theDrahos

Despite whatever US denials there might be, there is a very high expectation in certain circles that the US will soon be supplying weapons to the Kiev regime. US Ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt, Victoria Nuland’s partner-in-crime in fomenting the Nazi coup last year, bragged that Congress has already allocated $120 million for building the Ukrainian military. Pyatt said:

“The U.S. Congress has approved the allocation of $120 million this year for training and purchasing equipment. The only question that is still being discussed is whether it should include defensive lethal weapons.”

He also claimed that the United States already has ample evidence of Russia’s participation to the conflict — photos from satellites and other evidence of the presence of Russian troops and military equipment in Donbas, as well as weapons supplies.

An obvious lie: if it were true, they would be broadcasting this evidence to the world.

For former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, acting as an advisor to Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, the matter is already “99 percent settled.” He told a Ukrainian TV network:

“The main thing we are trying to achieve in the United States is that Ukraine receives defensive weapons.”

Saakashvili is clearly depending on the “good will” in the US Congress towards Ukraine to make it happen.

“America is a democratic country, so it was very important to hear publicly voices in the Congress and the Senate, and to see a strong call next week regarding provision of defensive weapons for Ukraine. This issue is in the spotlight of all U.S. media. When President Poroshenko raised this issue in the Congress in his triumphal speech in September last year, for many it was a surprise and a lot of people refused even to listen to it. Now, the decision is practically settled 99%. I don’t know when the last and most significant 1% will come — I hope soon, because Ukraine is running short of time.”

The “denial” comes from an anonymous Obama Administration official who told Tass that the US can’t arm the regime through third countries, in an obvious response to Poroshenko’s announcement last week, from Abu Dhabi, that the regime had agreed to an arms deal with the UAE. Ukraine is a sovereign country that has the right to conclude agreements with other countries, the official said.

Despite whatever US denials there might be, there is a very high expectation in certain circles that the US will soon be supplying weapons to the Kiev regime. US Ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt, Victoria Nuland’s partner-in-crime in fomenting the Nazi coup last year, bragged that Congress has already allocated $120 million for building the Ukrainian military. Pyatt said:

“The U.S. Congress has approved the allocation of $120 million this year for training and purchasing equipment. The only question that is still being discussed is whether it should include defensive lethal weapons.”

He also claimed that the United States already has ample evidence of Russia’s participation to the conflict — photos from satellites and other evidence of the presence of Russian troops and military equipment in Donbas, as well as weapons supplies.

An obvious lie: if it were true, they would be broadcasting this evidence to the world.

For former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, acting as an advisor to Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, the matter is already “99 percent settled.” He told a Ukrainian TV network:

“The main thing we are trying to achieve in the United States is that Ukraine receives defensive weapons.”

Saakashvili is clearly depending on the “good will” in the US Congress towards Ukraine to make it happen.

“America is a democratic country, so it was very important to hear publicly voices in the Congress and the Senate, and to see a strong call next week regarding provision of defensive weapons for Ukraine. This issue is in the spotlight of all U.S. media. When President Poroshenko raised this issue in the Congress in his triumphal speech in September last year, for many it was a surprise and a lot of people refused even to listen to it. Now, the decision is practically settled 99%. I don’t know when the last and most significant 1% will come — I hope soon, because Ukraine is running short of time.”

The “denial” comes from an anonymous Obama Administration official who told Tass that the US can’t arm the regime through third countries, in an obvious response to Poroshenko’s announcement last week, from Abu Dhabi, that the regime had agreed to an arms deal with the UAE. Ukraine is a sovereign country that has the right to conclude agreements with other countries, the official said.

FDIC Vice-Chairman Thomas Hoenig again called for “separating commercial banking, and its inherent safety net, from broker-dealer and proprietary trading activities,” in a speech to the Institute of International Bankers annual conference in Washington March 2. His speech included a warning on the current status of leveraged loans and derivatives in the U.S. banking system, and a plug for the Glass-Steagall Act.

On junk bonds’ cousins, the “leveraged loans,” Hoenig said that the FDIC’s extensive national review of assets of large banks, known as the Shared National Credit Review, showed very large issuance of leveraged loans in 2014: to an $800 billion bubble from just $280 billion one year earlier. Leveraged loans were “highly criticized” in the review: “Examiners noted excessive leverage against gaps in borrower repayment capacity, questionable evaluations”, etc., “weak underwriting and deficiencies in risk management.” He concluded, “This portfolio has systemic implications, whether held in the originating bank or [securitized].”

Derivatives are a still more serious matter. Hoenig said that

“In recent years commercial banking firms in the United States have been allowed to simultaneously own commodities, trade commodities and their derivatives, and own and control transportation and warehousing of these commodities.”

Citing the dangers, he said that

“the United States has insisted historically that banking remain separate from commerce.”

“The precursor to this conflict [of interest],” he noted, “was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the late 1990s, which permitted commercial banks to significantly expand their presence in trading derivatives and related contracts.”

Citing the notional value of derivatives contracts at the five most-exposed U.S. banking organizations at roughly $300 trillion, Hoenig says that this corresponds to $4 trillion of unstated assets [“value at risk”] on their balance sheets using international accounting rules.

“Also, among these derivatives contracts are more than $25 trillion of notional amounts of uncleared credit default swaps, equity derivatives, and commodity derivatives, which hold the highest risk to these banks. Derivatives activities conducted in the insured bank at lower costs have proven to be quite profitable, which explains why bank managers are so adamant that they stay there” — referring to the strong-arming and bribing of Congress in December.

“Subsidizing such derivative activity with its unbridled leverage should end,” Hoenig concludes.

FDIC Vice-Chairman Thomas Hoenig again called for “separating commercial banking, and its inherent safety net, from broker-dealer and proprietary trading activities,” in a speech to the Institute of International Bankers annual conference in Washington March 2. His speech included a warning on the current status of leveraged loans and derivatives in the U.S. banking system, and a plug for the Glass-Steagall Act.

On junk bonds’ cousins, the “leveraged loans,” Hoenig said that the FDIC’s extensive national review of assets of large banks, known as the Shared National Credit Review, showed very large issuance of leveraged loans in 2014: to an $800 billion bubble from just $280 billion one year earlier. Leveraged loans were “highly criticized” in the review: “Examiners noted excessive leverage against gaps in borrower repayment capacity, questionable evaluations”, etc., “weak underwriting and deficiencies in risk management.” He concluded, “This portfolio has systemic implications, whether held in the originating bank or [securitized].”

Derivatives are a still more serious matter. Hoenig said that

“In recent years commercial banking firms in the United States have been allowed to simultaneously own commodities, trade commodities and their derivatives, and own and control transportation and warehousing of these commodities.”

Citing the dangers, he said that

“the United States has insisted historically that banking remain separate from commerce.”

“The precursor to this conflict [of interest],” he noted, “was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the late 1990s, which permitted commercial banks to significantly expand their presence in trading derivatives and related contracts.”

Citing the notional value of derivatives contracts at the five most-exposed U.S. banking organizations at roughly $300 trillion, Hoenig says that this corresponds to $4 trillion of unstated assets [“value at risk”] on their balance sheets using international accounting rules.

“Also, among these derivatives contracts are more than $25 trillion of notional amounts of uncleared credit default swaps, equity derivatives, and commodity derivatives, which hold the highest risk to these banks. Derivatives activities conducted in the insured bank at lower costs have proven to be quite profitable, which explains why bank managers are so adamant that they stay there” — referring to the strong-arming and bribing of Congress in December.

“Subsidizing such derivative activity with its unbridled leverage should end,” Hoenig concludes.

The latest atrocity to come out of the mouth of President Barack Obama this week—his blaming of Russian President Vladimir Putin for the “worsening civil rights climate in Russia”—should make the obvious point: The time has long since passed when the President must be removed from office if a world war is to be averted.

The idea that Obama would implicitly blame President Putin for the assassination of Boris Nemtsov—just days after his State Department witch Victoria Nuland hosted neo-Nazi Andriy Parubiy all over Washington—was just the latest straw. Clearly Obama is moving towards providing lethal aid to the Ukraine government, a step that will bring the world close to strategic confrontation, a confrontation that will likely lead to thermonuclear war.

Arms for the Nazi Regime in Kiev Still on the Table

Russian officials pounced, appropriately, on Obama’s latest insanity. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov personally commented on Obama’s accusations, observing that he was showing how “inarticulate” he can be on his own.

Interfax: How do you respond to the statement by US President Barack Obama that the killing of Boris Nemtsov is a sign of the worsening climate for civil rights in Russia?
Sergey Lavrov: Let this remain on the conscience of Mr Obama. No one was writing for him this time, and he’s inarticulate on his own.

And Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukashevich slammed the President for pushing for extension of the sanctions against Russia, despite the fact that Putin has played a pivotal role in securing a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine. He reminded the world that the Obama Administration was behind the coup d’etat in Kiev that installed the current illegal regime.

Even US intelligence sources confirmed, on Tuesday, that there is zero evidence of Putin involvement in the Nemtsov killing. Furthermore, they view Putin as the target of the attack, reporting that Putin and Nemtsov, although political adversaries, had certain working understandings, and Putin had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, from Nemtsov’s killing.

Between the insane provocations coming from Obama and his so-called arch-rival Benjamin Netanyahu, there is no stability—and no prospect of stability—in Eurasia. Netanyahu’s appearance before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday set off a Republican Party drive for confrontation with Iran, further adding to the growing chaos throughout Southeast Asia.

Netanyahu and Neo-Cons Are Seeking Regime Change in Iran

Netan-yahoo Republicans in Congress Want War on Iran

Lyndon LaRouche today warned that, unless a deal is reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries, the entire Eurasia region is headed for war, whether or not the Ukraine conflict is settled by a cease-fire negotiated by the Normandy Four and the Contact Group. It is urgent that the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia region are brought back to some degree of stability. The British strategy, peddled by British agents like Netanyahu and Obama, is to drench the region in blood, through a new Hundred Years’ religious war inside the Islamic world, pitting Shi’ites against Sunnis, Arabs against Persians, etc. The new Saudi Monarchy, under King Salman, is even more primed for playing the British game of a century of death and chaos.

Between the British, the Saudis, and British puppets like Obama, Nuland, and Netanyahu, we are no longer dealing with mere crooks. We are dealing with clinical insanity. How else can you account for actions that are already leading to wars, of mass genocide proportions?

There are immediate steps, that can and must be taken, to rid the world of this danger of imminent conflict. On March 17, Israeli voters must demonstrate a degree of sanity and sweep Netanyahu and his Likud bloc out of power. The new Israeli government must drop the efforts to wreck the regional stability, by seeking an alliance with Saudi Arabia to bomb Iran—regardless of the outcome of the P5+1 negotiations.

And sane, patriotic circles in the United States must move immediately to remove Obama from office on Constitutional grounds. His insane actions against Russia are but the latest in a long series of crimes against the Constitution and the American people. LaRouchePAC organizers, on Capitol Hill yesterday, directly confronted Victoria Nuland, who was testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Ukraine, demanding to know if she put out the assassination order against Nemtsov, through her neo-Nazi friends in Ukraine and Chechnya.

LaRouche Denounces Frameup of Putin for Nemtsov Murder

In a speech in Berlin last night, Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of the U.S. armed forces in Europe, said that Western diplomacy needed a “muscle” to get the right message to Russia:

“If you don’t have something that gives muscle to the diplomacy, to the economic aspect, then it’s not going to be as effective.”

But, while going on to blast and threaten Russia, Hodges also announced, in an exclusive interview with World Bulletin March 3, that the U.S. was putting on hold its training mission to Ukraine—pre-announced to be 600 troops to work with the National Guard—to see if the Minsk accords succeeded.

Hodges said that helping Ukraine with weapons would increase pressure on President Vladimir Putin at home.

“When mothers start seeing sons come home dead, when that price goes up, then that domestic support begins to shrink.”

Hodges did not specify what weapons could be offered, but said that what Ukraine wants “is intelligence, counter-fire capability and something that can stop a Russian tank.” Russia has 12,000 soldiers and heavy weapons in eastern Ukraine, plus another 29,000 in Crimea, and is maintaining another 50,000 close to the border with Ukraine, Hodges asserted.

In a speech in Berlin last night, Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of the U.S. armed forces in Europe, said that Western diplomacy needed a “muscle” to get the right message to Russia:

“If you don’t have something that gives muscle to the diplomacy, to the economic aspect, then it’s not going to be as effective.”

But, while going on to blast and threaten Russia, Hodges also announced, in an exclusive interview with World Bulletin March 3, that the U.S. was putting on hold its training mission to Ukraine—pre-announced to be 600 troops to work with the National Guard—to see if the Minsk accords succeeded.

Hodges said that helping Ukraine with weapons would increase pressure on President Vladimir Putin at home.

“When mothers start seeing sons come home dead, when that price goes up, then that domestic support begins to shrink.”

Hodges did not specify what weapons could be offered, but said that what Ukraine wants “is intelligence, counter-fire capability and something that can stop a Russian tank.” Russia has 12,000 soldiers and heavy weapons in eastern Ukraine, plus another 29,000 in Crimea, and is maintaining another 50,000 close to the border with Ukraine, Hodges asserted.