Category Archives: Choke Point

Center for American Progress Running Govt Agency Policy

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At the Environmental Protection Agency, the collusion with The Center for American Policy runs deep. Whether it is invoking a hidden carbon tax, controlling green house emissions or promoting the cottage industry of climate change, Barack Obama’s cabinet secretaries listen, take heed and obey.

All in the name of progress right? Not so much but rather in the quest for money, revenue and control of business.

The Collusion Begins, Emails and Facts are Funny Things and why Redact?

Center for American Progress Helped Craft EPA Press Strategy

Emails reveal liberal think tank’s climate strategy director advised top EPA officials on dealing with skeptical reporter
WFB:

A prominent left-wing group helped formulate Environmental Protection Agency talking points designed to sell a controversial regulatory scheme to skeptical journalists, internal emails show.

The emails show Joseph Goffman, the senior counsel of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, circulating talking points from Center for American Progress climate strategy director Daniel Weiss among EPA colleagues attempting to sell the agency’s controversial power plant regulations to a New York Times reporter.

Weiss emailed Goffman in September 2013 with a series of suggestions for convincing the Times’ Matt Wald of the commercial viability of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, a vital component of the agency’s stringent power plant emissions regulations.

Five minutes later, Goffman sent an email to five colleagues in his office and the agency’s public affairs division. Unredacted language in the email is identical to language in Weiss’ list of talking points.

The Environment & Energy (E&E) Legal Institute obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request. Chris Horner, a senior legal fellow at E&E, said they show extensive behind-the-scenes collaboration between EPA and third-party groups that support the regulations.

“The chief lawyer tasked with making the global warming agenda happen cuts and pastes Team Soros arguments and strategies into emails and sends them to colleagues as his own,” Horner said in an email.

Weiss, who is now the senior vice president for campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, another influential green group, did not respond to a request for comment.

Goffman took the lead in crafting the EPA’s legal justification for its power plant rules, which are expected to hit coal-fired power plants hardest. Laws require federal regulations to be commercially viable, so the EPA needed to show it was possible for coal plants to comply with the rule.

To do so, it relied on CCS technology, which it said could allow such plants to reduce carbon emissions below the regulations’ threshold. Critics of the rules, including the coal industry, said CCS was not “adequately demonstrated,” the standard for technology that allows private actors to comply with the regulations.

On Sept. 20, 2013, Weiss emailed Rohan Patel, a special assistant to President Obama who led White House messaging on the regulations, and Brian Bond, EPA’s associate administrator of public engagement and environmental education.

Weiss’ email had a frantic tone. “Very important,” the subject line said. “NYT to write CCS not adequately demonstrated?” He warned Bond and Patel that Wald sounded skeptical of CCS’s commercial viability. “It might be worth your while to have [EPA administrator] Gina [McCarthy] or some other senior person call him ASAP.”

Patel forwarded the email to Goffman, associate EPA administrator for public affairs Tom Reynolds, and Dan Utech, the president’s deputy assistant for energy and climate change. Reynolds and Goffman scheduled a phone call to discuss Wald’s forthcoming story.

Minutes later, Goffman emailed Weiss. “Thanks for the note on Matt Wald,” he wrote. “We’re on it.”

Weiss replied with a series of suggestions for selling Wald on CCS’s commercial viability. “The key is to make the most compelling case that CCS is ‘adequately demonstrated,’” he wrote. “Since the strategy of the opponents seems to be cast doubt on the technology, the more evidence that it is on its way, the stronger the case.”

Five minutes later, Goffman emailed five other EPA officials, including Reynolds. Most of the email is redacted, pursuant to a FOIA exemption designed to protect the confidentiality of internal deliberations among federal officials.

However, the first and last sentences are identical to language in Weiss’ email. Horner says that suggests that Goffman simply copied Weiss’ suggestions into his own message. “The brazen collusion is staggering,” he said.

“This is a spectacular example of how ideological activists brought in to the Obama administration to jam through the left-wing agenda see no distinction between EPA and their former green-group colleagues,” Horner said.

EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison dismissed concerns that Goffman had simply copied Weiss’ talking points into intra-agency communications.

“No one forwarded a suggestion as their own, and one email is not representative of how the agency works,” she said in an emailed statement.

“EPA’s priority is reaching out and engaging with the public and stakeholders so we hear from as many voices as possible,” Harrison said. “Nothing we do is about one individual or group coming up with an idea or suggestion.”

Wald’s eventual story, published on Sept. 20, cast doubt on the commercial viability of CCS technology.

“In the last few days, Ms. McCarthy has referred to several early-stage carbon capture projects as a sign that industry can build the needed equipment,” he wrote. “But the four she referred to in the committee hearing ranged from under construction to planned. None of them would sequester the carbon dioxide, and all would sell it.”

Five days later, Weiss co-authored a CAP paper echoing the points he had emailed to EPA.

CAP has been described as “a boot camp” for the Obama administration’s climate policy staff. A number of the think tank’s experts have moved on to influential roles in the administration, and its proposals are frequently incorporated into administration policies.

“Anyone who pays attention to these issues must acknowledge that CAP plays a very unique, almost extraordinary role in developing documents for the administration and in advancing personnel,” energy lobbyist Scott Segal told Greenwire in April.

Horner said collaboration between CAP and EPA illustrates a trend that has borne itself out in the language of regulations promulgated by the agency, including its rules regarding power plant emissions.

“Other emails I have obtained demonstrate that they take what the greens tell them and paste it in,” he said. “That’s unlawful and one of the major reasons these greenhouse gas rules need to be blocked.”

 

How About that Immigration Slush Fund?

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How about using $1.3 BILLION to fix just one home country first?

First, you need some background on the Department of Homeland Security and how they not only publish crap but how they justify it and then ask for their annual budgetary requirements with glowing accomplishments. So to help you out, click this link and head on over to the Janet Napolitano DHS operations on page 121 and read on if you can stomach the task.

Now, let us move on to the slush fund shall we?

Hat tip to Senator Jeff Sessions, he held a subcommittee meeting in March and discovered a $1.3 billion dollar slush fund and lots of nefarious actions with that money. I watch this stuff on C-Span and report:

“USCIS has been hoarding fees paid by legal immigrants to subsidize the planned new executive amnesty for an estimated five million illegal aliens and failing to screen applicants adequately to prevent criminal aliens from obtaining benefits. In addition, the agency has created a pathway to citizenship for many of these illegal aliens.”

There is more.

“USCIS has accumulated a “reserve fund” of unexpended revenues that now totals $1.2 billion (with a “B”). The agency has a policy to maintain a reserve balance of $600 million to help it manage in the event of revenue fluctuations, but USCIS is using these funds to launch the new executive amnesty programs (without any statutory authorization). One cannot help but wonder how this reserve fund got so big over the years, because by law USCIS is supposed to charge fees that reflect the exact cost of processing the benefits. Did they overcharge millions of legal applicants or cut corners on the processing of benefits? Both?

Sen. Tom Tillis (R-N.C.) asked why USCIS has not used its huge cash reserves to reduce the processing backlogs for legal applicants instead of setting up unconstitutional work permit programs for illegal aliens.

USCIS had already spent $11 million getting ready for the new executive amnesty until it was blocked by a federal judge in mid-February. About $7 million was spent to lease office space in Crystal City, Va., and those rent payments still need to be made whether the program goes forward or not. The total cost of the processing facility alone is estimated to be $26.2 million.

Before the program was stopped, USCIS had hired “one or two” people to work on the program and had made job offers to 360 others, which are now on hold. The plan is for the amnesty applications to be adjudicated by 700-800 brand-new employees, with no experience in evaluating immigration applications.”

You can actually get a few more details here.

Yippee for Senator Cruz, he has introduced  A BILL

To eliminate the offsetting accounts that are currently available

for use by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

This is great in action but gaining real traction is slim to none. This is why you need to apply pressure to your respective lawmakers.

Now, USCIS has a website, where a full welcoming and kindly layout encourages anyone into the United States and helps them find a way to do it.

Okay, so remember now that was $1.8 BILLION and that is not including the budget at DHS for 2015. You see, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employs more than 13,000 people and in 2012, there were 72,000 refugee applications and 29,000 asylum applications. Add that to the unknown quantity coming across the border and we have no clue what language we will be required to speak to keep our job.

On page 133 of this latest document:

USCIS ensures that information and decisions on citizenship and immigration benefits are provided to customers in a timely, accurate, consistent, courteous, and professional manner, while also working to safeguard our national security. More than 50 different types of citizenship and immigration benefit applications
are processed by USCIS. Every case is unique and requires specialized attention from experienced USCIS immigration officers. USCIS is also responsible for enhancing the integrity of our country’s legal immigration system by deterring, detecting, and pursuing immigration-related fraud, combating the unauthorized practice of immigration law, and helping to combat unauthorized employment in the workplace.
Each day, USCIS employees work to fulfill the USCIS mission of enhancing both national security and the integrity of the legal immigration system by: (1) identifying threats to national security and public safety posed by those seeking immigration benefits; (2) deterring, detecting, and pursuing, immigration benefit fraud; (3) identifying and removing systemic vulnerabilities in the legal immigration system; and (4) promoting information sharing and collaboration with other governmental agencies.
In addition, USCIS extends humanitarian protection to refugees, both within and outside of the United States, in accordance with U.S. law and international obligations.

There are these 2 samples of how DHS states their accomplishments:

  • Collaborated in the effort to respond to the April 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings including the establishment of Task Force 1 as a centralized hub for fielding requests from interagency partners.
    • Interviewed and performed security checks for approximately 72,000 refugee applicants in more than 66 countries to support the admission of 69,930 refugees to the United States; interviewed, performed security checks, and completed more than 29,000 affirmative asylum applications; and performed more than 43,000 asylum screenings for reasonable and credible fear.

Sheesh….How many questions need to be asked now? The first one is how is this fleecing of the American taxpayer a benefit and what is the threat matrix to our national security?

 

 

Obama’s Middle East Policy is IN This Book

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2003:

At Khalidi’s 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, “then you will never see a day of peace.”

One speaker likened “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been “blinded by ideology.”

2004

Rashid Khalidi wrote a book. Fittingly the title is ‘Resurrecting Empire’. Released in 2004, Khalidi cherry picked facts to build his case against any Western intervention into the Middle East and wrote often about early colonization and occupation by Britain and France with the aid of the United States. How many times have we heard the words colonization and occupation out of this White House?

2008

CHICAGO — It was a celebration of Palestinian culture — a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking. Obama also calls for the U.S. to talk to such declared enemies as Iran, Syria and Cuba. But he argues that the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, is an exception, calling it a terrorist group that should renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist before dialogue begins. That viewpoint, which also matches current U.S. policy, clashes with that of many Palestinian advocates who urge the United States and Israel to treat Hamas as a partner in negotiations.

2010

From Politico: An Arab-American activist who attended an outreach session at the White House complex in April had his Chicago home raided by the FBI last week and appears to be a focus of an unfolding federal terrorism-support investigation.

Hatem Abudayyeh, who serves as executive director of the Arab-American Action Network, took part in a meeting for Arab-American leaders held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 22, according to appointment data posted on the White House website.

FBI agents executed a search warrant at Abudayyeh’s Chicago home as part of a coordinated series of raids involving at least one other Chicago site, along with the homes of anti-war activists in Minnesota. A copy posted on the web of a grand jury subpoena served on one target of the raids in Minneapolis demands “all records of any payment provided directly or indirectly to Hatem Abudayyeh, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (“PFLP”) or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (“FARC”).”

A search warrant served on a Minneapolis anti-war activist, Michael Kelly, ordered agents to seize records relating to Kelly’s travels to “Palestine, Colombia, and … within the United States.” It also mentions possible connections to Hezbollah.

The warrant and subpoena suggest the probe, which is being run by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago, is focusing on illegal support for terrorist organizations, particularly by a Minnesota-based group called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. PFLP, FARC and Hezbollah are designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. government. A spokesman for Fitzgerald’s office declined to comment on the probe.

In a 2006 interview with Fight Back News, an outlet run by Minneapolis activist Kelly, Abudayyeh seemed to disagree rather strenuously with at least some of the U.S. government’s use of the “terrorist” label.

“The U.S. and Israel will continue to describe Hamas, Hezbollah and the other Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organizations as ‘terrorists,’ but the real terrorists are the governments and military forces of the U.S. and Israel,” Abudayyeh said. “The vast majority of the world sees and understands this, and are in full support of Lebanese, Palestinian and worldwide resistance to Israel and the U.S.’s naked aggression, war, imperialism and occupation.”

2011

In part from TWS:

Barack Obama and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi both taught at the University of Chicago in the ’90s, and at a farewell dinner for Khalidi in 2003, Obama warmly praised Khalidi’s advice, which took the form of “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.” Since the Los Angeles Times never released its videotape of the event, we may never know Obama’s blind spots or the enlightenment on offer from his friend and colleague Khalidi​—​a PLO spokesman in Beirut during the Lebanese civil wars.

Khalidi has denied his role with the PLO, but Martin Kramer, the Wexler-Fromer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has him dead to rights. On his website, www.martinkramer.org, Kramer explains that between 1976 and 1982 Khalidi was consistently identified​—​by, among others, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times​—​as a PLO spokesman, without once demanding a correction. Still, all Khalidi will admit today is that he was “deeply involved in politics in Beirut.”

Perhaps it’s understandable that Khalidi won’t come clean about his role in the civil wars, for everyone came out of the conflict dripping with blood, not just the Christians and Israelis, but the Palestinians, too. Why the Christians are typically censured for their brutality while the PLO seems to get a pass from so many U.S. analysts, journalists, and even former government employees like Pillar is strange, especially since PLO chairman Yasser Arafat showed that, unlike the Lebanese Forces, he was willing to kill Americans as well.

In summary, is can be stated that the basis of Barack Obama’s policy on Israel and the rest of the Middle East is grounded in the book, authored by Khalidi. From the word ‘resurrection’ in the title, to relations with Israel, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and even Cuba, now Venezuela is on the near horizon.

Fits like a globe….

 

 

 

FBI Official Warning, Hackers Attacking Corporations

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The FBI Most Wanted hackers. Law enforcement is willing to pay $4.2 million to get them

Cybercrime represents one of the most serious threat to Governments and private industries worldwide, law enforcement hunt down this emerging class of criminals who are able to influence the social context like drug traffickers and terrorists.

The FBI has published the lists of most wanted cyber criminals and the rewards for their capture. According to FBI data these individuals are responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, for this reason, the Feds are willing to pay a combined $4.2 million for information leading to their arrest.

U.S. Retailer giants Target and Home Depot are just a couple of samples of companies that suffered major cyber attacks, we cannot avoid mentioning other illustrious victims of the cybercrime like the Sony Pictures and government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management.

Recently Trustwave firm published a report related to 2014 incidents that revealed cyber criminal activities are paying with 1,425% return on investment. More details here.

***

But the warning bells are sounding from the FBI

FBI Warns U.S. Companies to Be Ready for Chinese Hack Attacks

by Shane Harris:
In a message obtained by The Daily Beast, the bureau strongly implies Beijing was behind the massive hack that exposed U.S. government employees’ secrets—and U.S. companies are next.
Within the U.S. government, there’s a debate about who’s responsible for the massive hack of federal employees’ darkest secrets. The FBI on Wednesday weighed in with its own answer, strongly implying that it was the work of China.

The FBI is warning U.S. companies to be on the lookout for a malicious computer program that has been linked to the hack of the Office of Personnel Management. Security experts say the malware is known to be used by hackers in China, including those believed to be behind the OPM breach.

The FBI warning, which was sent to companies Wednesday, includes so-called hash values for the malware, called Sakula, that can be used to search a company’s systems to see if they’ve been affected.

The warning, known as an FBI Liaison Alert System, or FLASH, contains technical details of the malware and describes how it works. While the message doesn’t mention the OPM hack, the Sakula malware is used by Chinese hacker groups, according to security experts. And the FBI message is identical to one the bureau sent companies on June 5, a day after the Obama administration said the OPM had been hacked, exposing millions of government employees’ personal information. Among the recipients of both alerts are government contractors working on sensitive and classified projects.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has publicly called China the “leading suspect” in the OPM hack, but he hasn’t offered any evidence publicly to substantiate those claims. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said the jury is still out on whether China is to blame.

In an email obtained by The Daily Beast, the FBI said it was sending the alert again because of concerns that not all companies had received it the first time. Apparently, some of their email filters weren’t configured to let the FBI message through.

The FLASH alert says the bureau has identified “cyber actors who have compromised and stolen sensitive business information and personally identifiable information.”
The FLASH alert says the bureau has identified “cyber actors who have compromised and stolen sensitive business information and personally identifiable information,” which includes names, dates of birth, and Social Security Numbers. The message notes that this information was a “priority target” of the hackers and that such data are frequently used for financial fraud. But “the FBI is not aware of such activity by these groups,” the message says.

Experts believe the data stolen from OPM is being compiled for espionage purposes, including targeting U.S. government employees and contractors who have access to classified information and could be blackmailed or recruited as spies.

The message also described the malware as being designed to copy information and send it to another computer, presumably being operated by a hacker. The Sakula malware has been linked to a breach of patient records at the health insurer Anthem. Some experts now believe the hackers who pulled off that breach are the same ones who penetrated the OPM’s computers.

The alert comes as Obama administration officials have been briefing members of Congress and their staff about the extent of the OPM hack. The Daily Beast reported earlier that the hackers had compromised so-called adjudication information, which includes revealing details, gleaned from background investigations, about government employees’ sex lives, their history of drug and alcohol use, and their financial problems. The OPM hack has also raised questions about whether the personnel records of intelligence agency employees, including covert operatives, were compromised.

 

Prisoners Have a Super PAC

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Political Action Committee that is…

There are over 1.5 million people in U.S. prisons today and with that all those people not only cost big dollars, they don’t and anything to the economic or financial engine. There is chatter at the Department of Justice to re-tool criminal sentencing and perhaps that is a good debate. Yet, discussions should also include the foreign nationals in our prisons that need to be incarcerated in home countries.

Meanwhile, when it comes to second chances, each case and individual is different for sure, so can a political action committee be the solution?

From the Center for Public Integrity:

Super PACs have been formed by journalists. By space nerds. Even comedian Stephen Colbert.

Now, for the first time, a super PAC is being masterminded from behind bars.

Adam Savader this week formed Second Chance PAC — it may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections — even though Savader himself can’t vote. That’s because Savader is serving a 30-month sentence in federal prison for cyberstalking and extortion after pleading guilty in November 2013 to the crimes.

A budding political activist who attended The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Savader had previously volunteered for the 2012 presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

Around the same time, Savader was hacking into women’s email accounts, stealing nude photos of them and threatening to publish the pictures unless they sent more, according to court filings.

Several campaign finance lawyers, normally a tough bunch to surprise, said this appears to be the first super PAC set up by a jailbird.

“That’s a new one,” Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer at law firm Akerman LLP, told the Center for Public Integrity. “I’ve seen former convicted people come out of prison and run for Congress again, but never saw someone set up a committee while in prison.”

“This is a first,” said Michael Toner, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who’s now a lawyer at Wiley Rein. “I haven’t recalled this. It really does show you how omnipresent super PACs are today.”

Paperwork for Second Chance PAC lists Savader as the group’s treasurer, custodian of records and “founder / director.” It also notes the PAC doesn’t have a bank account and hasn’t yet raised money.

Second Chance PAC uses the address of a post office box in Great Neck, N.Y., which is also the address used by a municipal credit analysis company called Savader Asset Advisors, LLC.

Perry Leardi, the company’s representative of sales, confirmed the company’s chief executive officer, Mitchell Savader, is Adam Savader’s father. But Leardi said he knew nothing about Adam Savader’s super PAC.

Mitchell Savader did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Update, 8:05 p.m. Tuesday, June 30, 2015: Mitchell Savader explained by phone Tuesday evening that he helped his son set up the super PAC.

“My son has a deep belief that people who have done something wrong” should have “a true second chance,” Mitchell Savader said.

He said the point of the super PAC is to help influence legislation that would support people who have spent time in prison and are trying to start over.

The paperwork was filed just to establish the group and allow it to secure its name and email address, Mitchell Savader said. He said the group won’t engage in fundraising until after his son is released.

At that point, he said, his son plans to finish college and will work on the super PAC as a side project.)

The super PAC’s paperwork arrived at the Federal Election Commission in an envelope return addressed to Adam Savader at “Federal Correctional Institution” in New Jersey.

The Bureau of Prison’s inmate search lists Adam Savader as an inmate in Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institute, a low-security prison in New Jersey.

“We have people who set up super PACs going to prison over it, but this guy is getting out in front of it,” said Kenneth Gross, the head of the political law practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

It isn’t clear whether prison rules specifically address inmates forming political committees, and the Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to questions.

Forming a super PAC isn’t inherently difficult. Fill out and submit several pages of paperwork, mail them to the FEC, and voilá, you’re on your way.

Operating a successful super PAC is another matter: Only a small fraction of the roughly 1,000 federally registered super PACs that today exist have raised significant amounts of money, and many haven’t raised any money at all.

Savader doesn’t indicate in his super PAC paperwork what candidates or causes the committee intends to support. The FEC doesn’t require such detail, either.

Michael Soshnick, Savader’s defense attorney at the time of his guilty plea, could not immediately be reached for comment by the Center for Public Integrity.

The judge overseeing the case acknowledged Savader had mental health issues, but that they weren’t excuses for his crimes.

According to a Politico story about Savader’s sentencing, the judge agreed that working on Gingrich’s campaign was his “breaking point.”

Savader’s scheduled release date is July 27, 2016 — the week after Republicans are slated to formally nominate a presidential candidate.

This story was co-published with the Daily Beast.