Author Archives: Denise Simon

Where Were You America on Net Neutrality?

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Going back as far as 2010, for the Federal government to take over the internet has been a building coup and while America did not care….the FCC assumed control.

After McCain-Feingold passed, several of the foundations involved in the effort began shifting their attention to “media reform”—a movement to impose government controls on Internet companies somewhat related to the long-defunct “Fairness Doctrine” that used to regulate TV and radio companies. In a 2005 interview with the progressive website Buzzflash, Mr. McChesney said that campaign-finance reform advocate Josh Silver approached him and “said let’s get to work on getting popular involvement in media policy making.” Together the two founded Free Press.

Free Press and allied groups such as MoveOn.org quickly got funding. Of the eight major foundations that provided the vast bulk of money for campaign-finance reform, six became major funders of the media-reform movement. (They are the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers’s Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.) Free Press today has 40 staffers and an annual budget of $4 million.

 

 

FCC Cites Soros-Funded, Neo-Marxist-Founded Group 46 TIMES In New Regs

New internet regulations finally released by the Federal Communications Commission make 46 references to a group funded by billionaire George Soros and co-founded by a neo-Marxist.

The FCC released the 400-page document on Thursday, two weeks after it passed new regulations, which many fear will turn the internet into a public commodity and thereby stifle innovation.

“Leveling the playing field” in that way has been a clear goal of Free Press, a group dedicated to net neutrality which was founded in 2003.

As Phil Kerpen, president of the free-market group American Commitment, first noted, Free Press is mentioned repeatedly in the FCC document. Most of the references are found in footnotes which cite comments by Free Press activists supporting more internet regulation.

The term “Free Press” is mentioned 62 times in the regulations. Some are redundant mentions referring to the same Free Press activists’ comments in favor of more oversight. In total, the FCC cited Free Press’ pro-net neutrality arguments 46 times.

The FCC received more than 4 million public comments as it was weighing the net neutrality initiative, but Free Press and other activist groups have received the most attention by pressuring the FCC and the White House on behalf of their cause.

One argument made against the FCC’s regulatory push is that the general public is largely happy with its internet service. Support for net neutrality was seen as the domain of special interest groups like Free Press.

The activist group has big money behinds its effort. It has received $2.2 million in donations from progressive billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and $3.9 million from the Ford Foundation.

And one of Free Press’ co-founders, Robert McChesney, a communications professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has not been shy about his desire to see the internet regulated heavily. (RELATED: A Leading Net Neutrality Activist’s Neo-Marxist Views)

But internet regulation appears to be only part of McChesney’s more radical agenda of completely revamping how the media operate in the U.S.

“In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles,” McChesney wrote in a 2009 essay.

“Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism,” he said.

“The news is not a commercial product. It is a public good, necessary for a self-governing society. Once we accept this, we can talk about the kind of media policies and subsidies we want,” McChesney once argued.

Sentiments such as these have raised questions about whether the FCC’s new regulations will eventually led to oversight of internet content.

“The unthinkable has become thinkable, and the free-market Internet – one of freedom’s greatest triumphs – is set to be reduced to a public utility, subject to pervasive economic regulation and, in turn, to content control,” American Commitment’s Kerpen wrote in an open letter to McChesney after the FCC voted 3-2 in favor of the regulations.

McChesney, who is currently on Free Press’ board of directors, made a series of progressive proposals in a 2010 book, “The Life and Death of American Journalism.” He suggested spending $35 billion on federal subsidies for public media outlets. He also proposed creating a journalism branch of AmeriCorps and said it would be a good idea to give each American a $200 news voucher which could be given only to publicly-owned media outlets.

“Advertising is the voice of capital,” McChesney said in a 2009 interview with the Socialist Project. “We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it. The fight against hyper-commercialism becomes especially pronounced in the era of digital communications.”

FCC commissioner Ajit Pai blew the whistle on the agency’s attempt to sneak the new regulations in under the radar. He pressed FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to release the proposed regulations so that the public could view them before the commission voted on the measure. Wheeler refused.

In his dissent, Pai, a Republican, slammed the commission’s secrecy and also mentioned Free Press as one of the activist groups which received special attention on the matter.

“What the press has called the “parallel FCC” at the White House opened its doors to a plethora of special-interest activists: Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press, and Public Knowledge, just to name a few,” Pai wrote.

Indeed, even before activists were blocking Chairman Wheeler’s driveway late last year, some of them had met with White House officials. But what about the rest of the American people? They certainly couldn’t get White House meetings. They were shut out of the process. They were being played for fools.”

 

Islamic State Using Effective Vintage War Tactics

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According to the BBC, the Islamic State has started using a terrifying tactic against soldiers in Iraq. This technique has rarely seen use since the European battlefields of World War I (1914-1918).

ISIS is packing crude roadside bombs with deadly chlorine gas.

Iraqi officials showed BBC News a video of security forces detonating one of these bombs, releasing into the air a recognizable and deadly orange cloud. ISIS has occasionally used chlorine gas before, but not with the frequency being seen now.

Iraqi security forces explained that these new attacks are meant to scare soldiers and civilians, rather than kill them. It is a new form of psychological warfare ISIS is using to try and turn the tide of the war in their favor.

The BBC interviewed Haider Taher, a member of an Iraqi bomb disposal squad, who unknowingly detonated one of these chlorine-filled roadside bombs:

Our throats were blocked, we couldn’t breath. My ears felt enormous pressure… we were lucky a military ambulance was there to treat us.

Chemical warfare has been used extensively in neighboring Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been notorious for their use of gas attacks on civilians and opposition alike, a tactic that has been condemned by the UN and the United States.

Although there’s been some use of chemical weapons by ISIS, there is little information on how much of these chemicals they possess.

The BBC has been shown footage of bright yellow gas rising up from a roadside bomb explosion that the Iraqis say is chlorine, as well as film of the Tikrit explosion.

Jennifer Cole, Senior Research Fellow at defence thinktank Royal United Services Institute, told MailOnline that although chlorine can be lethal, it does appear that it’s being used to spread fear by Isis.

She said: ‘Chlorine is easily available from a number of industrial sources and is very hazardous – causing breathing difficulties in particular and in extreme cases prolonged exposure can kill.

‘Used in roadside bombs such as this, in the open air, it disperses reasonably quickly and so appears to be intended to cause panic rather than serious harm.’

She added: ‘There is no doubt that public perception often sees chemical weapons such as this as more dangerous than conventional weapons such as explosives, even though it may not be the case that a chlorine bomb could cause more harm. In fact, the most damage is likely to be done by the explosion created to disperse it.’

Chlorine was used by the British in the First World War, but it proved to be unreliable. In one attack in 1915 the gas blew back into British trenches after canisters of the chemical were fired from heavy guns at the Germans.

Chlorine is not a prohibited chemical and has been used often in Syria.

* Opposition says chlorine used in three areas this month

* Chlorine not declared by Syria to chemical weapons watchdog

* Canisters likely delivered by air-dropped barrel bombs

* Deadline for removal of chemical weapons is April 27

By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT, April 22 (Reuters) – Chlorine gas attacks in Syria this month, if proven, expose a major loophole in an international deal which promised to remove chemical weapons from Syria and suggest chemical warfare could persist after the removal operation has finished.

President Bashar al-Assad agreed with the United States and Russia to dispose of his chemical weapons – an arsenal which Damascus had never previously formally acknowledged – after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack on the outskirts of the capital last August.

Washington and its Western allies said it was Assad’s forces who unleashed the nerve agent, in the world’s worst chemical attack in a quarter-century. The government blamed the rebel side in Syria’s civil war, which is now in its fourth year.

Syria has vowed to hand over or destroy its entire arsenal by the end of this week, but still has roughly 20 percent of the chemicals it declared to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

In addition, chlorine gas that was never included on the list submitted to the OPCW is now allegedly being used on the battlefield, leading some countries to consider requesting an investigation, possibly through the United Nations.

Attacks this month in several areas of the country share characteristics that have led analysts to believe that there is a coordinated chlorine campaign, with growing evidence that it is the government side dropping the bombs.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Monday that Washington had indications that chlorine was probably used by government forces in Syria.

“We are examining allegations that the government was responsible,” she said. “Obviously there needs to be an investigation of what’s happened here.”

YELLOW CANISTERS

In the rebel-held village of Kfar Zeita in the central province of Hama, 125 miles (200 km) north of Damascus, opposition activists uploaded video of people choking and being fed oxygen following what they said were bombs dropped from helicopters on April 11 and 12.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the videos and activists regularly make similar claims, but further footage of canisters provided an indication of what had happened.

One of the canisters had only partially exploded and the marking CL2 was written along its side. CL2 is the symbol for chlorine gas. Also visible was “Norinco” – China’s biggest arms maker.

Repeated calls to China North Industries Group Corporation, or Norinco, went unanswered.

Canisters pictured in three separate areas were all painted yellow – complying with international standards on industrial gas colour codes indicating chlorine.

Since April 11, there have been repeated attacks on Kfar Zeita and also on the town of Al-Tamana’a in north west Idlib on Friday which shared the same characteristics.

Activists said helicopters dropped improvised barrel bombs with a chlorine canister enclosed, which led to casualties.

If inhaled, chlorine gas – a deadly agent widely used in World War One – turns to hydrochloric acid in the lungs, which can lead to internal burning and drowning through a reactionary release of water in the lungs.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, head of British-based chemical biological radiological and nuclear consultancy firm Secure Bio, said he is “reasonably satisfied that chlorine has been used”.

“The evidence is pretty compelling,” he said.

DOMESTIC CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

Amy Smithson, a leading American chemical weapons expert at the Monterey Institute, said that unless tests are run, it is not certain that chlorine was used or some similar agent.

“Once the Syrian government gets the remainder of the declared chemicals out, pressure should mount for Syria to revise its declaration again, to cough up the remainder of their offensive chemical programme,” she said, questioning whether Syria had weaponised its domestic chemical industry.

Chlorine, a so-called dual-use chemical which has industrial uses, is not on the list of chemical weapons submitted to the OPCW but was produced in Syria before the war. It should have been declared if the government has it, an OPCW spokesman said.

On Monday, opposition groups reported a further attack, this time 20 miles (30 km) northeast of Kfar Zeita in the town of Telminnes. Video footage was posted on YouTube by several opposition groups of men, women and children being treated in a field hospital.

Many appeared to have trouble breathing and medics held them down. One boy who looked less than 10 years old shook as a medic poured a liquid on his eyes and in his mouth.

A Reuters photograph of another young boy who had been transferred to a hospital closer to the Turkish border showed him lying dead on a stretcher with blood around his mouth. Medics said he had been exposed to chlorine gas at Telminnes.

Videos from the site of Monday’s bombing showed the same yellow canisters, this time twisted from an explosion.

Eliot Higgins, a British-based researcher who trawls daily through online videos of Syria’s civil war to verify weapons in them, said that these “chlorine bombs” have similar features to improvised barrel bombs the army has used in the war.

He said one bomb from Kafr Zeita shows metal rods, consistent with other large government barrel bomb designs, to hold the impact fuse plate in place.

Another video of an exploded barrel bomb shows a canister inside the barrel, which has fins on the back and what appear to be explosives around the top of the canister with a detonation cord.

“The interesting thing about these new videos is that there’s the same blue det cord you see in other DIY barrel bombs,” Higgins said.

Hundreds of videos confirm barrel bombs have been dropped from helicopters. Rebels have access to large rockets and missiles but there has never been a case reported of the opposition using air-dropped munitions nor commandeering a helicopter.

GREY AREA

A United Nations inquiry found in December that chemical weapons were likely used in five attacks in 2013, although it did not apportion blame. The nerve agent sarin was likely used in four of the five attacks, the inquiry found.

The OPCW mission to extract Assad’s chemicals has been mired by delays and inconsistencies. On Thursday, Reuters reported that Syria had submitted a “more specific” list of its chemical weapons to the OPCW after discrepancies were reported by inspectors on the ground, officials said.

Although it not public, officials have said the list includes more than 500 tonnes of highly toxic chemical weapons, such as sulphur mustard and precursors for the poisonous gas sarin, as well as more than 700 tonnes of bulk industrial chemicals.

The OPCW, which is overseeing the destruction with the United Nations, has taken an inventory of the chemicals and facilities Syria reported to the joint mission, but has not looked into whether the list may have been incomplete.

“Chlorine has a host of commercial uses. Actually, it’s not very toxic. Sarin is probably 2,000 to 3,000 times more toxic. You and I can buy chlorine in a shop,” chemical weapons specialist De Bretton-Gordon said.

This makes it a grey area, he said, as industrial-use chlorine in canisters – which is what these bombs appear to be – is not strictly a chemical weapon until it is used as one.

Nevertheless, he says, “the OPCW and others have been frankly naive.” (Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in The Hague, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations and Reuters TV; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Swell, Eric Holder had Email Aliases Too

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It is an epidemic in government, all kinds of powerbrokers in the Federal government are using alias emails. The very agency bound to enforce law and the very top lawyer at the agency, the Department of Justice, is in violation himself.

There is a U.S. Criminal Code where government business transactions including emails, text messages, photos, documents and more belong to the Federal government, not the individual. This must be certified upon leaving office and Eric Holder has tendered his resignation. There is a separation notice (Form OF; 109) under penalty of perjury that all materials are turned over.

Per Shannen Coffin, lawyer with Steptoe & Johnson LLP:

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) adopted regulations in 1995 which required the preservation of official e-mails created on non-official accounts. The Archivist interpreted the Federal Records Act to apply to e-mail records and further provided that “[a]gencies with access to external electronic mail systems shall ensure that federal records sent or received on these systems are preserved in the appropriate recordkeeping system . . .” So as early as 1995, all federal agencies were required to preserve official e-mails, including those created or maintained on “external electronic mail systems.” Later NARA regulations merely clarified this requirement. In 2009, after a Government Accountability Office report indicated that certain agencies had lax e-mail practices, the NARA adopted new regulations that provided that any emails created on private e-mail accounts must be preserved. But that regulation merely restated, in perhaps slightly different language, what the 1995 regulation had already mandated, requiring that “[a]gencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.” More here.

Eric Holder Used Email Aliases. DOJ Says It Wasn’t A Transparency Dodge.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder has used three email aliases to conduct government business over the past six years, a Justice Department official revealed Tuesday.

All three email aliases, including the one Holder currently uses, are official Justice Department addresses on the @usdoj.gov domain, the official told The Huffington Post. Holder has used the aliases to prevent spam and to keep his inbox from being overwhelmed by the public, not to avoid transparency, the official said. The addresses were known to DOJ officials handling Freedom of Information Act requests and congressional inquiries, according to the official.

“The Attorney General uses a Justice Department email address to conduct official business. As with many Cabinet officials, he does not use his given name in the handle of his email address,” Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement. “This practice is similar to using initials or numbers in an email address and helps guard against security risks and prevent his inbox from being needlessly inundated. It does not in any way impact compliance with FOIA requests. The Attorney General’s email address is known to the individuals who process FOIA requests, and his emails are regularly produced, albeit with his exact address redacted.”

Holder’s first alias, Henry Yearwood, was a combination of his mother’s maiden name and the first name of another family member. His second alias, David Kendricks, came from the names of two members of the Temptations: singers David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks.

Fallon, who described Holder’s choice of email addresses as “soulful,” declined to provide Holder’s third and current email alias, but said it is based on the name of an athlete.

The aliases were changed twice over Holder’s tenure, once when the email address was accidentally exposed by another federal agency responding to a FOIA request.

The email practices of top officials in the Obama administration have come under increased scrutiny due to Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email as secretary of state. Former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson pointed to indications that Holder used an email alias in a recent post on The Daily Signal. Attkisson noted that the names associated with Holder’s email address were redacted in documents disclosed by the Justice Department, with his name replaced by “Attorney General.”

Many high-ranking government officials use email addresses that are not readily available to the general public. Lisa Jackson, for example, came under scrutiny for using an email alias during her tenure as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Although an EPA Inspector General report found a lack of internal agency controls for identifying such email addresses, it found no evidence the practice was intended to dodge federal record-keeping rules.

Could Loretta Lynch Decide Hillary’s Fate?

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Truth be known, Hillary was ONLY allowed to use a specially designed Blackberry as was the policy at the State Department. But lil miss Hillary admitted to finessing that policy by also using an iPhone, iPad, and other tablets. She is shown here in her own words.

It must be included in this EmailGate affair as the Clinton server resides in their home in New York which is currently under the legal jurisdiction of AG Loretta Lynch and she is slate to be confirmed next week by the Senate to replace the now resigned U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Lynch is a legal protective firewall of the White House and all government employees, so Hillary’s fate could necessarily be placed in the lap of Loretta Lynch, which means that Hillary could be on the good receiving end of the Department of IN-Justice.

So this begins to add more gasoline to the fire and more comes out where it could be that Hillary committed a felony. Everyone at the State Department assigned directly to Hillary’s inner circle knew about her exclusive email server and private emails. This server should be considered either a proxy server under the ownership of the State Department and hence part of official government property or it could be called an alias server still part of government property. It would be also prudent at this juncture to ask who else uses private emails….alas that of Lisa Jackson the formerly of the EPA and are there other alias servers out there as well. Digressing….

One of the defenses that Hillary Clinton offered at yesterday’s press conference was that she had complied with federal records laws because those laws leave it up to her, as the employee who created or received an e-mail, to decide whether that e-mail must be preserved under the Federal Records Act. But while Clinton is correct that every employee has to make some initial determination of whether a particular document is an official “record,” the ultimate determination is most definitely not up to the employee, but rather to the agency and its records-management officials. Bear with me through some bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo for a moment, because the payoff is pretty significant. That Mrs. Clinton is not the ultimate arbiter of whether her records must be preserved is made very clear in the Department of State’s own records-management manual. Under a provision titled “Removal Procedures,” the manual sets forth the process that each Department of State employee must go through upon separation (i.e., resignation or retirement) from the department. In addition to relinquishing classified materials, all employees are required to clear the removal of any unclassified materials through records-management officials.

First, the “departing official or a staff member must prepare an inventory of personal papers and nonrecord materials proposed for removal.” The departing official must then “request a review of the materials proposed for removal.” Lest Mrs. Clinton claim she was not subject to this rule, the manual provides that this review process is specifically required for “Presidential appointees confirmed by the Senate.” The purpose of this independent review by records officials (as opposed to simply accepting the say-so of the departing official) is “to certify that the documentary materials proposed for removal may be removed without diminishing the official records of the Department; violating national security, privacy or other restrictions on disclosure; or exceeding normal administrative economies.” The process “generally requires a hands-on examination of the materials to verify the accuracy of the inventory.” (5 FAH-4 H-217.2(b)). Finally, there is a formal certification by the State Department records official authorizing the employee to remove the documents from State’s custody: “Once the reviewing official is satisfied that documentary materials proposed for removal comply with Federal law and regulations the reviewing official completes Form DS-1904, Authorization for the Removal of Personal Papers and Non-Record Materials, and forwards the form and the inventory to the Department of State records officer.” These “nonrecord materials” may be removed only “when authorized by the Department and only to the extent that their removal does not: (1) Diminish the official records of the Department; (2) Violate confidentiality required by national security, privacy or other restrictions on disclosure (e.g., commercial or financial information, personnel files or investigative records); (3) Exceed normal administrative economies.” Despite her repeated protestations at yesterday’s press conference that she followed all applicable rules, it is pellucid that she did not. Mrs. Clinton plainly did not just remove personal e-mails without clearing that removal with records officials; she also did not even return official records. Her defense now is that returning the documents two years later is good enough. But the same records manual emphatically rebuts that post-hoc justification. The department’s records manual requires that departing officials “must ensure that all record material that they possess is incorporated in the Department’s official files and that all file searches for which they have been tasked have been completed, such as those required to respond to FOIA, Congressional, or litigation-related document requests.” And lest the employee not get the message, the manual adds that “fines, imprisonment, or both may be imposed for the willful and unlawful removal or destruction of records as stated in the U.S. Criminal Code (e.g., 18 U.S.C., section 2071).” I have already discussed here the question of whether Mrs. Clinton may have violated that criminal prohibition on willful concealment of government records, and the evidence to date — especially her disclosure yesterday that she deleted any document that she determined to be personal in nature (without permission of the Department under the records-removal guidelines) — suggests a strong possibility that she did. But might she have lied to department records officials when she separated from service? The department’s records manual (5 FAH-4 H-217.1(a)) requires that records officials “remind[] all officials, about to leave the Department or a post, of the requirements for the removal of personal papers and nonrecord materials.” Critically, the department enforces “compliance with these procedures for the removal of documentary materials prior to execution of the Separation Statement (Form OF-109).” And what is Form OF-109? It is a formal separation statement, in which the departing official certifies the return of any classified materials, and, more relevant for present purposes, that the departing official has “surrendered to responsible officials all unclassified documents, and papers relating to the official business of the Government acquired by me while in the employ of the Department.” The form makes very clear that a false statement in the certification is punishable as a crime, including under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully falsify or conceal facts in statements made to federal agencies concerning a matter within its jurisdiction. According to the department’s procedures, then, every departing official is required to certify the return of all government documents under penalty of law. Did Hillary Clinton sign such a certification upon her separation from government? Did she knowingly swear that she had returned all records, when in fact she had retained at least 55,000 pages of official e-mails (and perhaps more)? And if she did not sign such a certification, why not? Every other departing employee and official of the State Department is required to do so. Did she ignore her obligations to return the records and thus avoid a false certification? It seems that the one document in all of this that we need to see, if it exists, is Hillary Clinton’s Form OF-109.
**** Get some popcorn, there is more…

Besides exclusively using a secret email account to conduct official government business, it’s likely that Hillary Clinton also used unauthorized electronic equipment—an iPad and an iPhone—as Secretary of State after being warned not to, a veteran State Department official told Judicial Watch this week.

On at least half a dozen occasions Clinton’s top aides asked the State Department’s Office of Security Technology to approve the use of an iPad and iPhone, according to JW’s inside source. Each time the request was rejected for security reasons, the source confirms. The only mobile device that meets the agency’s security standards is the BlackBerry, JW’s source said, adding that the Office of Security Technology—Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s Directorate  of Countermeasures must approve all equipment such as cameras, phones and communication devices for all officials.

Evidently set on using the popular Apple devices, Clinton repeatedly challenged the ban and asked management in the Office of Security Technology to allow their use. The executive secretariat responsible for all communications and information technology always rejected the requests, JW’s source affirms. “From day one Hillary was trying to get the iPhone and the iPad approved,” the State Department official told JW. “She kept trying and trying to get us to approve the iPhone and the iPad, but we wouldn’t do it. Technology security experts tested the iPhone and the iPad several times because she constantly wanted them approved, but it never happened.”

The longtime State Department employee reveals that it’s common knowledge among government security tech experts that Apple devices don’t meet strict security standards so agency insiders were puzzled that the Secretary of State was hell-bent on using them. “There was a lot of head-scratching,” JW’s source revealed. Every State Department employee goes through a rigorous security training that includes strict warnings about using non approved equipment or personal email like Clinton did throughout her tenure as the president’s chief foreign affairs officer, the agency insider said.

Clinton’s persistent efforts to persuade the State Department’s technology security experts to approve the use of her favorite Apple devices led those in the division to conclude that she did in fact go through with it. “My guess is she did it and wanted approval after the fact,” JW’s source said. “But no waivers were ever issued.” JW reached out to the State Department for a comment on this latest potential scandal surrounding its former leader, but failed to get a response.

In the meantime, JW has launched a full-scale investigation into Clinton’s secret email system and has filed a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that will likely end up being litigated in federal court. Prior to the email scandal JW already had nearly a dozen active lawsuits in federal court that could be affected by Clinton and her staff’s use of secret email accounts to conduct official government business. Among them is a public-records request for communications between the former Secretary of State and her Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin with Nagla Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi.

Obama, the Muslim Brother: A New Genocide

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The Betrayal Papers,

Part IV of V: A New Genocide

 

Part I of The Betrayal Papers explained the history and context of the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the American government.

Part II looked at the associations of seven Obama officials with Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the United States.

Part III traced the Muslim Brotherhood’s and the State of Qatar’s influence on domestic policy and Obama administration scandals.

Part IV will examine foreign policy under Obama. It will explain how the Obama administration and U.S. Department of State have used the American military and standing in the world as tools to kick start the creation of a new Islamic Caliphate. Obama’s unconscionable enabling of and silence regarding a new genocide will be revealed. Finally, this article will offer a cursory reassessment of America’s allies, and which countries we have lost as friends.

“The transformation of America has been in the full swing ever since 2008. President Obama’s no-show in Paris was an embarrassment for all Americans. But it also was a signal to the Islamic jihadis. It’s one of the many signals he’s sent over the years while he’s in office. Now there’s no question: We got a hell of a job ahead of us… with the Muslim Brotherhood penetration in every one of our national security agencies, including all our intelligence agencies.“

–          Admiral James ‘Ace’ Lyons, speaking at the Center for Security Policy

Is Obama a Muslim?

This is the question that many Americans and people around the globe are asking themselves lately. From his refusal to label the Islamic State “Islamic,” to his lecture about the Crusades at the National Prayer breakfast, what once was taboo is now starting to be verbalized.

Yet this may be the slightly wrong question to ask. The ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, is rightly considered an authoritative voice of Islam. In case you missed it, the Saudis have emerged as some of Obama’s biggest critics.

In doing so, the Saudis also revealed the truth regarding the Arab Spring.

Writing in the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj, while supporting Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, not only called Obama “one of the worst U.S. presidents;” he also exposed the nature of so-called “democratic revolutions” in the region. Stated al-Faraj:

“Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.’s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu’s firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration’s anger and fury.”

Translation: Obama served as a mouthpiece for, and armed, the Muslim Brotherhood (i.e., “political Islam”) revolutionaries in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria. He was aided in this incredibly destructive policy of jihad by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton until her resignation in 2013, and has been further aided by her successor, John Kerry.

The original Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan, was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1927. The conservative Wahhabi Saudi royals have traditionally had little use for exporting jihad, and indeed are one of the United States’ oldest strategic allies in the region. Despite Americans’ revulsion at Saudi Arabia’s application of barbaric sharia (i.e., Islamic) law in their own country, outside the Kingdom Saudis have every reason to maintain the status quo with neighbors, including Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. That means keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of power.

The pertinent question is not whether Obama is secretly a Muslim, per se, but rather if Obama is a secret Muslim Brother. That is the real question.

The Words of Obama, Dalia, and Rashad

If we take the Saudis, the most influential Gulf country, seriously, then it follows that Obama and his administration must have had a plan for the Arab Spring that goes back several years, i.e. 2008.

Part II of The Betrayal Papers identified seven Obama administration officials who had/have associations with several Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the United States (CAIR, ISNA, MSA, etc.). It also tracked their associations with Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution, both recipients of significant amounts of money from the State of Qatar, the home of many prominent Muslim Brothers.

One of those officials is Rashad Hussain, who is Obama’s Special Envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. In August 2008, Hussain co-authored a paper for the Brookings Institution called Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy. The paper, which calls Islam the “strongest ally” in the “global effort to end terrorism,” explicitly calls for the American government not to reject political Islam, but to utilize Islamic scholars and Islamic “policymaking” to reject “terrorism.” It also recommends that “policymakers should reject the use of language that provides a religious legitimization of terrorism such as ‘Islamic terrorism’ and ‘Islamic extremist.’”

Is it any wonder now why Obama says that the Islamic State “is not Islamic?” This is the deceptive language of the Muslim Brotherhood, recently welcomed to the White House.

Let’s now turn our attention at a report co-authored by Dalia Mogahed, who was a member of Obama’s Advisory Council of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and influential in writing Obama’s nefarious 2009 speech in Cairo. Additionally, Mogahed is currently listed as a member of Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs.

Mogahed was part of the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement. Other members of the group were former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (of World Trade Center Mosque notoriety), and Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Ahmed Younis. The report issued by the group called for engagement and cooperation with political Islam, and specifically with the Muslim Brotherhood:

“The U.S. must also consider when and how to talk with political movements that have substantial public support and have renounced violence, but are outlawed or restricted by authoritarian governments allied to the U.S. The Muslim Brotherhood parties in Egypt and Jordan are arguably in this category. In general, the Leadership Group supports engagement with groups that have clearly demonstrated a commitment to nonviolent participation in politics.”

Indications of a plan to work with the Muslim Brotherhood were evident as early as June 2009, when the President went to Cairo’s Al-Azhar University to address the Muslim World. The audience included prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood that Obama insisted on having seated in the front row.   Said Obama, “[The] partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t.  And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

With the statements of the Saudi journalist, Hussain, Mogahed, and Obama himself in mind, presented below is a thumbnail sketch of the Arab Spring and its consequences, and the intersection between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is only a fraction of the evidence that proves Obama has worked hand-in-hand with the Muslim Brotherhood to transform the Middle East.

Tunisia

In Tunisia in 2011, the government of Ben Ali fell after a man self-immolated, sparking a wave of protests. Subsequently, Tunisia elected the Muslim Brotherhood Ennahda party, with a plurality of 37% of the vote. In October 2014, Tunisia elected a secular government.

Libya

Libya exemplifies the essence of the so-called Arab Spring, an anarchic Muslim Brotherhood revolution that thrives on violence and chaos.

In such ungovernable disarray are significant parts of Libya today, that it is actually being used as a staging ground by ISIS for an invasion of Europe.

Despite repeated warnings and advice by the United States military to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama launched a disastrous war against the Gaddafi regime, leaving a power vacuum for Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood to fill.

Practically, Libya served as armaments bazaar for the Muslim Brotherhood and all associated terrorist groups. Libyan weapons have ended up in the hands of jihadis across North Africa, potentially contributing to the stockpile of arms of Boko Haram. These weapons were also sent to Syrian rebels, including groups who are now part of ISIS.

Currently, an ongoing proxy war rages in Libya. The anti-Muslim Brotherhood countries of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates battle Qatar and Turkey (close allies of the Obama administration) and the local Islamic terrorists.

Benghazi

Benghazi and all the mystery that surrounds it can mostly be dispelled in a few short paragraphs. A few facts will inform the reader, and then the attack that killed four Americans on September 11, 2012 can be then put in the larger context of a Muslim Brotherhood-guided American agenda.

First, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, aka Ansar al-Sharia, was hired to guard the compound by the American government. In a word, they are a jihadi militia.

Second, the compound in Benghazi was crawling with CIA agents. According to CNN’s Jake Tapper, there were “dozens” of CIA personnel present the night of the attack, and the Obama administration has gone to “great lengths” to obscure their activities. Many speculate that Ambassador Stevens was a CIA asset in the State Department.

Third, only hours before the attack, Stevens met with a Turkish ambassador at the compound. Turkey, it should be recalled, was a transshipment point for some Libyan weapons that were shipped out of the country to jihadis elsewhere.

Fourth, the Muslim Brotherhood Morsi government of Egypt was involved with the attack. In fact, some of the terrorists were caught on video saying “Don’t shoot! Dr. Morsi sent us!”

These facts beg the question: If Ambassador Stevens was in fact overseeing a gun running operation to Islamic/jihadi/Muslim Brotherhood militias, why would the same people kill him?

Given the above evidence, the prominent theory that Stevens was going to be a trade for the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, seems a plausible explanation. (Morsi was dedicated to the release of Rahman.) And this theory is endorsed by no less an authority than retired four star Admiral James Lyons.

Once this plan went spectacularly wrong, a number of other things occurred, which again, fit into the larger picture of a Muslim Brotherhood-control Obama administration.

In an alarming breach of protocol and duty, Obama’s Special Advisor, Valerie Jarrett, issued the order to the military “stand down.” In other words, she ordered that Stevens and the other Americans be left to fend for themselves against a well-armed jihadi militia.

Regarding the now infamous Talking Points scandal involving Susan Rice, et. al., that blamed the attack on obscure and poorly produced movie, an MSA member from George Washington University was copied on the email sent by Ben Rhodes (who, recall, wrote Obama’s 2009 Cairo Speech).

Finally, George Soros is also connected to this scandal. The Obama-appointed lead investigator for the attack was Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who has ties to CAIR, a well-known Muslim Brotherhood front group in the United States. At the time of the investigation, Pickering was the co-chair of the Soros’ International Crisis Group. He is still a trustee.

Egypt

So much has been written about Obama’s decision to force the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, and the subsequent election of Mohamed Morsi to the Egyptian Presidency, that the space here will be used only to reinforce some key and lesser known points.

  • Mubarak was the lynchpin of regional stability, the president of the most populous Arab country who maintained not only peace but a strong relationship with Israel and the United States.
  • Mohamed Morsi likely joined the Muslim Brotherhood through the Muslim Students Association in America, while he was a student at University of Southern California.
  • The wife of Mohamed Morsi was a long-time friend of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
  • When Morsi came to power and began to implement sharia law, Obama promised the Morsi government $8 billion in exchange for land in the Sinai for Palestinians (Hamas). Once Morsi was removed, following a brief, murderous, and highly destructive reign of power, Obama immediately withheld military aid to Egypt.
  • Through 2013, the Clinton Foundation received between $1 million and $5 million from Qatar.
  • It appears likely that close Obama friends, the domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, played a significant role in fomenting the protests which led to the resignation of Mubarak. Terrorist birds of feather flock together.

In case you were wondering, Obama advisor Dalia Mogahed considered the ouster of Morsi a “coup,” and CAIR and ISNA were likewise critical of the restoration of secular law in Egypt, which no doubt has prevented the slaughter of countless Coptic Christian lives.

Syria, Iraq, and ISIS – A Lost War, a Genocide, and a Rape of Humanity

Say what you will about Bashar al-Assad, he and his father Hafez have always strongly opposed the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, aka Abu Musab al-Suri, a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and architect of the Madrid train bombings, spent most of his life trying to overthrow the Assads and implement sharia law. (Not only is Nasar Syrian, his nom de guerre “Al-Suri” means “the Syrian.”) As late as 2008, none other than Nancy Pelosi was hobnobbing with the secularly minded Assads. John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry also dined with and were entertained lavishly by the Assads in 2009.

What Obama has unleashed in Syria by supporting jihadi rebels is an apocalyptic force of total depravity that specializes in genocide and cultural annihilation. There are few words that do justice to the evil, inhumanity, and unbelievable cruelty that define ISIS and their end-of-times approach to warfare.

Not only do they set people on fire, but they also behead and torture children. Americans are bombarded with these images regularly. Equally as atrocious and appalling, they openly and gleefully destroy everything pre-Islamic. Much like the Buddhas in Afghanistan that the Taliban dynamited, ISIS believes in the Islamic concept of Jahiliyyah, which demands that all traces of civilization before the time of Mohammed the Prophet be erased.

ISIS is literally rampaging across the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, laying waste to some of humanity’s oldest faith communities, artifacts, and landmarks. Simultaneous to the modern day Holocaust that is happening to ancient Christian communities in the occupied regions, ISIS trumps even the art-hoarding Nazis in their total disregard for all things that make us human.

In the face of this unspeakable crime against humanity, Obama has not once mentioned the ongoing genocide, much less the irreplaceable loss of culture and tangible history. The airstrikes ordered by Obama and his advisor Valerie Jarret against ISIS have been described as “pin-pricks.” This shows that they are either lackadaisical in the face of the genocide, or more likely do not wish to be bothered. So committed is Obama to America’s defeat in the Middle East that he has appointed the above-mentioned Rashad Hussain, a documented supporter of political Islam, as a social media “warrior” to lead the cyber charge against these subhuman savages.

In time, the enormity of this crime will be examined through a historical lens. A few decades from now people will wonder how the liberty-loving United States elected a hollow, morally insipid man named Barack Hussein Obama, who armed and trained a jihadi army that destroyed our common human heritage and murdered entire tribes by the thousands.

Of great concern, domestically the soulless ISIS is now operational in all 50 states (according to the FBI), and ISIS training camps have been discovered in various states. A not-so-unexpected consequence of Obama’s open borders policy, indeed.

Regarding Iraq, it is no surprise and it is not hyperbole to simply state the obvious: Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood surrendered Iraq to the enemy, willingly and consciously. Into this void steps an emboldened and rejuvenated Iran.

Afghanistan

Much like Iraq, Afghanistan is in the process of being surrendered to the Taliban. Not only has the administration and (Afghan President) Karzai negotiated with the Taliban, they also idly watched as the same terrorists who hosted Osama bin Laden set up an embassy in Doha, Qatar. A national intelligence estimate as early as December 2013 predicted that all progress would be lost once a military drawdown began.

True to form, seven months after this estimate was released Obama swapped one American deserter, Bowe Bergdahl, for five high ranking Taliban commanders released from Guantanamo Bay, and a significant sum of money.

Following Obama’s policies, all the American blood and treasure spent liberating Afghanistan will be sacrificed by Obama, to the absolute benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood.

As a postscript, it will be noted that a primary source of Taliban funding, poppies for opium, have seen record Afghan crop yields in 2013 and 2014.

Nigeria

While #BringBackOurGirls may have been a temporary PR win for the Obama administration, it obscured the fact that the administration has been consistently enabling the growth of the jihadi army of Boko Haram by downplaying them as a threat. As if on cue, last week Boko Haram pledged allegiance (bayah) to the Islamic State.

According to one report that rings true, Boko Haram began with a $3 million grant from Osama bin Laden. One senior U.S. intelligence official stated, regarding the matter, “There were channels between bin Laden and Boko Haram leadership… He gave some strategic direction at times.” This connection evidently does not phase the Obama administration and U.S. Department of State.

As Andrew McCarthy wrote regarding the Clinton State Department’s position on Boko Haram:

“Instead, ignoring what Boko Haram pronounces its goals to be, the Obama administration portrayed it as a diffuse organization with no clear agenda that was ascendant due to the policies of the Nigerian government (which is under Christian leadership).”

Hillary Clinton’s successor at State, John Kerry, sings the same tune, while thousands of Nigerians are massacred. Following air strikes by the Nigerian government, Kerry urged restraint, warning Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan “to respect human rights and not harm civilians.”

Meanwhile, this African scourge has amassed a “massive army” that is reportedly stronger than the Nigerian Army. Defeating Boko Haram will likely take the coordinated efforts of Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon, which has close ties to a very sympathetic Israel. The French Army is right now operating out of Mali in Nigeria, contributing to the fight against the jihadis.

Israel

There is so much in the news regarding Obama’s falling-out with Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu that little needs to be added here. The likely breaking point in the relationship was Obama’s and Kerry’s siding with Qatar and Hamas during the war last summer; and, more recently, with the obvious intention of Obama to permit Iran to develop their nuclear arms capacities. This week, it is reported that Obama has appointed another Hamas-connected advisor, Robert Malley, to coordinate Middle East policy for the White House.

The deplorable disrespect and insults hurled at Netanyahu by the Democrats during his visit are the mirror image of an America whose college campuses have been overtaken with a virulent anti-Semitism.

Still, this chapter would not be complete without mentioning the integral part that Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, terrorists themselves, played in launching the diplomatically catastrophic “Peace Flotilla” – boats from Turkey, filled with military supplies and other goodies, for Hamas.

Iran

Into the grand void, the power vacuum, created by the Arab Spring, steps a nation largely unaffected by the Arab Spring: Iran. In fact, when Iran nearly embraced modernity and secular government with its so-called “Green Movement,” Obama and the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett stood conspicuously on the sidelines. Years in the making, the protestors and activists who challenged the Iranian mullahs paid dearly for their attempt at overthrowing the Islamic Republic while Obama’s administration remained silent and watched them get smashed.

An historic moment was totally squandered.

Whether it is in Yemen or in Iraq, Iran is the beneficiary, net-net, of the Arab Spring. Even as their Supreme Leader openly calls for the destruction of Israel, the Obama administration proceeds undaunted with negotiations that would give them nuclear capabilities and the means to strike the Middle East, Europe, and the United States with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Conclusion

The Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi put it this way: Obama “switched sides in the War on Terror.” The evidence presented above is but a glimpse into the preponderance of open source, published information that supports the Commission’s conclusion.

We are now faced with a totally new geopolitical situation: geographically, politically, and militarily.

With the body count growing by the day, and with a far larger war looming on the horizon, one would think that the responsible parties still left in government would pause, reflect, and begin to reverse course before it is too late. Yet as recently as December, NATO hailed its partnership with terrorist financier extraordinaire, the Gulf State of Qatar. This is tantamount to openly declaring allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood, a totalitarian and genocidal movement whose actions we see manifested daily.

The ultimate fallout from this historic, awful change in American policy may very well be a war of untold destruction. In the meantime, it is observed that some of America’s former allies have already decided that we, as agents of jihad, can no longer be trusted. Egypt is forming a closer relationship with Putin’s Russia, as is Saudi Arabia. India, which had moved closer to the United States under George W. Bush, has also turned toward Russia. France, with the rise of the National Front party, may very well be next to look east to Moscow. And Israel is openly courting new strategic alliances.

Truly, there have been few times in American history when our national commitment to morality, decency, and humanity has been so genuinely questionable. If the majority of the American people understood what has already been risked by this president and his Muslim Brotherhood-aligned administration, they would demand immediate resignation and a full investigation of the government agencies which are in league with, and give aid and comfort to, the enemy.

 

 

The Betrayal Papers is a collaborative effort by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which includes: Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Bethany Blankley, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, Chris Nethery, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Gates of Vienna, IQ al Rassooli, Right Side News, Leslie Burt, Marcus Kohan, Mary Fanning, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trevor Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.