Bookmark this brilliant analysis of the criminal elite tax evasion schemes that will have to go if our indebted, enslaved world is to get lighter to walk on https://financialsecrecyindex.com/
Theresa May silent during visit on China's arrest of 'Hong Kong political publisher Gui Minhai, author of salacious books on Chinaâs poitical elite. Public discussion of the rivalries/private lives of top Communist Party officials is strictly prohibited in China http://thediplomat.com/2018/02/the-strange-and-sad-case-of-gui-minhai/
Former Associated Press journalist Robert Parry, who was smeared by Google as 'fake news' has died One of the world's greatest investigative journalists just passed away. RIP Robert Parry, who exposed the Iran-Contra CIA drug running scandal in the 1980s, then got permanently blacklisted by the corporate #FakeNews media, who have ignored his passing https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/28/robert-parrys-legacy-and-the-future-of-consortiumnews/
Contra-Cocaine and October Surprise Parallel to the illegal arms shipments to Iran during those days was a cocaine trafficking operation by the Nicaraguan contras and a willingness by the Reagan administration and the CIA to turn a blind eye to these activities. This, despite the fact that cocaine was flooding into the United States while Ronald Reagan was proclaiming a âwar on drugs,â and a crack cocaine epidemic was devastating communities across the country. Bob and his colleague Brian Barger were the first journalists to report on this story in late 1985, which became known as the contra-cocaine scandal, and became the subject of a congressional investigation led by then-Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 1986. Continuing to pursue leads relating to Iran-Contra during a period in the late 80s when most of Washington was moving on from the scandal, Bob discovered that there was more to the story than commonly understood. He learned that the roots of the illegal arm shipments to Iran stretched back further than previously known â all the way back to the 1980 presidential campaign. That electoral contest between incumbent Jimmy Carter and challenger Ronald Reagan had come to be largely dominated by the hostage crisis in Iran, with 52 Americans being held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Iranian hostage crisis, along with the ailing economy, came to define a perception of an America in decline, with former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan promising a new start for the country, a restoration of its status as a âshining city on a hill.â The hostages were released in Tehran moments after Reagan was sworn in as president in Washington on January 20, 1981. Despite suspicions for years that there had been some sort of quid pro quo between the Reagan campaign and the Iranians, it wasnât until Bob uncovered a trove of documents in a House office building basement in 1994 that the evidence became overwhelming that the Reagan campaign had interfered with the Carter administrationâs efforts to free the hostages prior to the 1980 election. Their release sooner â what Carter hoped would be his âOctober Surpriseâ â could have given him the boost needed to win. Examining these documents and being already well-versed on this story â having previously travelled three continents pursuing the investigation for a PBS Frontline documentary â Bob became increasingly convinced that the Reagan campaign had in fact sabotaged Carterâs hostage negotiations, possibly committing an act of treason in an effort to make sure that 52 American citizens continued to be held in a harrowing hostage situation until after Reagan secured the election. Needless to say, this was an inconvenient story at a time â in the mid-1990s â when the national media had long since moved on from the Reagan scandals and were obsessing over new scandals, mostly related to President Bill Clintonâs sex life and failed real estate deals. Washington also wasnât particularly interested in challenging the Reagan legacy, which at that time was beginning to solidify into a kind of mythology, with campaigns underway to name buildings and airports after the former president. At times, Bob had doubts about his career decisions and the stories he was pursuing. As he wrote in Trick or Treason, a book outlining his investigation into the October Surprise Mystery, this search for historical truth can be painful and seemingly thankless. âMany times,â he wrote, âI had regretted accepting Frontlineâs assignment in 1990. I faulted myself for risking my future in mainstream journalism. After all, that is where the decent-paying jobs are. I had jeopardized my ability to support my four children out of an old-fashioned sense of duty, a regard for an unwritten code that expects reporters to take almost any assignment.â Nevertheless, Bob continued his efforts to tell the full story behind both the Iran-Contra scandal and the origins of the Reagan-Bush era, ultimately leading to two things: him being pushed out of the mainstream media, and the launching of www.Consortiumnews.com