The Senate just worked against Trump (again) by blocking legislation - aimed at repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).
The vote on revoking the Bush-era "Authorized Use of the US Military Forces" bill is scheduled in the US Senate on Wednesday. US Senator Rand Paul believes that this legislation has bound the United States to long-running proxy wars around the globe.
Rand Paul Announces US Senate's Vote on Repeal of Bush-Era War Resolutions
https://sputniknews.com/us/201709131057364576-us-senate-bush-war-aumf/
The US Senate is scheduled to vote on legislation aimed at repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a resolution which was adopted shortly after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Senator Rand Paul said in an interview on Wednesday.
"I don't think the resolution in 2001 has anything to do with the seven different wars that we're involved in now," Paul, who introduced the repeal bill, told MSNBC. "Today will be the first major vote we have, not necessarily on ending the wars… but on whether we should even vote on whether to continue war or end war."
Paul said that in the long run the legislation binds the United States to multi-generational proxy wars without the capacity to vote on a preferred course of action.
There is no "winnable solution" for the United States to be found in Afghanistan, Paul added, calling on the White House to review its military strategy in the region.
The US Senate voted against a legislation aimed at repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a resolution which was adopted shortly after September 11, 2001, terror attacks proposed by Republican Senator Rand Paul.
US Senate Blocks Repeal of Authorizations for Bush-Era Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq
https://sputniknews.com/us/201709131057365483-us-senate-repeal-war-bush-iraq-afghanistan/
The US Senate on Wednesday blocked a measure to repeal authorization for the Bush-era wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Senate voted 61-36 in favor of killing Senator Ron Paul's Amendment #871 to HR 280, which would have repealed the authorization for use of US military force in Iraq and Afghanistan. The measure would have ended the authorizations for use of military force after six months.
Senator John McCain's foundations and political endeavors deserve to be thoroughly scrutinized, Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik, sharing his views on what is behind a more than decade-long cooperation between the Arizona senator and US billionaire George Soros.
Power Games: What McCain, Soros and the Clintons Have in Common
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201709131057355221-mccain-clinton-soros-power/
There is one thing Republican Arizona Senator John
McCain and the Clintons definitely have in common — their passion for power games.
Ortel, who has been looking into the Clintons Foundation's alleged fraud for the past few years, told Sputnik that the McCain-hosted annual Sedona Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and other private gatherings which bring together senior foreign officials and American serving politicians "seem highly suspect" and "deserve tough scrutiny" concerning "related party transactions" that likely are created behind closed doors at such events.
The McCain Institute for International Leadership - The McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University (ASU) was founded in 2012 with $8.7 million in funds leftover from McCain's 2008 futile presidential campaign.
In the introduction video, Michael M. Crow, the ASU president explains that "in the spirit of John McCain himself and the spirit of multiple generations of the McCain family, The McCain Institute for International Leadership… is an opportunity to step out and depart from the standard think tank model," which means that they are "not sitting and talking about things" but "facilitate the making of decisions."
The departure from "the standard think tank model" could be seen in the Institute's unwillingness to disclose the amount of donations made by its most generous foreign donors as The Daily Caller's investigative journalist Richard Pollock found in his July report.
Pollock pointed out that the Institute's web site "only lists donors who have given '$100,000 and above,' which can be misleading," especially given Bloomberg's 2016 disclosure that
the non-profit "with ties to Senator John McCain" received "a $1 million donation from the government of Saudi Arabia in 2014, according to documents filed with the US Internal Revenue Service."
The embarrassing revelation coincided with McCain seeking his sixth term in the US Senate prompting the politician to vehemently deny that he had anything to do with The McCain Institute "except that they use [his] name."
To add to the confusion, the senator rushed to cut off questions about the Saudi donation to the non-profit asked by Arizona broadcaster, KPNX Channel 12.
According to Ortel, McCain's words didn't sound convincing. It is no secret that foreign actors seeking to get along with current US politicians sometimes donate money to non-profits somehow linked to these policymakers.
"John McCain does love his foreign adventures and does cultivate foreign government (and wealthy individual) contributions," Ortel says, "Now, if the McCain Institute were in Arkansas or Bosnia, rather than Arizona, I might find his denials potentially plausible, but two words leap to mind: 'Come on!'"
The analyst stressed that he finds this Saudi sponsorship "deeply disturbing" especially given McCain's role in the Senate on a key committee [Committee on Armed Services]," since it amounts to a probable conflict of interest.
He also poses the question whether individuals and firms working for the McCain Institute "have appropriately registered under FARA [The Foreign Agents Registration Act], or under US state laws/regulations that require such persons to register before soliciting 'contributions.'"
FARA requires agents representing the interests of foreign powers to disclose their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances. "There is also talk that McCain/his staff remain close with the Qataris," he remarked.
John McCain's 'Foreign Adventures' - The rumor isn't surprising in light of John McCain's involvement in the Syrian crisis and his support to Saudi and Qatari-backed militants.
In 2015 the delegation of US senators led by John McCain met with Saudi and Qatari leaders during their regional tour aimed at dealing with issues related to training Syrian rebels.
On the other hand, McCain was spotted equally enthusiastically supporting the so-called Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine which resulted in a coup d'etat in February 2014.
"John McCain has never recently seen an intervention he did not care to support," Ortel said, expressing doubts that these activities truly correspond to America's national interests: "The US record intervening abroad, particularly since 2000 (so bi-partisan) has done a lot more harm than good to geo-political balances, has cost trillions of dollars, and resulted in great bloodshed."
However, there is yet another reason why McCain and like-minded American politicians and financiers could be interested in instigating instability abroad: these are possible vested interests, according to the Wall Street analyst.
A glaring example of such a "trouble-maker" is George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and business magnate who has a long record of profiting from currency crises and economic instability.
'McCain Lives in George Soros' Back Pocket' - "Most individuals are not investors and most investors are not familiar with how one can profit from instability and from declines in the values of securities," Ortel explained, adding that George Soros has a long career of profiting from adversity while covering himself "in the cloak of his 'charities.'"
Soros and many others can 'short' government bonds of nations that descend into chaos and/or enter into financial contracts where, by paying a modest set of premiums, they stand to gain as values of underlying securities decline in value," the Wall Street analyst elaborated.
According to Ortel, the practice "actually should be encouraged to regulate governments using market forces but only if such transactions are regulated and free from insider knowledge."
It is no coincidence that Soros and McCain have been repeatedly spotted endorsing US regime change operations here and there: their cooperation goes back over a decade, according to Jerome Robert Corsi, an American author and political commentator, who highlights that McCain has been "funded" by Soros since 2001.
In his 2008 article Corsi opined that in 2001, McCain founded the Reform Institute, not-for-profit think tank based in Alexandria, VA, "as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations."
However, in 2006 the senator was forced to "sever his formal ties with the Reform Institute" due to a controversial $200,000 contribution from Cablevision, which was viewed as a potential conflict of interest.
Corsi believes that McCain is still being financed by Soros: "McCain lives in Soros' back pocket," the political commentator told Sputnik.
For its part, The Daily Caller in June 2017 drew attention to the fact that George Soros is among the McCain Institute's donors.
"I am not accusing McCain of trading on advance knowledge of looming instability in a particular nation or region," Ortel told Sputnik, "But I imagine there is enormous temptation for speculators to cultivate politicians to try to learn about future government actions or policies that might adversely affect exiting conditions in a particular foreign nation."
After the US national debt reached the $20 trillion mark for the first time ever, a clock showing the debt in New York City has been removed.
US National Debt Clock Removed in NY After Hitting Historic $20 Trillion Mark 12.09.2017
https://sputniknews.com/business/201709121057322561-us-national-debt-clock/
The billboard-sized running clock that in real time displays the US national debt has been removed from its location in New York City after the federal debt surpassed a historic $20 trillion mark last Friday, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the site.
As of Tuesday morning, the clock was detached from its location on the southeast corner of 44th street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, supposedly for physical updates to the display.
On Friday, the US national debt reached the $20 trillion mark for the first time ever after President Donald Trump signed a bill temporarily raising the nation's debt limit for three months. The legislation allowed the US Treasury Department to begin borrowing again under "extraordinary measures" to avoid a financial default.
Emergency funding to aid Hurricane Harvey relief was attached to the borrowing measure, amounting to $15 billion.
JOHN McCAIN WHO IS HE? I am sick to death of hearing " MY FRIENDS I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR THIS COUNTRY FOR 17 YEARS AND I HAVETHE SCARS TO PROVE IT". SCARS ALL RIGHT AFTER 20 HOURS NOT 17 YEARS, FRIGHTENED TO DEATH,HE WOULD BE SHOT DOWN OVER HANOI, HE BAILED OUT OF HIS PLANE! THAT'S WHERE THE SCARS CAME FROM.
McCain lost five U.S. Navy aircraft.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-125584
Navy pilot John Sidney McCain III should have never been allowed to graduate from the U.S. Navy flight school. He was a below average student and a lousy pilot. Had his father and grandfather not been famous four star U.S. Navy admirals, McCain III would have never been allowed in the cockpit of a military aircraft.
During his relative short stint on flight status, McCain III lost five U.S. Navy aircraft, four in accidents and one in combat. #1 McCain III lost jet number one in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus Christi Bay while practicing landings. He was knocked unconscious by the impact coming to as the plane settled to the bottom.
#2 McCain's second crash occurred while he was deployed in the Mediterranean. "Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula," Timberg wrote, "he took out some power lines reminiscent of the 1998 incident in which a Marine Corps jet sliced through the cables of a gondola at an Italian ski resort, killing 20 which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral."
#3 McCain's third crash three occurred when he was returning from flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. Timberg reported that McCain radioed, "I've got a flameout" and went through standard relight procedures three times before ejecting at one thousand feet. McCain landed on a deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees.
#4 McCain's fourth aircraft loss occurred July 29, 1967, soon after he was assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot. While seated in the cockpit of his aircraft waiting his turn for takeoff, an accidently fired rocket slammed into McCain's plane. He escaped from the burning aircraft, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and threatened to sink the ship.
#5 Can be found http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mccain_lost_five_u.htm "McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat," explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs -- the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon. "Since McCain got 28 medals," Bell continues, "that equals out to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys -- grunts on the ground -- who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I'm sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down."
