Category Archives: Citizens Duty

White House Signed a National Security Waiver for Iran Deal

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On August 14, 2012, Barack Obama signed H.R. 1905 into law the’ Iran Threat Reduction and Syrian Human Rights Act of 2012′.

The he signed a National Security Waiver for the sake of the escalating talks with Iran seeking a deal defined early as the JPOA, the Joint Plan of Action. Sanctions of several key factors were lifted by his waiver signature.

While we cannot determine the date of the waiver, it was noted by Senator Marco Rubio in 2015, directly after the State of the Union address and picked up by CNN:

Republican presidential candidates have said they’d undo President Barack Obama’s Iran deal.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday on “State of the Union” that he’d revoke the national security waiver under which Obama is implementing the deal, effectively re-instituting U.S. sanctions against Iran.

“We will not use the national security waiver to hold back U.S. sanctions against Iran — especially not as a result of this flawed deal that he is pursuing,” Rubio said.

 

Due to the president having extraordinary authority, he took full advantage as noted below:

Revises Presidential Waiver Authority. The Act preserves the President’s general authority to waive sanctions against non-U.S. persons.  However, the Act revises and raises the standard under which the President may exercise the general waiver authority. First, energy-related sanctions can only be waived if the waiver is “essential to the national security interests of the United States.” Second, weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related sanctions can only be waived if the waiver is “vital to the national security interests of the United States.” Furthermore, the President’s “permanent” waiver authority is removed and replaced with a one-year renewable waiver authority.

The full summary of the Act, the sanctions and details are found here.

The White House soon went into full pro Iran deal mode using the White House website to push the soon to be successful results of the work he deployed John Kerry along with the P5+1 team to accomplish.

Under the framework for an Iran nuclear deal Iran's uranium enrichment pathway to a weapon will be shut down

What Iran’s Nuclear Program Would Look Like Without This Deal

As it stands today, Iran has a large stockpile of enriched uranium and nearly 20,000 centrifuges, enough to create 8 to 10 bombs. If Iran decided to rush to make a bomb without the deal in place, it would take them 2 to 3 months until they had enough weapon-ready uranium (or highly enriched uranium) to build their first nuclear weapon. Left unchecked, that stockpile and that number of centrifuges would grow exponentially, practically guaranteeing that Iran could create a bomb—and create one quickly – if it so chose.
This deal removes the key elements needed to create a bomb and prolongs Iran’s breakout time from 2-3 months to 1 year or more if Iran broke its commitments. Importantly, Iran won’t garner any new sanctions relief until the IAEA confirms that Iran has followed through with its end of the deal. And should Iran violate any aspect of this deal, the U.N., U.S., and E.U. can snap the sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy back into place.
Here’s what Iran has committed to:

Under the framework for an Iran nuclear deal Iran's uranium enrichment pathway to a weapon will be shut down

Heck, check the White House website and read the rest of the mess.

There are so many details and caveats omitted that even the House of Representatives has begun listing them.

Speaker of the House, John Boehner’s office has been watching the new twitter handle established by the White House to address head on all the misconceptions of the Iran deal.

@TheIranDeal is throwing out some real whoppers
July 24, 2015|Cory Fritz
The White House launched a new Twitter handle this week to help sell President Obama’s proposed nuclear deal with Iran.  So far its effort to “set the record straight” is offering nothing more than baseless claims:

CLAIM: “Thanks to the #IranDeal, Iran has agreed to provide the IAEA with the information necessary to address PMD.”

FACTS:  Iran has consistently delayed, obstructed and denied inspectors access to key information, and the proposed nuclear agreement will not compel Iran to come clean about its past activities.

“Tehran should already have made a full declaration under its obligations that predated the [July 14] accord, but the IAEA has found that Iran repeatedly failed to do so… Now the new agreement calls again on Iran to cooperate, but it offers no reason to believe that the Iranian regime will end its recalcitrance,” William Tobey, a former deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security administration wrote in the Wall Street Journal. More from the Speaker’s office on the Iran deal is here.

 

Chemical Weapons Still in Syria

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‘The road to Damascus is a road to peace.” Those were damning words. When Nancy Pelosi embraced Bashar al-Assad in April 2007, she wasn’t simply challenging the commander-in-chief during a war; she was propagandizing for a dictator who was killing Americans.

Years later, Syria is a failed nation with millions that have fled their home country and chemical weapons by the order of Bashir al Assad kills thousands of those remaining in the country.

Barack Obama and John Kerry made impassioned speeches about taking on Syria after the use of chemical weapons crossed the ‘red-line’ imposed by the president.

In typical style, the red-line threat fell flat and was deferred to Russia to handle. Announcements were made that the process was complete and Assad complied to the disposals, well….not so much.

Mission to Purge Syria of Chemical Weapons Comes Up Short

WSJ: Key excerpts
International inspectors rid nation of many arms, but Assad didn’t give up everything

In May of last year, a small team of international weapons inspectors gained entry to one of Syria’s most closely guarded laboratories. Western nations had long suspected that the Damascus facility was being used to develop chemical weapons.

Inside, Syrian scientists showed them rooms with test tubes, Bunsen burners and desktop computers, according to inspectors. The Syrians gave a PowerPoint presentation detailing the medical and agricultural research they said went on there. A Syrian general insisted that the Assad regime had nothing to hide.

As the international inspectors suspected back then, it was a ruse, part of a chain of misrepresentations by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to hide the extent of its chemical-weapons work. One year after the West celebrated the removal of Syria’s arsenal as a foreign-policy success, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the regime didn’t give up all of the chemical weapons it was supposed to.

An examination of last year’s international effort to rid Syria of chemical weapons, based on interviews with many of the inspectors and U.S. and European officials who were involved, shows the extent to which the Syrian regime controlled where inspectors went, what they saw and, in turn, what they accomplished. That happened in large part because of the ground rules under which the inspectors were allowed into the country, according to the inspectors and officials.

The West was unable, for example, to prevent Mr. Assad from continuing to operate weapons-research facilities, including the one in Damascus visited by inspectors, making it easier for the regime to develop a new type of chemical munition using chlorine. And the regime never had to account for the types of short-range rockets that United Nations investigators believe were used in an Aug. 21, 2013, sarin gas attack that killed some 1,400 people, these officials say.

Obama administration officials have voiced alarm this year about reports that Mr. Assad is using the chlorine weapons on his own people. And U.S. intelligence now suggests he hid caches of even deadlier nerve agents, and that he may be prepared to use them if government strongholds are threatened by Islamist fighters, according to officials familiar with the intelligence. If the regime collapses outright, such chemical-weapons could fall into the hands of Islamic State, or another terror group.

“Nobody should be surprised that the regime is cheating,” says Robert Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria under President Barack Obama. He says more intrusive inspections are needed.

The White House and State Department say last year’s mission was a success even if the regime hid some deadly chemicals. Western nations removed 1,300 metric tons of weapons-grade chemicals, including ingredients for nerve agents sarin and VX, and destroyed production and mixing equipment and munitions. U.S. officials say the security situation would be far more dangerous today if those chemicals hadn’t been removed, especially given recent battlefield gains by Islamists. Demanding greater access and fuller disclosures by the regime, they say, might have meant getting no cooperation at all, jeopardizing the entire removal effort.

“I take no satisfaction from the fact that the chlorine bombs only kill a handful at a time instead of thousands at a time,” says Thomas Countryman, the assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation. “But it is important to keep a perspective that the most dangerous of these inhumane weapons are no longer in the hands of this dictator.”

The following account of the inspectors’ efforts on the ground is based on interviews with people who were involved. Syrian officials in New York and Damascus didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

Inspectors from The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, together with U.N. personnel, arrived in Damascus in October 2013 to an especially difficult work environment. They were in a war zone, and rebel forces viewed them with hostility because the inspection process forestalled U.S. airstrikes, which the rebels were counting on to weaken the Assad regime.

Suspected gaps
The new team flew into Damascus once a month to meet with Gen. Sharif and Syria’s leading scientists. As inspectors pressed the Syrians about suspected gaps in their initial weapons declaration, new details about the program began to emerge.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies had long suspected that there were research facilities in Damascus run by the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, or SSRC. In a bombing run in early 2013, Israeli warplanes had struck a convoy of trucks next to one of them. Israel believed the trucks were carrying weapons for Hezbollah.


At first, the Syrians told the new team they had no research facilities at all because they had developed their weapons in the field using what they described as “pop-up” labs. The inspectors had seen intelligence that suggested otherwise.
During an informal dinner in April 2014, inspectors half-jokingly suggested that the Syrians should allow them to visit an SSRC facility.
“If you are so interested, why don’t you just come along?” a Syrian official responded, according to Mr. Smith.

One Saturday the following month, the inspectors’ motorcade entered one of the SSRC compounds in Damascus. The facility’s director told the inspectors that no chemical weapons had been developed there. The facility had done research on detecting chemical agents and on treating people exposed to toxins, he said.
Gen. Sharif attended the presentation, which included an Arabic-language PowerPoint. The slides explained the SSRC’s work in areas including oncology and pesticides. The skeptical inspectors urged the Syrians to come clean about all their research and development facilities.
Last October, the Syrian regime added several research facilities to its official declaration of chemical-weapons sites, including the one in Damascus visited by inspectors that May. That gave inspectors the right to visit them for examinations. Western officials say samples taken by inspectors at the sites found traces of sarin and VX, which they say confirms that they had been part of the chemical-weapons program.


Earlier this year, American intelligence agencies tracked the regime’s increasing use of chlorine-filled bombs. The weapons-removal deal didn’t curtail the work of Syria’s weapons scientists, allowing the regime to develop more effective chlorine bombs, say U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence. The regime denies using chlorine.
The CIA had been confident that Mr. Assad destroyed all of the chemical weapons it thought he possessed when the weapons-removal deal was struck. In recent weeks, the CIA concluded that the intelligence picture had changed and that there was a growing body of evidence Mr. Assad kept caches of banned chemicals, according to U.S. officials.
Inspectors and U.S. officials say recent battlefield gains by Islamic State militants and rival al Qaeda-linked fighters have made it even more urgent to determine what Syria held back from last year’s mass disposal, and where it might be hidden. A new intelligence assessment says Mr. Assad may be poised to use his secret chemical reserves to defend regime strongholds. Another danger is that he could lose control of the chemicals, or give them to Hezbollah.
The team that visited the SSRC facility in Damascus recently asked the regime for information about unaccounted for munitions. Officials say there has been no response from Damascus.
“Accountability?” asks Mr. Cairns, the inspector. “At this point in time, it hasn’t happened.” Full story is here.

Hillary’s Team Denies Classified Emails

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As the probe continues on Hillary Clinton’s email history and her private server, one must question how a Secretary of State in four years never electronically interacted in classified communications.

If this is accurate when it comes to her private email server, then where did classified communications occur?

Hillary was a lawyer and so is Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and he too used a private email for official business and did the former Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, who also created an alias.

Clearly there is a real pattern in the Obama administration where abuse and waivers are the culture of corruption and obstruction of procedures and law. Imagine how many others use non official communications systems.

Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account

NYT’s

WASHINGTON — Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.

The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.

It is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them.

But since her use of a private email account for official State Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said that she had no classified information on the account.

The Justice Department has not decided if it will open an investigation, senior officials said. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign declined to comment.

At issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.

She faced sharp criticism after her use of the account became public, and subsequently said she would ask the State Department to release her emails.

The department is now reviewing some 55,000 pages of emails. A first batch of 3,000 pages was made public on June 30.

In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified. In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled them.

In a second memo to Mr. Kennedy, sent on July 17, the inspectors general said that at least one email made public by the State Department contained classified information. The inspectors general did not identify the email or reveal its substance.

The memos were provided to The New York Times by a senior government official.

The inspectors general also criticized the State Department for its handling of sensitive information, particularly its reliance on retired senior Foreign Service officers to decide if information should be classified, and for not consulting with the intelligence agencies about its determinations.

In March, Mrs. Clinton insisted that she was careful in her handling of information on her private account. “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email,” she said. “There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”

In May, the F.B.I. asked the State Department to classify a section of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that related to suspects who may have been arrested in connection with the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The information was not classified at the time Mrs. Clinton received it.

The revelations about how Mrs. Clinton handled her email have been an embarrassment for the State Department, which has been repeatedly criticized over its handling of documents related to Mrs. Clinton and her advisers.

On Monday, a federal judge sharply questioned State Department lawyers at a hearing in Washington about why they had not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Associated Press, some of which were four years old.

“I want to find out what’s been going on over there — I should say, what’s not been going on over there,” said Judge Richard J. Leon of United States District Court, according to a transcript obtained by Politico. The judge said that “for reasons known only to itself,” the State Department “has been, to say the least, recalcitrant in responding.”

Two days later, lawmakers on the Republican-led House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks said they planned to summon Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff to Capitol Hill to answer questions about why the department has not produced documents that the panel subpoenaed. That hearing is set for next Wednesday.

“The State Department has used every excuse to avoid complying with fundamental requests for documents,” said the chairman of the House committee, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina.

Mr. Gowdy said that while the committee has used an array of measures to try to get the State Department to hand over documents, the results have been the same. “Our committee is not in possession of all documents needed to do the work assigned to us,” he said.

The State Department has sought to delay the hearing, citing continuing efforts to brief members of Congress on the details of the nuclear accord with Iran. It is not clear why the State Department has struggled with the classification issues and document production. Republicans have said the department is trying to use those processes to protect Mrs. Clinton.

State Department officials say they simply do not have the resources or infrastructure to properly comply with all the requests. Since March, requests for documents have significantly increased.

Some State Department officials said they believe that many senior officials did not initially take the House committee seriously, which slowed document production and created an appearance of stonewalling.

State Department officials also said that Mr. Kerry is concerned about the toll the criticism has had on the department and has urged his deputies to comply with the requests quickly.

Wheels up on the Crowded Obama Plane to Kenya

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On Africa trip, Air Force One will be crowded for once

WaPo:

Twenty House and Senate members will accompany President Obama on this week’s trip to Africa, according to White House officials, the latest sign of the White House’s effort to build a closer rapport with Congress.

The group — which includes 19 Democrats and one Republican, Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) — will be evenly divided between the outbound and return flight. Flake and two of his colleagues on the Senate Foreign Affairs subcommittee on African affairs, Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), will join seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday night’s flight to Nairobi. The Democratic House members include Karen Bass (Calif.), G.K. Butterfield (N.C.), Eddie Bernice Johnson (Tex.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.) and Terri Sewell (Ala.)

[READ: Why Sen. Jeff Flake is the one Republican journeying to Africa with Obama]

On the return flight from Ethiopia, the president will host 10 CBC members: Democratic Reps. Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.), John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Marcia Fudge (Ohio), Al Green (Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Tex.), Robin Kelly (Ill.), Gwen Moore (Wis.), Donald Payne (N.J.), Cedric Richmond (La.) and Bennie Thompson (Miss.).

Asked Wednesday about why the president was bringing along such a large congressional contingent to Kenya and Ethiopia, his national security adviser Susan Rice told reporters, “Well, obviously we want to strengthen and sustain what I’ve referred to repeatedly as a strong bipartisan consensus around support for Africa, Africa’s development, peace and security there.”

Rice added that last month the administration was focused on renewing the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade bill that received overwhelming support in the House and Senate. “But obviously we have many, many issues that are important that we need Congress’s support on — legislation that will support and codify some of the most significant initiatives, including in the health and agriculture and power sectors, as well as we have a nominee on the Hill that very much needs to be confirmed for USAID administrator,” she said.

***     

He will become the first sitting president to be hosted by Kenya or Ethiopia, his second stop on a four-day trip beginning on Friday.

Though the visit aims to boost US security and economic ties, many Kenyans view his arrival as a native son’s homecoming.

Mr Obama will spend private time with family members, say White House officials.

But his itinerary does not include travel to the village of Kogelo where his father is buried, despite a local witchdoctor’s predictions otherwise.

Mr Obama last visited Kenya – an important US ally against Somali Islamist group al Shabaab – while serving as a US senator in 2006.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, he will preside over the Global Entrepreneurship Summit and pay tribute to the victims and survivors of the 1998 US embassy bombing.

He will also dine with President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Those charges were dropped in March, but the case prevented Mr Obama from going to Kenya.

Mr Obama will also give a speech to the Kenyan people in Nairobi.

Valerie Jarrett, an Obama aide, said: “Just as anybody is curious about their heritage, visiting Kenya provides him an opportunity to make that personal connection.”

The Kenyan authorities have filled potholes, repaired pavements and planted greenery along the route where the presidential motorcade will pass.

Street vendors’ stalls are creaking with Obama memorabilia such as T-shirts, portraits and DVDs.

In the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa he will become the first US president to address the African Union.

Activists have raised concerns in a letter to Mr Obama about his trip to East Africa because of alleged human rights violations.

US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the US President wouldn’t hesitate to raise human rights concerns during the trip.

Mr Obama has chided African countries over gay rights, but Mr Kenyatta says it is a “non-issue” that won’t be on the agenda for the visit.

Mr Obama’s critics say he has done less for Africa than his predecessor, George W Bush, whose Aids relief programme made him a hero on the continent.

But Mr Obama’s advisers point to his own initiatives on electricity, agriculture and trade.

The US President wrote about his Kenyan roots in his best-selling 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father.

Debunked “birther” conspiracy theories once held he was actually born there, and ineligible to be US President.

Mr Obama will spend private time with family members, say White House officials, per Sky News

 

But his itinerary does not include travel to the village of Kogelo where his father is buried, despite a local witchdoctor’s predictions otherwise.

Mr Obama last visited Kenya – an important US ally against Somali Islamist group al Shabaab – while serving as a US senator in 2006.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, he will preside over the Global Entrepreneurship Summit and pay tribute to the victims and survivors of the 1998 US embassy bombing.

He will also dine with President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Those charges were dropped in March, but the case prevented Mr Obama from going to Kenya.

Mr Obama will also give a speech to the Kenyan people in Nairobi.

 

What the Hell is the Army Thinking? Bergdahl Picked up at Pot Farm

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OMG, this man, a deserter got a pass from the Army to go to Mendocino County, California and well there was a raid. Then the Army, yes the Army sent a plane to go get him. WHAT???

US Army confirms to @FoxNews that Bowe Bergdahl was up in Mendocino County at Pot Farm, released back to his command at Fort Sam Houston. 8:10 PM, EST July 23, 2015

Fresh details here.

From NBC, Bay Area:

Bowe Bergdahl — the once-missing U.S. soldier in Afghanistan who was accused of desertion — was spotted hanging out at a Mendocino County marijuana farm during a raid.
According to the The Anderson Valley Advertiser, Bergdahl was an “unexpected visitor” in Mendocino County, where he was visiting old friends when the “local dope team arrived on a marijuana raid.”
Bergdahl arrived Friday at the farm, which is located in a remote part of Redwood Valley.
Bergdahl, who is awaiting military court martial, had an Army pass allowing him to be in Mendocino County, the Advertiser reported, adding he was “not connected to the dope grow in any way.”
The Mendocino Sheriff Department confirmed the report to NBC Bay Area, stressing Bergdahl was not arrested during the raid.
However, the Advertiser reported that military officials were notified and, after “calls all the way up to the Pentagon,” Bergdahl was escorted by military personnel sent to Ukiah. The sheriff told the Advertiser that Bergdahl was “above politeness” and even produced his military ID when people from the house he was visiting were being arrested.
The Sheriff’s Department was able to confirm that Bergdahl was on authorized leave to visit his friends and was not involved with the production of marijuana.
At the request of the Pentagon, Bergdahl was transported to Santa Rosa by the sheriff’s department. An Army major was expected to take him to his duty station near Washington.

As a side note, when Bergdahl as picked up from the Haqqani network, he was stoned then as well.