Emerging Putin’s Geo Aggressions

Posted on March 4, 2016March 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Putin has an inside circle and it is bid-rigging and creating wealth though fraud and collusion. Cunning, calculated, measured and well planned, Putin has a global objective. Is he stoppable beyond Syria?

Few have spoken about the national blackout, the cyber-attack on Ukraine’s power grid. If it can happen in Ukraine, it can happen in America. It must be noted who owns and controls companies with ties to infrastructure….Putin’s friends. For a chilling read, go here.

In part: In a statement announcing the sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department alleged that Putin “has investments” with Gunvor, the oil-trading firm that Timchenko founded but exited a day before he was hit with U.S. sanctions, and “may have access to Gunvor funds.”

Washington has not released any evidence to substantiate these claims, which the Kremlin and Gunvor deny. (The firm also says CEO Torbjorn Tornqvist was in charge of daily operations.)*

Meanwhile, Navalny filed a lawsuit earlier this month accusing Putin of a conflict of interest in awarding $1.75 billion in state financing to a company part-owned by Shamalov, his alleged son-in-law. A Moscow court rejected the lawsuit, saying it did not qualify for consideration under “administrative proceedings.” Full article here.

When it comes to Crimea and most recently Ukraine, does anyone care? For a data cache on Russian aggressions on Ukraine, go here.

According to Ukrainian officials on March 1 Russia sent three trains with ammunition to the occupied city of Ilovaisk and two tanks and four armoured personnel vehicles to Novoazovsk.

NATO’s top commander says Russian military activity in eastern Ukraine is increasing. Earlier, General Philip Breedlove also warned of ‘disturbing trends’ – including more sniper fire and shelling on the frontline. The NATO leader claims Russia has placed “well above” 1,000 pieces of military hardware in Ukraine over the past 12 months. More here.

Then comes Kazakhstan, where it appears covert pro-Russian adjustments are next up for Putin and Kazakhstan is taking notice.

Reuters in part: Demographically, the region therefore has much in common with Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and the eastern Donbass region, whose majority Russian-speaking populations pulled out of Kiev’s orbit with help from Moscow.

There is no separatist rebellion in northern Kazakhstan, but the ethnic Russians, who make up more than a fifth of the country’s 18 million population, are feeling increasingly insecure and some sympathize with the separatists in Ukraine.

The Ukraine experience has made the Kazakh authorities highly sensitive to any signs of disloyalty by ethnic Russians. Ethnically based political parties are banned.

Last year, a court in eastern Kazakhstan sentenced a user of Vkontakte, a Russian-based social network, to five years in prison for posting a poll which asked people whether they would support the idea of that region, which also has a big ethnic Russian population, becoming part of Russia.

“Their bodies are in Kazakhstan but their minds are in Russia,” said political analyst Dosym Satpayev, talking about what he described as the significant portion of the Kazakh population influenced by Russian media.

“There are signs that (the authorities) in Kazakhstan are beginning to realize it also faces a separatist threat,” said Satpayev, who runs the Risk Assessment Group, a think tank.

There are no signs of Moscow promoting separatism in Kazakhstan, although it wants to keep the country in its orbit. More here.

So beyond the matter of Putin taking over Syria, then gaining power and control in Afghanistan again, there is the matter of the Arctic. Enter ICEX.

Military: The U.S. Navy’s submarine force is setting up a temporary command center on a sheet of Arctic ice, where U.S. underwater capabilities will be put to the test in the increasingly strategic High North.

The five-week submarine drill coincides with separate war games in Norway called Cold Response involving 16,000 U.S. and NATO forces. Marines have been launching stinger missiles and maneuvering tanks, and the Air Force has dispatched three B-52 Stratofortress bombers.
Together, the exercises underscore the emergence of the Arctic as an area of concern as melting ice caps raise the prospects for competition over vital undersea natural resources. The area could become a flash point between the U.S. and Russia.

“The Arctic environment plays a key role in national defense,” said U.S. Submarine Forces commander Vice Adm. Joseph E. Tofalo in a statement announcing the launch of Ice Exercise 2016. “With over a thousand miles of Arctic coastline, the U.S. has strong national security and homeland defense interests in the region.”

Then ICEX drill, which is being conducted in the Arctic Ocean, aims to evaluate the terrain and assess the readiness of U.S. submarines operating under ice. It does not explicitly address concerns of a growing Russian military presence.
Still, Russian activity in the High North has grabbed the attention of top U.S. military commanders.
“We are facing a very challenging situation in the Arctic,” European Command’s Gen. Philip Breedlove told lawmakers last week. “Many of our NATO allies, Canada and the U.S. are concerned about what we see as the militarization of the Arctic now by Russia.”
Since 2008, Russia has been steadily upgrading its forces in the Arctic: reopening air bases, restoring air-defense radar stations and building new submarines. The moves are all in response to new security challenges brought on by melting ice and the prospect of new shipping lanes.
Moscow’s actions reflect a focus on “goals beyond the Arctic region,” the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in a recent report examining Russian military capabilities and intentions in the region. More here.

Is there some negotiating or new deal that can stop Putin? Anyone?

A Time for Choosing

Posted on March 4, 2016March 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

When Barack Obama came on the political scene, very few did their work to learn about him. It was not until he became the Democrat nominee that the fingers started working in open source to find the clues and evidence of Barack Obama and what his soon to be fully hidden history included.

Where are these people now and why do they refuse to understand the ‘Donald’? To know a man is to examine his history. It is out there ladies and gentlemen and yet you are being obstinate and stubborn due to being fashionable, being on the Trump train. Shame on you.

Flexible and softening? Trump was a huge exploiter of H1B visas…..Mar-a Lago come to mind?

Words matter, actions matter, deeds matter, history matters. Is your lack of action laziness, a false appearance of virtue and patriotism or just being star-struck?

The Fox debate hosted on March 3, 2016, Trump said the military will listen and obey me, when asked the question about waterboarding. This was in response to several military leaders and CIA personnel pushing back on some EIT’s. Waterboarding is now illegal. Frankly and personally I am for it, but there are other effective techniques for gaining intelligence with regard to interrogations.

Trump’s response echoes that of a fascist. In case you may think this is hyperbole, this interview is a must listen, you know as part of YOUR research for the sake of the future of our country.

Exactly, how much work are you willing to do for the future of your children and generations to come?

(note the date of the Vanity Fair interview)

Donald Trump’s ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed

BusinessInsider: According to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Ivana Trump once told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that her husband, real-estate mogul Donald Trump, now a leading Republican presidential candidate, kept a book of Hitler’s speeches near his bed.

“Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed … Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist,” Marie Brenner wrote.

Hitler was one of history’s most prolific orators, building a genocidal Nazi regime with speeches that bewitched audiences.

“He learned how to become a charismatic speaker, and people, for whatever reason, became enamored with him,” Professor Bruce Loebs, who has taught a class called the Rhetoric of Hitler and Churchill for the past 46 years at Idaho State University, told Business Insider earlier this year.

“People were most willing to follow him, because he seemed to have the right answers in a time of enormous economic upheaval.”

When Brenner asked Trump about how he came to possess Hitler’s speeches, “Trump hesitated” and then said, “Who told you that?”

“I don’t remember,” Brenner reportedly replied.

Trump then recalled, “Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of ‘Mein Kampf,’ and he’s a Jew.”

Brenner added that Davis did acknowledge that he gave Trump a book about Hitler.

“But it was ‘My New Order,’ Hitler’s speeches, not ‘Mein Kampf,'” Davis reportedly said. “I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”

After Trump and Brenner changed topics, Trump returned to the subject and reportedly said, “If, I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”

In the Vanity Fair article, Ivana Trump told a friend that her husband’s cousin, John Walter “clicks his heels and says, ‘Heil Hitler,” when visiting Trump’s office.

****

We have come to know Alinsky tactics and the effectiveness……so can you be honest and list the number of times Trump applied Alinsky tactics in the debates? I lost count.

Boeing Secret Deals with Iran, Skirting Sanctions

Posted on March 3, 2016March 3, 2016 by Denise Simon

Why Boeing kept Iran dealings under the radar

Author: Saam Borhani

alMonitor: Barely a week after the Jan. 16 lifting of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, Tehran hosted its first international business summit in years. The event, sponsored by the Centre for Aviation (CAPA), brought together 400 executives of the global aviation industry to re-establish links with their Iranian counterparts after a decades-long estrangement. What raised eyebrows in Tehran and Washington, however, was the conspicuous absence of Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer. Boeing’s curious decision to skip the CAPA event raised questions about the United States’ commitment to the sanctions relief mandated under the July 14, 2015, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The decision Boeing made to stay home, likely prompted by unease as to the confusing web of remaining US sanctions, is a harbinger of things to come for the delicate dance between Iran and American business.

It turns out that Boeing, while skipping the high-profile CAPA event in Tehran, has actually been unofficially negotiating behind the scenes with Iranian civil aviation officials for a considerable time. Indeed, weeks after European rival Airbus signed a multibillion dollar deal for 118 passenger jets with Iran, Washington finally gave the go-ahead for Boeing to begin official negotiations and to apply for special licenses to sell aircraft to the Iranians.

As the world cashes in on an Iran ready to do business, the United States risks being late to the game because of a mixture of political sensitivities, confusion about the remaining American sanctions and structural impediments that make trading with Iran prohibitively risky for all but the most adept American companies.

American trade with Iran is known to attract seething headlines in both countries. A simple form on McDonald’s website about franchise opportunities in Iran last year prompted warnings of an impending cultural invasion of the country in the Iranian right-wing media. Similarly, US companies risk the wrath of special interest groups devoted to inflicting reputational damage because of trade with Iran. Halliburton and Hewlett-Packard are prominent examples of companies that have been attacked in the American media for previous legal business relations with Iran.

Groups such as United Against a Nuclear Iran have also been successful in convincing around half of the state legislatures to pass measures punishing companies operating in Iran. These local laws have directed state pension funds with billions of dollars in assets to divest from targeted companies and sometimes have barred these companies from public contracts. The impact of these state “sanctions” on the JCPOA is not clear and may yet prompt a political and legal battle between the federal government and state officials. Indeed, the harm to the reputations of US companies by such local punitive measures is a strong deterrent to engaging with the Iranian consumer. It is also an issue that is likely to continue, as long as Iran remains listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department.

For American companies large enough to weather bad publicity, the remaining and now largely unilateral US sanctions on Iran represent a potentially costly minefield. The JCPOA allows for licensed sales of American airliners to Iran and the legal importation of Iranian foodstuffs and rugs. Besides these specific carve-outs, US companies may trade with Iran under the general licenses that were available before the JCPOA and under specific licenses granted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Treasury Department’s sanctions administrator. In addition, foreign subsidiaries of US companies that are not under the control and direction of US persons may trade directly with Iran. Maintaining a robust compliance system and routinely checking company interactions with Iran to make sure that they do not run afoul of OFAC regulations is a costly and time-consuming endeavor. Indeed, any American company that trades with Iran under the terms of the JCPOA, and especially under the complicated foreign subsidiary clause, must be large enough to support sufficiently adept legal compliance teams. Small and medium-size US businesses are thus effectively shut out of a presence in Iran for this very reason.

For the large multinational American companies that may be able to gain a foothold in Iran, there remain structural constraints that residual US sanctions place on legal trade with Iran. The United States has made it clear that no payments linked to Iran may be processed through its financial system. This means that profits made by American businesses in Iran will likely not be able to be directly repatriated and probably will remain offshore in segregated foreign accounts. American companies must also contend with strict bars on doing business with any Iranian entities that remain on OFAC’s “specially designated nationals” list, the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Each of these barred entities took over vast parts of the Iranian economy as a result of the international sanctions that have now been lifted.

The JCPOA has opened small opportunities for trade between American and Iranian firms. However, the remaining labyrinth of hard-to-understand restrictions will likely spook most Americans.

Both the Iranian and US governments have a vital interest in seeing that the JCPOA is an enduring agreement — and this partly depends on sanctions relief benefiting Iranian and American private sectors in a way that would effectuate the “buy-in” of JCPOA skeptics. A mutually beneficial trading arrangement that connects the private sectors of the United States and Iran — despite political differences — would strengthen the nuclear deal by attaching a direct economic cost to nonadherence. The limited avenues for legal trade, if quickly institutionalized, can be insulated from the historically volatile political relationship between Iran and the United States.

In this vein, a quiet Iranian commitment to protect American investors in Iran and to tone down the harshest anti-US rhetoric, at least with respect to American business, would give space for Wall Street to influence a change in Washington’s largely monolithic view of a hostile Iran. More importantly, a quiet US commitment to actively support legal trade with Iran — with the same zeal that it uses to enforce sanctions — would give the Iranians space to consider future negotiated compromises.

Hillary, Pagliano and Shared Passwords?

Posted on March 3, 2016March 3, 2016 by Denise Simon

FBI investigating if Clinton aides shared passwords to access classified info

FNC: EXCLUSIVE: The FBI is investigating whether computer passwords were shared among Hillary Clinton’s close aides to determine how sensitive intelligence “jumped the gap” between the classified systems and Clinton’s unsecured personal server, according to an intelligence source familiar with the probe.

The source emphasized to Fox News that “if [Clinton] was allowing other people to use her passwords, that is a big problem.” The Foreign Service Officers Manual prohibits the sharing of passwords.

Such passwords are required to access each State Department network. This includes the network for highly classified intelligence — known as SCI or Sensitive Compartmented Information — and the unclassified system, known as SBU or Sensitive But Unclassified, according to former State Department employees.

Fox News was told there are several potential scenarios for how classified information got onto Clinton’s server:

Reading intelligence reports or briefings, and then summarizing the findings in emails sent on Clinton’s unsecured personal server.

Accessing the classified intelligence computer network, and then lifting sections by typing them verbatim into a device such as an iPad or BlackBerry.

Taking pictures of a computer screen to capture the intelligence.

Using a thumb drive or disk to physically move the intelligence, but this would require access to a data center. It’s unclear whether Clinton’s former IT specialist Bryan Pagliano, who as first reported by The Washington Post has reached an immunity deal with the Justice Department, or others had sufficient administrator privileges to physically transfer data.

Most of these scenarios would require a password. And all of these practices would be strictly prohibited under non-disclosure agreements signed by Clinton and others, and federal law.

It remains unclear who had access to which computers and devices used by Clinton while she was secretary of state and where exactly they were located at the time of the email correspondence. Clinton signed her NDA agreement on Jan. 22, 2009 shortly before she was sworn in as secretary of state.

The intelligence source said the ongoing FBI investigation is progressing in “fits and starts” but bureau agents have refined a list of individuals who will be questioned about their direct handling of the emails, with a focus on how classified information jumped the gap between classified systems and briefings to Clinton’s unsecured personal email account used for government business.

Fox News was told the agents involved are “not political appointees but top notch agents with decades of experience.”

A separate source said the list of individuals is relatively small — about a dozen, among them Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, who was described as “pivotal” because he forwarded so many emails to Clinton. His exchanges, now deemed to contain highly classified information, included one email which referred to human spying, or “HCS-O,” and included former Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

As Fox News first reported last year, two emails — one sent by Abedin that included classified information about the 2011 movement of Libyan troops during the revolution, and a second sent by Sullivan that contained law enforcement information about the FBI investigation in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack – kick-started the FBI probe.

Testifying to Congress Tuesday about encryption, FBI Director James Comey also was asked about the Clinton investigation. He responded that he is “very close personally” to the case “to ensure that we have the resources we need including people and technology and that it’s done the way the FBI tries to do all of its work: independently, competently and promptly. That’s our goal and I’m confident it’s being done that way.”

Earlier this week when she was asked if Clinton has been interviewed by the FBI, Attorney General Loretta Lynch insisted to Fox News’ Bret Baier “that no one outside of DOJ has been briefed on this or any other case. That’s not our policy and it has not happened in this matter.”

Fox News also has learned the State Department cannot touch the security clearance of top aides connected to the case without contacting the FBI, because agents plan to directly question individuals about their handling of the emails containing classified information, and they will need active clearances to be questioned.

While it is standard practice to suspend a security clearance pending the outcome of an investigation, Fox News reported Monday that Clinton’s chief of staff at State, Cheryl Mills, who is also an attorney, maintains her top secret clearance. Mills was involved in the decisions as to which emails to keep and which to delete from the server.

At a press briefing Monday, Fox News pressed the State Department on whether this represented a double standard, or whether the clearances are in place at the direction of the FBI.

“This issue is under several reviews and investigations. I won’t speak for other agencies that may be involved in reviews and investigations,” spokesman John Kirby said. “Clearly we are going to cooperate to the degree that we need to.”

Hillary Clinton’s E-Mail Scandal Continues: Further Details Surface As Staffer Bryan Pagliano Granted Immunity In Exchange For Cooperating

Inquisitr: of Hillary Clinton’s IT staff members has been granted immunity by the U.S. federal government in exchange for breaking his silence regarding his role in setting up and managing the Democratic presidential front-runner candidate’s private e-mail server in Chappaqua, New York.

Bryan Pagliano — who first installed the network in Clinton’s home in 2009 — plans to now fully cooperate with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the FBI’s investigation into the matter, according to the Washington Post.

In a statement to the media, Clinton campaign spokesperson Brian Fallon told the Washington Post that he was “pleased” that Pagliano would now work with investigators after previously invoking his Fifth-Amendment right to staying hush-hush before a September, 2015, Congressional panel, noting “As we have said since last summer, Secretary Clinton has been cooperating with the Department of Justice’s security inquiry.”

Many, however, see the Clinton staff member’s previous extended silence as a sign of possible incrimination.
Particularly vocal on the matter has been H.A. Goodman of the Huffington Post, who noted in a recent column that: “First, this can’t be a right-wing conspiracy because it’s President Obama’s Justice Department granting immunity… Second, immunity from what? The Justice Department won’t grant immunity… unless there’s potential criminal activity involved with an FBI investigation.”

Goodman would also note that Pagliano’s settlement to agree to testify “speaks volumes,” as “only one person set up the server that circumvented U.S. government networks.” The blame for this action, Goodman believes, falls squarely on Clinton and Pagliano.
In a previous story, the Washington Post reported that Clinton paid Pagliano as part of a “private arrangement” for the act of maintaining this private server, which she then used for years to store her official correspondences as Secretary of State. This assertion, which The Post sources to an “unnamed Clinton campaign official,” is also coupled with reports that Pagliano failed to list any of his income in his personal financial disclosures.

Clinton’s campaign responded with the spin that she hired Pagliano privately to ensure “taxpayer dollars were not spent on a private server that was shared by Clinton, her husband and their daughter as well as aides to the former president.”

The FBI’s investigation, meanwhile, remains ongoing as to what — if any — level of criminal activity occurred in Clinton’s home by storing actual classified documents on her private, non-government network. While the extent to which Clinton’s involvement in a crime will likely never be officially determined, it is known that as many as 31,380 e-mails were deleted.
According to the Washington Post, the FBI is targeting resolution in its investigation in the “coming months,” and plan to conduct many more interviews with Clinton and her senior officials as the law-enforcement agency attempts to determine the extent to which the presidential candidate is actually at fault. Specifically, officials are focusing on examining, in detail, the potential damage that Clinton’s e-mails could have caused had they been intercepted. No official indication has been given that prosecutors will convene a grand jury to subpoena this testimony and documents.

Clinton — who has been unofficially named the Democratic National Committee’s nominee-of-choice since well before any polls against her rival, Bernie Sanders, were taken — has taken care to classify the entire FBI investigation instead as a “security review.”

According to The Post’s anonymous sources, however, there is a commonly held belief that there is at least a small chance that some sort of an actual crime has been committed.

“There was wrongdoing,” noted a former senior law-enforcement official to the news outlet. “But was it criminal wrongdoing?”

FBI and Department of Justice spokespersons — in addition to Pagliano’s attorney, Mark McDougall — have declined to comment.

WH Conference Calls on SCOTUS Nominations

Posted on March 3, 2016March 3, 2016 by Denise Simon

White House Reaches Out to Asian-American Leaders About Supreme Court Seat

NationalLawJournal: A White House official held a conference call Thursday evening with Asian-American and Pacific Islander leaders to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court. Several Asian-American judges have been discussed as leading candidates for the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat.

Judges considered possible nominees include Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Jacqueline Nguyen of the Ninth Circuit and Judge Denny Chin of the Second Circuit.

Invitations to join the call—which was off the record, according to a copy of the invitation email obtained by The National Law Journal—were disseminated by email and on social media. The Asian American Bar Association of New York posted a notice about it on its Facebook page.

Tina Tchen, an assistant to President Barack Obama and chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, led the Thursday call, according to the email invitation.

The email invitation about the call from the White House did not include details about what would be discussed. A lawyer who was on the call said that Tchen did not identify possible nominees. The call was focused generally on motivating and organizing the Asian American community to support the president’s nominee.

Tina Matsuoka, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association in Washington, said the call signaled the White House’s acknowledgement of excitement in the Asian-American community that the next Supreme Court justice could become the first Asian-American to sit on the high court.

“This meeting is consistent with this administration’s engagement with various constituent groups,” Matsuoka said. “I think it’s consistent with their efforts to focus on diversity inclusion on the federal bench.”

At a press briefing earlier this week, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that officials were “going to engage with outside groups as the President makes a decision about who to put forward for a nomination to the Supreme Court” and would continue to engage those groups after a nominee was announced “in terms of making the case that the Senate should fulfill its constitutional obligations.”

“The truth is the engagement on the part of the White House with outside organizations that are interested in being involved in the political process is something that happens every day on a wide variety of issues,” Earnest said. “Obviously the Supreme Court is different and unique because it’s not something that comes up every year, it only comes up every once in a blue moon. And sometimes, like this year, it can come up unpredictably, without any advance warning.”

The White House has not said when President Obama will announce a nominee for Scalia’s seat. Obama was traveling in Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon. A White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, told reporters on Thursday that “this is something the president is spending a lot of time on … reviewing potential candidates, meeting with his team, and really looking for the best person for the job.”

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Jane Kelly, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, was being considered. The NLJ reported last week that the White House was also reviewing Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Matsuoka said she and other members of the Asian-American community were looking for assurance from the White House that Asian-American candidates are “seriously considered for the vacancy.”

“We’ve been really excited that there’s a number of Asian-Americans who have been talked about in the mainstream press, and it’s really galvanized the community,” Matsuoka said.

The White House has met with constituent and advocacy groups in the leadup to Supreme Court nominations in the past. As Obama considered candidates for the seat that would eventually go to Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2010, the White House met with liberal advocacy groups, including Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary Coalition, CNN reported at the time.

Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202751291108/White-House-Reaches-Out-to-AsianAmerican-Leaders-About-Supreme-Court-Seat#ixzz41tBs0TR6