limited to a broad media exposure of the event, with very little analytic rigor.

Discussion of Srebrenica cannot be limited to genocide and mass graves.

A rigorous analysis of the events must take into consideration the background circumstances, in order to understand the real motives which led to the fall of the enclave.

The zone of Srebrenica, like almost all of Eastern Bosnia, is characterized by very rugged terrain. Steep valleys with dense forests and deep ravines make it impossible for combat vehicles to pass, and offers a clear advantage to defensive forces. Given the resources available to both parties, and the characteristics of the terrain, it would seem that the Bosnian army (ABiH) had the necessary force to defend itself, if it had used full advantage of the terrain. This, however, did not occur.

https://fort-russ.com/2020/07/did-clinton-stage-a-hoax-at-srebrenica-eye-witness-account-of-a-former-united-nations-military-observer-in-bosnia/

JPMorgan: "Central Banks Have Created A Collective Hallucination Where Valuations Are Entirely Fabricated"

Over a decade ago we were mocked and ridiculed for saying that the Fed was manipulating and rigging stock markets, pushing risk assets higher (either singlehandedly or via Citadel) and its only mandate was to prop up consumer confidence by preventing a stock market crash when instead all it was doing was creating a record wealth and income divide which has now morphed into "Trump", populism the likes of which have not been seen since WWII, the BLM movement, and a country so torn apart it is unlikely it can ever be put back together again.

Fast forward to today when things are very different, and everyone from SocGen, to Rabobank, to Bank of America trashes the joke that is the Fed, and whose devastating money-printing fetish - just to keep stocks elevated - has become so conventionally accepted that the only ones who can't see it are either idiots or those whose paycheck depends on not seeing it.

We can now add JPMorgan to the list of those who do see what was obvious to everyone back in 2009.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Oksana Aronov, head of alternative fixed-income strategy tat JPMorgan Asset Management, said that central bank buying has forced rising credit valuations out of line with deteriorating fundamentals, resulting in a market where everything is broken:

European and U.S. credit investors are "locked in this collective hallucination with the central banks around valuations and what they mean and that there is a lack of desire to acknowledge the fact that market valuations are entirely fabricated - or synthetically generated - by all the central bank liquidity and do not reflect fundamentals of the securities that they represent," Aronov said in a Friday BTV interview, adding that "Central banks continue to run the show and investors need to be really cautious here."

And while it is meaningless to try and impute logic or reason to what is clearly a broken, manipulated and centrally-planned market - in fact, one could argue that this manmade "market" is one giant Constanza farce in which whatever does not make sense will continue to work until everything finally collapses - Aronov has several recommendations including:

raising liquidity

staying in high-quality credit

not extending duration profile

Why? Because "we’re going into a much more difficult second half" with the fiscal cliff coming in just two weeks, where a trapdoor may open below the economy and lead to another crash.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/jpmorgan-central-banks-have-created-collective-hallucination-where-valuations-are-entirely