Follow the money train

the real scandals usually disappear from the MSM:

so who were the Chinese millionaires who left the country with some of the money from the Casino/bank scheme to steal/divert 81 million dollars from Bangladesh to a Philippine bank. A low level bank manager finally got convicted, but what about the masterminds and those who took the money?

What about the Panama papers? 

• Files reveal the offshore holdings of 140 politicians and public officials from around the world

• Current and former world leaders in the data include the prime minister of Iceland, the president of Ukraine, and the king of Saudi Arabia

• More than 214,000 offshore entities appear in the leak, connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories

• Major banks have driven the creation of hard-to-trace companies in offshore havens

or the Paradise papers from Bermuda? these implicate lots of politicians and their friends and family in the US and Canada, including revealing the corporate and Russian ties of Wilbur Ross, who is working for Trump and had worked for Clinton in the past.

or the Ghosn Nissan scandal in Japan?

and then there was the Maltese journalist/blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia who was investigating funny money stuff by people in the Maltese gov't, the EU and organized crime  in Malta and who had ties revealed from the Panama papers, and had her car bombed.

the UKTelegraph says they caught one of the guys who knew who did it, but he will only testify if he gets a "get out of jail free" card.

here in the Philippines, alas, it is not unusual for reporters who reveal corruption of politicians and businessmen to get killed. 

Rappler (an anti Duterte website that is partially funded by outside sources) has a list, and the Inquirer says 12 have been killed under Duterte's time in office, but that sounds about average since 31 were killed under good guy Aquino.

and StrategyPage notes that the war on drug has included removing a lot of crooked cops etc. so the crime rate is down, even though drugs are still around (and have moved underground).

Most of these political killings of rivals or inconvenient reporters are local: hits ordered by local politicians or businessmen to shut up reporters who reveal their corruption (something, by the way, that is hard to do since we have strict libel laws, even for internet reporting).

In other words, you can't blame the president for these murders, except to point out that an administration that allows corruption will let these guys off, and that Duterte is trying to rid the country of corruption, but hasn't been able to get the big shots convicted, alas.

Our province is notorious for the "wild west" atmosphere in our elections (we even had a "OK Corral" type shootout between the body guards of two rival politicians a decade ago).

But these hits can kill the innocent too: for example, our nephew was killed in the crossfire when the mayor back then ordered a hit on his rival. Years later, a second attempted hit killed a security guard and four innocent bystanders. It took years to get the mayor indicted, and he died several years after that, without having gone to court.

Then there was the Manguindanao massacre, where 31 reporters who were accompanying the wife of a political rival who was going to register him as opposition candidate, were massacred by unknown gunmen. That happened on Arroyo's watch: the suspected mastermind was a friend of Arroyo, and hey the families are still waiting for justice. 

But Arroyo? Somehow she got rich while president (probably via the First Gentleman) but when they had her arrested, the Human rights folks at the UN pressured the courts to get her off so no problem. (/sarcasm).

So, anyway, in US news, there is a lot of kerfuffle about the danger to those testifying against Trump  in the impeachment meetings. One even got his family moved to a military base to keep them safe.

Spilling the beans on VIP's who might have mob or intelligence connections is not exactly a way to stay safe.

But one doubts Trumpieboy would get his mob friends to off a "whistleblower": it's not his style, although there are probably a few good old boys out there who might take a pot shot at them.

The good news? Most of the despicables are not in the inner circle of the Washington elite, so these amateurs might not be able to find the whistle blower, unlike Epstein, who really had dirt on a lot of VIPS, and who was in danger from professionals. Of course, this was known, so he was placed in protective custody, and of course didn't kill killed himself.

but what the MSM seems to be ignoring is that this is not about Trumpieboy asking the Ukraine to make up dirt on a political rival, which is how it is being spun. It is about investigating the Ukraine, who wanted Biden to get the US to send them military aid, and they just happened to know someone who could hire his son.

the dirty little secret is that a lot of US politicians get rich while in office, and no one wants to look closely at how they do it (often it is via family members or spouses getting sweet heart deals: Hillary's cattle futures while Bill was AG and Governor in Arkansas is a notorious example of how it is done:
If all this sounds like a best selling novel, it is. )

Trumpieboy and his corporate buddies are just as bad: but I figure it takes a thief to catch a thief.

So maybe the reason that impeachment was sprung on the American people over this was to stop the investigation about the deal with Biden's son, because too many in Congress have wives/ husbands/ sons/ daughters/ friends/ cousins / in laws etc. who have become rich the same way: By getting deals that ordinary people would never get nor would ever dream about getting.

and if even honest Uncle Joe was found to do such things, what about the really dishonest politicians in Congress?

but why the "over the top" hysteria to get rid of Trumpieboy if, as Lolo would say, "they're all crooked"?

Could a lot of the so called impeachment investigation actually be a distraction so the public won't learn what's in the IG report about FISA abuse that is being released in a few weeks?

The dirty little secret is that the Trump campaign was spied on, using a fake/exaggerated Russia excuse. But not just spied on, but that information shared with the Democrats.

 The cooperation of the Deep state and other public officials into political campaigns is a lot more worrisome than letting Uncle Joe's drug using son get a cushy job for doing nothing.

and one doesn't have to be paranoid to suggest those who can spill the beans, be they reporters or operatives who know the dirt on the VIP's, are in real danger.

Alexandra Chalupa call your office the excrement is about to hit the fan.