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Foreign Aid Makes Corrupt Countries More Corrupt

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Counting on foreign aid to reduce corruption is like expecting whiskey to cure alcoholism. After closed House of Representatives impeachment hearings heard testimony on President Trump’s role in delaying US aid to Ukraine, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declared: “Numbers don’t lie. It’s even more clear now that President Trump is not the anti-corruption crusader he claims to be.”

Most of the press coverage has tacitly assumed that American assistance is vital to fighting corruption in Ukraine. But that ignores foreign aid’s toxic record and Ukraine’s post-Soviet history.

2002 American Economic Review analysis concluded that “increases in [foreign] aid are associated with contemporaneous increases in corruption,” and that “corruption is positively correlated with aid received from the United States.”

That was the year President George W. Bush launched a new foreign aid program, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). Bush declared, “I think it makes no sense to give aid, money, to countries that are corrupt.” But the Bush administration continued delivering billions of dollars in handouts to many of the world’s most corrupt regimes. By 2004, the State Department had codified what amounted to backtracking: “The MCA is an incentive-based supplement to other US aid programs.” The Bush team found excuses to give MCA aid to some of the world’s most corrupt governments as well, including Georgia.
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Sentence First, Crime Later?

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Attorney General William Barr recently sent a memo to law enforcement officials announcing a new federal initiative that would use techniques and tools developed in the war on terror, such as mass surveillance, to identify potential mass shooters. Those so identified would be targets of early interventions, which would include the disregarding of Second Amendment rights, as well as the imposing of mandatory counseling and involuntary commitment.
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'Thank God For The Deep State' - CIA Celebrates Coup Against Trump

Former Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, on a panel with former CIA Director John Brennan, responded to a question about whether the "deep state" was trying to take out President Trump with a quote, "thank God for the deep state." Everyone laughed. He went on to say that the "intelligence community" is right to take out presidents like Trump because they are selfless patriots only interested in the truth. Does the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the US have the right to overthrow a president if they don't like him? Is that the kind of government we want? Or should people start going to jail. Watch today's Liberty Report...
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Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force

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The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump Task Force, and given the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump.

This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.

A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project. But it also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA. Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958. The author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.
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Mayor Pete’s Millennial Slavery Program

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Pete Buttigieg is pushing “A New Call to Service” for millennials. If Pete is elected—he is currently running head-to-head with Warren, Sanders, and Biden—his “call” will become a mandatory form of slavery. 

As should be expected, Buttigieg’s plan is gussied up with identity slash social justice baggage. It hopes to suck in naive millennials with the promise of student loan debt relief. 

From Politico earlier this year: 
Service fellows would be considered for student debt forgiveness, hiring preference and vocational training. The plan also calls for developing new types of service corps like a Climate Corps, a Community Health Corps, or a Intergenerational Service Corps. All of them would operate under the leadership of a chief service officer, who would serve on the Domestic Policy Council and the National Security Council.
Slaves for the national security state. This is hardly a new concept. Between World War 2 and the Vietnam War, millions of young Americans were drafted and tens of thousands killed. This form of indentured servitude to the state was shelved after college students and other young people went into the streets, burned draft cards, and immigrated to Canada.
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Police State Escalates War on Freedom of Speech

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According to the MAGA nationalists, the “deep state” only persecutes “conservatives” while liberals get a free pass. 

The Gestapo-style raid of liberal journalist Max Blumenthal earlier this week demonstrates quite vividly that the state does indeed attack leftist or left-leaning activists and journalists, not only MAGA supporters and “New Right” nationalists.

MAGA has deluded itself into the false belief the deep state is primarily comprised of Democrats on the warpath against “conservative” Republicans and New Right types. In fact, the state is apolitical in regard to national partisan politics. It favors Democrats and Republicans only if they tote the neoliberal and corporate line. If they deviate, they may suffer the fate recently experienced y Max Blumenthal. For now, this fate is reserved for those with high visibility such as Blumenthal. 

For really serious violations of the neoliberal code and the establishment’s prearranged political construct, the state prefers torture and slow death. It is currently doing this to Julian Assange. For the national security state, it is a cardinal sin and high crime to expose the dirty and murderous secrets of the state.
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The White House Plan to Strangle Iran

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There is a certain irony in President Donald Trump’s frequently expressed desire to withdraw from the endless wars that have characterized the so-called “global war on terror” initiated by George W. Bush in 2001. The problem is that Trump has expressed such sentiments both when he was running for office and also as recently as last week without actually doing anything to bring about change.
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Impeachment Theater

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Ukrainegate is the new Russiagate. The "whistleblower complaint" is the new "dirty dossier." The 'former' MI6 spy Christopher Steele wrote the dossier. The current CIA spy Eric Ciaramella wrote the "complaint":
Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. 

Further, Ciaramella (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) left his National Security Council posting in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

'He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump,' said a former NSC official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Also, Ciaramella huddled for 'guidance' with the staff of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, including former colleagues also held over from the Obama era whom Schiff’s office had recently recruited from the NSC. Schiff is the lead prosecutor in the impeachment inquiry.

And Ciaramella worked with a Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, inviting her into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues said. The operative, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American who supported Hillary Clinton, led an effort to link the Republican campaign to the Russian government. 'He knows her. He had her in the White House,' said one former co-worker, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
The whole impeachment show the Democrats launched is a major political mistake.
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