TBR News May 11, 2016
The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. May 11, 2016: “ There are two growing and potentially dangerous social and economic problems in the United States today. The first is a growing unemployment rate caused, basically by the off-shoring of blue collar jobs and the second is the mortgage problem. Over 70 million Americans have MERS-controlled mortages on their homes which means that they can never get a clear title to their homes, even when the mortgages are finally paid off. No politician extant and no element of the American media will ever discuss either of these problems because they are forbidden to do so. But eventually both problems will erupt like a sleeping volcano although the business leaders and politicians responsible for them will have long retired with their loot and could care less. The damage will fall on the heads of others but to them, this is not a problem.”
The Müller Washington Journals 1948-1951
At the beginning of December, 1948, a German national arrived in Washington, D.C. to take up an important position with the newly-formed CIA. He was a specialist on almost every aspect of Soviet intelligence and had actively fought them, both in his native Bavaria where he was head of the political police in Munich and later in Berlin as head of Amt IV of the State Security Office, also known as the Gestapo.
His name was Heinrich Müller.
Even as a young man, Heini Müller had kept daily journals of his activities, journals that covered his military service as a pilot in the Imperial German air arm and an apprentice policeman in Munich. He continued these journals throughout the war and while employed by the top CIA leadership in Washington, continued his daily notations.
This work is a translation of his complete journals from December of 1948 through September of 1951.
When Heinrich Müller was hired by the CIA¹s station chief in Bern, Switzerland, James Kronthal in 1948, he had misgivings about working for his former enemies but pragmatism and the lure of large amounts of money won him over to what he considered to be merely an extension of his life-work against the agents of the Comintern. What he discovered after living and working in official Washington for four years was that the nation¹s capital was, in truth, what he once humorously claimed sounded like a cross between a zoo and a lunatic asylum. His journals, in addition to personal letters, various reports and other personal material, give a very clear, but not particularly flattering, view of the inmates of both the zoo and the asylum.
Müller moved, albeit very carefully, in the rarefied atmosphere of senior policy personnel, military leaders, heads of various intelligence agencies and the White House itself. He was a very observant, quick-witted person who took copious notes of what he saw. This was not a departure from his earlier habits because Heinrich Müller had always kept a journal, even when he was a lowly Bavarian police officer, and his comments about personalities and events in the Third Reich are just as pungent and entertaining as the ones he made while in America.
The reason for publishing this phase of his eventful life is that so many agencies in the United States and their supporters do not want to believe that a man of Müller¹s position could ever have been employed by their country in general or their agency in specific.
Friday, 18 March 1949
Early this morning two large brown trucks from the American Army came up to my house and a number of soldiers in full uniform began to unload the contents. It had to be explained to them that all of the cargo had to go into the back. We cannot have people tracking into the main hall after all.
What arrived was the second shipment of art from Antwerp that had come down here from New York. It came as special cargo and passed through customs without being opened, which was most convenient. I had everything taken up to the second floor and put into one of the big bedrooms there. The cellar is too damp and in the summer, I believe the attic is too hot.
I put on my Lederhosen and an old shirt and spent a very happy day opening the crates and either stacking the contents onto various tables I had the foresight to put into the room, or in a number of cases, leaving the art where it was because it was going out again to be sold.
I ate my lunch right in the room and told the servants I was not to be disturbed unless the President called personally! Not even a call from his lovely daughter could get through. (I have not yet met her…a pity.)
Almost all of the pictures will be for resale but I have kept a few. The Botticelli study of a young man from the Guttman collection is very obviously a worthless fake. At least it is obvious to me and was so to Bode quite a time ago. These pretenders to culture are so easy to swindle. “Oh, I must have a Botticelli to impress my friends,” and the dealers smile like sharks.
Old Duveen (British art dealer of questionable reputation, ed.) was the very worst of the lot. I wouldn’t even touch a piece that had passed through his hands. He did so much “retouching” that the piece is virtually ruined. He had no taste whatsoever but his clients had less.
Rich businessmen like Guttman liked to impress their equally ignorant friends with their good taste. D. had Berenson working for him, which showed good sense. B. knows what he is about but is not averse to “authenticating” a complete fake for the fee. I met him once during the war and was impressed with his feel for the real pieces. I think B. was afraid I would shove him into a camp but things do not work that way with me.
So what we have here are many pictures of the period before the beginning of the 1914 war and continuing up until the 1930s.
There is a really awful Matisse of a woman wearing red trousers and lying bare breasted on a couch. Face like a Lenten mask. That one was in the Bernheim collection and next week it will be hanging in the home of an Assistant Secretary of State who has been dribbling spit all over my carpets. He has no idea who I really am and I entertained him with a story about how I escaped into Switzerland with the nasty Gestapo chasing me!
I should buy one of those skullcaps to make these customers feel more at home!
Another atrocity, by Manet and from the same source as the mess above, showing a deformed woman with a silly smirk on her proletarian face. Also bare to the waist.
Frankly, lumpy dugs do not excite me. She looks like a bitch dog with pups and stretched teats.
Maybe Maxl will wet the carpet looking at her but I certainly won’t.
A Vuillard that is worse than both of the above but ought to fetch a few dollars up at the New York outlet.
I should trade the Fragonard drawings, in the series, and the Vuillard for the parcel gilt cup I took a liking to. There are five different cartoons of the same scene in ink and I will keep the largest one for my library. These came from Weill who has much better taste than Guttman although Göring told me that some of the junk in this collection was so bad it had to be burned. Hitler did have the right idea after all when it came to the absolutely rotten produce of the degenerative years.
A very nice small crate with some beautiful Greek gold ornaments, cups, plates and so on. From Russia. I much delight in getting my hands on as much “acquired art” from Stalin’s sewer rats as I can. The items are packed between manuscripts of Tchaikovski that are in good condition. I have put them into the press and when they look a little better, I will have them sold to one of the directors of the National Gallery here who delights in such things. A bit of deaccessioning on his part might actually take place.
A manuscript of Chekov, quite intact in the bottom of a smaller, second crate. Thank God the U.S. Army people don’t bother to look in these crates because there was a M-32 (Mauser 7.63mm Model 1932 selective fire pistol, ed.) machine pistol and stock and six boxes of ammunition wrapped up in a tapestry in another crate. I still have my Walther that Himmler gave me but the bigger Mauser will be nice to keep around the bedroom in case of burglars. If they get past the Army guards and the alarms, I will put three or four into their bellies and chuck them down into the garden so they won’t bleed to death on my nice parquet floors. These took three weeks to refinish and I don’t want to use the back stairs again.
Some of the old frames, while spectacular in execution, have suffered some minor damage. David tells me he knows of a restorer who works for the Metropolitan in New York who can make them “as good as new.”
I prefer the old frames after all.
One of the gold Greek necklaces is quite an understated beauty and I will give it to Irmgard for her favors. She has no idea what I have up here but we can’t have her going to the films wearing a diamond choker.
Also, most delighted to get some lovely enamels that once came from the Rothschilds. So many of the really nice pieces in my collection, including my chess set, came from both branches. I would have to say that the Rothschilds had excellent taste in wine. I have three crates of their wine in the cellar and I have nothing but good thoughts about them when I drink it.
I didn’t finish up until it began to get dark and I stopped work as soon as the light really faded. I like to appraise pieces in natural light and the rest can wait until morning. Besides, my back is stiff, my knee sore and my fingers full of splinters. I will give Irmgard the privilege of pulling out all the splinters before giving her the necklace.
Saturday, 19 March 1949
Up with the sun, quick breakfast, looking through the various papers that have come in and then back to work upstairs. Forrestal went out as Secretary of Defense and one Louis Johnson will take his place. Forrestal reminds me of Hess. He has that harried, distracted look about him and Truman was becoming very displeased with F’s inability to deal with serious matters. Johnson will be no problem to me and I will have to pay my compliments soon.
I have put all the pieces I want to keep in the second bedroom at the back and readied the others for shipment to various outlets. We can let them out a few at a time.
I have had a call made to get some of the frames touched up and there will be someone calling for these, one at a time of course so as not to excite the restorer in New York.
He is told that these are new acquisitions for the National Gallery instead of my property. I have to pay him but there is no objection on my part considering the value of my new acquisitions.
There is an excellent set of dinnerware from Sèvres made for Napoleon. Certainly enough for a full coffee and tea service but only to be used for a very few people or most probably put into one of the cases in the dining room.
I have taken out three pictures, small ones so as not to be ostentatious, which I wish to present to the President, my immediate superior, and my religious friend at Georgetown.
I have no use for the Bellini after all so he can have that as a token of my esteem. I will replace it with two Tiepolo cartoons and a study for a ceiling, all of a religious nature.
That way I can cement my relationships and still show a religious facade for the right visitors here.
It has been suggested by people at the museum that I wax my suits of armor because Washington becomes very damp in the summer.
Money to the family via the Swiss bank. All well there as I am told.
Although Müller had never had any academic instruction in fine art, he developed a strong personal interest in it, and as he did in so many other fields, began to study the area with great diligence. He was aided in this by the fact that he worked very closely with various U.S. and Swiss sources in selling and exchanging works of art that had been looted by the Germans during the course of the war. While the majority of the well known works of stolen art had been located and eventually returned after the war, the lesser known pieces or works which had not been stored in extensive facilities overrun by Allied troops were easily accessible to the right individuals after the war.
Müller’s career in this area shows that fortunes could and would be made dealing in looted art. His catalogs show thousands of examples of paintings, tapestries, bronzes, enamels, silver and gold work, historical artifacts, rare coins, jewelry, manuscripts, carpets, furniture and a host of other objects which passed through his hands during his lifetime. If Heinrich Müller had kept everything he dealt in since the end of the war, his art collection would dwarf in quantity any other private art collection in existence and would rival that of many smaller museums. The Bode mentioned in the March 18th entry was Dr. Wilhelm von Bode, who had been director of the prestigious Kaiser Friedrich Museum of Berlin and an expert on Botticelli.
Müller kept in touch with his family as his own files and recently uncovered German law enforcement records show. His survival and his contact with his family was certainly well-enough known to prompt the Israeli Mossad to break into Müller’s wife’s Munich home in 1968 for the purpose of searching for incriminating correspondence and to plant telephone taps in order to locate the former Chief of the Gestapo. They were unsuccessful and those whose collections were looted have been equally unsuccessful in determining the fate of most of their former holdings.
In both cases, the major barrier has, and is, institutional protectiveness and that is a process that is nearly impossible to undo or circumvent. Müller and his associates were a tremendous intelligence asset to the United States, who, once they had engaged their services, must of necessity protect their sources. Art dealers, collectors and museums who have acquired very expensive art objects with muddied pasts have a tremendous financial interest in thwarting any attempt at recovery, no matter how tenuous, or legitimate these attempts might be.
The word “cartoon” as used in this account means a preliminary sketch by an artist for a larger, finished painting.
Tuesday, 22 March 1949
The President would like to make major structural repairs to the White House, which, as I have seen, is not in good condition. When Truman said that the former occupants had left it in a mess and lived like “trash,” he was quite correct. It has been put discreetly to me that perhaps I might wish to contribute to this project. I have no objections.
I gave an excellent original painting to Truman last week through the usual channels and have a very nice note from him. I am told he had it appraised and knows just what it is worth. I have a connection now in Philadelphia with access to what is called the Federal School of American Art and in return for a Giorgone and some ink drawings of various Italians, will agree to give me a quantity of mirrors, carpets, silver and the like.
These I can donate to Truman’s project with a clean conscience because the Giorgone is a fake, but a very good one, and the people at the National Gallery will back me on its authenticity, especially after one of them got the Russian musical scores. This is the way things are accomplished, after all.
I have looked at statements by a man named Philbrick who was underground with the communists for over ten years. He will be testifying at the beginning of next month.
I must say that Lenin and Stalin had one major goal in mind and that was to get control of developed, industrialized nations. Russians are absolutely not an industrialized country. Having been servitors for so many generations, they have no initiative and very little actual skill. Hence the desire, in the 1920s, to grab up Germany with her very highly developed technical skills. Of course communism was very active here long before that.
The flight of Jewish radicals from the Czar’s police starting in the late 80s of the last century filled this country, and Germany, with violent dissidents. Once communism came to power, these dissidents immediately got connected with Moscow and then their work was aimed at control both here and in Germany.
It was only through my efforts after 1935 that we broke the back of the Soviet rings in Germany, smashed their apparatus and identified their sympathizers. I would say it was only by 1938 that we really had these mongrels stuffed into cages and the good work still went on throughout the war.
In America, the communists had two factors that permitted their very rapid growth. One was the great economic collapse of the early 30s and the other was the election of Roosevelt to power in 1932. Economic disasters always breed dictatorships as witness Italy, Germany, Russia and now, the United States.
Roosevelt was a very vain, shallow and weak man. He was a mother’s darling who demanded much and got much. His crippling disease made him very dependent on others so he began to expand on a duplicitous nature he had learned early in order to curry favor with and obtain benefits from his imperious mother.
When in power, he had no idea of how to get out of the problems and sought the aid of communists with their usual lunatic economic and social theories. Was Roosevelt a communist? No, he was far too stupid, but he loved power and adulation so much that he saw in them a vehicle for continuation of his power and adulation.
He openly encouraged and aided them in their attempts to secure a firm foothold in this country. He appointed them to every office, high and low, and supported any aim they wanted. Roosevelt immediately (diplomatically, ed.) recognized Soviet Russia and did all he could to aid them.
When he was told, as Hoover told me he often was, that this or that U.S. official reported to Moscow, he not only refused to take any action whatsoever to at least remove that official, but also found ways to warn them. Harry White was an excellent example of this.
This Lattimore asshole is typical. He was in sympathy with the Soviets, was an expert on China which had a dangerous communist movement and was close to Roosevelt and his people like Service and Currie. We know the last two (and, of course, Hopkins as well) were paid Soviet agents but Lattimore falls into a different category. White was a paid spy but Lattimore was a man who guided, advised and assisted without making any direct contact with real spies.
The Soviets have many people like that and we are now going over all of my intercepts from Canada to see how many of these vermin we can locate. It is the President’s desire to remove them from sensitive positions so that they can no longer aid Moscow. However, many of them are old-line New Deal (or communist front movement) people and very popular or well known, and since the Roosevelt legend is still in force, they cannot be directly attacked.
I have my doubt about McCarthy because he is quite undependable, emotional, boastful and inclined to drink to excess. He is also bold, assertive and could well be very effective if directed properly.
I have said before that if the American people ever realize that their country came within a heartbeat of falling into the communist camp, there would be very violent reactions.
I refer here, naturally, to Wallace. R. knew he was a dying man…absolutely knew that his days were strictly limited. His doctors told him that almost daily. R. wanted Wallace to succeed him, knowing very well that Wallace was, and is, a willing and even eager tool of Stalin and his party. Hoover told him, as did many others.
It took an internal revolt in 1944 from inside his own party to force him to accept Truman. T. knows this and is very bitter about it but puts on a good face because he is now the President and I must say, the best antidote to the Roosevelt sickness one could find. T. has many excellent characteristics including stubbornness, courage and a surprising amount of integrity for a professional politician. I must confess I actually like and respect him. One can talk very directly with him as I have found out.
- was treacherous, duplicitous and without any kind of a rational or firm policy but T. knows just what he wants and tries to get it. He does not trust any of the people I know…the CIA or the Army…and detests Hoover as a sneak and timeserver all of which shows T’s character. R. loved such people and used them for his own ends while T. will not. T. said “He who touches pitch shall be defiled,” and of course he is right.
Unfortunately, I have pitch up to my elbows.
Another Bundy standoff possible as groups call for US to seize livestock
Coalition of wildlife groups write to US Bureau of Land Management asking them to remove Cliven Bundy’s cattle from federal land in Nevada
May 10, 2016
by Sam Levin
The Guardian
San Francisco- Environmental groups have called on the government to round up Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle with a mass seizure of livestock that some fear could lead to a tense standoff between armed militia groups and federal authorities.
A coalition of wildlife organizations wrote to the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Monday urging the agency to remove Bundy’s cattle in the Gold Butte area of Nevada, where the 70-year-old has for years allowed his cows to graze freely on public lands in defiance of federal land-use restrictions.
The advocates’ demands come three months after federal officials arrested Bundy, eventually charging him and 18 other activists for their roles in a high-profile conflict at the family’s ranch in Bunkerville, about 80 miles north-east of Las Vegas.
For decades, Bundy refused to pay grazing fees to the federal government, arguing that the BLM had no right regulating land activity in the west. An ensuing court battle dragged on for years until the authorities showed up to his ranch in April 2014 with the intention of seizing his cows, which the government classified as an illegal trespass on public lands.
But hundreds of supporters, some heavily armed, showed up to defend Bundy’s cattle, forcing the government to stand down for fear of violence – a retreat that galvanized anti-government groups across the west.
After Cliven’s sons Ammon and Ryan staged a similar standoff on federal lands in Oregon in January, federal prosecutors aggressively targeted the Bundy family and their followers.
Now, Cliven and four of his sons who participated in the 2014 standoff are in jail awaiting trial on serious federal felony charges that could force them to spend decades behind bars.
Although the Bundy men are locked up, the cattle are still grazing without restrictions in an area that the government and environmentalists say is critical habitat for the Mojave desert tortoise, a threatened species.
“The BLM must not wait to act to protect the desert tortoise,” nine environmental and wildlife groups wrote in their letter, which cited a recent study showing how livestock grazing causes severe declines in tortoise populations. “The cattle should be rounded up and removed from these public lands no later than summer 2016.”
BLM, however, currently has no seizure plan for the livestock, agency spokesman Jeff Krauss said in an email. “Mr Bundy’s cattle continue to be in trespass. There are no plans for a gather at this time as we continue to cooperate with the Department of Justice on the ongoing legal matter.”
Spokespersons for the US justice department did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Angie Bundy, wife of Ryan, one of the jailed activists, said the family would not be surprised if federal authorities showed up again. “I really believe they’ve conveniently put our men in jails so they can come after our land and our resources.”
Cliven’s youngest son, Arden, 18, has taken on many of the responsibilities at the ranch, and other relatives are helping out, according to Angie.
“Arden had to grow up fast,” she said, adding that the ranch is still running smoothly. “The cows should do well this year if people leave them alone.”
In a court motion in February, prosecutors said the ranch had as many as 1,000 cattle straying as far as 50 miles away and further claimed that Cliven had neglected his livestock.
“While Bundy claims he is a cattle rancher, his ranching operation – to the extent it can be called that – is unconventional if not bizarre,” prosecutors wrote. “Rather than manage and control his cattle, he lets them run wild on the public lands with little, if any, human interaction.”
Rob Mrowka, senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said that in addition to concerns about the tortoise competing with Bundy’s livestock for food, advocates were worried about the welfare of the cows.
Bailey Logue, one of Cliven’s daughters, scoffed at those allegations, saying the family’s cattle were in “great health”.
“Us women know how to ranch just like the guys do … The ranch is in great hands.”
Nevada senator Harry Reid also recently stated that he would like to create a national conservation area by the Bunkerville ranch.
Despite those comments and the calls from environmentalists, Bailey said she expected the family would see even more supporters at the ranch if the government tried to take their cattle a second time.
“We’re not afraid,” Angie added. “If you have a bunch of women and children standing out there and protesting, it’ll probably get more people out.”
Travis Bruner, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, said the BLM needed to remove the cattle to send a message to other land-use activists that it would not tolerate these protests.
“If that doesn’t happen, livestock operators all over the west who graze on public land will feel emboldened to not adhere to laws and regulations.”
Top 25 hedge fund managers earned $13bn in 2015 – more than some nations
Top earners, Kenneth Griffin and James Simons, made $1.7bn each despite ‘hedge fund killing field’ on Wall Street where many companies lost billions or closed
May 10, 2016
by Rupert Neate
The Guardian
New York-The world’s top 25 hedge fund managers earned $13bn last year – more than the entire economies of Namibia, the Bahamas or Nicaragua.
Kenneth Griffin, founder and chief executive of Citadel, and James Simons, founder and chairman of Renaissance Technologies, shared the top spot, taking home $1.7bn each – equivalent to the annual salaries of 112,000 people taking home the US federal minimum wage of $15,080.
The earnings of the best performing hedge fund managers, published by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine on Tuesday, dwarfs the pay of top Wall Street executives who have been under fire for their multimillion dollar pay deals. The best paid banker last year was JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who collected $27m.
The huge pay at the top comes despite a tumultuous year on Wall Street that has led many well-known hedge funds to lose billions of dollars and others to close down. Daniel Loeb, CEO of Third Point, a hedge fund that manages $17.5bn, has described market conditions as a “hedge fund killing field”.
Despite the challenges, Simons and Griffin managed to increase their earnings by $500m and $400m, respectively, compared to last year.
Both men have poured a lot of money into the presidential race, but both backed Republicans who dropped out. Griffin, who is the richest man in Illinois with a $7.5bn fortune according to Forbes, has donated more than $3m into the failed campaigns of Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.
Griffin, 47, who started from his dorm at Harvard University, was the biggest single donor to Rahm Emanuel’s successful campaign for a second term as mayor of Chicago.
He has rarely spoken about his political inclinations, but in 2012 he described himself as a “Reagan Republican” and said he thought the rich had “insufficient influence” on the political process. When Emanuel announced the closure of 50 schools, Griffin said he should have closed 125.
Griffin recently spent $500m buying Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A and Willem de Kooning’s Interchanged from entertainment mogul David Geffen. He has loaned the paintings to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Simons, a string theory expert and former cold war codebreaker, has made an estimated $15.5bn from Renaissance Technologies the mathematics-driven “quant” hedge fund he set up 34 years ago.
The fund, which is run from the tiny Long Island village of Setauket where Simons owns a huge beachfront compound, has donated $13m to Cruz’s failed campaign. With Cruz out of the race, Renaissance has switched donations to Hillary Clinton, with more than $2m donated so far. Euclidean Capital, Simon’s family office, has donated more than $7m to Clinton.
Simons, 78, who retired as CEO of Renaissance in 2009, is the 50th richest person in the world, according to Forbes. His earnings last year were so large that if he were a country it would rate as the world’s 178th most productive nation, according to the World Bank’s GDP rankings.
He has donated millions of dollars to maths and science education via the Simons Foundation he set up in 1994.
No woman has yet made it into the top 25 of the hedge fund highest paid list, which has been running for 15 years. Hedge fund managers typically get paid based on a structure known as “two and 20”, in which they collect a 2% fee on the assets they manage and earn 20% of the profits they make for investors.
China scrambles fighters as U.S. sails warship near Chinese-claimed reef
May 10, 2016
by Michael Martina, Greg Torode and Ben Blanchard
Reuters
BEIJING/HONG KONG-China scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday as a U.S. navy ship sailed close to a disputed reef in the South China Sea, a patrol China denounced as an illegal threat to peace which only went to show its defense installations in the area were necessary.
Guided missile destroyer the USS William P. Lawrence traveled within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of Chinese-occupied Fiery Cross Reef, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bill Urban said.
The so-called freedom of navigation operation was undertaken to “challenge excessive maritime claims” by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam which were seeking to restrict navigation rights in the South China Sea, Urban said.
“These excessive maritime claims are inconsistent with international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention in that they purport to restrict the navigation rights that the United States and all states are entitled to exercise,” Urban said in an emailed statement.
China and the United States have traded accusations of militarizing the South China Sea as China undertakes large-scale land reclamation and construction on disputed features while the United States has increased its patrols and exercises.
Facilities on Fiery Cross Reef include a 3,000-metre (10,000-foot) runway which the United States worries China will use to press its extensive territorial claims at the expense of weaker rivals.
China’s Defence Ministry said two fighter jets were scrambled and three warships shadowed the U.S. ship, telling it to leave.
The U.S. patrol “again proves that China’s construction of defensive facilities on the relevant reefs in the Nansha Islands is completely reasonable and totally necessary”, it said, using China’s name for the Spratly Islands where much of its reclamation work is taking place.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the U.S. ship illegally entered Chinese waters.
The Costs of Violence
Masters of Mankind (Part 2)
by Noam Chomsky
TomDispatch
[This piece, the second of two parts, is excerpted from Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books).]
In brief, the Global War on Terror sledgehammer strategy has spread jihadi terror from a tiny corner of Afghanistan to much of the world, from Africa through the Levant and South Asia to Southeast Asia. It has also incited attacks in Europe and the United States. The invasion of Iraq made a substantial contribution to this process, much as intelligence agencies had predicted. Terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank estimate that the Iraq War “generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third.” Other exercises have been similarly productive.
A group of major human rights organizations — Physicians for Social Responsibility (U.S.), Physicians for Global Survival (Canada), and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Germany) — conducted a study that sought “to provide as realistic an estimate as possible of the total body count in the three main war zones [Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan] during 12 years of ‘war on terrorism,'” including an extensive review “of the major studies and data published on the numbers of victims in these countries,” along with additional information on military actions. Their “conservative estimate” is that these wars killed about 1.3 million people, a toll that “could also be in excess of 2 million.” A database search by independent researcher David Peterson in the days following the publication of the report found virtually no mention of it. Who cares?
More generally, studies carried out by the Oslo Peace Research Institute show that two-thirds of the region’s conflict fatalities were produced in originally internal disputes where outsiders imposed their solutions. In such conflicts, 98% of fatalities were produced only after outsiders had entered the domestic dispute with their military might. In Syria, the number of direct conflict fatalities more than tripled after the West initiated air strikes against the self-declared Islamic State and the CIA started its indirect military interference in the war — interference which appears to have drawn the Russians in as advanced US antitank missiles were decimating the forces of their ally Bashar al-Assad. Early indications are that Russian bombing is having the usual consequences.
The evidence reviewed by political scientist Timo Kivimäki indicates that the “protection wars [fought by ‘coalitions of the willing’] have become the main source of violence in the world, occasionally contributing over 50% of total conflict fatalities.” Furthermore, in many of these cases, including Syria, as he reviews, there were opportunities for diplomatic settlement that were ignored. That has also been true in other horrific situations, including the Balkans in the early 1990s, the first Gulf War, and of course the Indochina wars, the worst crime since World War II. In the case of Iraq the question does not even arise. There surely are some lessons here.
The general consequences of resorting to the sledgehammer against vulnerable societies comes as little surprise. William Polk’s careful study of insurgencies, Violent Politics, should be essential reading for those who want to understand today’s conflicts, and surely for planners, assuming that they care about human consequences and not merely power and domination. Polk reveals a pattern that has been replicated over and over. The invaders — perhaps professing the most benign motives — are naturally disliked by the population, who disobey them, at first in small ways, eliciting a forceful response, which increases opposition and support for resistance. The cycle of violence escalates until the invaders withdraw — or gain their ends by something that may approach genocide.
Playing by the Al-Qaeda Game Plan
Obama’s global drone assassination campaign, a remarkable innovation in global terrorism, exhibits the same patterns. By most accounts, it is generating terrorists more rapidly than it is murdering those suspected of someday intending to harm us — an impressive contribution by a constitutional lawyer on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, which established the basis for the principle of presumption of innocence that is the foundation of civilized law.
Another characteristic feature of such interventions is the belief that the insurgency will be overcome by eliminating its leaders. But when such an effort succeeds, the reviled leader is regularly replaced by someone younger, more determined, more brutal, and more effective. Polk gives many examples. Military historian Andrew Cockburn has reviewed American campaigns to kill drug and then terror “kingpins” over a long period in his important study Kill Chain and found the same results. And one can expect with fair confidence that the pattern will continue.
No doubt right now U.S. strategists are seeking ways to murder the “Caliph of the Islamic State” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is a bitter rival of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The likely result of this achievement is forecast by the prominent terrorism scholar Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. He predicts that “al-Baghdadi’s death would likely pave the way for a rapprochement [with al-Qaeda] producing a combined terrorist force unprecedented in scope, size, ambition and resources.”
Polk cites a treatise on warfare by Henry Jomini, influenced by Napoleon’s defeat at the hands of Spanish guerrillas, that became a textbook for generations of cadets at the West Point military academy. Jomini observed that such interventions by major powers typically result in “wars of opinion,” and nearly always “national wars,” if not at first then becoming so in the course of the struggle, by the dynamics that Polk describes. Jomini concludes that “commanders of regular armies are ill-advised to engage in such wars because they will lose them,” and even apparent successes will prove short-lived.
Careful studies of al-Qaeda and ISIS have shown that the United States and its allies are following their game plan with some precision. Their goal is to “draw the West as deeply and actively as possible into the quagmire” and “to perpetually engage and enervate the United States and the West in a series of prolonged overseas ventures” in which they will undermine their own societies, expend their resources, and increase the level of violence, setting off the dynamic that Polk reviews.
Scott Atran, one of the most insightful researchers on jihadi movements, calculates that “the 9/11 attacks cost between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute, whereas the military and security response by the U.S. and its allies is in the order of 10 million times that figure. On a strictly cost-benefit basis, this violent movement has been wildly successful, beyond even Bin Laden’s original imagination, and is increasingly so. Herein lies the full measure of jujitsu-style asymmetric warfare. After all, who could claim that we are better off than before, or that the overall danger is declining?”
And if we continue to wield the sledgehammer, tacitly following the jihadi script, the likely effect is even more violent jihadism with broader appeal. The record, Atran advises, “should inspire a radical change in our counter-strategies.”
Al-Qaeda/ISIS are assisted by Americans who follow their directives: for example, Ted “carpet-bomb ’em” Cruz, a top Republican presidential candidate. Or, at the other end of the mainstream spectrum, the leading Middle East and international affairs columnist of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, who in 2003 offered Washington advice on how to fight in Iraq on the Charlie Rose show: “There was what I would call the terrorism bubble… And what we needed to do was to go over to that part of the world and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically, and, uh, take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world, and burst that bubble. And there was only one way to do it… What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying, which part of this sentence don’t you understand? You don’t think we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy we’re going to just let it go? Well, suck on this. Ok. That, Charlie, was what this war was about.”
That’ll show the ragheads.
Looking Forward
Atran and other close observers generally agree on the prescriptions. We should begin by recognizing what careful research has convincingly shown: those drawn to jihad “are longing for something in their history, in their traditions, with their heroes and their morals; and the Islamic State, however brutal and repugnant to us and even to most in the Arab-Muslim world, is speaking directly to that… What inspires the most lethal assailants today is not so much the Quran but a thrilling cause and a call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends.” In fact, few of the jihadis have much of a background in Islamic texts or theology, if any.
The best strategy, Polk advises, would be “a multinational, welfare-oriented and psychologically satisfying program… that would make the hatred ISIS relies upon less virulent. The elements have been identified for us: communal needs, compensation for previous transgressions, and calls for a new beginning.” He adds, “A carefully phrased apology for past transgressions would cost little and do much.” Such a project could be carried out in refugee camps or in the “hovels and grim housing projects of the Paris banlieues,” where, Atran writes, his research team “found fairly wide tolerance or support for ISIS’s values.” And even more could be done by true dedication to diplomacy and negotiations instead of reflexive resort to violence.
Not least in significance would be an honorable response to the “refugee crisis” that was a long time in coming but surged to prominence in Europe in 2015. That would mean, at the very least, sharply increasing humanitarian relief to the camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey where miserable refugees from Syria barely survive. But the issues go well beyond, and provide a picture of the self-described “enlightened states” that is far from attractive and should be an incentive to action.
There are countries that generate refugees through massive violence, like the United States, secondarily Britain and France. Then there are countries that admit huge numbers of refugees, including those fleeing from Western violence, like Lebanon (easily the champion, per capita), Jordan, and Syria before it imploded, among others in the region. And partially overlapping, there are countries that both generate refugees and refuse to take them in, not only from the Middle East but also from the U.S. “backyard” south of the border. A strange picture, painful to contemplate.
An honest picture would trace the generation of refugees much further back into history. Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk reports that one of the first videos produced by ISIS “showed a bulldozer pushing down a rampart of sand that had marked the border between Iraq and Syria. As the machine destroyed the dirt revetment, the camera panned down to a handwritten poster lying in the sand. ‘End of Sykes-Picot,’ it said.”
For the people of the region, the Sykes-Picot agreement is the very symbol of the cynicism and brutality of Western imperialism. Conspiring in secret during World War I, Britain’s Mark Sykes and France’s François Georges-Picot carved up the region into artificial states to satisfy their own imperial goals, with utter disdain for the interests of the people living there and in violation of the wartime promises issued to induce Arabs to join the Allied war effort. The agreement mirrored the practices of the European states that devastated Africa in a similar manner. It “transformed what had been relatively quiet provinces of the Ottoman Empire into some of the least stable and most internationally explosive states in the world.”
Repeated Western interventions since then in the Middle East and Africa have exacerbated the tensions, conflicts, and disruptions that have shattered the societies. The end result is a “refugee crisis” that the innocent West can scarcely endure. Germany has emerged as the conscience of Europe, at first (but no longer) admitting almost one million refugees — in one of the richest countries in the world with a population of 80 million. In contrast, the poor country of Lebanon has absorbed an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees, now a quarter of its population, on top of half a million Palestinian refugees registered with the U.N. refugee agency UNRWA, mostly victims of Israeli policies.
Europe is also groaning under the burden of refugees from the countries it has devastated in Africa — not without U.S. aid, as Congolese and Angolans, among others, can testify. Europe is now seeking to bribe Turkey (with over two million Syrian refugees) to distance those fleeing the horrors of Syria from Europe’s borders, just as Obama is pressuring Mexico to keep U.S. borders free from miserable people seeking to escape the aftermath of Reagan’s GWOT along with those seeking to escape more recent disasters, including a military coup in Honduras that Obama almost alone legitimized, which created one of the worst horror chambers in the region.
Words can hardly capture the U.S. response to the Syrian refugee crisis, at least any words I can think of.
Returning to the opening question “Who rules the world?” we might also want to pose another question: “What principles and values rule the world?” That question should be foremost in the minds of the citizens of the rich and powerful states, who enjoy an unusual legacy of freedom, privilege, and opportunity thanks to the struggles of those who came before them, and who now face fateful choices as to how to respond to challenges of great human import.
Step by step toward a ‘one man’ regime in Turkey
Prime Minister Davutoglu’s resignation has created chaos in Ankara. Experts that spoke to DW agree that given Erdogan’s pursuit of a presidential system, Turkey’s transformation into a ‘one man’ regime is imminent.
May 9, 2016
DW
Ahmet Davutoglu’s announcement that he would be stepping down as prime minister opens a new episode in Turkish politics. While figures from the ruling AKP party as well as opposition circles predicted Davutoglu would step down, no one expected it to be this soon.
“Davutoglu didn’t even give an honest reason why he’s going. It was a surprise to all of us,” many said.
Some members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) point to Davutoglu’s ambition and argue that a fight between Davutoglu and Erdogan is certain to break out. On the other hand, there are those who believe Turkey will have fresh elections, and a new, but low-profile prime minister will be installed.
The so-called “3B formula” has now appeared on the agenda, referring to the names of three men who are considered candidates for the post: Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım, known as being very close to President Erdogan, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, who also happens to be Erdogan’s son-in-law.
Officials close to the president have indicated, however, that Albayrak’s appointment is out of the question, so speculation that Yıldırım will get the job has mounted. The AKP’s special party congress on May 22 will likely decide the issue.
‘Beyond the sultan’
As the rumors circulate in Ankara, questions about Erdogan’s next steps are also increasing. Some think Erdogan will continue pushing for a presidential system and see Turkey’s future hanging in the balance, linked to Erdogan’s next moves.
“I want to be optimistic, but I have to say that Turkish political life is heading down a dead-end path,” said KONDA polling company director Tarhan Erdem.
“From this point forward, we will not be able to estimate what will happen in society. That is to say, Turkey has embarked on an unforeseeable process,” Erdem said, adding that Turkey has reached a point of chaos, due to Erdogan’s direct influence in the AKP, and due to the president’s insistence on doing whatever he pleases, violating the constitution and even seeing this as natural.
“If a president imposes his own will without changing the constitution, it means that Turkish democracy has begun to lose all it has gained. The president needs to immediately return to the boundaries laid down by the constitution. What we are going through cannot even be described in words. Even during the reign of [Ottoman Sultan] Abdulhamit II such things did not happen. Abdulhamit first put things in an edict, then it would become law. However, if you look at Erdogan, everything he says instantly becomes law. Every day, Erdogan is taking steps toward a one-man regime. Regardless of what anyone says, he won’t listen, and he will arrange an early election and do what he feels necessary to establish a presidential system. From now on there is only one man in Turkey – and that man is Erdogan,” Erdem said.
‘Turkey facing an imposed presidential system’
“It is becoming increasingly clear with every event that Erdogan lacks impartiality. He intervenes in government tasks. He is acting like the de facto AKP leader. He is completely disregarding the constitution. In Turkey, there is an Erdogan problem and this problem will continue to grow,” said former justice minister and constitutional lawyer Hikmet Sami Türk, adding that Davutoglu’s statement of ‘I was forced to leave’ clearly shows to what lengths Erdogan is prepared to go.
Türk also drew attention to the fact that what Erdogan really desires is not actually a presidial system. “The type of presidential system that the AKP envisages unites the judicial and legislative powers with the executive, and aims to enable the president to appoint a significant number of justices to the court of appeals. This completely revokes the principle of a strong separation of powers.”
In a presidential system there is a complete separation of the judicial and legislative powers. “In America, Türk points out, “legislative power is vested in the Congress. The president can veto bills that come in front of him; however, Congress can override this with a two-thirds majority. In America, the president can appoint judges to high courts, but they must be approved by the Senate. In other words, this is the opposite of what the AKP is seeking.”
Erdogan appears to want more than a presidial system in order to concentrate all power in his hands,Türk noted. “Without separation of powers you cannot have democracy. In Turkey, we are facing an imposed presidential system. In the process ahead, all of the pains of the transition to a one-man leadership will be experienced more intensely,” he said.
Maribeth Stilley Is Angry!
maribethstilley@gmail.com
A new book recently appeared as a Kindle book from Amazon.
It is entitled “Christ the Essene” by a Dr. Phillip L. Kushner.
My young son, Charles or Chuck, got his hands on this work and, apparently, showed it to a number of his friends.
One of the mothers called me, very shocked and angry, and complained about the contents of the book.
I made Chuck give me his book and I, and my husband read it through.
I am a Christian mother and I want both my children to grow to adulthood with a firm belief in Jesus and his messages but this book is absolutely an awful, sacrilegious scandal.
The author, who is a college professor in Texas, states that Jesus was an Essene and that all Essenes were practicing homosexuals!
As if this were not enough, the author talks about a Dead Sea scroll that states Jesus was not born in Bethlehem but Egypt and had two older brothers.
He has translations from this scroll, which was found in 1953, that supports what he said.
The author further claims the Gospels were written hundreds of years after Jesus’ life and are full of mistakes and that the Book of Revelations was allegedly written by a man in a Roman lunatic asylum!
In these times of distress and grief, I do not feel that such terrible things ought to be made available for our children, or anyone else for that matter, to read.
The author makes many quotes and where I can check them out, they seem to be authentic but I question the use of such destructive material, true or not.
We must have faith that is abiding and sincere and Dr. Kushner should be ashamed of himself.
And by reading the Internet, I have discovered that some time ago, he accused the Muslim Prophet Muhammad of being a pedophile!
This man, educated at Stanford or not, has absolutely no business writing or publishing such destructive garbage and this book, and others like it, should be forbidden to be sold!
Exclusive: Trump surges in support, almost even with Clinton in national U.S. poll
May 11, 2016
by Chris Kahn
Reuters
New York-Donald Trump’s support has surged and he is now running nearly even with Democrat Hillary Clinton among likely U.S. voters, a dramatic turnaround since he became the Republican party’s presumptive presidential nominee, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.
The results could signal a close fight between the two likely White House rivals as Americans make up their minds ahead of the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama. As recently as last week, Clinton led Trump by around 13 points in the poll.
In the most recent survey, 41 percent of likely voters supported Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and 40 percent backed Trump, with 19 percent not decided on either yet, according to the online poll of 1,289 people conducted from Friday to Tuesday. The poll had a credibility interval of about 3 percentage points.
The results reflect a big increase in support for Trump since he knocked out U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich last week to become the last Republican in the White House race.
There was no immediate comment from the Clinton or Trump campaigns.
Clinton, who has all but clinched the Democratic nomination over rival Bernie Sanders, has mostly led Trump in the head-to-head poll this year. Trump briefly matched her support a few times in 2016, most recently in mid-March, after U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a favorite of the Republican establishment, dropped out.
Presidential elections are not decided by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College, which is based on state-by-state results.
Opinions are likely to change over the next six months as American voters become inundated with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign advertising, highly publicized debates and a pair of party conventions.
Trump and Clinton both have much to prove to the American electorate. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found earlier this month that a majority of voters did not trust either candidate with key presidential responsibilities such as managing the U.S. economy, handling the role of U.S. commander in chief, and conducting themselves according to a “high moral standard.”
The candidates’ choice of running mates could also be important. Voters surveyed in the poll said they would be more likely to support Clinton if her choice for vice president was a liberal, while Trump would help his chances if he picked someone experienced in politics and someone who is “consistently” conservative.
Trump’s rise in the polls coincides with his attempt to take over the reins of the Republican Party from leaders who clashed with him during a bruising and blustery primary fight.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the country’s top elected Republican, said he would not immediately endorse Trump, and party elders including former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and the last two presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, said they would not attend the Republican convention in Cleveland in July.
(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Peter Cooney)
Cooney)
Clinton aide reported to have walked out of FBI interview
May 10, 2016
by Julian Hattem –
The Hill
A senior aide to Hillary Clinton when she served as secretary of State briefly walked out of an interview with federal investigators when an FBI official began to discuss a topic considered off-limits, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former State Department chief of staff, and her lawyer both returned to the interview room a short time later, according to the newspaper, citing several unidentified people.
The off-limits questions reportedly concerned the way in which emails were given to the State Department to be distributed to the public. According to the Post, Mills worried that the questions would violate the attorney-client privilege, and investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject. It is unclear when the interview occurred.
Mills’s lawyer, Beth Wilkinson, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Hill about the incident.
The Tuesday afternoon report comes as the federal investigation related to Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server throughout her time at the State Department appears to be coming to a close. Interviews of Mills and other top aides have reportedly been conducted in recent weeks, and Clinton herself is expected to answer investigators’ questions soon.
According to reports, the FBI and federal prosecutors have found little evidence of mishandled government documents that would warrant pushing ahead with a criminal case.
Still, the episode with Mills shows the process has not been entirely smooth Clinton and her top allies, who have repeatedly shrugged off concerns about the server. The Post reported that Mills was seen as a cooperative witness despite the brief walkout.
Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has said that the setup was a mistake made out of a desire for convenience and not a desire to circumvent federal recordkeeping or transparency laws.
Of the roughly 30,000 emails from Clinton’s server released by the State Department, approximately 2,000 have been classified at some level.
Democratic Convention Hosted by Republican Donors, Anti-Obamacare Lobbyists
May 11, 2016
by Lee Fang and Zaid Jilani
The Intercept
The Democratic Party’s 2012 platform pledged to “curb the influence of lobbyists and special interests.” But the 2016 convention in Philadelphia will be officially hosted by lobbyists and corporate executives, a number of whom are actively working to undermine progressive policies achieved by President Barack Obama, including health care reform and net neutrality.
Some of the members of the 2016 Democratic National Convention Host Committee, whose job is to organize the logistics and events for the convention, are hardly even Democratic Party stalwarts, given that many have donated and raised thousands of dollars for Republican presidential and congressional candidates this cycle.The composition of the 15-member Host Committee may appear out of sync with the rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but the reality is that the party, in the form of the Democratic National Committee, has moved decisively to embrace the lobbying industry. In October 2015, DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., reportedly huddled with dozens of lobbyists to plan the convention in Philadelphia, and provided the influence peddlers involved with a menu of offerings in exchange for donations. In February, news reports revealed that the DNC had quietly lifted the Obama-era ban on federal lobbyist donations to the party and convention committeeAnna Adams-Sarthou, the communications director for the Philadelphia 2016 Host Committee, wrote in an email to The Intercept that she has “no concerns” about lobbyists participating in the effort, because “the Host Committee is a nonprofit entity that does not lobby.”
The Host Committee, however, is deeply involved in planning events for the delegates, fundraising, and handling media relations, among other responsibilities.
“Our Host Committee is made up a diverse group of civic leaders that have led efforts like this in the past, many of whom were integrally involved in the bid for Philadelphia to host the convention,” Adams-Sarthou wrote.
The Host Committee’s finance chair is Daniel Hilferty. In his day job, Hilferty is CEO of Independence Blue Cross, a health insurance giant that covers nine million people. In December, Hilferty became board chairman of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association of America, a trade group that lobbies for the insurance industry, and he serves on the board of directors of America’s Health Insurance Plan’s (AHIP), the insurance industry lobbying group that spearheaded the campaign against the Affordable Care Act. Lobby registration documents show the BCBS Association is actively supporting a number of Republican bills to roll back provisions of the ACA.
In an interview conducted late last year, Hilferty said he plans to make “sure to work closely at the congressional level, with the administration, with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to have input” into how the ACA is implemented under the next administration.
Hilferty has also donated heavily to Republicans this cycle, giving $10,000 to Prosperity for Pennsylvania, a Super PAC supporting the reelection of Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; $1,000 to the PAC supporting Sen. Orin Hatch, R-Utah; $1,000 to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; $2,700 to Chris Christie’s presidential campaign; $25,300 to the NRCC, a GOP committee designed to re-elect House Republicans; and $2,700 to Jeb Bush. Hilferty also gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Allyson Schwartz, a former Democratic lawmaker, is a co-chair of the Host Committee. She was recently named head of a new advocacy group for the health insurance industry called Better Medicare Alliance. The group, according to the Center for Public Integrity, was set up by APCO, a lobbying firm for health insurance companies, to push to expand Medicare Advantage plans, the privately managed programs that were curtailed with the enactment of the ACA.
David Cohen is the special advisor to the Host Committee, and serves as the executive vice president of Comcast, overseeing the company’s lobbying and regulatory strategy. In addition to being a “Hillblazer” — one of Hillary Clinton’s bundlers who has raised $100,000 or more — Cohen has been a particularly bitter and duplicitous leading opponent of the rules regarding net neutrality, the principle that all Internet traffic must be treated equally. And despite hosting fundraisers for Clinton at his home last summer, Cohen has spent heavily to help elect a Republican Congress, including recent donations to the NRCC; Sen. Toomey; Sen. Scott; Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; as well as $33,400 to the NRSC, a committee for helping elect GOP members to the Senate.
The Philadelphia Host Committee chair, former Gov. Ed Rendell, headed for Wall Street as soon as he left office, and has since represented a number of controversial special interests. In 2011, as New York was debating regulations on fracking, Rendell wrote a pro-fracking opinion column in the New York Daily News, while failing to disclose that he was a paid consultant at a private equity firm that had investments in the industry.
That same year, Rendell started providing paid speeches on behalf of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a fringe Iranian exile group that was considered a terrorist organization by the State Department at the time (it was delisted in 2012).
The former governor also joined the group Fix The Debt — an organization backed by private equity billionaire Pete Peterson that advocates for cutting Social Security benefits — co-chairing its activities alongside Judd Gregg.
Rendell is currently a special counsel at the law and lobbying firm Ballard Spahr; earlier this year, the firm launched a new election law group, advising clients on campaign finance and lobbying strategy.
“The Democratic Party, especially the DNC, have never liked Obama’s policies to disengage lobbyists from campaign fundraising,” says Craig Holman, an expert on ethics and campaign finance with Public Citizen. “The party only went along with the restrictions because Obama was the party leader. As soon as Obama could no longer be viewed as the leader of the party, the DNC quietly repealed the lobbyist restrictions. The public learned about it only weeks later.”
“Party bosses have always preferred a Wild West when it comes to fundraising,” he adds. “If party bosses had their way, we would have no restrictions on campaign contributions to the parties and return to the days of Tammany Hall.”