Oligarchs for Austerity and the CNP Have a Big New Scheme: Suing their Way to a New Constitution

Did you hear? Pres­i­dent Trump is going to be run­ning for a third term in office. And he’s not jok­ing. Who knows how seri­ous he is, but as we’re going to see, the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of third pres­i­den­tial term may not be as set in stone as many sus­pect. Along with the rest of the US Con­sti­tu­tion. A con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion could be just around the cor­ner. Just a law­suit away. And we can thank the DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by and their fel­low trav­el­ers at the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) and the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Com­mit­tee (ALEC) for this loom­ing threat. The same aus­ter­i­ty lob­by that has spent years try­ing to roll back Oba­macare, evis­cer­ate Medicare and Med­ic­aid through block-grants, and gen­er­al­ly erode what’s left of the US’s social safe­ty-nets as more and more Amer­i­cans are forced to take any work avail­able just to qual­i­fy for increas­ing­ly mea­ger gov­ern­ment assis­tance. That aus­ter­i­ty lob­by. It’s back with a big sneaky plan: a law­suit pur­port­ing to prove that the 34 state thresh­old for an Arti­cle V con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion has already been met. David M. Walk­er — the for­mer US Comp­trol­ler for both Bill Clin­ton and George W. Bush — is lead­ing the legal effort, with legal sup­port from NRA lawyer (and CNP mem­ber) Charles “Chuck” Coop­er. If the law­suit suc­ceeds, get ready for a new con­sti­tu­tion writ­ten by and for the oli­garchy.

But this sto­ry isn’t just about this new law­suit. It’s also about how the DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by has been work­ing with CNP to push these con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion ambi­tions since at least 2013, which is right around the same time it become clear that the last major round of DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by­ing had failed in achiev­ing a “grand bar­gain” of slashed enti­tle­ments. A round of lob­by­ing that began in earnest as the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis was still play­ing out with David Walk­er — then Pres­i­dent and CEO of the new­ly formed aus­ter­i­ty-cen­tric Pete Peter­son Foun­da­tion — tak­ing on a lead role as pub­lic aus­ter­i­ty advo­cate. The Great Reces­sion was a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for a “grand bar­gain”. And it almost worked. But did­n’t work, at least not entire­ly, and it was­n’t long after that fail­ure became clear that we saw the aus­ter­i­ty lob­by and the CNP begin hatch­ing far more ambi­tious plans. Plans that just might be about come to fruition. Because as we’re also going to see, if a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion does hap­pen, the forces behind this plan are the ones who will be run­ning it. The DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by real­ly is just a law­suit away from win­ning every­thing.

FTR #889 Intercept This! Compendium on Citizen Omidyar

Draw­ing togeth­er infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed in numer­ous broad­casts over the peri­od of sev­er­al years, this pro­gram high­lights the endeav­ors of Glenn Green­wald’s journalistic/financial angel Pierre Omid­yar. Guid­ed by the Aus­tri­an School/free-mar­ket, neo-lib­er­al eco­nom­ics of Her­nan­do De Soto, Omid­yar’s “phil­an­thropic” efforts are close­ly aligned with covert action imple­ment­ed in con­cert with U.S. intel­li­gence cutouts such as U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment, the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy and the Ford Foun­da­tion.

Focus­ing on the Omid­yar Net­work’s SKS orga­ni­za­tion, the dis­cus­sion notes the bru­tal, lethal results of its micro-finance pro­grams in India. Omid­yar Net­work’s key Indi­an func­tionary Jayant Sin­ha, took time off to help direct the elec­tion cam­paign of Naren­dra Modi, whose BJP is a cat’s paw for the RSS, a Hin­du nationalist/fascist orga­ni­za­tion inspired by Hitler and Mus­soli­ni. Three quar­ter of Mod­i’s cab­i­net was select­ed from the RSS, to which Modi belonged. (Gand­hi was assas­si­nat­ed by a mem­ber of RSS.)

One of the key vehi­cles for Omid­yar Net­work’s “phil­an­thropy” in India is the Rur­al Devel­op­ment Insti­tute (renamed “Lan­desa”), devel­oped by Roy Proster­man. Proster­man’s RDI was a key fea­ture of the Phoenix assas­si­na­tion pro­gram in Viet­nam. Cit­i­zen Omid­yar has also helped to fund the return to pow­er of the OUN/B fas­cists in Ukraine, again part­ner­ing with U.S. intel­li­gence cutouts such as U.S. AID and the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Mod­i’s pro­ject­ed roll­back of Indi­a’s laws against child labor; the sti­fling of free­dom of speech under Mod­i’s regime; the Modi gov­ern­men­t’s com­plic­i­ty in lethal anti-Mus­lim vig­i­lante actions; the neo-lib­er­al eco­nom­ic goals of Omid­yar Net­work’s “land acqui­si­tion” micro-finance projects; Omid­yar pro­tege Oleh Rybachuk’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Yuschenko gov­ern­ment; Rybachuk’s efforts to inte­grate Ukraine into NATO and the EU; Omid­yar pro­tege Svit­lana Zalis­chuk’s efforts to inte­grate Ukraine into NATO and the EU, men­tored by Rybachuk; Omid­yar pro­tege Zalis­chuk’s efforts on behalf of the lus­tra­tion laws, seen as the legal foun­da­tion for a broad-based purge; Zalis­chuk’s efforts pro­mot­ing net­work­ing between Ukrain­ian Nazi par­ties such as Svo­bo­da and the so-called “mod­er­ate” par­ties; Omid­yar’s part­ner­ing with the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy to cre­ate a “fact-fund­ing” ser­vice; review of the devel­op­ment of the NED as a cutout for U.S. intel­li­gence by William Casey and the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion.

FTR #826 Bringing It All Back Home, Ukrainian Style, Part 2

In FTR #824, we not­ed the deci­sive role played by the Ukrain­ian dias­po­ra in the events unfold­ing in East­ern Europe. Petro Poroshenko is imple­ment­ing a legal gam­bit to per­mit for­eign nation­als to assume cab­i­net posi­tions in his new gov­ern­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, Poroshenko expressed the desire to incor­po­rate cit­i­zens of the U.S., Geor­gia and Lithua­nia in Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment. In short order, Ukrainian/American State Depart­ment Offi­cer Natal­ie Jaresko, Lithuan­ian-born U.S. cit­i­zen Air­vas Abramovi­cius and Geor­gian Alek­san­dre Kvi­tashvili assumed the posts of finance min­is­ter, eco­nom­ic and devel­op­ment and trade min­is­ter and health min­is­ter respec­tive­ly. All three were edu­cat­ed in the Unit­ed States. Jaresko is a for­mer State Depart­ment offi­cer with close links to the US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment. The appoint­ments come as Ukraine is close to default­ing on a $17bn IMF loan and mem­bers of Ukraine’s fas­cist vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions are lob­by­ing Con­gress for mil­i­tary aid. Poroshenko is also grant­i­ng cit­i­zen­ship to for­eign-born neo-Nazis, as well as insti­tut­ing an infor­ma­tion min­istry that crit­ics have com­pared to The Min­istry of Truth from George Orwell’s 1984.

Meet the New Boss(es), Same as the Old Boss(es): Poroshenko Reconstitutes “Team Yuschenko”

In FTR #781, we not­ed that Vik­tor Yuschenko–married to top OUN/B offi­cial and Rea­gan Deputy Direc­tor of Pres­i­den­tial Liai­son Yka­te­ri­na Chumachenko–institutionalized the Ban­dera polit­i­cal cadre, rewrit­ing Ukrain­ian World War II his­to­ry and paving the way for the rise of Swo­bo­da and Pravy Sek­tor. We now learn that “new” Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko has recon­sti­tut­ed the old Yuschenko team, includ­ing Amer­i­can-born Roman Svarych, Yuschenko’s Min­is­ter of Jus­tice and the per­son­al sec­re­tary to OUN/B leader Yaroslav Stet­sko in the ear­ly 1980’s.

German Economic Colonization of Ukraine

With the U.S. and Ger­many respec­tive­ly play­ing Bad Cop (mil­i­tary aid and sanc­tions) and Good Cop (eco­nom­ic aid and resis­tance to fur­ther sanc­tions at the behest of key Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions invest­ed in Rus­sia), the fol­low-up to the covert oper­a­tion result­ing in the coup d’e­tat of ear­ly 2014 is pro­ceed­ing apace. Ger­man industry–surprise, surprise–plans to mod­ern­ize Ukrain­ian indus­tries and estab­lish sub­con­tract­ing arrange­ments to build auto­mo­biles in that cheap labor mar­ket. This will be cou­pled by the aus­ter­i­ty doc­trine we have termed “Von Clause­witz­ian eco­nom­ics.”

FTR #693 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates

Black­wa­ter secu­ri­ty out­fit plots to kill whistle­blow­ers; dead­ly pathogens miss­ing from Ft. Det­rick; virus­es mutat­ing to infect oth­er species; the bailout has­n’t assured eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty and has made the insti­tu­tions that are “too big to fail” even big­ger.

FTR #612 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates

Record­ed Sep­tem­ber 23, 2007 MP3: Side 1 | Side 2 REALAUDIO Begin­ning with dis­cus­sion of Iran­ian pres­i­dent Ahmadinejad’s recent appear­ance at Ivy League Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty in New York, the pro­gram high­lights the dis­turb­ing sim­i­lar­i­ty to a past pres­i­dent of that university’s embrace of fas­cism. Just as Nicholas Mur­ray But­ler was dis­mis­sive of con­cerns that fas­cism […]

FTR #596 Update on 9/11 and Related Matters

Mur­der of Pak­istani crick­et coach Bob Woolmer con­nect­ed to Pak­istan’s ISI; Bin Laden financ­ing Euro­pean neo-Nazis; Ibn Khal­dun an advo­cate of pri­va­ti­za­tion.

FTR #586 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates

GM prof­it­ed hand­some­ly from its asso­ci­a­tion with the Third Reich.

FTR #567 The Socialism of Fools

Malfea­sance by the petro­le­um indus­try and its asso­ci­at­ed polit­i­cal ele­ments have suc­cess­ful­ly focused debate and crit­i­cism of unfold­ing dynam­ics on the Mid­dle East on “Israel,” rather than their own actions and poli­cies.