Russia China Just Teamed up, Against U.S.

Posted on by

China denies request for Hong Kong visit by U.S. carrier group: Pentagon

Reuters: China has denied a request for a U.S. carrier strike group led by the USS John C. Stennis to visit to Hong Kong, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday, amid heightened tensions over China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Bill Urban, said a U.S. warship, the USS Blue Ridge, was currently in Hong Kong on a port visit and the United States expected that to continue.

The Chinese government and its embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Urban said the request for the Hong Kong visit by the carrier and its accompanying vessels, which have been patrolling the South China Sea, was recently denied, despite a “long track record of successful port visits to Hong Kong.”

The Blue Ridge, the command ship of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, arrived in Hong Kong waters at 11:20 a.m. local time (0320 GMT) on Friday, according to the on-line log of the Hong Kong government’s Marine Department.

The nuclear-powered Stennis has been conducting patrols in the South China Sea, which China claims most of and where Beijing has sparked U.S. and regional concerns by building artificial islands to bolster its claims.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited the Stennis while it transited the South China Sea on April 15 to underscore U.S. concerns about the need to maintain freedom of navigation in the South China Sea in the face of Chinese moves.

A wide range of U.S. military vessels and aircraft have long routinely stopped in Hong Kong, a reflection of the “one country, two systems” formula under which Britain handed the global financial hub back to China in 1997.

The visits occasionally have been suspended in periods of heightened tensions, such as after a mid-air collision between a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane and a Chinese plane off China’s Hainan island in 2001.

The USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier also was denied permission to enter Hong Kong over Thanksgiving in 2007 but was cleared to visit five months later.

The United States has stressed the importance of good relations with China’s military to avoid misunderstandings and Chinese military officers are invited routinely aboard U.S. ships during port visits, and are sometimes flown out to land on U.S. carriers at sea.

While there, he dismissed China’s characterization of a more robust U.S. military presence in the region as being the cause of heightened tensions. The United States has in turn accused China of militarizing its outposts in the South China Sea by building airstrips and other facilities.

Carter made a similar stop at the USS Theodore Roosevelt in November as it transited the South China Sea near Malaysia.

The Stennis has been on a routine deployment in the Western Pacific for more than three months, the carrier strike group’s commander, Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall, said earlier this month.

Russia, China in Agreement on North Korea, South China Sea

ABCNews: Denouncing what they see as outside interference in the South China Sea and Korean Peninsula, the foreign ministers of Russia and China voiced mutual support Friday as they seek to counter the influence of Washington and its allies, particularly in Asia.

Following talks in Beijing, Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and China’s Wang Yi expressed opposition to the U.S. deployment of an anti-missile system in South Korea and said non-claimants should not take sides in the dispute over maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Despite endorsing United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea over its missile launches and nuclear tests, the two strongly criticized the proposed deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system.

“Relevant countries shouldn’t use Pyongyang’s acts as a pretext to increase their military presence on the Korean Peninsula,” Lavrov told a joint news conference. “We believe the possible deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system won’t resolve this problem.”

Both Russia and China, North Korea’s now largely estranged ally, see the deployment as exceeding what is necessary to defend against any North Korean threat and would “directly affect strategic security of Russia and China,” Wang said.

That could “add fuel to the fire of an already tense situation and even possibly wreck the regional strategic balance,” Wang said.

Both men called for efforts to restart long-stalled six-nation talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear programs.

Their meeting came amid renewed tension on the Korean Peninsula, with South Korean officials saying the North attempted unsuccessfully to test-fire two suspected powerful intermediate-range missiles on Thursday.

It also comes ahead of a major North Korean ruling party meeting next week at which leader Kim Jong Un is believed to want to place his stamp more forcefully on a government he inherited after his dictator father’s death in late 2011.

On the South China Sea, which China claims almost entirely, Lavrov said outside parties shouldn’t interfere, a reference to the United States, which has challenged Beijing’s claims.

Wang said it was up to those countries directly involved to find a peaceful resolution through negotiations.

“International society, particularly countries from outside the South China Sea, should play a constructive function in maintaining peace and stability and not contribute to the situation becoming more chaotic,” Wang said.

Criticized over its aggressive tactics and construction of new islands with airfields, harbors and radar stations, China has sought to use Russia to bulk up its side of the argument against the U.S. and claimants such as the Philippines, which has brought a suit at the U.N. Court of Arbitration seeking a ruling on ownership over territories it claims.

China has refused to take part in the arbitration or recognize the court’s ruling.

Along with enlisting Russia’s support, China has given heavy publicity to what it calls a new consensus reached with Brunei, Cambodia and Laos — three members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations — endorsing its stance that the South China Sea dispute should not be an issue for ASEAN as a whole.

That has renewed criticisms from some that China is applying divide-and-conquer tactics with its smaller neighbors and trying to drive a wedge through the organization. ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines contest China’s claims, while Taiwan also claims much of the area.

While the U.S. says it takes no position on South China Sea sovereignty claims, it has worked to shore up the military capabilities of the Philippines, a treaty ally. Washington has also called on China to end its island-building projects and the U.S. Navy has repeatedly sailed and flown ships and planes nearby those structures, drawing sharp responses from the Chinese navy.

Wang and Lavrov both hailed two decades of warming ties between Moscow and Beijing, bitter Cold War rivals for a quarter century, who under Russian President Vladimir Putin have found common cause in challenging the West.

Russia has become a leading supplier of imported high-tech weaponry and resources such as oil and gas, while China is a major source of capital investment for projects in Russia.

Putin is scheduled to visit China in June.

Clintons Paying Legal Fees for email Server Agent

Posted on by

 

In 2014, the Hillary server domain registration was changed to Perfect Privacy, a proxy company that allows domain users to shield their identities. It’s a common practice among domain owners who don’t want their personal information listed on a public database.

Per Gawker: A source says at least two top Clinton aides used her private email accounts to conduct government business, putting their official communications outside the control of federal record-keeping regulations.

The source named Philippe Reines and Abedin as the employees who used Clinton’s private email addresses in the course of their agency duties.

Reines served as deputy assistant secretary of state, and Abedin as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. They are two of Clinton’s most loyal confidantes in and out of the State Department, Gawker reported. More here.

Related: Lawyers for Hillary’s team

Report: Clintons Are Paying Legal Bills For Aide Who Registered Private Email Address

DailyCaller: The Clintons have paid “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to cover the legal bills for a Bill Clinton aide who sits at the center of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

That’s according to Washington Times opinion editor Monica Crowley who reports in a new column that a knowledgeable source tells her that the Clintons are covering legal expenses for Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to the former president.

Such an arrangement would raise questions over whether the Clintons are paying Cooper’s bills in order to ensure that they have some oversight of his interactions with federal investigators. It would also raise questions about whether the Clintons are paying other aides’ legal costs.

Cooper registered clintonemail.com in his own name on Jan. 13, 2009. That email domain is the same one Hillary Clinton exclusively used to send work-related emails as secretary of state. Emails sent on that account were stored on a server that the Clintons kept at their personal residence in New York.

According to Crowley, Cooper’s role in helping set up Clinton’s mysterious email arrangement has put him in the FBI’s cross hairs. She reports:

A source familiar with Mr. Cooper’s arrangement with the Clintons tells me that they have paid his legal fees associated with the FBI investigation, amounting to “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” They aren’t paying those costs out of a sense of decency. They’re paying them because he knows the “why” of the server, which may very well have been to make it easier for the foundation to hustle big donations.

One wonders what, if anything, Mr. Cooper is telling the FBI —and whether the whole sordid Clinton house of cards will be left standing.

The FBI seized Clinton’s server last year after it was determined that some of her emails contained classified information. And now, investigators are reportedly poised to interview aides who have knowledge about the system.

And according to a Fox News report from earlier this year, the FBI’s investigation has expanded to a public corruption probe which centers on the intersection of the Clinton Foundation and State Department.

Cooper could also be embroiled in that aspect of the investigation, according to Crowley, who also works as a Fox News analyst.

The little-known Cooper has worked for the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm with close ties to the Clintons. Along with Doug Band — Bill Clinton’s former “body man,” a former counselor to the Clinton Foundation, and a co-founder of Teneo — Cooper kept in contact with Clinton’s State Department aides, emails from Clinton’s account show. One of those aides is Huma Abedin, who served as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff while also working for Teneo.

The overlap has raised questions over whether the Clinton Foundation and Teneo were using access to the State Department to help raise money and attract clients.

The possibility that the Clintons are paying legal bills for aides embroiled in the FBI investigation has already been broached by Congress.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley has asked lawyers for the Clintons and Abedin — as well as for former Clinton aides Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines, and Jake Sullivan — if they have entered any “joint defense agreements.”

The Iowa Republican has asserted that such arrangements could pose conflicts of interest because they would help ensure that the Clinton insiders refrained from providing evidence that could be detrimental to the Clintons.

The lawyers have refused to say if those arrangements have been made.

Grassley has also asked whether the Clintons are covering legal costs for Bryan Pagliano, the former information technology specialist who set up and managed Clinton’s private email server. But Pagliano’s lawyer, Mark MacDougall of the Clinton-connected law firm Akin Gump, has also refused to say if such an arrangement is in place. Pagliano has since entered an immunity deal with the FBI in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation.

Some evidence has emerged suggesting that the Clintons are paying legal bills for those embroiled in the email fiasco.

In October it was reported that the Denver-based IT company that handled Clinton’s server after she left the State Department had submitted an invoice to Clinton seeking payment for legal and public relations expenses.

The company, Platte River Networks, had control of Clinton’s server when it was turned over to the FBI. It billed Clinton’s accountant, Marcum LLP., nearly $50,000 for legal and PR expenses.

The Clinton campaign and the Clinton Foundation did not respond to The Daily Caller’s requests for comment.

 

 

 

Congress to Bailout Puerto Rico

Posted on by

Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth and is a U.S. territory. With a population of 3.5 million people the country is deeply in debt. Congress has been in discussions for months to draft a resolution as it has a debt payment due May 1 of $422 million. Worse, there is a debt payment due July 1 of $2 billion. The island Constitution requires the payments to be made over those bills for infrastructure including drinking water, police, and other public services. The bondholders have a have control of the credit unions where normal citizens have a major risk of losing their wealth.

Related: Washington Debate on Puerto Rico Bailout

If Congress Is to Rescue Puerto Rico, Key Conservative Has These Conditions

DailySignal: As the House struggles to find consensus on a plan to rescue Puerto Rico from its debt crisis, an influential conservative lawmaker today laid out his expectations for what legislation should look like.

Rep. Raúl Labrador, who is Puerto Rican, has been quiet about the plan being crafted by the Natural Resources Committee since he is a member of the panel and a direct participant in the negotiations.

But Labrador broke his silence before Capitol Hill reporters at the monthly Conversations with Conservatives event, declaring that any solution to Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems “cannot affect our states.”

“To me it’s pretty simple: Whatever we do on Puerto Rico cannot affect our states and cannot affect the way we are going to respond to any fiscal crisis in the future for any of the states,” said Labrador, R-Idaho, a founding member of a group of conservatives called the House Freedom Caucus

Before he can endorse the bill, Labrador said, he wants assurances that it treats different classes of creditors fairly and doesn’t open the door for Congress to give authority to struggling states to restructure their debts.

Earlier this month, the Natural Resources Committee released a draft bill that would create an outside fiscal oversight board to manage a process by which Puerto Rico could restructure its $72 billion debt load

The committee is revising the bill due to opposition from Republicans, the Treasury Department, and Democrats, and the legislation is not expected to be ready before May 1, when a $422 million debt payment by Puerto Rico is due. House leaders hope to act before a $2 billion payment comes due July 1.

Some holders of general obligation bonds whose debt payments are guaranteed by the Puerto Rican constitution have said they want to be exempted from the restructuring process facilitated by the proposed seven-member board.

Labrador said he doesn’t believe it’s “right” for those bondholders to get that exemption, but he also thinks pensioners should not be given higher priority than bondholders.

The Treasury Department, at one point, was planning to put pension payments to retired public employees in Puerto Rico ahead of payments to bondholders, according to The New York Times. Labrador said he wants the committee’s bill to include language ensuring that “pensions are not getting any priority over the secure debt

“I have spent a lot of time talking to a bit more objective bond companies that don’t have debt in Puerto Rico, and that’s their main concern,” Labrador said, adding that their “main concern” was that when Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013, it gave priority to pensions. He added:

That was an anomaly, so the bond market was not affected in any way. If we do that with Puerto Rico [give pensioners priority], what’s going to happen in the bond market is they will see a pattern and when they see that pattern, they are going to be concerned the same thing is going to happen in Illinois, the same thing is going to happen in California. And when they see that, all of a sudden the bond markets are going to react and that is going to affect every one of our states’ bonds. And it will affect the interest we pay on our bonds.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has promised to act on a solution for Puerto Rico and its 3.5 million American citizens, with the hope he would be supported by a majority of Republicans.

Labrador’s endorsement would go a long way to ensuring that, considering his sway in the Freedom Caucus.

The Idaho Republican said he can get there, and that “conservatives can support a bill that gives debt restructuring to Puerto Rico,” but only under certain conditions:

The fight I am having right now with the people who drafted this bill is that they want language to be loose enough that can get votes from the Democrats. Well, guess what, if the language is loose enough, then you are going to be able to get around the language. So what we have to do is be explicit in deciding what this oversight board should be doing and what the parameters are for judging the debt in Puerto Rico. Unless we do that, I think we are doing a disservice to the people in the United States.

A major question is whether the writers of the bill can satisfy enough conservatives without scaring away too many Democrats.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus chairman, told reporters today that it shouldn’t matter which party carries the legislation to passage, as long as lawmakers work together to solve a problem.

“We should do the right thing,” said Jordan, R-Ohio. “Whether that means you will have Democrats who vote for it, I don’t know. I think if you do the right thing, then people will vote for it. So that’s what should drive this—that you are doing the right thing.”

 

Who Wins, Biden, Iran or al Sadr?

Posted on by

Do you wonder if Vice President Biden is meeting with al Sadr? Biden would never make a surprise visit to Iraq unless something quite serious was at issue.

   

NYT: After arriving at the American embassy by helicopter, Mr. Biden was driven to the nearby Government Palace to meet Mr. Abadi.

Mr. Biden last visited Iraq in November 2011, just weeks before the last American troops in Iraq were scheduled to leave. In a solemn ceremony, Mr. Biden saluted Iraqi troops, trained and equipped with billions of dollars from the United States, saying he hoped they would safeguard the country. More here.

US Vice President Biden in Iraq ‘to resolve political crisis’

DW: US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on a surprise visit aimed at helping Iraqi leaders resolve a political crisis. It is hindering the country’s efforts to defeat the self-declared ‘Islamic State.’

Who is Muqtada al Sadr? Muqtada al-Sadr is of Iraqi and Iranian ancestry. After the fall of the Saddam government in 2003, Muqtada al-Sadr organized thousands of his supporters into a political movement, which includes a military wing known as the Jaysh al-Mahdi or Mahdi Army). The name refers to the Mahdi, a long-since disappeared Imam who is believed by Shi’a Muslims to be due to reappear when the end of time approaches. This group has periodically engaged in violent conflict with the United States and other Coalition forces.

Related: Mahdi Army

Barack Obama ordered all U.S. military presence out of Iraq and it was completed in 2011. Obama stated the country was sovereign and stable and for this reason there was no reason to maintain a ‘leave-behind’ force. All the while from 2010 forward and known full well by the Obama National Security Council:

CTC: On a more significant level, the revival of al-Sadr’s political fortunes are less about Iranian influence and more about his followers’ ability to cleverly exploit electoral politics to their advantage. The latest parliamentary elections provided such an opportunity, placing al-Sadr in the center of the political map. The key to the Sadrists’ electoral success was how they applied systematic polling methods such as databases with information on voters in all provinces and a cunning campaign strategy to win voters in the south.[16] Along with anti-establishment and populist tactics, such as the staged referendum as a way to discredit al-Maliki’s authority in the Shi`a urban centers, al-Sadr was able to present himself and his followers as the primary political force to defend the Shi`a population. Also, it is possible that al-Sadr exploited his close ties with General Qasim Soleimani of the IRGC, who also played a part in lobbying the Iraqi National Alliance to merge with the State of Law coalition to boost his political fortunes within the Shi`a bloc. This political move took away the chance for Iyad Allawi’s secular-Sunni front to form a government, which would have considerably diminished al-Sadr’s role as a key political figure.

In the aftermath of the elections, al-Sadr’s public call for the return of JAM reveals a sense of confidence with the backing of not only Iran, but also a large Shi`a electorate. For now, the Sadrists also have the respect of al-Maliki, who was forced to make considerable concessions with al-Sadr to remain in power. In this light, al-Sadr may now feel he has the political capital to legitimize the full restoration of JAM as part of Iraq’s security institutions, which could be controlled by Sadrists in the next government.

Al-Sadr appeals for solution to Iraq’s political crisis

BAGHDAD (AP) — An influential Iraqi Shiite cleric on Wednesday called on the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to help find a solution to the country’s simmering political crisis “even through holding early elections.”

Muqtada al-Sadr’s statement came a day after lawmakers failed to hold a session to vote on whether to keep or oust the parliament speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, threatening to prolong Iraq’s paralyzing political crisis amid the fight against Islamic State group that controls key areas in country’s north and west.

Al-Sadr ordered Sadrist lawmakers to withdraw from a parliament sit-in that demands the country’s top leadership — parliament speaker, prime minister and president — step down. But al-Sadr called on his followers to continue rallying in Bagdad’s Tahrir Square to pressure the parliament to vote on a new government after a recent Cabinet reshuffle.

“We call upon the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the United Nations to interfere to get the Iraqi people out of their ordeal and to correct the political process even through holding early elections,” al-Sadr said in a handwritten statement issued online.

It is still unclear how the withdrawal of Sadrist lawmakers will affect the parliament sit-in which was started last week by dozens of lawmakers following delay on the vote on the Cabinet reshuffle. On Thursday, they chose eldest lawmaker, Adnan al-Janabi, as an interim speaker, but the move was rejected by the other camp, which argues the move was illegal because the needed quorum was not achieved.

Tuesday’s session was supposed to vote on whether or not to remove al-Jabouri, but it was adjourned when major political blocks walked away because they objected to al-Janabi presiding over the session.

Iraq is weathering its worst crisis in years with the Sunni extremist IS group still controlling key areas in the country’s north and west, including the second-largest city of Mosul. The country is also undergoing an acute economic crisis due to plummeting oil prices on the international market.

Crime in 2015: A Final Analysis

Posted on by
Ames Grawert, James Cullen
April 20, 2016
 

[Download PDF of Final 2015 Numbers]

Brennan Center for Justice: Overall crime rates in America’s 30 largest cities were nearly identical from 2014 to 2015, according to an analysis of final 2015 numbers. Crime declined over that time period by 0.1 percent. The data show that crime rates remain at historic lows nationally, despite recent upticks in a handful of cities.
The authors of this report looked at changes in crime and murder from 2014 to 2015, using data through Dec. 31, 2015, and examined economic factors in Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., that could explain why murder rates are up in those cities. Of the 30 cities studied, the three areas accounted for more than half of the increase in murders last year.
Among the updated findings:
  • Crime overall in the 30 largest cities in 2015 remained the same as in 2014, decreasing by 0.1 percent. Two-thirds of cities saw drops in crime, which were offset mostly by an increase in Los Angeles (12.7 percent). Nationally, crime remains at all-time lows.
  • Violent crime rose slightly, by 3.1 percent. This result was primarily caused by increasing violence in Los Angeles (25.2 percent), Baltimore (19.2 percent), and Charlotte (15.9 percent). Notably, aggravated assaults in Los Angeles account for more than half of the national rise in violent crime.
  • The 2015 murder rate rose by 13.2* percent in the 30 largest cities, with 19 cities seeing increases and 6 decreases. However, in absolute terms, murder rates are so low that a small numerical increase can lead to a large percentage change.
  • Final data confirm that three cities (Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) account for more than half (244) of the national increase in murders. While this suggests cause for concern in some cities, murder rates vary widely from year to year, and there is little evidence of a national coming wave in violent crime. These serious increases seem to be localized, rather than part of a national pandemic, suggesting that community conditions remain the major factor. Notably, these three cities all seem to have falling populations, higher poverty rates, and higher unemployment than the national average. This implies that economic deterioration of these cities could be a contributor to murder increases.

The new figures are an update to a Brennan Center November 2015 report, Crime in 2015: A Preliminary Analysis, authored by a team of economists and legal researchers. That report found similar conclusions. The Brennan Center also released a near-final update of the numbers in December 2015.

*This number has been changed from 13.3 to reflect a transcription error.

Crime in 2015: A Final Analysis by The Brennan Center for Justice