ONE YEAR AFTER THE DICTATOR OF SAUDI ARABIA MURDERED KHASHOGGI

 THE OBOMBS AND HARVARD

OBAMA AND HIS SAUDIS PAYMASTERS… Did he serve them well?

Malia, Michelle, Barack and the College Admissions Scandal https://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2019/03/malia-michelle-barack-and-college.html

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Michelle was the next to attend Harvard, in her case Harvard Law School. “Told by counselors that her SAT scores and her grades weren’t good enough for an Ivy League school,” writes Christopher Andersen in Barack and Michelle, “Michelle applied to Princeton and Harvard anyway.”

GOOGLE WHAT THE OBOMB DID FOR HIS SAUDIS PAYMASTERS

Barack Obama’s back door, however, was unique to him. Before prosecutors send some of the dimmer Hollywood stars to the slammer for their dimness, they might want to ask just how much influence a Saudi billionaire peddled to get Obama into Harvard.

One year after Khashoggi murder, US CEOs flock to Saudi Arabia

Today marks one year since the savage assassination and dismemberment of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul.

The crime, characterized by its extreme brutality and utter brazenness, has yet to be fully investigated, while its principal authors, first and foremost Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have gone unpunished.

Bin Salman used an interview with the CBS news program “60 Minutes” broadcast on Sunday as a vehicle for whitewashing his culpability in the assassination. He is anxious to clean up the Saudi monarchy’s sordid image as Riyadh prepares to welcome a flock of US banking and corporate CEOs to an event dubbed “Davos in the Desert” scheduled in a few weeks.

The crown prince denied that he had ordered the killing, but added, “I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government.” He went on to dismiss the suggestion that the assassination had hurt Riyadh’s relations with Washington, insisting: “The relationship is much larger than that.”

Indeed, the relationship is “much larger.” Saudi Arabia has served as a historic lynchpin of reaction and US imperialist domination in the Arab world, under both Democratic and Republican administrations alike, for three-quarters of a century. It now functions as an ally of both the US and Israel in an anti-Iranian axis that is pushing the region toward a catastrophic war. It is also far and away the biggest purchaser of US arms, with Trump using his first trip abroad to fly to the kingdom and sign a weapons deal touted as worth $110 billion.

This special relationship is between Washington and what is unquestionably one of the most reactionary regimes on the face of the planet. An absolute monarchy based on the most reactionary strain of Islam, Wahhabism, the Saudi regime labels its critics as “terrorists” and punishes them with beheading. More than 130 such barbaric executions have taken place this year alone, including of children arrested for the “crimes” of supporting protests and posting material critical of the regime on social media. In some cases, the victims’ corpses have been crucified and their heads exhibited on pikes to intimidate the population.

Washington’s indifference to this savage repression—as well as its active support for the near genocidal four-year-old war in Yemen, whose death toll is expected to reach 233,000 by the end of this year, according to the UN—gives the lie to all of US imperialism’s attempts to promote its predatory interests under the filthy banner of “human rights.” It also explains why bin Salman believed he could act with impunity in murdering Khashoggi.

Thus far, no one has been punished for the killing of the journalist, a former insider who edited pro-regime newspapers and served at one point as an aide to the long-time Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to the US, Prince Turki bin Faisal. Khashoggi fled the kingdom in the midst of a so-called “anti-corruption” crackdown in 2017 in which prominent Saudi figures were abducted, imprisoned and tortured in a hotel and shaken down for money. Obtaining residence in the US, he was offered a column in the Washington Post to criticize bin Salman, largely from the standpoint of the interests of rival factions within the monarchy.

As is well known, Khashoggi was murdered after going into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain divorce papers he needed to marry a Turkish woman. With the appointment set up well in advance, he was met by a 15-member death squad comprised of Saudi air force officers, intelligence operatives, leading members of the monarchy’s elite personal guard of the Saudi monarchy and a forensics expert, who came equipped with a bone saw.

In the run-up to the first anniversary of the assassination, two investigators who listened to tapes recorded on listening devices covertly placed in the consulate by Turkish intelligence have provided hideous new details about the crime.

Helena Kennedy, a British lawyer who participated in the UN investigation into the killing, recounted to the BBC’s “Panorama” news program broadcast Monday night that the assassins referred jokingly to Khashoggi as the “sacrificial animal.”

The Turkish bugs also recorded the Saudi forensics expert telling his cohorts, “I often play music when I’m cutting cadavers. Sometimes I have a coffee and a cigar at hand.”

He went on to complain: “It is the first time in my life that I’ve had to cut pieces on the ground—even if you are a butcher and want to cut, he hangs the animal up to do it.”

Kennedy also said that the tapes made clear that the man directing the operation was Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, one of the most prominent members of bin Salman’s security detail.

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings who investigated the Khashoggi case, Agnes Callamard, states that the journalist, in terror, asked his abductors whether they were going to give him an injection, to which they say “yes.”

“The sound heard after that point indicates that he is being suffocated, probably with a plastic bag over his head,” she recounts. “His mouth was also closed—violently—maybe with a hand or something else.”

Afterwards, Kennedy states, the bugs recorded someone saying: “He’s a dog, put this on his head, wrap it, wrap it.” She added, “One can only assume that they had removed his head.”

No one has been punished for this grisly murder, and the Saudi authorities have never even revealed the fate of Khashoggi’s remains.

Only 11 of the 15 death squad members have been criminally charged in Saudi Arabia. Their protracted trial is being held in secret. Among those not charged is Said al-Qahtani, formerly bin Salman’s most influential adviser. The CIA has identified him as the ringleader in the killing, one of many carried out under his direction. It also established that he exchanged 11 messages with bin Salman immediately before and after the murder. Turkish intelligence has reported that al-Qahtani made a Skype call to the Istanbul consulate in order to insult Khashoggi and order his death squad to “bring me the head of the dog.”

The horrific character of this crime notwithstanding, one year after Khashoggi’s assassination, US banks and big business are prepared to put it behind them and grasp the bloody hand of bin Salman.

At least 40 US executives are preparing to attend the annual Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference, dubbed “Davos in the Desert,” at the end of this month. Many of them bailed out of last year’s event, held just weeks after Khashoggi’s killing, sending subordinates to represent them in order to avoid being seen as openly endorsing the murderous methods of the Saudi monarchy.

Casting such qualms aside this year, senior executives from Wall Street’s top financial firms—Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and BlackRock—are all listed as coming, according to a report Monday in the Washington Post .

BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink told the Post that he believed “corporate engagement and public dialogue can help” the Saudi regime “evolve.”

Who does he think he is kidding? The only “evolution” that BlackRock is interested in is that of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, ARAMCO, into a privatized and publicly traded corporation out of which Wall Street can extract hefty new profits. The monarchy has indicated that an initial public offering (IPO) covering as much as 5 percent of the company could come in the next several months.

Also included on the list of those attending is Citigroup’s CEO Michael Corbat and JPMorgan’s head of global banking, Carlos Hernandez.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, is expected to lead a delegation of US officials.

In the immediate aftermath of the brutal murder of Khashoggi one year ago, the World Socialist Web Site warned that the assassination was: “emblematic of a sinister shift in world politics, in which such heinous crimes are becoming more and more common and accepted. It recalls the conditions that existed in the darkest days of the 1930s, when fascist and Stalinist death squads hunted down and murdered socialists and other opponents of Hitler and Stalin throughout Europe.”

The list of attendees at this year’s “Davos in the Desert” expresses not only the profit grubbing of America’s parasitic financial oligarchy, but also their acceptance and approval of such methods in dealing with opponents of existing governments and the capitalist order they defend. If Khashoggi’s high-level connections failed to protect him, clearly the threat to working class and socialist opponents of capitalism is all the greater.

Bill And Hillary Tour Underwhelms In Ticket Sales, Attendance

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/12/01/bill-hillary-tour-underwhelms-ticket-sales-attendance/

 

KAREN TOWNSENDPosted at 5:31 pm on December 1, 2018

Bill and Hillary Clinton have taken their show on the road. Ticket sales for “An Evening with the Clintons” are not what they once might have been, according to all reports. With stops deliberately booked in what are assumed to be Clinton-friendly cities, the aging power couple seems to be having trouble filling seats.

It’s not exactly a whirlwind tour. The schedule is downright lethargic in the beginning. The first stop on November 27 was in Toronto, Canada with a stop the next night in Montreal. The next stop on the schedule is Houston on December 4. In light of the passing of former President George H.W. Bush, that date may be canceled or changed. But, that’s all there is to the tour until 2019. They start back up in April 2019 in New York City and continue through May, ending in Las Vegas on May 5. Does anyone else think it’s odd that a former U.S. president and a former Secretary of State began a self-promoting tour in Canada? Maybe it’s just me.

The venue in Toronto only sold 3,300 tickets. Whole sections of the arena were empty. I checked the website for ticket prices and for the Houston stop, the cheap seats go for $15.00 and the most expensive ticket price I could find was $1146.00.  That’s a real bargain, especially compared to the book tour events (it’s not just a book tour, they are events) scheduled for former First Lady Michelle Obama. The high-end prices for the Michelle tour go for $10,000. That is what I found and it’s not a stop in Houston but in Dallas at the American Airlines Center. The Clinton venue in Houston is smaller.

Anyway, you won’t be surprised to read that a good bit of the Clinton question and answer conversation centers around her bitterness toward President Trump. He lives rent-free in her head.

And the former secretary of state was prepared to mock Trump’s interview with the Washington Post just hours after it published, shaking her head at Trump telling the paper “my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”

You “literally you can’t make this stuff up,” she said. “A dozen times a day your head is spinning.”< And near the end of the event, Hillary Clinton returned to Trump's gut, criticizing him for saying he does not "believe" a recently released dire government report on climate change. "It just riles me up," she said. "If you won't listen to people who actually spend time over decades studying problems, my goodness, your gut is not the answer to everything that is important in the world, I'm sorry."

The tour comes at a time when speculation is strong on whether or not Hillary will actually make another attempt at a presidential run. She joked about standing for Parliament in Canada when asked about any plans to run but you know she’s thinking about. I don’t think she ever stops thinking about it. She’s consumed with anger that Donald Trump won. While the next generation of Democrats is ready to move up, the Clintons (especially Hillary) refuse to leave the stage. It’s no wonder ticket sales are slow. Why would anyone pay money to listen to them when almost any day an interview or quote is available in print or on television? It’s not like either of them are saying anything new.

Also, there’s the re-emergence of Monica Lewinsky. She’s been telling her story after all these years. Don’t expect either Clinton to be asked about that whole scandal, though. It’s not happening. The former horndog-in-chief still gets a pass on the difficult questions.

But the kickoff comes at a tenuous time for the Clintons: Not only is their standing in the Democratic Party in question after neither was particularly prolific during the midterms, but the event comes amid a renewed focus on Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, a moment in history that has gained more attention recently because of a multi-part series on the affair on A&E and other retrospectives. The Lewinsky affair and other allegations against of sexual impropriety Bill Clinton are also being re-examined in the light of the #MeToo era.

One topic that Hillary is quick to criticize President Trump on is his relationship with Saudia Arabia. It’s ironic given the Clinton Foundation’s refusal to state that they will no longer accept financial donations from The Kingdom as others have.

“We have a president who is part of the cover-up as to what happened in that consulate or embassy when Mr. Khashoggi was murdered,” Clinton said. “And we have a president and those closest to him who have their own personal commercial interests.”

But the Clinton Foundation, to which donations declined dramatically after Clinton’s 2016 defeat, has taken multi-million dollar contributions from Saudi Arabia in the past and isn’t ruling out continuing to accept them.

The Clinton Foundation accepted between $10 and $25 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with donations coming as late as 2014. A now-defunct group named “Friends of Saudi Arabia,” which was reportedly co-founded by a Saudi Prince and often worked as a PR front for the kingdom, also donated between $1 and $5 million.

Implying corruption about the sitting president in business dealings is probably not the best idea. She and her husband have a legacy of corruption. She should just sit that conversation out.

 

 

 

 

 

More Trouble For The Clintons: FBI Raids The Home of DOJ Whistleblower Who Ratted on The Clinton Foundation

Beth Baumann

FBI agents spent six hours raiding the home of Department of Justice whistleblower Dennis Nathan Cain on Nov. 19th. According to Cain's lawyer, he was in possession of documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One. He had handed them over to the DOJ’s inspector general and both the House and Senate Intelligence committees, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported. 

From The Daily Caller:

The Justice Department’s inspector general was informed that the documents show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One, a document reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.

The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges. Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Although Cain handed over the documents, the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras, said the raid was excessive and went against whistleblower protections.

“The bureau raided my client to seize what he legally gave Congress about the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One,” Socarras told The DCNF. 

A special agent from the FBI's Baltimore division believed Cain had stolen federal property and demanded to be let into the house. Cain let the agent know that he was protected under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act and that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recognized his whistleblower status. He also made the agent aware that he had submitted the classified information to the Senate and House Intelligence committees. At that point the special agent in charge of the sting direct 16 other agents to begin a sweep Cain's property. 

Cain immediately handed over the documents to the FBI out of fear. Despite having the documents, the FBI continued their raid. 

“After asking and getting my approval to do so, DOJ IG Michael Horowitz had a member of his staff physically take Mr. Cain’s classified document disclosure to the House and Senate Intelligence committees,” Socarras said. “For the bureau to show up at Mr. Cain’s home suggesting that those same documents are stolen federal property, and then proceed to seize copies of the same documents after being told at the house door that he is a legally protected whistleblower who gave them to Congress, is an outrageous disregard of the law."

Cain came across the classified information while working for a government contractor. Under whistleblower protections, the inspector general is to share that information with the attorney general. At that time, the attorney general was Jeff Sessions.

“The [whistleblower act] authorizes employees of contractors to take government property and give it to the two intelligence committees confidentially,” Socarras said.

Here's how the information was handed off:

Cain met with a senior member of Horowitz’s office at a church close to the White House to deliver the documents to the IG, according to Socarras.

Cain sat in a pew with a hoodie and sun glasses, Socarras said. Cain held a double-sealed envelope containing a flash drive with the documents. The IG official met him and, without saying a word, took the pouch over Cain’s shoulder and left.