Patrick's Notebook

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News

Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad asset who was used by Israeli intelligence to blackmail American politicians, according to a former Israeli spy.

Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy and alleged “handler” of Robert Maxwell, told the authors of a new book, Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales, that Epstein ran a “complex intelligence operation” at the behest of Mossad.

Believing that Epstein planned to marry his daughter, Maxwell introduced him and Ghislaine Maxwell to Ben-Menashe’s Mossad circle.

“Maxwell sort of started liking him, and my theory is that Maxwell felt that this guy is going for his daughter,” Ben-Menashe said.

“He felt that he could bless him with some work and help him out in like a paternal [way].”

Israeli intelligence bosses gave the green light and Epstein then became a Mossad asset. » Read the rest of this entry «

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation

On November 11th, the very disturbing but clearly true “Lessons To Learn From The Coup In Bolivia” was posted to the Web. That anonymous author (a German intelligence analyst) documented the evilness of the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the threat now clearly posed to the world by the US regime — a spreading cancer of expansionist fascism, led from Washington. But, even more than this, he indicated that unless the individuals who are responsible for the advancing fascism are executed, there won’t be any real hope for democracy anywhere in the world.

Either this impunity will stop, or else the spread of the US international dictatorship — not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-, —  will continue and will engulf in misery ultimately the entire world. He makes clear the complicity of US ‘news’-media in the lies that ‘justify’ this coup (and ‘justified’ those invasions). It’s, by now, clearly the way the US regime functions. Of course, none of those media will publish any such truth; they all cover-up constantly for the regime, because they actually are an essential part of it. (All of these invasions and coups are based on nothing but lies, and the media are a necessary part of that.) Censorship in America is thus actually extreme, and constant.

For example: how many US-and-allied media have even reported that fascists took over in Bolivia? » Read the rest of this entry «

Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com

The launch angle of the U.S. stock market over the past decade has been steep and relentless.  The S&P 500, after bottoming out at 666 on March 6, 2009, has rocketed up over 370 percent.  New highs continue to be reached practically every day.

Over this stretch, many investors have been conditioned to believe the stock market only goes up.  That blindly pumping money into an S&P 500 ETF is the key to investment riches.  In good time, this conditioning will be recalibrated with a rude awakening.  You can count on it.

In the interim, the bull market may continue a bit longer…or it may not.  But, to be clear, after a 370 percent run-up, buying the S&P 500 represents a speculation on price.  A gamble that the launch angle furthers its steep trajectory.  Here’s why…

Over the past decade, the U.S. economy, as measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), has increased about 50 percent.  This plots a GDP launch angle that is underwhelming when compared to the S&P 500.  Corporate earnings have fallen far short of share prices.

Hence, the bull market in stocks is not a function of a booming economy.  Rather, it’s a function of Fed madness.  And its existence becomes ever more perilous with each passing day. » Read the rest of this entry «

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

For centuries, it has been an established tenet of Western jurisprudence that a person cannot be punished for a crime unless the government first convicts him of the crime in a court of law. After the Constitution called the federal government into existence, our American ancestors demanded that this principle be enshrined in the Bill of Rights because they were convinced that federal officials would end up violating it.

The Fifth Amendment states in part:

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury…. nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

What is “due process of law”? It is a phrase whose origin stretches all the way to Magna Carta in the year 1215. It means “notice and hearing.” In a criminal case, that means the federal government is prohibited from depriving a person of life, liberty, and property without a formally issued grand-jury indictment and a formal trial, where the government must prove a person’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil case, it means that the government must provide advance notice and a formal hearing or trial before it can deprive a person of his property.

The centuries-old judicial principle of due process of law was destroyed when Congress enacted what are called asset-forfeiture laws, which are part of the decades-long federal effort to win the war on drugs, which is arguably the most failed, deadly, destructive, and racially bigoted government program in our nation’s history. » Read the rest of this entry «

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com

If you have a good paying job, you should probably try to hold on to it as hard as you can, because those types of jobs are steadily becoming rarer. Since 1990, the U.S. economy has produced millions of jobs, but as you will see below nearly two-thirds of them have been low wage jobs. Of course this is one of the biggest factors causing the systematic erosion of the American middle class. Today, half of all U.S. workers make less than $33,000 a year, but meanwhile the cost of living has been steadily increasing. Housing costs, health insurance and other basic necessities have been rising much faster than our paychecks have, and this has put an enormous amount of financial stress on hard working American families.

A job making making chicken sandwiches at Popeye’s is not equivalent to a structural engineering job. In other words, the quality of the jobs that we create is perhaps even more important than the number of jobs that we create.

Yes, the U.S. has been creating a lot of jobs in recent years, but meanwhile the overall quality of our jobs has degraded rapidly…

Although the U.S. is on a record streak for job creation, many Americans still feel like they can’t get ahead. It’s not their imagination. The past three decades have seen the economy churn out more and more jobs that offer inadequate pay, a group of researchers found.

“The history of private-sector employment in the U.S. over the past three decades is one of overall degradation in the ability of many American jobs to support households — even those with multiple jobholders,” they wrote. » Read the rest of this entry «

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

The US-Australia-Japan alternative to Belt and Road helps explain why the US sent a junior delegation to Thailand and why India opted out of RCEP…

Chinese President Xi Jinping six years ago launched New Silk Roads, now better known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the largest, most ambitious, pan-Eurasian infrastructure project of the 21st century.

Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has been utterly demonized 24/7: a toxic cocktail of fear and doubt, with Beijing blamed for everything from plunging poor nations into a “debt trap” to evil designs of world domination.

Now finally comes what might be described as the institutional American response to Belt and Road: the Blue Dot Network.

Blue Dot is described, officially, as promoting global, multi-stakeholder “sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.” » Read the rest of this entry «

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com

A fundamental pillar of true free markets is the existence of choice; the availability of options from production to providers to purchase mechanisms without interference from governments or corporate monopolies. Choice means competition, and competition drives progress. Choice can also drive changes within society, for if people know a better or more secure way of doing things exists, why would anyone want to stay trapped within the confines of a limited system? At the very least, people should be allowed to choose economic mechanisms that work best for their particular situation.

This is NOT how our society functions today, and free market do not exist anywhere in modern nations including the US. Whenever I hear someone (usually a socialist) blame free market “capitalism” for the oppressive ailments of the world, I have to laugh. The alliance between governments and corporate monopolies (what Mussolini called national socialism or fascism) makes free markets utterly impossible. What we have today is an amalgamation of socialist economic interference and corporatocracy. Our system is highly restrictive and micro-managed for everyone except the money elites, who do not have to follow the same rules the rest of us do.

Of course, I might be preaching to the choir when it comes to these issues. But, there are some underlying developments being pushed forward by globalists hell-bent on a one world monetary system and a one world government that even many liberty activists are not fully aware of. » Read the rest of this entry «