An affordable price is probably the major benefit persuading people to buy drugs at www.americanbestpills.com. The cost of medications in Canadian drugstores is considerably lower than anywhere else simply because the medications here are oriented on international customers. In many cases, you will be able to cut your costs to a great extent and probably even save up a big fortune on your prescription drugs. What's more, pharmacies of Canada offer free-of-charge shipping, which is a convenient addition to all other benefits on offer. Cheap price is especially appealing to those users who are tight on a budget
Service Quality and Reputation
Although some believe that buying online is buying a pig in the poke, it is not. Canadian online pharmacies are excellent sources of information and are open for discussions. There one can read tons of users' feedback, where they share their experience of using a particular pharmacy, say what they like or do not like about the drugs and/or service. Reputable online pharmacy canadianrxon.com take this feedback into consideration and rely on it as a kind of expert advice, which helps them constantly improve they service and ensure that their clients buy safe and effective drugs. Last, but not least is their striving to attract professional doctors. As a result, users can directly contact a qualified doctor and ask whatever questions they have about a particular drug. Most likely, a doctor will ask several questions about the condition, for which the drug is going to be used. Based on this information, he or she will advise to use or not to use this medication.
Islamic State oil man Abu Sayyaf was riding high a year ago. With little industry experience, he had built a network of traders and wholesalers of Syrian oil that at one point helped triple energy revenues for his terrorist bosses.
His days carried challenges familiar to all oil executives—increasing production, improving client relations and dodging directives from headquarters. He also had duties unique to the extremist group, including approving expenses to cover the upkeep of slaves, rebuilding oil facilities damaged by U.S. airstrikes and counting towers of cash.
Last May, U.S. Special Forces killed Abu Sayyaf, a nom de guerre, at his compound in Syria’s Deir Ezzour province. The raid also captured a trove of proprietary data that explains how Islamic State became the world’s wealthiest terror group.
Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal describe the terror group’s construction of a multinational oil operation with help from officious terror-group executives obsessed with maximizing profits. They show how the organization deals with the Syrian regime, handles corruption allegations among top officials, and, most critically, how international coalition strikes have dented but not destroyed Islamic State’s income.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter called the May 16, 2015, raid a “significant blow” against Islamic State and heralded the death of Abu Sayyaf, the terror group’s No. 2 oil executive.
In the 11 months since, U.S. and allied forces have launched hundreds more strikes against terrorist-controlled oil facilities and killed dozens of militants working in Islamic State’s oil and finance business. U.S. officials estimate that at least 30% of the group’s oil infrastructure has been destroyed, and taxes have replaced oil as the group’s largest profit center.
Daily oil sales in Syria and Iraq, though fallen, still total nearly $1 million. Two former Islamic State oil managers said the corporate structures created by Abu Sayyaf remained intact, including deals with businessmen linked to the Syrian regime.
Spreadsheets and Excel files show that Abu Sayyaf’s division contributed 72% of the $289.5 million in total Islamic State natural-resource revenues over the six months that ended in late February 2015.
The documents reviewed by the Journal represent only a portion of the files recovered in last year’s raid, which U.S. officials said has been useful for intelligence and military operations. This account of how Abu Sayyaf built and operated his division of Islamic State’s oil business is based on the documents and interviews with five people familiar with him and his Syrian operation.
Turning to terror
Abu Sayyaf was born in a working-class neighborhood of the Tunisian capital Tunis in the early 1980s and named Fathi Ben Awn al-Murad al Tunisi. How he became an extremist is unclear. He left for Iraq after dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 by U.S. forces and joined the jihadist group then known as al Qaeda in Iraq. Its goal was to repel U.S. troops and fight the Shiite-led government that took over Iraq.
In 2010, Abu Sayyaf married an Iraqi woman from a family also involved in the anti-American jihad. He took the name Abu Sayyaf al-Iraqi—literally, father of the sword bearer—reflecting his close ties with the jihad movement in Iraq and the nucleus of Iraq’s Sunni militants that included Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, founder of Islamic State.
Islamic State had seized many of Syria’s best-producing oil fields and created its oil ministry known as the Diwan of Natural Resources by the time Mr. Baghdadi declared his so-called caliphate in June 2014. Their lightning advance overwhelmed other rebel groups that shared control of Syrian oil territory. The terror group had crushed the Iraqi army to take oil fields and territory around Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.
The head of the oil ministry, an Iraqi known as Haji Hamid, put Abu Sayyaf in charge of Syria’s best oil-producing provinces, Deir Ezzour and al Hakasah. Abu Sayyaf’s 152 employees included managers from oil-producing Arab-speaking countries who had joined the extremist group: a Saudi, who managed the top-producing fields; an Iraqi, who ran oil-field maintenance; an Algerian responsible for refinery development; and a Tunisian, who was in charge of refinery operations.
Abu Sayyaf set up his headquarters at the giant al-Omar field in Deir Ezzour, which was previously run by Anglo-Dutch major Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A -1.93 % PLC.
Islamic State moved swiftly to expand sales to friendly Iraqi and Syrian traders. It began accepting dollars instead of the Syrian pound, making it easier for the terror group to transfer funds abroad and pay for imported goods through its international network of money changers.
Syria’s state-controlled system of marketing oil to international buyers through pipelines and oil tankers was replaced by a cottage industry of small smugglers who bought oil at the fields and ferried it away by truck.
Islamic State retained many Syrian oil-industry veterans, in part by paying high salaries. Two workers at Abu Sayyaf’s operations said in interviews that experienced people were paid handsomely—from $160 a month for an accountant to $400 for a drilling technician, compared with Syria’s average monthly wage of $50. Islamic State’s treasury, known as Beit al-Mal, based pay on the number of dependents and slaves a worker had.
Everyone was afraid of Islamic State, said Ibrahim, a 36-year-old former oil worker. “Local tribes used to fight over the fields,” he said, but now all submit to the terror group.
Islamic State oil managers demanded cash payments from traders buying their crude, with security supervisors deciding who was trustworthy enough to count the money. They were warned against transferring funds via banks for fear Western intelligence agents would intercept the financial information.
Abu Sayyaf created a regimented, compartmentalized work environment unusual for the region. Syrian workers had long relied on social and family contacts to retain plum positions. Under Islamic State rule, foreigners supervised their work. Such tasks as accounting were assigned to two Islamic State operatives from outside the region to discourage embezzlement.
The responsibilities of Abu Sayyaf extended beyond oil. In September 2014, he was given custody of Kayla Mueller, a kidnapped American aid worker. Ms. Mueller, who had been sexually abused by Mr. Baghdadi after being taken hostage in 2013, was killed about five months later, U.S. officials said.
Abu Sayyaf was a strict and unpopular manager, said Ibrahim, who had worked in oil fields under his supervision. Employees were threatened with transfers to Iraq, he said, where they feared oil bosses who were even more extreme.
The areas around the fields became scenes of occasional horror, said the drilling technician who fled Syria last year: “You go to work and you find someone beheaded.”
Under fire
At a Sept. 19, 2014, meeting, the United Nations Security Council called for a crackdown on Islamic State’s oil business. Five days later, U.S. jets started bombing the group’s makeshift refineries in Syria.
By mid-October, the U.S.-led coalition reported hundreds of strikes a day against Islamic State, which was increasing its grip on Iraq’s Anbar Province and battling for the Syria-Turkey border city of Kobani.
Some allied strikes targeted Abu Sayyaf’s wells. On Oct. 13, the Pentagon reported hitting oil collection points in Deir Ezzour. He ordered repair crews into action. Memos dated on Oct. 17 from his Saudi deputy provided details of an estimated $500,000 in damage at several oil facilities.
His Saudi subordinate, Abu Sarah al-Zahrani, promised that teams would have the wells up and running within four to 14 days. Workers had to fortify derricks and fix broken valves and pipes. In follow-up memos, Mr. Zahrani provided photos of the repairs, including jury-rigged pumps and hoses.
The allied bombardments forced attention on security. Islamic State bureaucrats in the Syrian city of Raqqa, its administrative headquarters, ordered militants to stop using communication devices equipped with GPS trackers.
Abu Sayyaf’s work brought tangible results. For the Islamic State monthly budget running from Oct. 25 to Nov. 23, 2014, his division reported $40.7 million in revenue, a 59% increase over the previous month. Monthly totals topped $40 million for each of the next two reporting months.
Internal affairs
By the end of 2014, Abu Sayyaf was facing pressure from inside Islamic State, which was struggling to build a promised religious utopia. People in Islamic State-controlled territory complained about high fuel prices, and Abu Sayyaf was ordered to keep a lid on prices and boost margins on oil sales, the terror group’s largest income source at the time.
In one memo, Islamic State’s General Governance Committee demanded a 10% cap on profits by fuel traders. Another memo from central command demanded that Islamic State’s oil ministry work with the local governor to set oil prices in al Hasakah, a district under Abu Sayyaf’s control.
Oil sellers, in turn, launched their own revolt. Angry over moves to slice profit margins, they alleged that Islamic State officials, including Abu Sayyaf, overcharged them and embezzled the money.
Abu Sayyaf set different prices for crude from different fields, depending on quality. For example, the average price a barrel in November 2014 at the al-Tanak field in Deir Ezzour ranged from $32 to $41, according to a spreadsheet seized by U.S. forces. Prices at the al-Omar and al-Milh fields, meanwhile, ranged from $50 to $70 a barrel around that time.
Oil buyers believed Islamic State gave some traders preferential treatment. The complaints reached Abu Sayyaf’s boss. A memo dated Dec. 22, 2014, from Islamic State’s oil ministry admonished employees in the field to maintain fair trade rules, including not allowing favored traders to cut in line at the oil fields.
Video recordings recovered from the raid appear to be part of an investigation of Abu Sayyaf at the time. Videos show interviews with oil tanker drivers at the al-Omar and al-Milh fields, and Islamic State officials talking about procedures for pricing and purchasing oil
One of the videos, recorded in January 2015, shows two lines of approximately 500 trucks waiting to purchase crude at the al-Omar field. A second video shows a high-ranking Islamic State official, identified as Abu Ubaydah, talking with truck drivers, traders and Islamic State officials there.
Drivers in the video complained that local Islamic State managers ran a two-tier pricing system: Drivers willing to pay higher prices—between $60 to $70 a barrel—moved to a priority loading lane, with little or no waiting. The $50-a-barrel line had a long wait.
Islamic State at the time was undercutting international oil prices, which were still about $80 a barrel. The loaded trucks left oil fields bound for either local makeshift refineries, buyers in Syrian government-held territory or the extremist-held city of Mosul in Iraq, according to Islamic State workers in the area. Discounted prices at Islamic State fields left room for sizable profits.
In the recording, Mr. Ubaydah told the drivers there was no corruption scheme and that Islamic State wasn’t driving up prices. He blamed the secondary fuel market in Syria where traders resold their loads. “We provided very low prices, but you all increased your prices at the auction, [so] we increased our prices, too,” he told the drivers on the video.
“We are the people,” one trucker said, “but you are ISIL.”
“It’s true that we are ISIL, but you are the one who are raising your prices against all Muslims,” Mr. Ubaydah said.
A report from Islamic State’s General Governance Committee dated Feb. 24, 2015, concluded there was no corruption and cleared Abu Sayyaf.
He didn’t have time to savor the victory. Global oil prices were falling. For the month ending on Feb. 20, 2015, his oil division revenues fell 24% from the previous month to $33 million.
Abu Sayyaf and his team focused on a new mission: finding investment capital to open operations at wells left inactive because of a labor shortage.
Memo No. 156 dated Feb. 11, 2015, from Islamic State’s treasury to Abu Sayyaf’s boss requested guidance on establishing investment relationships with businessmen linked to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The document said the terror group already had agreements allowing trucks and pipeline transit from regime-controlled fields through Islamic State-controlled territory.
In the early hours of May 16, U.S. Special Forces flew from a military base in Iraq to al-Omar. U.S. forces killed several armed Islamic State guards outside his compound, U.S. officials said, and then fatally shot the Tunisian.
“The operation represents another significant blow to ISIL, and it is a reminder that the United States will never waver in denying safe haven to terrorists who threaten our citizens, and those of our friends and allies,” Defense Secretary Carter said that day.
In September 2015, the U.S. Treasury placed Abu Sayyaf’s boss, Haji Hamid, on a terror-sanctions list, and, four months later, Abu Sayyaf’s Saudi deputy.
This spring, Islamic State oil wells pump at reduced capacity. In March, a baby-faced French jihadist called Abu Mohammad al-Fransi took over some of Abu Sayyaf’s duties as a senior accountant of Syrian oil fields.
Former DEA operations chief Michael Braun said Hezbollah is “moving [multiple] tons of cocaine” from South America to Europe and has developed “the most sophisticated money laundering scheme or schemes that we have ever witnessed.”
The agency announced in February that it had arrested several Hezbollah operatives accused of working with a major Colombian drug cartel to traffic drugs to Europe and launder money through Lebanon. Those arrests come against a backdrop of rising fears in Washington about smuggling connections between Middle East terrorist groups and the Western Hemisphere.
Hezbollah has “metastasized into a hydra with international connections that the likes of [the Islamic State] and groups like al Qaeda could only hope to have,” Mr. Braun told the House Financial Services Committee.
Adding to concerns about security threats from Central and South America, intelligence reports have also tracked how smugglers managed to sneak illegal immigrants from the Middle Eastern and South Asia straight to the doorstep of the U.S. — including helping one Afghan who U.S. authorities say was part of an attack plot in North America.
Immigration officials identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed this month by The Washington Times.
Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban and was “involved in a plot to conduct an attack in the U.S. and/or Canada.”
Concerns about Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America have surged the DEA’s announcement in February that top operatives from the group’s so-called Business Affairs Component, or BAC, “have established business relationships” with South American drug cartels such as the Colombia-based Oficina de Envigado, a crime syndicate “responsible for supplying large quantities of cocaine to the European and United States drug markets.”
The DEA said several of the BAC’s Europe-based operatives had been arrested on charges of trafficking drugs and laundering money from South America to purchase weapons and finance the group’s military activities in Syria. The agency described an intricate network of money couriers who collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East.
“The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers,” it said, adding that “a large portion of the drug proceeds was found to transit through Lebanon, and a significant percentage of these proceeds are benefiting terrorist organizations, namely Hezbollah.”
The DEA said seven countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, were involved in an ongoing investigation. But few details were provided about how many suspects had been apprehended or where they are being held.
Officials said the most significant arrest was of Mohamad Noureddine, whom the DEA accused of being a Lebanese money launderer for Hezbollah. A week prior to the announcement, the Treasury Department had imposed sanctions freezing any U.S. accounts tied to Mr. Noureddine as well as to Hamdi Zaher El Dine, another suspected money launderer.
Decades of activity
U.S. officials have long been wary of Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamic group.
While it has a mainstream political arm in Lebanon, officials have linked the group to terrorist attacks in various corners of the world over the past 25 years — the vast majority targeting Israel. The State Department listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in the late 1990s and has characterized Iran as a leading state sponsor of terrorism largely on grounds that it supplies the group with weapons.
But the full scope of Hezbollah’s operations has long been a subject of debate in Washington. The DEA’s recent claims followed years of speculation about Iranian activities in Latin America.
Responding to pressure from Republican lawmakers, the State Department conducted a formal probe into the matter in 2013 and issued a report claiming that Iran was not supporting any active terrorist cells in the region.
While the report said the number of Iranian officials operating in Latin America had increased, the report concluded Tehran had far less influence in Latin America than critics claimed.
But former officials like Mr. Braun, who retired as DEA chief of operations in 2008, say Hezbollah is extremely active in the region.
President Obama signed the “Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act” last year, authorizing a range of actions, including sanctions, to block Hezbollah’s ability to fund itself.
Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow on Iran and illicit finance with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing that Congress and the administration should use the law to “aggressively focus” on Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America.
Brazilian connection
Mr. Ottolenghi pointed to the group’s “vast network of support,” particularly in Brazil, which is home to some 7 million people of Lebanese descent, including an estimated 1 million Shiite Muslims.
“Hezbollah generates loyalty among the local Shia communities by managing their religious and educational structures,” Mr. Ottolenghi told the hearing. “It then leverages loyalty to solicit funds and use business connections to its own advantage, including, critically, to facilitate its interactions with organized crime.”
He cited a 2014 report by the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that outlined a connection between Hezbollah and the Primeiro Comando da Capital, a Sao Paulo-based prison gang, which is widely regarded to be among the country’s biggest exporters of cocaine.
“Drug cartels need middlemen, as well as commodity and service providers, for the supply line and delivery to cartels in Colombia, Venezuela and Central America,” Mr. Ottolenghi said. “They need assistance facilitating transit to West Africa before drugs cross the Sahara on their way to Western Europe and enabling the producers, refiners and cartels to launder their revenues and acquire the accessories for the trade in the process.”
Play this short video. Ever wonder about the dreams of Americans who would like to attend schools of higher education that cant because the class size limits are met by foreigners? If these ‘dreamers’ need aid and assistance then how about their home countries paying for it? Rhetorical for sure.
Another rhetorical question….How about home countries provide internal dreamer conditions?
The President met with six young “DREAMers” in the Oval Office, all of whom were brought to America by their parents, and — until recently — faced a difficult situation because of their immigration status. The President’s executive action on immigration is changing that.
President Barack Obama shows the Resolute Desk to a group of DREAMers, following their Oval Office meeting in which they talked about how they have benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Feb. 4, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
“I don’t think there’s anybody in America who’s had a chance to talk to these six young people … who wouldn’t find it in their heart to say these kids are Americans just like us, and they belong here, and we want to do right by them.”
President Barack Obama, 2/4/2015
Each of the young people who stood in the Oval Office yesterday had one thing in common: They were all brought here by parents dreaming of a better life for their children in America.
Some of them arrived when they were simply months old. They were raised in American communities, often not realizing their status was any different from that of their classmates or neighbors. Many of them, as the President noted in remarks at the end of the meeting, didn’t discover that there was something different about them — something that might prevent them from giving back to their community and their country — until they were about to go to college.
Over three million students graduate from U.S. high schools every year. Most get the opportunity to test their dreams and live their American story. However, a group of approximately 65,000 youth do not get this opportunity; they are smeared with an inherited title, an illegal immigrant. These youth have lived in the United States for most of their lives and want nothing more than to be recognized for what they are, Americans.
The DREAM Act is a bipartisan legislation ‒ pioneered by Sen. Orin Hatch [R-UT] and Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL] ‒ that can solve this hemorrhaging injustice in our society. Under the rigorous provisions of the DREAM Act, qualifying undocumented youth would be eligible for a 6 year long conditional path to citizenship that requires completion of a college degree or two years of military service.
For reference on your tax dollars and foreign aid:
In part by Devex: A number of U.S. agencies specifically target private sector partnerships and reforms to drive economic growth, and each of them received a budget increase — some quite significant — under the president’s proposed plan.
The U.S. Trade and Development Agency would see its budget increase by 22 percent if Obama’s request finds traction, a “plus-up” that comes after USTDA’s budget already jumped 19 percent last year. The relatively small agency, which seeks to connect U.S. companies with infrastructure investments in emerging markets, has been lauded from both sides of the political aisle.
The accompanying budget justification describes a robust role for using the additional funding provided under the president’s request in support of Power Africa’s goals, although some observers have wondered where the $7 billion will come from, and whether it really represents concrete administration commitments or merely aspirational targets.
Each agency’s specific contribution to the initiative cannot be parsed out of the 2015 numbers. However, the budget — together with the recent congressional vote in favor of the bipartisan “Electrify Africa Act,” which directs the president to create a strategy for alleviating energy poverty in Africa –—suggests Power Africa transactions are poised to represent a substantially larger percentage of the U.S. development portfolio next year.
Climate change
The issue of global climate change has risen in profile since Secretary of State John Kerry took office last year, but funding for the Global Climate Change Initiative remained at a flat $840 million in the 2015 request.
Just as the President’s budget request does not specify how much it will spend directly on Power Africa, it also sheds little light on what portion of Power Africa’s transactions will focus on non-carbon energy sources.
That could leave climate change advocates wondering what’s in it for them — and whether the funding will ever match the rhetoric — when it comes to foreign affairs spending in 2015 and beyond.
Operating expenses, Middle East democracy
USAID receives a more than 20 percent increase to its operating budget in the president’s request, after a 10 percent reduction to that same account in 2014. While agency officials were confident they could sustain current operations using carry over funding this year, they also maintained that surplus funding will be gone by 2015 and that staffing and programs would suffer if the OE budget was not restored.
The agency will have to wait and see if Congress agrees with Obama’s show of support for investing in the agency’s ability to hire new staff and continue funding the USAID Forward agenda, which seeks procurement system reforms and increased agency capacity.
Such pro-democracy language and overt funding for “locally-led change and emerging reformists” could be read as a response to criticism some have leveled at the administration that it has not done enough to support opposition groups and popular movements against entrenched autocrats.
Next steps
The president’s budget request marks the first step in an appropriations process that will play out for months and ultimately determine how the U.S. government prioritizes spending next year.
The proposal is strong on its message about a “new model of development,” which sees opportunities for partnerships with the private sector in spurring development gains, as well as an obligation for U.S. action to respond effectively when global hot spots ignite.
Some signals — the Electrify Africa Act and USTDA’s continued budget plus-ups, for example — suggest bipartisan support exists for the partnerships model of development, at least in some sectors. But it will be important to watch closely to see if the administration is nearly as successful in defending those priorities within the foreign affairs budget — like new emphases on maternal health and child stunting, and global climate change — that do not appear to lend themselves so easily to the mutual economic benefit argument.
California Dream Act AB-130 and AB-131
Allows students eligible for state financial aid to apply for and
receive;
* Institutional scholarships such as the UC
Grant, State University Grant & Educational
Opportunity Program funds;
* California Community College Board of
Governor (BOG) Fee Waivers;
* State financial aid, including Cal Grants and
Chafee Foster Youth for use at qualifying
public and private institutions
Earlier this week, this site posted about the limitless help Hillary Clinton is receiving from Google to catapult her into the White House. There is no dollar value that can be applied to this but it should be in fact be considered a campaign donation. Blaming the media is one thing, now we have to go wider to the tech companies….
And so it has already begun….Google is transforming facts and filtering posts on all media. By the way, Google did the same thing for Barack Obama’s election processes. The Clinton crime syndicate creeps through all venues with wild abandon….
Shame on Google….but here goes:
Here Are 10 More Examples of Google Search Results Favorable to Hillary
Tech giant accused of whitewashing autocomplete results
FreeBeacon: “Crime” and “indictment” are not the only terms Google is keeping hidden from searches of Hillary Clinton, a Washington Free Beacon analysis finds.
Common search terms associated with Clinton appear to have been scrubbed from Google as the tech giant has been accused of manipulating its autocomplete results to favor the Democratic presidential candidate.
Matt Lieberman of SourceFed released a video showing examples of Google skewing its autocomplete results for Clinton, while other search engines simply display the most searched terms.
“While researching for a wrap-up on the June 7 Presidential Primaries, we discovered evidence that Google may be manipulating autocomplete recommendations in favor of Hillary Clinton,” SourceFed wrote. “If true, this would mean that Google Searches aren’t objectively reflecting what the majority of Internet searches are actually looking for, possibly violating Google’s algorithm.”
For example, when searching Hillary Clinton “cri,” Google finishes the phrase as “crime reform.” On Yahoo, the result is “criminal charges.” On Google’s own trend website, there were not enough searches for Hillary Clinton and “crime reform” to build a graph of the results.
Typing Hillary Clinton and “ind” gives Google users results on Hillary Clinton and Indiana. On Microsoft’s Bing search engine, a user gets Hillary Clinton and “indictment,” yielding results for the FBI investigation into Clinton’s private email server.
Just putting the name “Hillary Clinton” into Google, you are directed towards searches for her “twitter,” “email,” “age,” and “speech.”
Notably missing is the second top result on Bing, which is of her potential “indictment.”
Here are 10 more examples of questionable Google autocompletes for Clinton:
1. “Hillary Clinton anti…”
Bing gets you antichrist, antisemitic, and anti gay marriage.
Google gets you “anti obama ad.”
2. “Hillary Clinton vin…”
Bing gets you vindictive and a variety of searches focusing on the death of Vince Foster.
Google recommends a search for a compilation of Vines.
3. “Hillary Clinton ga…”
Bing thinks the user is looking for her gaffes or maybe her shaky view on gay marriage.
Google thinks the user is researching her Gameboy?
4. “Hillary Clinton hum…”
Bing directs you to Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin and whether she is Clinton’s lover.
Google directs you towards a look at Clinton’s humor and her status as a humanitarian.
5. “Hillary Clinton cro…”
Bing sends you over to crook or crooked.
Google sends you to cross-stitch, a common embroidery method.
6. “Hillary Clinton un…”
On Bing, unlikable, untrustworthy, and under investigation top the list.
On Google, universal health care jumps to the top of the list.
7. “Hillary Clinton aff…”
Bing’s top suggestion is a look into Clinton affairs.
That suggestion is absent from Google.
8. “Hillary Clinton whi…”
Top result on Bing is the Whitewater scandal.
This is also absent from Google, leaving just searches for Clinton doing the whip and nae nae, which are dance moves for young people.
9. “Hillary Clinton mon…”
Bing guesses that its user is looking into either Monsanto or Monica Lewinsky.
No way a Google user could be looking into Monica Lewinsky.
Click here to read in high quality the associated emails.
White House perhaps slipped up, but did say the Hillary investigation was a criminal case the same day that Barack Obama endorsed her.
How Clinton Donor Got on Sensitive Intelligence Board
ABCNews: Newly released State Department emails help reveal how a major Clinton Foundation donor was placed on a sensitive government intelligence advisory board even though he had no obvious experience in the field, a decision that appeared to baffle the department’s professional staff.
The emails further reveal how, after inquiries from ABC News, the Clinton staff sought to “protect the name” of the Secretary, “stall” the ABC News reporter and ultimately accept the resignation of the donor just two days later.
Copies of dozens of internal emails were provided to ABC News by the conservative political group Citizens United, which obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act after more the two years of litigation with the government.
A prolific fundraiser for Democratic candidates and contributor to the Clinton Foundation, who later traveled with Bill Clinton on a trip to Africa, Rajiv K. Fernando’s only known qualification for a seat on the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) was his technological know-how. The Chicago securities trader, who specialized in electronic investing, sat alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Hillary Clinton on the use of tactical nuclear weapons and on other crucial arms control issues.
“We had no idea who he was,” one board member told ABC News.
State Department A State Department photograph shows the 2011 International Security Advisory Board. Rajiv Fernando is seated on the far left of the image.
Fernando’s lack of any known background in nuclear security caught the attention of several board members, and when ABC News first contacted the State Department in August 2011 seeking a copy of his resume, the emails show that confusion ensued among the career government officials who work with the advisory panel.
“I have spoken to [State Department official and ISAB Executive Director Richard Hartman] privately, and it appears there is much more to this story that we’re unaware of,” wrote Jamie Mannina, the press aide who fielded the ABC News request. “We must protect the Secretary’s and Under Secretary’s name, as well as the integrity of the Board. I think it’s important to get down to the bottom of this before there’s any response.
“As you can see from the attached, it’s natural to ask how he got onto the board when compared to the rest of the esteemed list of members,” Mannina wrote, referring to an attachment that was not included in the recent document release.
Fernando himself would not answer questions from ABC News in 2011 about what qualified him for a seat on the board or led to his appointment. When ABC News finally caught up with Fernando at the 2012 Democratic convention, he became upset and said he was “not at liberty” to speak about it. Security threatened to have the ABC News reporter arrested.
ABC News
At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, ABC News’ Brian Ross asks Rajiv Fernando about his 2011 appointment to the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board.more +
Fernando’s expertise appeared to be in the arena of high-frequency trading — a form of computer-generated stock trading. At the time of his appointment, he headed a firm, Chopper Trading, that was a leader in that field.
Fernando’s history of campaign giving dated back at least to 2003 and was prolific — and almost exclusively to Democrats. He was an early supporter of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 bid for president, giving maximum contributions to her campaign, and to HillPAC, in 2007 and 2008. He also served as a fundraising bundler for Clinton, gathering more than $100,000 from others for her White House bid. After Barack Obama bested Clinton for the 2008 nomination, Fernando became a major fundraiser for the Obama campaign. Prior to his State Department appointment, Fernando had given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation, and another $30,000 to a political advocacy group, WomenCount, that indirectly helped Hillary Clinton retire her lingering 2008 campaign debts by renting her campaign email list.
The appointment qualified Fernando for one of the highest levels of top secret access, the emails show. Among those with whom Fernando served on the International Security Advisory Board was David A. Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group and United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector; Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a former National Security Advisor to two presidents; two former congressmen; and former Sen. Chuck Robb. William Perry, the former Secretary of Defense, chaired the panel.
“It is certainly a serious, knowledgeable and experienced group of experts,” said Bruce Blair, a Princeton professor whose principal research covers the technical and policy steps on the path toward the verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons. “Much of the focus has been on questions of nuclear stability and the risks of nuclear weapons use by Russia and Pakistan.”
The newly released emails reveal that after ABC News started asking questions in August 2011, a State Department official who worked with the advisory board couldn’t immediately come up with a justification for Fernando serving on the panel. His and other emails make repeated references to “S”; ABC News has been told this is a common way to refer to the Secretary of State.
“The true answer is simply that S staff (Cheryl Mills) added him,” wrote Wade Boese, who was Chief of Staff for the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, in an email to Mannina, the press aide. “Raj was not on the list sent to S; he was added at their insistence.”
Mills, a former deputy White House counsel, was serving as Clinton’s chief of staff at the time, and has been a longtime legal and political advisor.
Four minutes later, Boese wrote to his boss, Richard Hartman, to alert him that Ellen Tauscher, who was then the Undersecretary for State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, would be meeting with Mills to devise a response to the ABC News request.
“Sorry this has become a headache,” he wrote.
Hartman wrote the next morning to say he would “come up and brief you… about where Raj Fernando stands and the ABC News investigative journalist inquiries. You do need to hear about it.” Separately, in an email to another official, Hartman noted that it was “Cheryl Mills, who added Mr. Fernando’s name to the list of ISAB nominees.”
When ABC News sent a follow-up inquiry about the qualifications of another board appointee, Massachusetts state Rep. Harold P. Naughton, Jr., Boese wrote to Hartman to say the department would have a far easier time explaining Naughton’s credentials. “The case for Rep. Naughton is an easy one. We are on solid ground,” he said.
By this point, Fernando himself had been looped into the discussion. He and Hartman exchanged emails, but the entire text of Fernando’s letter was redacted by the State Department prior to its release.
Twice, Mannina was instructed to stall with ABC News, before Mills sent a public statement. It announced Fernando’s abrupt decision to step down.
“Mr. Fernando chose to resign from the Board earlier this month citing additional time needed to devote to his business,” it reads, noting that membership on the board was required to be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.”
“As President and CEO of Chopper Trading, Mr. Fernando brought a unique perspective to ISAB. He has years of experience in the private sector in implementing sophisticated risk management tools, information technology and international finance,” the statement says.
The statement was emailed to ABC News two days after Fernando’s resignation and four days after the initial ABC News inquiry.
Fernando’s letter of resignation to Clinton says he “intended to devote a substantial amount of time to the work of ISAB in furtherance of its objectives. However, the unique, unexpected, and excessive volatility in the international markets these last few weeks and months require[d him] to focus [his] energy on the operations of [his] company.”
Additional emails collected from Hillary Clinton’s personal server only hint at her possible involvement in Fernando’s selection to the board. The records request for documents about Fernando’s appointment produced a chain of correspondence from 2010 with the subject line “ISAB” — or International Security Advisory Board. In those, Mills writes, “The secretary had two other names she wanted looked at.” The names are redacted. Mills then forwarded the response to “H,” which is the designation for Clinton’s personal account. Three minutes later Clinton forwards the email chain to another State official and says simply, “Pls print.”
The Clinton campaign declined requests from ABC News to make Mills available for an interview. Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill deferred to the U.S. State Department, which issued a statement saying the board’s charter specifically calls for a membership that reflects “a balance of backgrounds and points of view. Furthermore, it is not unusual for the State Department Chief of Staff to be involved in personnel matters.”
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Cheryl Mills, former State Department chief of staff under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, attends a House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing in Washington, Oct. 22, 2015. more +
Fernando did not respond to messages left by ABC News at home and mobile numbers listed for Fernando, nor to a letter left at the office of his current business.
As is customary with a new administration, the make-up of the board changed substantially when Clinton took over the State Department, according to Amb. James Woolsey, who served on the panel from 2006 to 2009. But the seriousness of its mission remained the same.
He said the board’s primary purpose was to gather an array of experts on nuclear weapons and arms control to constantly assess and update the nation’s nuclear strategy.
“Most things that involve nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy are dealt with at a pretty sensitive basis — top secret,” he said, noting that participants meet in a secure facility and are restricted in what materials they can discuss.
That is not typically the realm of political donors, Woolsey said. Though, he added, it would not be impossible for someone lacking a security background to make a contribution to the panel. “It would depend on how smart and dedicated this person was… I would think you would have to devote some real time to getting up to speed,” he said.
Fernando is now a board member of a private group called the American Security Project, which describes itself as “a nonpartisan organization created to educate the American public and the world about the changing nature of national security in the 21st Century.” He also identifies himself online as a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and says he’s involved with a Washington think tank.
And he continued to donate to Democrats, and to Clinton. He emerged as one of the first “bundlers” to raise money for Clinton’s 2016 bid. And in July 2015, he hosted a fundraiser for Clinton at his Chicago home. Fernando has also continued to donate to the Clinton Foundation. He now is listed on the charity’s website as having given between $1 million and $5 million.
About six months after Fernando resigned from the State Department advisory board, he was invited to attend a White House State Dinner, honoring the British Prime Minister. And this summer Fernando will serve as a super delegate at the Democratic National Convention. According to Chicago media reports, he has committed to supporting Clinton.
ABC News’ Andrea GonzalesPaul contributed to this report.
