October 13, 2020 was “a black day for human rights,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization. Mr. Neuer was lamenting the fact that the United Nations General Assembly was preparing to vote to elect some of the world’s worst serial human rights abusing regimes to membership on the UN Human Rights Council. The regimes elected included China, Russia and Cuba. A Joint NGO Report issued by UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights on October 5, 2020 branded these regimes “unqualified.” The Joint NGO Report reached its conclusion based on the criteria that the UN General Assembly itself set, which required that “members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.”
The Chinese Communist regime is a wellspring of gross human rights abuses
The UN General Assembly’s vote to grant China membership in the Human Rights Council illustrates how the United Nations has made a complete mockery of the human rights protections it professes to uphold. The Chinese Communist regime is a wellspring of gross human rights abuses. The regime routinely crushes dissent, extending its authoritarian methods to Hong Kong. It tortures and arbitrary imprisons its citizens who do not toe the official party line. The regime is a surveillance state that negates any individual privacy rights, and it censors the press and online social media. Journalists who dare to stray into politically sensitive areas that the regime considers forbidden territory are regularly forced out of their jobs or jailed. The regime also engages in persecution of people of faith, including Christians, Buddhists and Muslims.
In these respects, the Chinese regime is in sync with the human rights abuses of other authoritarian regimes. However, what places China in a class by itself today when it comes to human rights abuses are the internment camps the regime has established to arbitrarily detain more than one million Uighurs and other Muslims. The Joint NGO Report referenced the horrific conditions to which these detainees have been subjected, including political indoctrination, systematic torture, and the forced sterilization and abortions of female prisoners. The Uighurs and other Muslims who are not presently detained still live under repressive conditions. They are subjected to constant surveillance, the suppression of the use of their own language, and the banning of their cultural and religious practices.
Here is how the U.S. State Department described this unique example of ethnic cleansing in the 21st century, which the Chinese regime has justified to “contain and eradicate extremism”:
“The broad definition of extremism resulted in the reported detention since 2017 of more than one million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Muslims in ‘transformation through education’ centers, or detention centers, designed to instill patriotism and erase their religious and ethnic identities. This included many of those ordered to return to China from studying or working abroad. International media reported security officials in the centers abused, tortured, and killed some detainees.”
“Outside the internment camps, the government implemented severe restrictions on expressions of minorities’ culture, language, and religious identity, including regulations prohibiting behaviors the government considered signs of ‘extremism’ such as growing ‘abnormal’ beards, wearing of veils in public places, and suddenly stopping smoking and drinking alcohol, among other behaviors. The regulations banned the use of some Islamic names when naming children and set punishments for the teaching of religion to children. Authorities conducted ‘household surveys’ and ‘home stays’ in which officials or volunteers forcibly lived in Uighurs’ homes and monitored families for signs of ‘extremism.’”
“Authorities searched cell phones at checkpoints and during random inspections of Uighur households, and persons in possession of alleged terrorist material, including pictures of general religious or cultural importance, could be arrested and charged with crimes.”
The Chinese regime is also unique in another respect from a human rights perspective, which is particularly relevant during this year of the coronavirus pandemic. The Chinese Communist regime deliberately withheld key information about the coronavirus, which originated in China, when it first became aware that the virus was highly contagious through human-to-human transmission. Chinese authorities cracked down on whistle blowers such as Dr Li Wenliang who wanted to warn the public about the emerging coronavirus threat before it could spread completely out of control. Authorities censored any negative stories in the media or on the Internet about how the Chinese government was handling the coronavirus outbreak. The World Health Organization accepted at face value the inaccurate information it received from China during the early weeks of the outbreak, when the virus’s spread could have been much more easily contained.
The Chinese Communist regime was in a position to come clean about the virulent virus that was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019, before the virus escaped China’s borders and set off a global pandemic. Chinese authorities decided not to do so. Instead, the Chinese regime put its own image first, willing to sacrifice the basic human right to life and well-being of people all over the world. Over a million people have since died from the coronavirus to date. Many of these peoples’ lives might well have been saved if Chinese authorities had been more forthright at the outset. The regime’s abysmal behavior in this regard falls far short of the supposed standard for membership on the UN Human Rights Council – to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” Yet China was rewarded with a seat on the Human Rights Council anyway – a perfect example of the hypocrisy rampant at the United Nations
Armstrong Economics Blog/Civil Unrest Posted Oct 4, 2020 by Martin Armstrong
Historically, this is why the police are the first to be killed in a revolution. They support tyranny and when they do, the choose the side against the people. Here they are arresting people in Piccadilly Circus for protesting the arrest of Assange on behalf of the United States. Freedom of speech has been around since Magna Carta. They should realize that this is against human rights as well as the English Bill of Rights from 1689.
With 30-days left before the election perhaps it’s worthwhile remembering what all of this opposition is about…. Something 99% of American voters do not quite understand.
Congress doesn’t actually write legislation. The last item of legislation written by congress was sometime around the mid 1990’s. Modern legislation is sub-contracted to a segment of DC operations known as K-Street. That’s where the lobbyists reside.
Lobbyists write the laws; congress sells the laws; lobbyists then pay congress lucrative commissions for passing their laws. That’s the modern legislative business in DC.
When we talk about paying-off politicians in third-world countries we call it bribery. However, when we undertake the same process in the U.S. we call it “lobbying”.
CTH often describes the system with the phrase: “There are Trillions at Stake.” The process of creating legislation is behind that phrase. DC politics is not quite based on the ideas that frame most voter’s reference points.
With people taking notice of DC politics for the first time; and with people not as familiar with the purpose of DC politics; perhaps it is valuable to provide clarity.
Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past. There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.
In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.
Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now.
Outside groups, often called “special interest groups”, are entities that represent their interests in legislative constructs. These groups are often representing foreign governments, Wall Street multinational corporations, banks, financial groups or businesses; or smaller groups of people with a similar connection who come together and form a larger group under an umbrella of interest specific to their affiliation.
Sometimes the groups are social interest groups; activists, climate groups, environmental interests etc. The social interest groups are usually non-profit constructs who depend on the expenditures of government to sustain their cause or need.
The for-profit groups (mostly business) have a purpose in Washington DC to shape policy, legislation and laws favorable to their interests. They have fully staffed offices just like any business would – only their ‘business‘ is getting legislation for their unique interests.
These groups are filled with highly-paid lawyers who represent the interests of the entity and actually write laws and legislation briefs.
In the modern era this is actually the origination of the laws that we eventually see passed by congress. Within the walls of these buildings within Washington DC is where the ‘sausage’ is actually made.
Again, no elected official is usually part of this law origination process.
Almost all legislation created is not ‘high profile’, they are obscure changes to current laws, regulations or policies that no-one pays attention to. The passage of the general bills within legislation is not covered in media. Ninety-nine percent of legislative activity happens without anyone outside the system even paying any attention to it.
Once the corporation or representative organizational entity has written the law they want to see passed – they hand it off to the lobbyists.
The lobbyists are people who have deep contacts within the political bodies of the legislative branch, usually former House/Senate staff or former House/Senate politicians themselves.
The lobbyist takes the written brief, the legislative construct, and it’s their job to go to congress and sell it.
“Selling it” means finding politicians who will accept the brief, sponsor their bill and eventually get it to a vote and passage. The lobbyist does this by visiting the politician in their office, or, most currently familiar, by inviting the politician to an event they are hosting. The event is called a junket when it involves travel.
Often the lobbying “event” might be a weekend trip to a ski resort, or a “conference” that takes place at a resort. The actual sales pitch for the bill is usually not too long and the majority of the time is just like a mini vacation etc.
The size of the indulgence within the event, the amount of money the lobbyist is spending, is customarily related to the scale of benefit within the bill the sponsoring business entity is pushing. If the sponsoring business or interest group can gain a lot of financial benefit from the legislation they spend a lot on the indulgences.
Recap: Corporations, mostly modern multinationals (special interest group), write the legislation. The corporations then contract the lobbyists. Lobbyists then take the law and go find politician(s) to support it. Politicians get support from their peers using tenure and status etc. Eventually, if things go according to norm, the legislation gets a vote.
Within every step of the process there are expense account lunches, dinners, trips, venue tickets and a host of other customary financial way-points to generate/leverage a successful outcome. The amount of money spent is proportional to the benefit derived from the outcome.
The important part to remember is that the origination of the entire process is EXTERNAL to congress.
Congress does not write laws or legislation, special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.
When you are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.
While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.
This is the way legislation is created.
If your frame of reference is not established in this basic understanding you can often fall into the trap of viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism.
The modern origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.
“We have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill” etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009
“We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber 2011, 2012.
“If Congress isn’t going to convene until the bill is ready to vote on… who the hell is writing the bill?” ~ Tom Massie, 2020
Once you understand this process you can understand how politicians get rich.
When a House or Senate member becomes educated on the intent of the legislation, they have attended the sales pitch; and when they find out the likelihood of support for that legislation; they can then position their own (or their families) financial interests to benefit from the consequence of passage. It is a process similar to insider trading on Wall Street, except the trading is based on knowing who will benefit from a legislative passage.
The legislative construct passes from K-Street into the halls of congress through congressional committees. The law originates from the committee to the full House or Senate. Committee seats which vote on these bills are therefore more valuable to the lobbyists. Chairs of these committees are exponentially more valuable.
Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. Legislation is passed based on ideology. In the aftermath of the 2016 election the system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency.
If Hillary Clinton had won the election, her Oval Office desk would be filled with legislation passed by congress which she would have been signing. Heck, she’d have writer’s cramp from all of the special interest legislation, driven by special interest groups that supported her campaign, that would be flowing to her desk.
Why?
Simply because the authors of the legislation, the originating special interest and lobbying groups, were spending millions to fund her campaign. Hillary Clinton would be signing K-Street constructed special interest legislation to repay all of those donors/investors.
Congress would be fast-tracking the passage because the same interest groups also fund the members of congress.
President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.
The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation. There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.
As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.
Exactly the opposite was true. All of the DC legislative briefs and constructs were/are antithetical to Trump policy. There were hundreds of file boxes filled with thousands of legislative constructs that became worthless when Donald Trump won the election.
Those legislative constructs (briefs) representing tens of millions of dollars worth of time and influence were just sitting there piled up in boxes under desks and in closets amid K-Street and the congressional offices. Legislation needed to be in-line with an entire new political perspective, and there was no-one, no special interest or lobbying group, currently occupying DC office space with any interest in synergy with Trump policy.
Think about the larger ramifications within that truism. That is also why there was/is so much opposition.
No legislation provided by outside interests means no work for lobbyists who sell it. No work means no money. No money means no expense accounts. No expenses means politicians paying for their own indulgences etc.
Politicians were not happy without their indulgences, but the issue was actually bigger. No K-Street expenditures also means no personal benefit; and no opportunity to advance financial benefit from the insider trading system. Republicans and democrats hate the presidency of Donald Trump because it is hurting them financially.
President Trump is not figuratively hurting the financial livelihoods of DC politicians; he’s literally doing it. President Trump is not an esoteric problem for them; his impact is very real, very direct, and hits almost every politician in the most painful place imaginable, the bank account.
In the pre-Trump process there were millions upon millions, even billions that could be made by DC politicians and their families. Thousands of very indulgent and exclusive livelihoods attached to the DC business model. At the center of this operation is the lobbying and legislative purchase network. The Big Club.
Without the ability to position personal wealth and benefit from the system, why would a politician stay in office? It is a fact the income of many long-term politicians on both wings of the uniparty bird were completely disrupted by Trump winning the 2016 election. That is one of the key reasons why so many politicians retired in 2018.
When we understand the business of DC, we understand the difference between legislation with a traditional purpose and modern legislation with a financial and political agenda.
When we understand the business of DC we understand why the entire network hates President Donald Trump.
Lastly, this is why -when signing legislation- President Trump often says “they’ve been trying to get this through for a long time” etc. Most of the legislation that is passed by congress, and signed by President Trump in his first term; is older legislative proposals, with little indulgent value that were shelved in years past.
Example: Criminal justice reform did not carry a financial benefit to the legislative bodies, and there was no financial interest funding the politicians to pass the bill. If you look at most of the bills President Trump has signed, with the exception of a few economic bills, they stem from congressional construction many years, even decades, ago.
Think about it carefully and you’ll see it. The “First step act”, “Right to Try”, etc. were all shelved by Boehner, Pelosi, Ryan, McConnell, Reid and others before them. When the value of legislation is measured by the financial underwriting and payoffs behind it, what type of legislative calendar does that require?….
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Ranking Member Devin Nunes appears with Lou Dobbs to discuss the 2020 U.S. election as contrast against the known weaponization of the intelligence apparatus.
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Keep in mind this is a member of the United States Intelligence Oversight group, the “gang of eight” saying the U.S. election is being manipulated by the U.S. intelligence community and political allies.
COMMENT: Dear Martin,
I have followed your work for years now I want to thank you for your tireless efforts to provide insightful information, the world needs you and your information more than ever.
I am writing to you because of the concern specific to Alberta, and Canada. If you want an example of a country that is being run by the United Nations look no further than Canada. We have Justin Trudeau that claims he is the First Post Nationalist Leader and that Canada is the First Post-National State.
Basically, he seems to be taking his orders from the un-elected United Nations. Trudeau has given the Finance Minister position to Chrystia Freeland, journalist Reporter turned politician, carrying out the mandate of the World Economic Forum where she is a member of the Board of Trustees along with the United Nations and the WHO.
Every day our media outlets in Canada are getting a constant diet of COVID case tallies, telling us we are all racist and that we are killing the planet with human activities and if you question this narrative you are canceled or shamed. The same ideology outlined the World Economic Forum for Canada under their Strategic Intelligence page.
Any insights you can provide us the direction of Alberta would be greatly appreciated.
MG
ANSWER: Trudeau is about as corrupt as they come. It is curious how the claimed left, who is so concerned about getting the rich back and being fair, is always the most corrupt. It reminds me of that famous line, “The lady dothprotest too much, methinks,” from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Trudeau suspended Parliament when it was investigating the ethics controversy where countless millions went to his family of deals. While this is seen as a coverup, there is far more at stake here. Can you imagine if Trump even tried to suspend Congress? The Democrats paint Trump as a tyrant when the real tyrant is north of the border.
Indeed, it was just last year when Trudeau told the New York Times that Canada was becoming a new kind of country, not defined by our history or European national origins, but by a “pan-cultural heritage” and actually said: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” Trudeau concluded that Canada is “the first post-national state.” Even the New York Times remarked that Trudeau was being very “radical.”
In truth, people who think the United Nations is not really threatening their future better open their eyes. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, was flown into Alberta, Canada, just before the Canadian elections. Who paid for that? Gates, Schwab, World Economic Forum & the United Nations who want to seize control of Canada to cut off oil production. Trudeau is as corrupt as they come. He is selling out Canada to the United Nations and had the audacity to suspend Parliament. That is a dictatorship. His “first post-national state,” means subservient to the United Nations.
The real question is whether Alberta can extricate itself from this madness. I would expect Trudeau to at least attempt to send in federal troops to suppress and attempt to withdraw. That that is the line that needs to be crossed to save the future of Canada. On July 1, 1867, with the passage of the British North America Act, the Dominion of Canada was officially established as a self-governing entity within the British Empire. A separatist movement may come to a head in 2021 in Canada. The Candian press has laid down all independence, and press conferences held by Trudeau are orchestrated to the point that nobody is allowed to ask any questions without pre-approval. We have a Panic Cycle next year in the C$. There remains the risk of me historic lows against the Greenback.
There are rising concerns that Boris Johnson fought for BREXIT so he could run into the arms of Bill Gates and the UN consortium including Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum pushing for this Globalist Agenda with even George Soros. Some are deeply concerned has Boris been bought by Gates? If someone demands an investigation, will Boris suspend Parliament as Trudeau did in Canada?
The Senate Republicans have released a long-anticipated report that details Joe Biden’s alleged conflicts of interest when he was vice president and his son, Hunter Biden, was making millions with sweetheart business deals in Ukraine, Russia, and China. The report states that it wasn’t clear whether Hunter Biden’s lucrative appointment to the board of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, actually affected the U.S. policy carried out by Biden. At least based upon Biden’s own comments, this has raised serious issues for some time.
Nevertheless, this document has cast new light on the Bidens’ suspicious business dealings. Democrats will never be moved by this any more than they were with Hillary’s brother getting a mining contract in Hati when he was not a miner.
The level of corruption in Washington with family members hauling in millions has been standard operating procedure. It’s more than a swamp — it’s an ocean. Die-hard voters never seem to care.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
October 13, 2020 was “a black day for human rights,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization. Mr. Neuer was lamenting the fact that the United Nations General Assembly was preparing to vote to elect some of the world’s worst serial human rights abusing regimes to membership on the UN Human Rights Council. The regimes elected included China, Russia and Cuba. A Joint NGO Report issued by UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights on October 5, 2020 branded these regimes “unqualified.” The Joint NGO Report reached its conclusion based on the criteria that the UN General Assembly itself set, which required that “members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.”
Centinel2012 