Stock Market Soars past 18,000 as US-NATO Tee Up For Ukrainian Russian War

Happy days are here again, the stock market has just soared past 18,000 on news that in the waning hours of December 16^th 2014, the United States Senate passed a spending bill, and Barack Obama signed into law a declaration of war on Russia.

Wound all through the bill are all kinds of devastating poison pills for the American people; starting with $700 trillion in derivatives trading backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury; that is, the Senate put up Social Security and Medicare funds along with $3 trillion from the PBG (Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund)’s Multi-Employer Pension Plan funds as collateral for war.  The U.S. and NATO are now teed up for war against Russia through their proxy Ukraine.  

The CIA, operating through the office of Vice President Joe Biden, along with all the financial resources of the State Department under John Kerry and Victoria Nuland, staged a coup that ousted the elected leader of Ukraine.  During the ouster of Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, $3 billion in gold was removed from Ukraine and shipped to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

In April 2014 this was how the heist was described by Global Research:

Excerpt:

At 2 a.m. this morning [March 7] an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borispol Airport (right) [east of Kiev]. According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing.

Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks, and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. They loaded the plane with more than 40 heavy boxes…..

Later a returned call from a senior official of the former Ministry of Revenue reported that tonight, on the orders of one of the new leaders of Ukraine, the United States had taken custody of all the gold reserves in Ukraine.”

Well guess what, seems it’s official, American intervention may be harmful to your financial health. 

From Zero Hedge:  

Excerpt:

Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: "There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault"

Back in March, at a time when the IMF reported that Ukraine's official gold holdings as of the end of February, so just as the State Department-facilitated coup against former president Victor Yanukovych was concluding, amounted to 42.3 tonnes or 8% of reserves...

... and notably under the previous "hated" president, Ukraine gold's reserves had constantly increased hitting a record high just before the presidential coup...

In an interview on Ukraine TV, none other than the head of the Ukraine Central Bank made the stunning admission that "in the vaults of the central bank there is almost no gold left. There is a small amount of gold bullion left, but it's just 1% of reserves."

And that is not the only atrocity to befall the people of Ukraine since the US/NATO coup, with their gold reserves missing Ukraine was bankrupted and forced into an IMF loan with devastating caveats, like opening the country up to Monsanto:  From Popular Resistance:

Excerpt:

In August 2011, WikiLeaks released U.S. diplomatic cables showing that the U.S. State Department has been lobbying worldwide for Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations like DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow….

The report showed the U.S. State Department has “lobbied foreign governments to adopt pro-agricultural biotechnology policies and laws, operated a rigorous  public relations campaign to improve the image of biotechnology, and challenged commonsense biotechnology safeguards and rules – even including opposing laws requiring the labeling of genetically-engineered (GE) foods……”

The U.S.-Ukraine Business Council’s 16-member Executive Committee is packed with U.S. agribusiness companies, including representatives from Monsanto, John Deere, DuPont Pioneer, Eli Lilly, and Cargill.

My, my, my.  So now we see this headline in the New YorkTimes:

Ukraine Vote Takes Nation a Step Closer to NATO

MOSCOW — With a Russian-backed separatist insurgency still gripping eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Parliament voted on Tuesday to take steps toward joining NATO….

The Parliament, firmly controlled by a pro-Western majority, voted overwhelmingly, 303 to 8, TO RESCIND a policy of “nonalignment” and to instead pursue closer MILITARY and STRATEGIC TIES with the West.

Former President Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was toppled in February and fled to Russia after months of protests in Kiev, the capital, pushed Parliament to adopt the policy in 2010, shortly after he took office.

. 

THE LAW HAD DEFINED NONALIGNMENT AS “NONPARTICIPATION OF UKRAINE IN THE MILITARY-POLITICAL ALLIANCES.”

Yes, Yanukovych was an impediment to the imperialistic goals of NATO and the U.S. so they held a “made in America” sham election and some billionaire bankers were elected, like Petro Poroshenko.  

The beauty of having billionaires elected to office is that they can afford private armies like Blackwater.  That way you don’t have to pay pensions or take care of the soldiers, and what if the soldiers don’t want to kill their neighbors? 

The revised law, which was a priority of President Petro O. Poroshenko, REQUIRES Ukraine to “deepen cooperation with NATO in order to achieve the criteria required for membership in this organization.” For now, it still seems unlikely that Ukraine will join NATO, in part because of Russia’s strong opposition.

Bullshit it seems “unlikely” Ukraine will join NATO, you ass holes have all the pieces in place, from manipulating the price of iron to crashing oil prices.  Just look at the “$1.1 Trillion Dollar Spending Bill” passed on December 16^th.  That “emergency spending” bill provides funding for World War III. 

What is so stunning is that because of “Senate” rules war can be declared on a country along with funding without ever having to go through the process of bills being debated and having votes by representatives of the people.  That is stunning.  From USA Today:

Excerpt:

17 items tucked into a trillion-dollar spending bill

2. $64 billion in war funds to combat the rise of the Islamic State and overseas operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yeah, $64 billion to fight the Islamic State that was created by the CIA to overthrow the elected leader of Syria.   I wonder where that money will end up. 

3. $94 billion for new military equipment, including 87 Blackhawk helicopters, 38 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and two attack submarines….

Why are we now spending $94 billion for new military equipment when “surplus” war equipment is being given to states to militarize their police forces?

9. $485 million in aid to countries to counter Russian aggression in the region.

What a joke, “emergency” $485 million in funds to countries to “counter Russian aggression” probably countries like Latvia, from Time Magazine:

Latvia and U.S. Play War Games as Tensions with Russia Grow

After an €80,000 anti-tank missile and a volley of mortar and artillery fire launch the drills, a U.S. Black Hawk transports Latvian soldiers into the war games scenario, where they go house-to-house searching for a high-value target.

Going house-to-house searching for a “high value target”, what kind of warfare is that?  It sounds a lot like that RAND Corporation plan for Ukraine.  Like Stage 1 in RAND’s plan for Poroshenko:

             Excerpt:

The document provides three stages for the conduct of a military operation in eastern Ukraine.

The first stage implies total isolation of the region considering that all local citizens are terrorists or sympathizers.

The Region should be encircled with troops and sealed off entirely from any flow of goods and persons. Broadcasting services, Internet connection, telephone and mobile communications in the region shall be shut down.

So if you were to make a transparency of RAND Corporation’s Plan for Poroshenko in Ukraine including internment camps and executions and place it over the U.S. Senate’s emergency spending bill you would see how they line up. 

Take the part of RAND’s Stage I, “encircled with troops and sealed off entirely from any flow of goods and persons”. Broadcasting services, Internet connection, telephone and mobile communications in the region shall be shut down.  Now let’s look at this article in Radio Free Europe:

Ukraine Suspends Trains, Buses To Crimea, Citing Security Concerns

Ukraine says it is halting all train services to Russian-annexed Crimea because of security concerns.

The decision by Ukraine's state rail company comes 10 days after Russia decided to suspend its own train service to Crimea due to low ticket demand.

Separately, Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry ordered bus companies to stop bus services to Crimea starting December 26.

The total suspension of train and bus services means most of the peninsula's 2.3 million residents will only be able to reach mainland Ukraine by car or cross into Russia using an outdated ferry service.

Some Russian flights are continuing to Crimea's central city of Simferopol despite European Union sanctions against the air companies depriving them of aircraft insurance and service contracts.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities have blamed Ukraine for cutting off electricity supplies to Crimea on December 26, for the second time this week.

Widespread blackouts hit Crimea on December 24 after Ukraine cut power supplies, blaming the region for exceeding electricity consumption limits.

Really?  On Christmas Eve?  So what else has been going on in these NATO Latvia war games the U.S. Senate has been secretly funding?  

             Excerpt:

Not far away in the Latvian capital of Riga, officials were getting to work in the newly-inaugurated NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, a hub aimed at countering information warfare by enemies of the 28-member military alliance….

Earlier this year 600 U.S. troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade So deployed to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia and this week, U.S. tanks returned to Latvian soil for the first time since the Second World War. 

Joint military exercises have increased in size and frequency. At a NATO summit last month, leaders pledged increased funding for cyber and information warfare units, while also announcing the formation of a Rapid Reaction Force which could deploy to allied nations within days.

Hummm, in October they pledged an increase in funding for cyber and information warfare and bingo, it’s an emergency on December 16^th and next thing you know, “The Interview” was cancelled and blamed on North Korea.  

But guess what, according to the Daily Beast, Sony’s Michael Lynton, who is on RAND’s Board of Directors had input all the way through production from RAND.   And with North Korea set up as the perpetrator, now the U.S. claims moral authority to knock out North Korea’s internet communications.

So what else was in the “emergency must pass spending law?

13. Cuts funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by $60 million and further reduces staffing levels to its lowest point since 1989. ALSO INCLUDES A PROVISION “PREVENTING THE REGULATION OF LEAD USED IN AMMUNITION.”

What??  The EPA is cut reducing staffing to 1989 levels and makes it illegal to regulate lead in ammunition.  You may say what’s that about?  Well, let’s see, just look at this December 2013 headline from Fox News:

Excerpt:

MILITARY

End of the line for the lead bullet? Regulations, bans force switch to 'green' ammo

It seems that the lead in ammunition can cause irreparable damage to humans on or near shooting ranges and military firing ranges across the entire United States and its territories.

When the last bullet-producing lead smelter closes its doors on Dec. 31, it will mark a major victory for those who say lead-based ammunition pollutes the environment, but others warn 'green' bullets will cost more, drive up copper prices and do little to help conservation.

The bid to ban lead bullets, seen by some as harmful to the environment, started slowly more than a decade ago. But with two dozen states, including California, banning bullets made of the soft, heavy metal, the lead bullet's epitaph was already being written when the federal government finished it off.

First, the military announced plans to phase out lead bullets by 2018.

So, the United States Senate on December 16^th voted under the guise of an “emergency” must pass or else everyone dies spending bill and Barack Obama signed into Federal law a measure that legally “prevents the regulation of lead used in ammunition.”  So how harmful is lead and who is at risk?  According to Mother Jones:

Excerpt:

The most ubiquitous danger at firing ranges has a lot to do with bullets but nothing to do with getting shot.

……Lead is so damaging because it mimics calcium, an ion with essential roles everywhere in the body from bones to nerve cells. (It's especially dangerous for children with developing brains, which is why you hear so much about lead paint.) The report devotes more than 70 pages to detailing lead's many toxic effects in nearly every organ in the body, including the brain, blood, kidneys, heart, and reproductive organs.

Lead is found in bullets as well as the explosive that ignites gunpowder. When a bullet is fired, it gets so hot that that lead actually vaporizes. Firing range employees breathe in the lead fumes, as well as ingest lead dust that settles on their body and clothes…

…. lead is an element, so it doesn't degrade or become less toxic over time. Old bullets (or paint or gas or any other cause) leach lead into the soil; from there the metal gets into groundwater and plants and the bodies of animals. The military has been cleaning up some 700 of its shooting ranges, and while that's not cheap, Kevin Drum's "America's Real Criminal Element: Lead" makes a compelling case that it's far less expensive than the costs that come with lead exposure—including violent crime, lower IQs, and ADHD.

And remember that provision in the absolute must pass, with no time to think, no debate just pass or else $1.1 Trillion spending bill regarding Social Security, Medicare and private pensions ensured through the Pension Guarantee Fund totaling trillions of dollars?  From Latin Post: 

Excerpt:

$1 Trillion Federal Budget Bill Threatens Pensions, Has "No Opportunity for Public Input," Says Rep. Louis Slaughter

House Rules Committee member Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said about the over 1,600 page bill, that it was "released in the middle of the night. Not one member of the committee has been able to read all the way through it or anything of it, I suppose.

 No opportunity for public input. No hearings. No committee markups. And no time to adequately consider $1.1 trillion in spending…."

Yep, that’s what Naomi Klein calls the “Shock Doctrine” Disaster Capitalism.

Multiemployer pension funds were created where a group of businesses in the same industry join unions to provide pension coverage for employees. The plans cover 10 million U.S. workers, according to The Washington Post.

Many of the multiemployer pension funds were targeted by institutional investors by financial companies and banks in the pre-crash years, and they bought mortgage-backed securities, which subsequently imploded. The pension funds were sold a fraudulent product, which ended up depleting the fund.

The pension funds were robbed by Wall Street banks and now the U.S. Senate has hammered a stake through the heart of multiemployer pension funds, from Societyof Human Resource Management:

Excerpt:

Law to Let Multiemployer Pensions Cut Benefits Signed

The pension measure included in the omnibus legislation, the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, was negotiated by a bipartisan group of congressional leaders but opposed by some retiree advocates and their congressional allies…

The provisions apply only to multiemployer pensions and not to single-sponsor corporate pensions, which are subject to a different set of regulations and higher funding-level requirements. The PBGC maintains a separate insurance fund for single-sponsor pensions.

Multiemployer, or "Taft-Hartley," pension plans commonly are administered by labor unions on behalf of their members and funded by multiple employers in a given industry, subject to collective bargaining contracts with the union.

Cutback Provisions

The measure will allow trustees of financially troubled multiemployer pensions to cut retiree benefits to prevent plan insolvency. Financially troubled plans are those that are expected to not have enough money to pay 100 percent of benefits in 10 to 20 years….

Under the measure:

• Plan trustees have discretion in deciding how to allocate the cuts. For example, they can cut retirees’ benefits more than those of active workers, and decide whether to reduce survivors’ benefits.

Who are these plan trustees, you may ask, well my money is on Wall Street Banks.

• Plan trustees are exempt from fiduciary responsibility in making cuts.

What the hell is that???  Plan trustees handling trillions in retiree benefits are “exempt from fiduciary responsibility” when making cuts.

• Trustees’ decisions to cut benefits can be reversed only by the Department of Treasury, and then only if the Treasury determines that the trustees’ decision to cut benefits or the extent of the benefit cuts is “clearly erroneous.”

And who controls the Department of Treasury?  Wall Street Banks like JP Morgan Chase and Citi Bank.

• There is no provision for automatic restoration of lost benefits if a plan’s funding status improves.

So in other words, if a plan trustee cuts your pension from $1000 per month to $400 per month and the plan becomes flush with cash, the trustee just gets to keep the money instead of sharing the wealth with the pensioners whose money it was to start with.  

There should be a law against that, but wait there was.  That law was repealed in an emergency, must pass, do or die bill on December 16^th.

But all roads lead back to Vladimir Putin.  Poor President Putin, he has found himself the star of a reality show based on “Lord of the Flies.”  In October of this year, Putin gave a speech to the Valdai International Discussion Club that was called “the most important speech of his career”, let’s look at the Kremlin announcement. 

Excerpt: 

The meeting’s theme is The World Order: New Rules or a Game without Rules. 

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, friends, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the XI meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club….

Today’s discussion took place under the theme: New Rules or a Game without Rules. I think that this formula accurately describes the historic turning point we have reached today and the choice we all face.…

Yes, many of the mechanisms we have for ensuring the world order were created quite a long time ago now, including and above all in the period immediately following World War II. 

Let me stress that the solidity of the system created back then rested not only on the balance of power and the rights of the victor countries, but on the fact that this system’s ‘founding fathers’ had respect for each other, did not try to put the squeeze on others, but attempted to reach agreements….

But the United States, having declared itself the winner of the Cold War, saw no need for this. Instead of establishing a new balance of power, essential for maintaining order and stability, they took steps that threw the system into sharp and deep imbalance. 

Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux riches behave when they suddenly end up with a great fortune, in this case, in the shape of world leadership and domination. Instead of managing their wealth wisely, for their own benefit too of course, I think they have committed many follies.  

We have entered a period of differing interpretations and deliberate silences in world politics. International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. 

Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time, total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white…

The measures taken against those who refuse to submit are well-known and have been tried and tested many times. They include use of force, economic and propaganda pressure, meddling in domestic affairs, and appeals to a kind of ‘supra-legal’ legitimacy when they need to justify illegal intervention in this or that conflict or toppling inconvenient regimes….

Let’s ask ourselves, how comfortable are we with this, how safe are we, how happy living in this world, and how fair and rational has it become? Maybe, we have no real reasons to worry, argue and ask awkward questions?

Maybe the United States’ exceptional position and the way they are carrying out their leadership really is a blessing for us all, and their meddling in events all around the world is bringing peace, prosperity, progress, growth and democracy, and we should maybe just relax and enjoy it all?  

But here in America, happy days are here again, the stock market has just soared past 18,000, gas prices are hovering around $2/gallon and The Interview opened in theaters in America.

God bless us all

By Patricia Baeten

Global Financial Terrorist Attack: US $700 trillion stolen, Russia Ruble Tanks, Cuba Drawn and Quartered and The Interview Canceled

You know, when you are traveling down the rabbit hole you see a lot of strange things.  One of the strangest is the way the American press is so easily distracted by shiny objects.  Currently the U.S. Press is busy chasing the recently released torture report, The Interview being cancelled and our new “relationship” with Cuba. 

But there is a common thread that runs through everything and is largely forgotten or ignored by the press.  What I am talking about is the global financial terrorist attack perpetrated by the United States Senate on December 16, 2014, everything else is fallout.

The global financial terrorists were unleashed on the world on December 16^th 2014 when the United States Senate passed the Shock Doctrine spending bill insuring $700 trillion in derivative gambling debts with the full faith and credit of the United States government. 

An emboldened financial terrorist group flush with cash after the U.S. Senate pledged $3 trillion of private pension funds and repeal of Dodd/Frank derivatives regulation worth more than $700 trillion at their disposal, is now on the prowl. 

So let’s take a look at what has happened since the Senate and the Obama Administration facilitated the largest financial terrorist attack in world history. 

AMERICA ROBBED OF $700 TRILLION INCLUDING PENSIONS WORTH $3 TRILLION

According to Ed O’Keefe at Washington Post one of the provisions included in the December 16^th Spending Bill and pushed by the Obama Administration was slashing of American pensions:

            Excerpt:

PENSIONS

For the first time, the benefits of current retirees could be severely cut, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans. The change would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets. 

Yeah, those pension plans are distressed because once the banks were deregulated by the Senate in 2000 they could sell junk securities to pension plans, something that had been illegal for over 60 years.  It was grand theft, pure and simple.   

Wall Street banks laundered almost a billion dollars into the Obama campaign in 2008 to ensure there would be no laws or regulatory changes to the banking system.  Wall Street had bought their government, hook line and sinker.  If you ever thought that Barack Obama was a Democrat or gave a whit about America or the American people, you’d be wrong.  He’s just like George W. Bush, as a matter of fact George W. Bush said if Obama were a Republican he’d vote for him.

So, here’s the Barack Obama that America didn’t see in the 2008 primaries because the U.S. Senate was making sure you didn’t.  From Washington Blog:

Excerpt:

Obama’s Long Battle to Cut Social Security Benefits

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Eric Zuesse.

If, as expected, U.S. President Barack Obama will, for the first time in his Presidency, be given by the nation’s voters two Republican-controlled houses of Congress, he’ll finally be able to sign into law bills that are as conservative as he wants; and one of these new laws will transform Social Security.

During the first interview Obama gave after Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy had begun laundering Wall Street money into Obama’s campaign, he outlined his plan to bring the Reagan dream of a fully privatized American government for the rich.

Back in 2009, he came into office wanting to address the long-term financial issue of Social Security not by removing the annual earnings-cap of around $100,000 that pertained (and above which income was/is untaxed for Social Security, so that this change alone could solve the problem), but instead by reducing retirement benefits to seniors: cutting the benefits they receive.

America has been rolled again.  The only reason Obama was reelected was because people feared that Paul Ryan would privatize Social Security.  Guess what?  Barack Obama is the only president who ever cut funding the program, through the Republican inspired “payroll tax holiday.” 

Everyone had simply assumed that no Democrat would want to weaken or reduce the crowning achievements of Democratic Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson, not to mention of the Democratic Party itself. But Barack Obama wanted to do it; and he remains committed to doing it.

CANCELATION OF “THE INTERVIEW” WAS A FINANCIAL TERRORIST ATTACK

So the cancelation of The Interview by Sony is just another act of financial terrorism resulting from the Shock Doctrine terrorist funding bill passed by the Senate December 16^th.   

If you recall Senator Chris Dodd, who is the Dodd half of Dodd/Frank left the Senate after the passage of the Dodd Frank financial reform bill to become President of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.  The cancelation of “The Interview” is not about that particular movie, but a message of financial intimidation to the industry.

According to Wired Magazine:

Excerpt:

Obama’s Bold Sony Statement: Canceling The Interview Was a ‘Mistake’

In his end-of-year press conference today, President Barack Obama called the decision by Sony Pictures Entertainment to cancel the release of its film The Interview a “mistake.”

“I am sympathetic to the threats they face,” Obama said. “Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake….

Blah, blah, blah.

President Obama added today that he wished Sony “had spoken to me first” before making its decision. “I would have told them, do not get into a pattern in which you are intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.”

In the same article in Wired George Clooney made the following statement:

Regardless of who initiated the cancellations, in his interview with Deadline, Clooney expressed the same sentiments Obama did in saying that industries should not bow to threats—especially ones that trample on the First Amendment. “The truth is, you’re going to have a much harder time finding distribution now. And that’s a chilling effect.”

Yes, the First Amendment has now been attacked by financial terrorists unleashed by the “emergency” spending bill passed by the United States Senate.  Think about what Clooney said, “the truth is, you’re going to have a much harder time finding distribution now” meaning you aren’t going to find the financial backers to make films if you don’t toe the financial terrorist line.

Obama’s blathering about “wishing Sony would have talked to him before canceling is just another big lie.  According to an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Sony executive Michael Lynton said Sony had been working with the Administration and the FBI to proceed with the December 25^th release.  Funny, it wasn’t until the passage of the of the “emergency terrorist spending” bill that the release was cancelled.  

Excerpt:

Sony followed up on Lynton's remarks with a statement that read, in part, "It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so."

The company declined to comment on whether any distributors have agreed to help the company with that.

In his CNN interview, Lynton said "the president, the press and the public are mistaken" about what actually led to Sony's decision to shelve the "The Interview."

"We do not own movie theaters," Lynton said. "We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters."

Hmmm, I wonder who does own the theaters that can determine which movies will be shown.  Imagine if the Obama Administration had come out and stated that America would not tremble in fear of an American movie being released, and the government is doing everything possible to ensure the safety of theaters and theater goers in America.  That would be the proper response, but instead the U.S. Senate facilitated the financial terrorist attack on Sony. 

Of course the Obama Administration was quick to point fingers at North Korea for the hacking, but the timing is awfully suspicious.  Why would North Korea hack Sony?  It doesn’t make sense, people in North Korea would never see the movie they wouldn’t even know the movie existed.  

Administration officials said it was because North Korea feared DVDs attached to balloons would waft into North Korea.  North Korea has even offered to conduct a joint inquiry into the Sony hacking incident.  From BBC News Canada:

Excerpt:

North Korea has offered to hold a joint inquiry with the United States into a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, strongly denying US claims that it is behind it.

Its foreign ministry accused the US of "spreading groundless allegations", which a joint inquiry would refute.

Without addressing Pyongyang's idea, a US spokesman insisted North Korea must admit "culpability”.

The whole Sony incident stinks to high heaven.  I guess a harbinger of things to come were in this Matt Taibbi article published early in 2014 by Rolling Stone Magazine:  

Excerpt:

Wall Street had spent much of that era arguing that America's banks needed to become bigger and badder, in order to compete globally with the German and Japanese-style financial giants, which were supposedly about to swallow up all the world's banking business. 

So through legislative lackeys like red-faced Republican deregulatory enthusiast Phil Gramm, bank lobbyists were pushing a new law designed to wipe out 60-plus years of bedrock financial regulation.

The key was repealing – or "modifying," as bill proponents put it – the famed Glass-Steagall Act separating bankers and brokers, which had been passed in 1933 to prevent conflicts of interest within the finance sector that had led to the Great Depression. 

Now, commercial banks would be allowed to merge with investment banks and insurance companies, creating financial megafirms potentially far more powerful than had ever existed in America….

Financial terrorists created by the United States Senate “far more powerful than ever existed in America”, who could have known?  Phil Gramm whose wife Wendy was on the board of directors of Enron was able to cash out her holdings before the employees of Enron were informed their stock was worthless.

Fifteen years later, in fact, it now looks like Wall Street and its lawyers took the term to be a synonym for ruthless campaigns of world domination. "Nobody knew the reach it would have into the real economy," says Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. 

Now a leading voice on the Hill against the hidden provisions, Brown actually voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley as a congressman, along with all but 72 other House members. "I bet even some of the people who were the bill's advocates had no idea."

Oh Sherrod, you poor, naïve soul, did you really think that opening the gates of hell to financial terrorists would have a good result for the American people?  That vote was held days after the Supreme Court ordered the end to the Florida recount in the 2000 Presidential election.  

So you, during the twilight hours of the Clinton Administration, voted to repeal 60 years of protecting the American people from financial terrorists.  Sorry Sherrod, there’s no excuse for what you did. 

So what do banks look like today?   

Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. 

They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum.

And they're doing it not just here but abroad as well: In Denmark, thousands took to the streets in protest in recent weeks, vampire-squid banners in hand, when news came out that Goldman Sachs was about to buy a 19 percent stake in Dong Energy, a national electric provider. 

The furor inspired mass resignations of ministers from the government's ruling coalition, as the Danish public wondered how an American investment bank could possibly hold so much influence over the state energy grid.

RUSSIAN RUBLE TANKS AS CUBA DRAWN AND QUARTERED

So do you think for one minute the gas prices have gone down for altruistic reasons or do you think it’s to destroy the Russian economy.  You know, these financial terrorists will take a small hit on gas prices in order to destroy Russia’s oil based economy.  After all, they can afford to because they were just given $3 trillion in your pension funds.  From Forbes:

Excerpt:

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) was doing everything right. Responding to recent oil price falls, it floated the ruble and allowed it to fall in line with the oil price, intervening only to smooth out sharp price fluctuations….

The CBR’s Governor, Elvira Nabiullina – no doubt mindful of previous disastrous attempts to support falling currencies – expected that allowing the ruble to fall freely would enable Russia to ride out the storm without suffering catastrophic loss of reserves. 

If the oil price stabilized at say $65 a barrel, the ruble would also stabilize, the Russian economy would be down but not out….

And on December 15th, the United Arab Emirates’ Energy Minister suggested that oil could fall as low as $40 a barrel.

This was disastrous. The CBR’s worst-case scenario for the Russian economy assumed the oil price would fall to $60 a barrel. A price of $40 a barrel was simply unimaginable. Russia’s economy is terribly dependent on oil: if the oil price falls so low, severe economic recession is inevitable and default becomes a real possibility. The ruble’s slide worsened, bond yields spiked and CDS rose exponentially as capital flight intensified….

At midnight on December 15th/16th, the CBR announced a 6.5% rise in the interest rate. This sent completely the wrong message. Instead of calming markets, it was inevitably interpreted as panic. By morning, confidence in the CBR had evaporated and the ruble was in freefall:

Hmmm, what happened at Midnight December 15^th/16^th?   I believe it was the global terrorist attack perpetrated by the United States Senate.  And what do you think is the up side for Cuba with the announcement of “normalized” relations with the U.S?  

Really what does Cuba have to gain?  Cuba has done quite nicely in spite of the 60 years of U.S. insane policy driven by Cubans in Florida. 

As a matter of fact, Vladmir Putin just signed a huge trade deal with Cuba a few months ago.  Seems like yesterday I was reading this article in Politico:

Excerpt:

HAVANA — Russian President Vladimir Putin began a six-day Latin American tour aimed at boosting trade and ties in the region with a stop Friday in Cuba, a key Soviet ally during the Cold War that has backed Moscow in its dispute with the West over Ukraine.

The two countries signed about a dozen accords in areas such as energy, industry, health and disaster prevention. Russian companies will participate in petroleum projects around Boca de Jaruco on the island's north coast, and that cooperation will extend to offshore oil deposits, Cuban government website Cubadebate said.

Putin has been treading on the turf of the financial terrorists.  Indeed, what does Cuba need from the U.S?

Another agreement covered infrastructure at a big new port project that Cuba hopes will become a regional shipping center and attract much-needed foreign investment.

"We are talking about the possibility of creating in Cuba a grand transportation hub with a possible modernization of the maritime port of Mariel and the construction of a modern airport with its respective cargo terminal," Putin said, according to an official Spanish translation of his remarks in Russian.

Moscow is also forgiving 90 percent of Cuba's Soviet-era debt, which totals more than $35 billion. The remainder will be invested in education on the island, Putin added…..

I really have to ask, what did America’s financial terrorists offer that’s better than the deal Russia is offering?   The whole thing sounds like a global financial terrorist attack.

Amid the crisis in Ukraine, Cuba and some other nations in the region have shown themselves to be sympathetic to Russia's position on the conflict, or at least not overtly critical.

Cuban official newspapers tend to characterize it as a struggle against right-wing extremism threatening ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Earlier this year, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez criticized U.S. and European Union sanctions imposed on Russian individuals and pro-Russian Ukrainians.

In December 2000, shortly after his first election, Putin visited the island and pledged to reinvigorate relations.

Hmmm, December 2000, seems to me something happened in December, 2000.  Oh yeah, democracy in was murdered by the United States Supreme Court and the United States Senate.

Russia said in February that it was looking to expand its worldwide military presence, including asking permission for its navy ships to use ports in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America. A Russian intelligence-gathering vessel has docked in Havana on multiple occasions in recent months.

Funny they should bring up Ukraine with the financial terrorist attack that resulted in their elected government being overthrown.  In Ukraine, just like Cuba, Russia offered a much better deal than the E.U. and U.S financial terrorists.  From PopularResistance:  

Excerpt:

Finally, a little-known aspect of the crisis in Ukraine is receiving some international attention.  On July 28, the California-based Oakland Institute released a report revealing that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), under terms of their $17 billion loan to Ukraine, would open that country to genetically-modified (GM) crops and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture.  The report is entitled “Walking on the West Side: the World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict.” [1]

In late 2013, the then president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, rejected a European Union association agreement tied to the $17 billion IMF loan, whose terms are only now being revealed.  Instead, Yanukovych chose a Russian aid package worth $15 billion plus a discount on Russian natural gas.  His decision was a major factor in the ensuing deadly protests that led to his ouster from office in February 2014 and the ongoing crisis.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Ukraine’s government was overthrown by the CIA and the financial terrorists now have Cuba is on the chopping block. 

Then there’s the release of the torture report.  No one will be prosecuted, but not to worry, the Senate’s Grand Dame, Diane Feinstein said that the thing that sets America apart from the rest of the world, is that we learn from our mistakes.  What an ass.  

What sets America apart from the world is not “learning from our mistakes” it’s a justice system where a sheepherder in Afghanistan tortured after being sold into captivity will have his day in court. 

What sets America apart is the perpetrators of crime face the same justice no matter what their station in life, no matter how poor or how wealthy, but that died December 12, 2000.  From Consortium News: 

Excerpt:

Rather than questioning Sony’s wisdom in producing a film that jokes about something as serious as assassinating a nation’s leader, Obama upbraided Sony’s producers for the decision to pull the movie from theaters. “I wish they had spoken to me first,” said Obama, warning them not to ”get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated…..”

President Barack Obama holds a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. Dec. 19, 2014…..

The irony that I saw was in Obama’s “tough-guy” advice just after he had been so intimidated by the real-life CIA that he could not muster the courage to fire those who managed and carried out a quite-unfunny policy of torture on an industrial scale – much less try to find some way to hold senior officials of the Bush/Cheney administration accountable. However great the financial loss to Sony’s bottom line, the costs attributable to Obama’s timidity are incalculably more damaging to the United States.

The global financial terrorist attack of 2008 was identified and reported on back in 2011 by Bill Gertz at the Washington Times:   

Excerpt:

Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash

Evidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations, contributed to the 2008 economic crash by covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.

The unclassified 2009 report “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses” by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, states that “a three-phased attack was planned and is in the process against the United States economy….”

Yeah, no shit.

“The new battle space is the economy,” he said. “We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems each year. But a relatively small amount of money focused against our financial markets through leveraged derivatives or cyber efforts can result in trillions of dollars in losses. And, the perpetrators can remain undiscovered.

“This is the equivalent of box cutters on an airplane,” Mr. Freeman said.

So there you have it, another phase in the Global Financial Terrorist attack occurred on December 16^th, 2014.  The catastrophic effects of the stolen $700 trillion are just beginning to be realized, whether it’s the government sponsored attack on Sony, the destruction of the Russian Ruble or the absolute rape and pillaging we will see in Cuba. 

God help us.

By Patricia Baeten