Did we Forget Freedom Fighters Around the World?

Posted on December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by Denise Simon

The country is still in collapse and Maduro remains in power. Question is why? Beyond Venezuela, there is Bolivia, Chile, Columbia and even Ecuador where tyranny and socialism is being protested.

Image result for protests in latin america photo Miami Herald

Image result for protests in iran photo The Atlantic
A quick review for Latin America is looking much like the freedom fighters in Hong Kong, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

* Two months after Chile lurched from an illusory calm to a fiery outburst of rage, there is still no sign that life is about to return to normal. After an agreement last month between political parties, the country will next year hold a referendum on drafting a new constitution – one of the protesters’ main demands.

But widespread anger still simmers over inequality, social exclusion and the high cost of education and healthcare. Demonstrators continue to gather across the country every day, and violence often erupts at nightfall.

Chileans have found themselves in a state of uncertainty – suspended between hopes of progress, and frustration over a political solution which seems beyond reach.

* In Columbia: The number of FARC dissidents now stands at around 3,000 combatants, already accounting for more than 20 percent of the 13,000 FARC members who demobilized. This number continues to grow and is likely to keep growing in the short and medium-term. While there are no indications that the ex-FARC mafia will ever reach the numbers of the FARC prior to demobilization, it is clear that the dissident elements are a threat to national security and could become more than just a localized threat within Colombia.

Faith in the FARC Peace Process – This is low, among the Colombian public, among former rebel combatants, and even within the government itself. Unless significant action is taken to reassure those rebels that remain in the peace process, the risk of further desertion is high. Add to this the killing of former FARC members, including some likely carried out by security forces, and the precariousness of the peace accord becomes clear.

Criminal Economies – The criminal economies that sustained the FARC for more than five decades are more lucrative than ever, with Colombia producing record amounts of cocaine. However, the ex-FARC mafia rely on more than cocaine. Marijuana, especially in the violence-ridden department of Cauca is a big earner, while the profits from poppy and the heroin it produces are also considerable. More here.

*After 12 days of nationwide unrest, several Indigenous peoples of Ecuador joined by social organizations succeeded in forcing the government of Lenin Moreno into scrapping a presidential decree eliminating fuel subsidies in the oil-producing nation.

The uprising saw thousands of indigenous people marching towards the capital Quito from different corners of the country. They occupied the city and received unprecedented solidarity from local volunteers and progressive universities, while protesters vigorously clashed with security forces for days around the presidential palace and National Assembly.

“You can call it a war zone. It is ugly, ugly, ugly,” said Margarita, a member of the rescue brigade of the Eugenio Espejo hospital in the Ecuadorian capital Quito, attempting to catch her breath. She had just returned to a health care post a few hundred meters away from the frontlines of the clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters.

President Trump has a huge opportunity to lead the world on the importance of freedom, liberty, capitalism, peace and economies. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is doing a great job yet the tasks are larger than one person and the Congressional Democrats and 2020 candidates should be shamed for selling socialism.

Don’t Investigate Bidens Now, then When?

Posted on December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by Denise Simon

As the U.S. presidential race began roaring to life in 2016, authorities in the former Soviet republic of Latvia flagged a series of “ suspicious” financial transactions to Hunter Biden and other colleagues at a Ukrainian natural gas company and sought Kiev’s help investigating, according to documents and interviews.

The Feb. 18, 2016 alert to Ukraine came from the Latvian prosecutorial agency responsible for investigating money laundering, and it specifically questioned whether Vice President Joe Biden’s younger son and three other officials at Burisma Holdings were the potential beneficiaries of suspect funds.

“The Office for Prevention of Laundering of Proceeds Derived from Criminal Activity … is currently investigating suspicious activity of Burisma Holdings Limited,” the Latvian agency also known as the FIU wrote Ukraine’s financial authorities.

The memo was released to me by the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office and confirmed by the Latvian embassy to the United States.

Latvian authorities said they did not get any incriminating information back from Ukraine to warrant further investigation and did not take additional action in 2016. But the memo adds to the mounting evidence that there was ongoing investigative activity surrounding Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden’s compensation as a board member in the weeks just before Joe Biden forced the firing of the Ukraine prosecutor overseeing the Burisma investigation in spring 2016.

The Latvian law enforcement memo identified a series of loan payments totaling about $16.6 million that were routed from companies in Beliz and the United Kingdom to Burisma through Ukraine’s PrivatBank between 2012 and 2015.

The flagged funds were “partially transferred” to Hunter Biden, a board member at Burisma since May 2014, and three other officials working for the Ukrainian natural gas company, the Latvian memo said. More here from Solomon.

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But hold on as the media knew much of this as did so many members of Congress and quite frankly our intelligence agencies including the U.S. Department of State.

Politico reported just recently: The Bidens took over Paradigm Global Advisors. In the late summer of 2006 Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Joe’s younger brother, James, purchased the firm. On their first day on the job, they showed up with Joe’s other son, Beau, and two large men and ordered the hedge fund’s chief of compliance to fire its president, according to a Paradigm executive who was present. At the time, the senator was just months away from both assuming the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second presidential bid.

Image result for joe beau hunter james biden

According to the executive, James Biden made it clear he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.

PCM Merger Agreement by Anonymous Q1yQNGqtP on Scribd

The Biden family have consistently mixed business and politics over nearly half a century, moving from one business to the next as Joe’s stature in Washington grew. None of the ventures appear to have been runaway successes, and Biden’s relatives have not been accused of criminal wrongdoing in their dealings. But over the years, several of their partners and associates have ended up indicted or convicted. The dealings have brought Joe unwelcome scrutiny and threaten to distract from his presidential bid. Read the long and full story here.

But hold there is still more beyond Burisma and China. That is we need to go back even further.

A son of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden was paid an undisclosed amount of money as a consultant by MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware, during the years the senator supported legislation that was promoted by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups.

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign said Biden helped forge a bipartisan compromise on the measure, which is now law and makes it harder for consumers to obtain bankruptcy protection in the courts.

MBNA’s consulting payments to Hunter Biden, first reported by The New York Times, followed his departure in 2001 from the company, where he had been an executive.

At the time Hunter Biden was receiving consulting payments from MBNA, he also was a Washington lobbyist at a firm he had co-founded.

“He was not a lobbyist for MBNA, and his work had absolutely nothing to do with the bankruptcy bill. Zero. Nothing,” said Wade.

Resurrecting Biden’s role in the bankruptcy legislation could undercut one of the Obama campaign’s lines of attack: That his Republican opponent, John McCain, is insensitive to the financial woes of middle-class Americans.

Consumer and civil rights groups and unions, as well as Democratic opponents, had argued that the bankruptcy legislation was unfair to low-income working people, single mothers, minorities and the elderly, and would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face mounting medical bills. More here.

But are there other politicians we need to look at? Yes.

Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.

In 2018, the Daily Beast reported that a number of businesses linked to Kolomoisky hired Powell as an attorney. One of those firms paid Powell at least $700,000 over two years, according to public records.

The Miami Herald reported Powell was working for companies tied to Kolomoisky for 10 years. Powell made most of his money in the two years leading up to his wife’s election in 2018.

Kolomoisky has been accused of contract killings and embezzlement in the past. Yet, in 2018 when Mucarsel-Powell was running for her seat, she did not see her husband’s work as relevant to her campaign. More here.

As President Trump works diligently to be the law and order president, it is no wonder AG Barr, John Dunham, Rudy Guiliani and so many others including conservative media are doing the real investigative work…draining the swamp.

So, while we have elections around the corner, we have much more to learn and consider at the ballot box. Could it be that the Democrats led by Speaker Pelosi are scrambling to cover up some other nasty events we are slowly learning about?

That Russian Spy Ship is Back to Lurking off our Coast

Posted on December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by Denise Simon

The speculation for this ship is:

There are new indications that the spying target this time also included SpaceX’s space launch capability.

On Monday, the private space launch company founded by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk conducted the 13th successful launch of its Falcon 9 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launcher placed a communications satellite into orbit and then returned to Earth by landing on a barge in the Atlantic eight minutes later.

Analysts speculate that the ship may have been observing the launch to gather data that could benefit reusable Russian space launchers.

U.S. Northern Command and the Coast Guard have been tracking a Russian spy ship equipped with electronic surveillance gear that has been lurking off the East Coast of the United States.

On Monday, the Coast Guard sent out a Maritime Safety Information Bulletin warning boaters of reports of the Viktor Leonov operating in an “unsafe manner” off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.

On Tuesday, the Coast Guard said the Russian ship was operating in USCG’s Jacksonville, Florida, area of responsibility, which encompasses roughly 40,000 square miles of ocean and stretches nearly 190 miles of coast from Kings Bay, Georgia, to Port Malabar, Florida.

“This unsafe operation includes not energizing running lights while in reduced visibility conditions, not responding to hails by commercial vessels attempting to coordinate safe passage and other erratic movements,” the Coast Guard posted on its bulletin.

“Vessels transiting these waters should maintain a sharp lookout and use extreme caution when navigating in proximity to this vessel. Mariners should make reports of any unsafe situations to the United States Coast Guard,” the Coast Guard said in its safety message.

Adm. James Foggo III, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa, told reporters Dec. 18 that the Russian spy ship was operating a “couple hundred” miles off the East Coast.

North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command told Military Times that they were tracking the Russian ship.

“We are aware of Russia’s naval activities, including the deployment of these intelligence collection ships in the region,” Maj. Mark R. Lazane, a spokesman with NORTHCOM, told Military Times in an emailed statement.

Image result for Russian warship Viktor Leonov

It’s not the first time the Viktor Leonov has conducted intelligence operations off the East Coast off the U.S.

In 2017, the Pentagon announced the Leonov was being trailed by a Coast Guard vessel but was operating in international waters.

“They routinely deploy intelligence vessels worldwide to monitor the activities and particularly naval activities of other nations, but then again conducted lawfully in international waters and not unlike operations we conduct ourselves,” Davis said in 2017 about the Leonov operating near the East Coast of the U.S.

Foggo said that the Coast Guard reported that the Russian ship was not responding to signals or “bridge to bridge” radio communications and was running without lights on at sea.

Those actions, Foggo said Wednesday, are risky. More here.

This ship is part of Project 864. The Project 864, also known as the Vishnya and Meridian, is an electronic surveillance and intelligence gathering ship built by Stocznia Polnocna shipyard in Gdansk (Poland) for the Soviet Union’s Navy in the 1980s. The ship’s capabilities are built around the Communication Intelligence (COMINT) and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) concepts. The Project 864 are equipped with two satellite communications antennas inside a radome. The propulsion system consists of two diesel engines developing 4,400-bhp and a top speed of 16 knots. The Project 864 weapon system is intended to counter airborne threats using two AK-630 30mm guns and two SA-N-8 surface-to-air missile systems. The Russian Navy operates seven Meridian-class vessels to be replaced by the Project 18280 intelligence ship by 2020.

FISA, Horowitz v. FBI

Posted on December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by Denise Simon

The second hearing in the Senate where Inspector General Horowitz delivered more testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was quite chilling and revealing.
There was a particular exchange between Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Horowitz that explains the bias or perhaps even the plotting.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was blunt in trying to get to the bottom of what happened during Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.

“Were they just all incompetent?” he asked. Hawley then noted that due to the complexities involved, “it doesn’t sound like they’re very stupid to me.”

Hawley ultimately asked why the members of the FBI would commit such failures to mislead a court multiple times.

“That was precisely the concern we had,” Horowitz said. The inspector general made clear that he did not reach any conclusions regarding intent, but he did not necessarily accept the reasons people gave him during his investigation.

“There are so many errors, we couldn’t reach a conclusion or make a determination on what motivated those failures other than we did not credit what we lay out here were the explanations we got,” Horowitz said.

This echoed what Horowitz said in his opening statement, where he made clear that “although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or the missing information and the failures that occurred.”

Horowitz previously appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the aftermath of his report on the subject, but Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate homeland security panel comes a day after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) sharply criticized the FBI in a rare public order that referenced his findings.

Horowitz said that both Justice Department attorneys and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “should have been given complete and accurate information,” adding, “that did not occur and as a result, the surveillance of Carter Page continued even as the FBI gathered evidence and information that weakened the assessment of probable cause and made the FISA applications less accurate.”

So, the Democrats along with the media prepackaged the headlines prior to the Horowitz testimony that the IG report found NO bias. We are now getting more concise and factual information that says otherwise. Seems those on the top floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building opened some old history books on the former Director of the FBI and used several of Hoover’s tactics for all things Crossfire Hurricane and the 4 FISA warrants.

Image result for fisa court The IG report is teeming with deceit and clandestine maneuvers at the hands of the SSA’s (Special Agents) on the top floor and not those of 7 levels down from the Director level as Comey and McCabe have declared.

The first FISA application: “contained seven significant inaccuracies and omissions.”. None of these were corrected with an addendum or with the 3 renewals. Contrary to Comey’s constant testimony, the dossier played the largest role in the warrant application and the FBI knew that Carter Page worked as an agent for the CIA to collect and share information on his Russian interactions, yet that was stripped out of the hundreds of pages in the warrant applications. By the way, both the FBI and the CIA as a matter of practice use civilian informants and even top leaders of global corporations to gather intelligence during foreign travels and interactions.

Now, where is the outrage of the pesky now very loyal and dedicated pro-Constitutional Democrats and where is the media on all this? In fact, with the top judge, Rosemary Collyer at the FISA court issuing a demand letter after the IG report and testimony to the FBI, what will the all the clean up measures include and will there be legal consequences for those who lied, cheated and deceived the court? Beware, much of our media, TV and print operates with wild abandon by applying propaganda….the Kremlin would be proud.

Russian Nationals, Cyber Scheme Infected Thousands of Computers

Posted on December 5, 2019December 5, 2019 by Denise Simon

Charges Announced in Malware Conspiracy

Indictment

The case appears to have begun in 2011. The DOJ has connected Yakubets and Turashev to cyberattacks as recently as March of this year, according to the indictment. As a part of its investigation, the U.S. in 2010 transmitted a mutual legal assistance treaty request to Russia, and according to Bowdich, the Russian government was “helpful to a point.” Once the hackers were in possession of the bank credentials, they would use “money mules” to funnel the funds into foreign bank accounts. In one case, an employee of a Pennsylvania school district clicked on a graphic in a phishing email sent by Yakubets and Turashev, and the two later attempted to transfer nearly $1 million from the district’s bank account to a bank in Ukraine. The malware was deployed by Yakubets and Turashev infected tens of thousands of computers across North America and Europe, including two banks, a school district, four Pennsylvania companies and a North Carolina firearm manufacturer.

Two Russian Nationals Engaged in Cybercrime Scheme That Infected Tens of Thousands of Computers

The U.S. Department of Justice today joined with the U.S. Department of State and the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency in charging two Russian nationals with a vast and long-running cybercrime spree that stole from thousands of individuals and organizations in the United States and abroad.

Along with several co-conspirators, Maksim V. Yakubets and Igor Turashev are charged with an effort that infected tens of thousands of computers with a malicious code called Bugat. Once installed, the computer code, also known as Dridex or Cridex, allowed the criminals to steal banking credentials and funnel money directly out of victims’ accounts. The long-running scheme involved a number of different code variants, and later version also installed ransomware on victim computers. The criminals then demanded payment in cryptocurrency for returning vital data or restoring access to critical systems.

“Although their realm is a digital one, this is one of the world’s largest organized crime groups,” said FBI Supervisory Special Agent Adam Lawson of the Major Cyber Crimes Unit. “They are personally getting rich, and new organizations and individuals are being victimized every day.”

Turashev and Yakubets were both indicted in the Western District of Pennsylvania on conspiracy to commit fraud, wire fraud, and bank fraud, among other charges. Yakubets was also tied to charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud issued in the District of Nebraska after investigators were able to connect him to the indicted moniker “aqua” from that case, which involved another malware variant known as Zeus.

Assisted in some cases by money mules who funneled the stolen funds through U.S. bank accounts before shipping the money overseas, the group stole or extorted tens of millions of dollars from victims. Among those affected was a Pennsylvania school district that saw $999,000 wired out of its accounts and an oil company that lost more than $2 million.

The FBI, in partnership with the State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, also announced a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Yakubets, who is alleged to be the leader of the scheme. The reward is the largest ever offered for a cyber criminal.

“The actions highlighted today, which represent a continuing trend of cyber-criminal activity emanating from Russian actors, were particularly damaging as they targeted U.S. entities across all sectors and walks of life,” said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich. “The FBI, with the assistance of private industry and our international and U.S. government partners, is sending a strong message that we will work together to investigate and hold all criminals accountable.”

According to the charges, the co-conspirators distributed the malware through email phishing campaigns. In the early years, these messages were sent in massive, widespread campaigns. More recent attacks have been more strategic—specifically targeting businesses and organizations that have valuable computer systems and access to significant financial resources.

Victims were tricked into opening a document or clicking on a graphic or link that appeared to be from a legitimate source. The link or attachment downloaded the malicious code onto the user’s machine, where it could also spread to any networked computers.

According to FBI Supervisory Special Agent Steven Lampo, this campaign deployed a stealth type of malware designed to avoid detection by antivirus software. “The full program does too much and is too big to avoid detection,” Lampo said. The smaller piece of code, however, can inject itself into the running processes of the machine—beginning a process that allows the full suite of malware to load onto the machine or network. The malware’s creators were constantly creating new variants of the code to avoid antivirus tools.