Category: Corruption

MSNBC Anchor: “Our Job” Is To “Control Exactly What People Think”

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During a lively discussion centered on fears that President Trump is “trying to undermine the media”, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski let slip the awesome unspoken truth that the media’s “job” is to “actually control exactly what people think”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98cf6FxNv-k

SCARBOROUGH: ‘Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, “Yeah you guys are going crazy. He’s doing—what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do”.’

BRZEZINSKI: ‘Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.’

As grabien points out, the comment failed to raise any eyebrows from her co-panelists. Instead, her co-host, Joe Scarborough, said that Trump’s media antagonism puts him on par with Mussolini and Lenin…

Source: MSNBC Anchor: “Our Job” Is To “Control Exactly What People Think”

Merck Created Hit List to “Destroy”, “Neutralize”, “Discredit” Dissenting Doctors

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‘Merck made a “hit list” of doctors who criticized Vioxx, according to testimony in a Vioxx class action case in Australia. The list, emailed between Merck employees, contained doctors’ names with the labels “neutralise,” “neutralised” or “discredit” next to them.’

Merck made a “hit list” of doctors who criticized Vioxx, according to testimony in a Vioxx class action case in Australia. The list, emailed between Merck employees, contained doctors’ names with the labels “neutralise”, “neutralised” or “discredit” next to them.

According to The Australian, Merck emails from 1999 showed company execs complaining about doctors who disliked using Vioxx. One email said:

We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live …

The plaintiffs’ lawyer gave this assessment:

It gives you the dark side of the use of key opinion leaders and thought leaders … if (they) say things you don’t like to hear, you have to neutralise them … It does suggest a certain culture within the organisation about how to deal with your opponents and those who disagree with you.

The Australian:

The court was told that James Fries, professor of medicine at Stanford University, wrote to the then Merck head Ray Gilmartin in October 2000 to complain about the treatment of some of his researchers who had criticised the drug.

“Even worse were allegations of Merck damage control by intimidation”, he wrote, … “This has happened to at least eight (clinical) investigators … I suppose I was mildly threatened myself but I never have spoken or written on these issues.”

The allegations come on the heels of revelations that Merck created a fake medical journal — the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine — in which to publish studies about Vioxx; had pop songs commissioned about Vioxx to inspire its staff, and paid ghostwriters to draft articles about the drug.

Source: Merck Created Hit List to “Destroy”, “Neutralize” or “Discredit” Dissenting Doctors – CBS News

The Shadow Government is Outing Itself, and We Should Be Very Concerned

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By Kitty Testa

There’s a bit of giddiness among the #resist crowd over the ouster of Mike Flynn as national security advisor to President Trump. Mr. Flynn’s resignation came on the heels of an FBI investigation into his telephone conversations with Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak , and whether Flynn was truthful when he reported to Vice President Mike Pence that he had not discussed US sanctions against Russia.

The Flynn fiasco is the subject of memes du jour, and if you find the situation humorous, go ahead and have your laugh. But when you’ve recovered from the giggles, think about how the Flynn matter developed, and what truths it has revealed about America’s intelligence agencies.

According to The Wall St. Journal, “U.S. intelligence officials had already intercepted conversations between the two men in which they discussed the sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.”

And from the same article, “Mr. Flynn’s contacts with the Russian envoy is one of a number of U.S. counterintelligence investigations into Russian government contacts with people close to Mr. Trump.”

The WSJ ran a story today with the headline, Spies Keep Intelligence From Donald Trump on Leak Concerns. The intelligence community purports to have a deep mistrust of the current president, and that mistrust is returned in kind. Trump has accused the American espionage cartel of leaking information to undermine and delegitimize his presidency. Not long ago, US intelligence leaked the “golden showers” story that turned out to be made of whole cloth, but nonetheless dominated news coverage and social media prior to Trump taking office.

What we are witnessing is a wholesale shift in the executive branch. The intelligence agencies that exist to assist the president are spying on the president and his staff. They have shown that they are not above releasing fabricated stories, and they willfully admit that they are withholding information from the President.

Judge Andrew Napolitano raised his concerns in an interview with Neil Cavuto yesterday, asking, “Can the unelected deep state bureaucracy frustrate the elected president of the United States? Under the Constitution, no. Under the laws, no. Under common, simple decency and morality, no.”

So it leaves me wondering, to whom are the intelligence agencies accountable? Evidently no one. Who knows if they’re telling the truth? Only they do. What are their true aims? We have no way to know. They are, in fact, an unelected shadow government with the unprecedented power of almost limitless information on all citizens and residents of the U.S., and likely other countries as well.

We all recall the mystery of weapons of mass destruction that led up to the Iraq war. Did the intelligence agencies misinform George W. Bush? Maybe he didn’t lie; maybe they did. I’m starting to wonder. Is Russia responsible for the Podesta email leak? How do we know? Because they said so? How do we know it wasn’t the intelligence apparatus itself?

The NSA mass data collection, which includes all of our communications—emails, text messages, telephone calls—has created a deep state so powerful that it can destroy anyone it pleases, even the military’s top spy, Mike Flynn. Hillary Clinton may have wiped her personal email server and crushed her communications devices, but surely she knows those emails exist, along with all of our emails, on NSA servers.

But at the moment, Trump is their target, and the intelligence community doesn’t mind our knowing about it. They leak to the press and crow to the reporters as if they are acting heroically.

So #resistors beware: The same power now being used against Trump can be used against anyone, whether it be your favorite senator, the next Democratic president—or even you.

Meanwhile, Edward Snowden is sitting it out, exiled in Russia. President Trump has called Snowden a traitor for outing the NSA’s dirty little secret. But maybe the president ought to reconsider. The shadow government is stepping into the light, and has revealed itself to be a menace.

Source: The Shadow Government is Outing Itself, and We Should Be Very Concerned

TSA Busted in Massive $100M, 40k lb Cocaine Smuggling Conspiracy

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In a case highlighting the infiltration of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) by transnational criminal organizations, twelve current and former TSA officers and airport staff were indicted for allegedly trafficking over 20 tons of cocaine — worth over $100 million — into the U.S. over a 28-year time frame.

Last Wednesday, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against the twelve defendants, who are charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

From 1988 to 2016 the conspirators allegedly smuggled about 40,000 pounds, or twenty tons, of cocaine through Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and into the United States, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ press release detailed how the massive trafficking operation allegedly worked.

“These individuals were involved in a conspiracy to traffic massive quantities of illegal narcotics to the continental United States,” said Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico. “These arrests demonstrate the success of the AirTAT initiative, which has successfully allocated a dedicated group of state and federal law enforcement officers, whose mission is to ensure that our airports are not used in the drug traffickers’ illicit businesses.”

Defendants Edwin Francisco Castro, Luis Vázquez-Acevedo and Ferdinand López are alleged to have operated as facilitators between drug trafficking organizations and the TSA employees who smuggled the cocaine into the airplanes. Defendant Miguel Ángel Pérez-Rodríguez, an airport security company employee, was a source of supply of cocaine to the drug trafficking organization, according to the superseding indictment.

Not surprisingly, this is the second such bust of TSA officials in only 2 years for transporting massive amounts of cocaine.

In November 2015, three former TSA agents were indicted on charges of defrauding the government and smuggling cocaine.

According to the indictment, 35-year old Joseph Scott, 32-year-old Michael Castaneda, and 27-year-old Jessica Scott, all former TSA agents at San Francisco International Airport, were involved in an ongoing operation to help transport drugs through airport security.

Still feel safe with the TSA protecting the nation’s airports?

Excerpted from: TSA Busted in Massive $100 Million, 40,000 lb Cocaine Smuggling Conspiracy

Will Mnuchin stop Trump from auditing the Federal Reserve?

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Auditing the Federal Reserve was once part of the Trump administration’s first 100 days’ action plan to “Make America Great Again,” but it appears that Wall Street banker and Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin is now trying to undermine President Trump and the momentum of this important campaign promise.

Over the years, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) Federal Reserve Transparency Act has received growing bipartisan support, even from polar opposite ideologues like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), who recognize the dangers of allowing Fed officials to manipulate the economy for political gain.

In 2014, the bill passed the House with a 333-92 vote. Although it failed the Senate by a mere 7 votes, many speculate that the “Trump bump” will allow it to hop over the legislative hurdle once and for all — that is, unless Mnuchin distances the president away from it.

 

Although Trump recognizes that “Auditing the Fed is so important,” so much so that he publicly called out Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for missing a vote on the bill last year, Mnuchin is quietly working to stop the legislation from advancing. When questioned last week by Sen. Bill Nelson (R-Fla.), Mnuchin said, “As you know, the Federal Reserve is organized with sufficient independence to conduct monetary policy.”

Mnuchin is merely echoing his former Wall Street cohort’s talking points, and it’s important that we debunk them now before further damage is done to this important cause.

The Fed does not operate ‘independently’

The Federal Reserve has become nothing more than another arm of the executive branch, responding to the beck-and-calls of the president.

As economics scholar Robert Weintraub detailed, Fed policies almost always change to reflect the monetary views of the president.  For example, when he was head of the Fed, William McChesney Martin complied with President Eisenhower’s request for very slow growth in the money supply. Years later, however, Martin then agreed to reverse course by cranking up money growth to 5 percent for President Lyndon Johnson, who depended on massive Fed inflation to finance his “Great Society.”

The same held true under Fed Chairman Arthur Burns. A former vice president of the Dallas Fed said that, “The diary [Burns] kept during the Nixon years confirms that Fed policy became subservient to administration goals and the president’s re-election campaign.”

Things have not improved in recent years. In fact, this past election cycle, the “apolitical” employees of the Federal Reserve doled out over four times more in campaign donations to Hillary Clinton, who was widely speculated to win the presidency, than any of the other candidates combined.

So no, the Fed does not act independently — its members only do what is politically and personally convenient. Only a thorough Congressional audit can stop this cozy relationship between the president and the central bank.

The Fed is not thoroughly audited

Critics such as Mnuchin and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) often argue that this bill is useless because the Fed is already thoroughly audited. This claim is far from the truth.

Currently, the Government Accountability Office, the independent, apolitical government agency tasked with auditing the Fed, is not allowed to touch the central bank’s monetary policy deliberations, FOMC transactions, and agreements with foreign central banks.

In a testimony to Congress, the GAO expressed how the audit in its current form is virtually futile because it does not allow them to adequately determine where our money is going. The Office stated, “We do not see how we can satisfactorily audit the Federal Reserve System without authority to examine the largest single category of financial transactions and assets that it has.”

In 2011, Congress ordered a limited, one-time GAO audit of Fed actions during the subprime crisis, and the results were far from pretty. That audit uncovered that the Fed lent out a whopping $16 trillion to domestic and foreign banks during the financial crisis without congressional approval.

What is the Fed doing today?

What assets has the Fed bought since then and who is it doling out money to now? The answer to these questions will remain unanswered unless Congress passes Paul and Massie’s Audit the Fed bill this session.

Allowing the Fed to rapidly inflate the money supply and secretly give out loans to foreign entities without congressional oversight is stupid policy. It has destroyed 95 percent of the dollar’s purchasing power, all for the purpose of helping the president and his favored Fed officials retain political power.

Let’s hope that President Trump, who has promised to “drain the swamp,” sees through the light of Mnuchin’s talking points and prioritizes the passage of this bill. The economy can’t be made “great again” without doing so.

Source: Will Mnuchin stop Trump from auditing the Federal Reserve?

Federal Reserve Bankers Mocked Unemployed Americans Behind Closed Doors

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IN 2011, UNEMPLOYMENT WAS at a near crisis level. The jobless rate was stuck around 9 percent nationally, an unusually high number due to the continuing effects of the financial crash.

House Democrats were aghast. “With almost five unemployed Americans for every job opening, too many people remain jobless because of a lack of work, not a lack of wanting to work,” said Congressman Lloyd Doggett, D-Tex. So in early November 2011, they introduced a bill to reauthorize Federal unemployment benefits, an insurance program designed to aide those looking for work.

Behind closed doors at the Federal Reserve however, the conversation struck a different tone.

The Federal Reserve’s mandate is to promote “maximum employment,” which essentially means: print enough money so that everyone who wants one has a job. Yet according to transcripts released this month after the traditional five-year waiting period, Federal Reserve officials in November 2011 were debating whether unemployment was caused by bad work ethics and drug use – rather than by the greatest financial crisis in 80 years. This debate then factored into the argument over setting monetary policy.

“I frequently hear of jobs going unfilled because a large number of applicants have difficulty passing basic requirements like drug tests or simply demonstrating the requisite work ethic,” said Dennis Lockhart, a former Citibank executive who ran the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank. “One contact in the staffing industry told us that during their pretesting process, a majority—actually, 60 percent of applicants—failed to answer ‘0’ to the question of how many days a week it’s acceptable to miss work.”

The room of central bankers then broke into laughter.

Charles Plosser, the president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, cited “work ethic” as a common complaint he heard in his district, both in rural and inner city areas. A contact of his who owned 60 McDonald’s restaurants said “passing drug tests, passing literacy tests, and work ethic are the primary problems he has in hiring people.”

His wife, he noted, had attended a meeting in Philadelphia where employers cited literacy, work ethic, and drugs as impediments to hiring.

It was hardly the first time these bankers blamed unemployment on the unemployed, rather than, say, bankers. In an April meeting that year, Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeff Lacker told participants that “Several firms told us of difficulty finding adequate workers, because they preferred to collect unemployment benefits or can’t pass drug tests.” He reiterated that point in November, saying that in West Virginia he was told by an employment agency that “unquestionably the biggest problem in hiring skilled and unskilled workers was the inability to pass a drug test.”

Lacker’s Federal Reserve district includes West Virginia. In August, he again spoke of “widespread reports about hard drug use, OxyContin and methamphetamine, in Appalachia and other rural parts of our District—in particular, Appalachia.”

Apparently his colleagues responded with laughter again, because he then said “Drug abuse and the hardship involved in unemployment aren’t really laughing matters.” Usage, he noted, isn’t higher than the national norm in West Virginia. “It’s hard to pin this down quantitatively,” he continued, wondering if there was “something meaningful there as a contributor to impediments to labor market functioning.”

These debates took place within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve body tasked with “influenc[ing] the availability and cost of money and credit to help promote national economic goals.” The debate revealed a split within the Federal Reserve system between “hawks” who worry more about inflation than unemployment, and “doves” who believe that too many are going without jobs. Typically, “hawks” tend to lean to the right politically, and “doves” tend to lean slightly more to the left.

Lacker is one of the most “hawkish” members of the FOMC, which means he tends to be in favor of higher interest rates and higher unemployment to ward off inflation. In 2015, Lacker ascribed increasing inequality to the lack of college education among the poor

Sarah Bloom Raskin, a dovish member of the Board of Governors, countered by saying that unemployment was a function of the financial crisis. “The economy remains mired in the worst slump since that of the 1930s,” she said.

Daniel Tarullo, another dovish Federal Reserve governor appointed by President Obama, called the focus on drug use a “red herring.” He said, “We had that problem 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago; we have it today; and we’re going to have it 5 years from now.” He cited housing debt from the largest housing bubble in history as a core driver of unemployment.

The transcripts illustrate how the controversial method of picking Federal Reserve officials plays out in setting monetary policy: The three men who cited work ethic or drug use as a cause of unemployment instead of the financial crash were picked by regional private sector businessmen to lead the local Reserve banks.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed in 2010 mandated that the Federal Reserve Board in Washington approve the choices of private businessmen, but the Board has yet to reject any suggested candidates. The board members who cited the financial crash as causing unemployment were appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The concept of having private business interests selecting public officials has been criticized by experts. As Wharton professor and author of “The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve” Peter Conti-Brown put it, “It’s not clear at all that the opaque and obscure process by which the private sector selects the Reserve Bank presidents produces superior central bankers than the public process used to select the remaining principal officers of the United States.” This controversial selection process risks having, as he put it, “a system for enhancing the influence of certain slices of society on our central banking policy.

Lacker and Lockhart are retiring this year. Advocates and experts are putting pressure on the Richmond Federal Reserve to replace retiring Reserve Bank Presidents with someone more attuned to the reality of unemployment. Fed Up, a coalition of advocates seeking to shift the Fed from its traditionally pro-bank policies, is seeking to have the regional bank President’s picked with more attention to the needs of workers.

Jordan Haedtler, deputy campaign manager of Fed Up, lashed out at Lacker’s comments as related in the newly released transcripts. “Even nine years into the recovery, workers are still struggling to get the wages and hours they need,” Haedtler said. “Yet with unemployment above double digits in huge swaths of President Lacker’s district in 2011, he was citing anecdotes about drug use and desire to collect unemployment benefits as key reasons why employers weren’t hiring. Rather than looking for solutions and talking to people who were out of work, he was seeking excuses from employers.”

President Donald Trump has a number of vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board to fill as well. He has been highly critical of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. He argued, without citing evidence, that she pursued monetary policy goals to help support Barack Obama and elect Hillary Clinton. If Yellen and Tarullo follow custom and step down from their board slots in 2018, Trump could appoint a majority of Federal Reserve board members within two years.

Despite the importance of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve keeps the transcripts of internal deliberations of the committee that sets monetary policy out of public view for at least five years. But the people who attend those meetings take other jobs — some in the financial services industry. In 2010, incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa questioned whether it was appropriate for the Fed to withhold its deliberations for so long. “If the Fed’s full transcripts can be released sooner, they should be,” he said.

The debate in the Fed and within Congress was ultimately resolved. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. And in 2011, a new wave of recently elected Tea Party Republicans and Democrats finally compromised on language to cut unemployment benefits.

Neither West Virginia senator, Shelley Moore Capito nor Joe Manchin, would comment on Lacker’s discussion of the West Virginia drug epidemic and its relationship to unemployment. The Appalachia region, including West Virginia, went strongly for Trump in the 2016 election.

Source: Federal Reserve Bankers Mocked Unemployed Americans Behind Closed Doors

Trump sets both 5-year and lifetime lobbying bans for officials

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President Donald Trump acted Saturday to fulfill a key portion of his pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington, banning administration officials from ever lobbying the U.S. on behalf of a foreign government and imposing a separate five-year ban on other lobbying.

Trump has said individuals who want to aid him in his quest to “Make America Great Again” should focus on the jobs they will be doing to help the American people, not thinking ahead to the future income they could rake in by peddling their influence after serving in government.

“Most of the people standing behind me will not be able to go to work,” Trump joked, referring to an array of White House officials who lined up behind him as he sat at his Oval Office desk. The officials included Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus, senior strategist Steve Bannon and counselor Kellyanne Conway. “So you have one last chance to get out.”

Trump said he talked about the ban a lot during the campaign and “we’re now putting it into effect.”

In a pair of separate actions, Trump took steps to begin restructuring the White House National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. He also gave Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president’s top military advisers, 30 days to come up with a plan defeat the Islamic State group. Scores of people have been killed in terrorist acts that IS has carried out overseas or has inspired on U.S. soil.

Under an executive order that Trump signed in the presence of the news media, every political appointee joining the executive branch on or after Jan. 20 — the day Trump took office — must agree to the lobbying bans. That includes avoiding, for five years after leaving, lobbying the agency they worked for.

Another provision sets a two-year period during which appointees must avoid working on issues involving former employers or clients.

Trump is allowed to waive any of the restrictions.

Questions had been raised about how the bans would be enforced. The order says they are “solely enforceable” by the U.S. government “by any legally available means,” including debarment proceeding within any affected executive branch agency, or civil court proceedings.

Former appointees who are found to have violated the ban may also be barred from lobbying their former agency for up to five years, on top of the five-year period covered by the pledge, the executive order states.

Trump said the order supersedes one that President Barack Obama signed on Jan. 21, 2009, that banned anyone from lobbying the government for a period of two years after leaving. Trump said Obama’s order was “full of loopholes.”

The president signed the order and a pair of presidential memoranda near the end of an intense day of telephone diplomacy during which he discussed a range of issues with the leaders of Japan, Germany, Russia, France and Australia. All are leaders Trump needs to build relationships with.

Trump had released the plan for a lobbying ban a few weeks before the November election, one of several promised policies aimed at curbing corruption and the influence of lobbyists in Washington. Trump also made promises about transparency and ethics.

Some have argued that the ban could make it difficult for Trump to fill thousands of jobs throughout the administration by causing some candidates to become squeamish about limiting their ability to make money after they leave government employment.

Others say the prohibitions on lobbying are too insignificant to be effective.

Source: Trump sets 5-year and lifetime lobbying ban for officials

The Deep State Goes to War with President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer

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Glenn Greenwald: Trump’s critics can do him no bigger favor than using dubious, discredited tactics to attack him.

“The legitimate and effective tactics for opposing Trump are being utterly drowned by these irrational, desperate, ad hoc crusades that have no cogent strategy and make his opponents appear increasingly devoid of reason and gravity. Right now, Trump’s opponents are behaving as media critic Adam Johnson described: as ideological jelly fish, floating around aimlessly and lost, desperately latching on to whatever barge randomly passes by…”

Source: The Deep State Goes to War with President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer

Soros Finances Group Helping Facebook Flag ‘Disputed’ Stories

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George Soros Finances Group Helping Facebook Flag ‘Disputed’ Stories

The organization partnered with Facebook to help determine whether a certain story is “disputed” is financed by billionaire George Soros and a slew of other left-wing funders.

The “International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN)” drafted a code of five principles for news websites to accept, and Facebook yesterday announced it will work with “third-party fact checking organizations” that are signatories to the code of principles.

Facebook says that if the “fact checking organizations” determine that a certain story is fake, it will get flagged as disputed and, according to the Facebook announcement, “there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why. Stories that have been disputed may also appear lower in News Feed.”

IFCN is hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. A cursory search of the Poynter Institute website finds that Poynter’s IFCN is openly funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the National Endowment for Democracy.

Poynter’s IFCN is also funded by the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The Omidyar Network has partnered with the Open Society on numerous projects and it has given grants to third parties using the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.  Tides is one of the largest donors to left-wing causes in the U.S.

Another significant Poynter Institute donor is the Craig Newmark Foundation, the charitable organization established by Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark. On Monday, just days before the announcement of the Facebook partnership, Poynter issued a press release revealing that Newmark donated $1 million to the group to fund a faculty chair in journalism ethics.

States the press release:

The gift will support a five-year program at Poynter that focuses on verification, fact-checking and accountability in journalism. It’s the largest donation Poynter’s ever received from an individual foundation.

The Newmark Chair will expand on Poynter’s teaching in journalism ethics and develop certification programs for journalists that commit to ethical decision-making practices. The faculty member will also organize an annual conference on ethics issues at Poynter and be a regular contributor to Poynter.org.

Newmark funds scores of liberal groups also financed by Soros, including the Sierra Club, the New America Foundation, and the Sunlight Foundation.

Newmark also finances the investigative journalism group called the Center for Public Integrity, where he serves on the board.  Soros’ Open Society is another Public Integrity donor.

Soros has earned his megafortune in part by short selling currencies and causing economic crises. He is credited with breaking the pound on September 16, 1992 in a day that became known in Britain as “Black Wednesday.” He reportedly made $1.2 billion from that crisis.  In 2002, he was convicted for insider trading.

Poynter, meanwhile, has hosted controversial journalism programs in the past, including one that was accused of downplaying the threat of global Islamic terrorism. FoxNews.com reported the course suggested reporters “keep the death toll from Islamic terrorism in ‘context’ by comparing that toll to the number of people killed every year by malaria, HIV/AIDS and other factors.”

The course taught reporters that the term “jihad” means internal struggle, and it discussed what it claimed was the issue of “right-wing activists” attempting to link American Muslims to terrorism.

Continued:

The section includes the good-journalism tip that reporters should check to see if experts they’re interviewing “have a bias or a stake in the story you are covering.” But then it only cites examples of anti-Muslim groups.

The course in Islam, Fox News reported, was supported by a group calling itself the Social Science Research Council, which has received funding from Soros-financed groups.

In response to the report, the Poynter Institute explained that it created the course “as a tool for journalists who want to be accurate in educating their audience about the religion and culture of Islam, Muslim communities in the U.S., and the distinctions between Islam as a political movement and the radical philosophies that inspire militant Islamists.”

“We believe there is a need to better understand the complexities of Muslim societies and the online course offered by Poynter and Washington State University is a vital resource toward that end,” Poynter added.

“The values underpinning the course are truth, accuracy, independence, fairness, minimizing harm and context — the core journalistic values on which we build all our teaching here at Poynter.”

Poynter’s IFCN code of principles for news outlets, meanwhile, reads as follows:

1. A COMMITMENT TO NONPARTISANSHIP AND FAIRNESS

We fact-check claims using the same standard for every fact check. We do not concentrate our fact-checking on any one side. We follow the same process for every fact check and let the evidence dictate our conclusions. We do not advocate or take policy positions on the issues we fact-check.

2. A COMMITMENT TO TRANSPARENCY OF SOURCES

We want our readers to be able to verify our findings themselves. We provide all sources in enough detail that readers can replicate our work, except in cases where a source’s personal security could be compromised. In such cases, we provide as much detail as possible.

3. A COMMITMENT TO TRANSPARENCY OF FUNDING & ORGANIZATION

We are transparent about our funding sources. If we accept funding from other organizations, we ensure that funders have no influence over the conclusions we reach in our reports. We detail the professional background of all key figures in our organization and explain our organizational structure and legal status. We clearly indicate a way for readers to communicate with us.

4. A COMMITMENT TO TRANSPARENCY OF METHODOLOGY

We explain the methodology we use to select, research, write, edit, publish and correct our fact checks. We encourage readers to send us claims to fact-check and are transparent on why and how we fact-check.

5. A COMMITMENT TO OPEN AND HONEST CORRECTIONS

We publish our corrections policy and follow it scrupulously. We correct clearly and transparently in line with our corrections policy, seeking so far as possible to ensure that readers see the corrected version.

Aaron Klein is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

With research by Joshua Klein and Brenda J. Elliott.

Source: Soros Finances Group Helping Facebook Flag ‘Disputed’ Stories

WikiLeaks Emails Suggest Bernie Sanders “Leveraged” Into Endorsing Clinton

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‘Progressives are being admonished to support Hillary because Bernie says they should, but new leak drops seem to indicate that he was “leveraged” into it.’

‘On May 26, 2015, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook sent an email to campaign chairman John Podesta titled “Sanders criticism” expressing displeasure at some mild insinuations the Vermont senator had made about the Clintons’ massive wealth. Mook is the same man the Observer reports was already conspiring to rig the Democratic primary in April of 2014 by manipulating the scheduling of state primaries, as evidenced by this email, also from the Podesta leaks…’

Continue reading: New WikiLeaks Emails Suggest Bernie Sanders Was ‘Leveraged’ Into Endorsing Clinton

‘Google has power to control elections, can shift millions of votes to Clinton’ – Robert Epstein

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‘People trust the “unbiased” internet search giant Google so much it can actually influence up to 10 million undecided voters to choose Hillary Clinton for president, prominent US psychologist and author Robert Epstein told RT following years of research.’

‘Despite being a supporter of the Democratic presidential nominee, Dr. Epstein believes Google’s unchecked algorithm of placing one candidate over the other in search results constitutes a “threat to democracy”.’

Continue reading: ‘Google has power to control elections, can shift millions of votes to Clinton’

The CDC is being influenced by corporate and political interests

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“They’re doing so in ways that shortchange taxpayers.”

“Concerns about the inner workings of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been mounting in recent months amid disclosures of cozy corporate alliances. Now a group of more than a dozen senior scientists have reportedly lodged an ethics complaint alleging the federal agency is being influenced by corporate and political interests in ways that shortchange taxpayers…”

Continue reading: The CDC is being influenced by corporate and political interests