Faceoff with Russia

Posted on June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

Russia a threat to Baltic states after Ukraine conflict, warns Michael Fallon

Russian president Vladimir Putin could repeat the tactics used to destabilise Ukraine in Baltic members of the Nato alliance, the defence secretary has warned.

Michael Fallon said Nato must be ready for Russian aggression in “whatever form it takes” as he acknowledged tensions between the alliance and Moscow were “warming up”.

His comments came after prime minister David Cameron called on Europe to make clear to Russia that it faces economic and financial consequences for “many years to come” if it does not stop destabilising Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces pulled out from the strategically important town of Debaltseve after fierce fighting, which had continued despite the ceasefire agreed following international talks.

‘Nato’s resolve’

Lieutenant James Byrn, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, US Army, said: “We’re actually here training, obviously with our Polish and other Nato allies, just to demonstrate Nato’s resolve and to prepare our allies to be able to work with us and us work with them jointly, in order to succeed against any potential adversaries we may face.”

The exercises span various locations in Poland and the Baltic states, and will involve troops from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as well as Denmark, Finland, the United States, Germany, France and Portugal. Last year the exercise involved 4,500 troops from several nations.

*** Russian troops took control of Ukraine’s Crimea region. The Kremlin also is backing militant separatists fighting Kiev.

In response to all of this, Washington stepped up military exercises in Europe to help calm its friends and allies. The Marines have been heavily involved in this “European Reassurance Initiative,” now called Operation Atlantic Resolve. The Marines have been stockpiling tanks and other equipment in Scandinavia since last year, 2014.

The Marine Corps’ Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) and Marine Corps Prepositioning Program – Norway (MCPP-N) have been operationally invaluable in supporting our Nation’s interests across the world. These two unique programs provide the essential elements needed to support and execute crisis response, global reach, and forward presence. The Marine Corps’ Prepositioning Programs enable the rapid deployment of Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs) and/or augment individual Marine units forward deployed. These forces are uniquely capable of strengthening alliances, securing strategic access, and defeating hostile adversaries. MPF and MCPP-N are keystones in the Marine Corps’ capability for setting the conditions for national security.

*** RIGA, Latvia – Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division offload an M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank from the transportation vessel “Liberty Promise” March 9 at the Riga Universal Terminal docks. More than 100 pieces of equipment, including the tanks, M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and assorted military cargo, will move on to sites in other areas of Latvia as well as Estonia and Lithuania in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve.

WASHINGTON — Russian SU-24 fighter-bombers buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer in international waters in the Black Sea late in May, just days after the Royal Air Force scrambled to intercept nuclear-capable Bear bombers near British airspace. These dangerous Russian games of chicken are now regular occurrences and come hard upon a Russian threat in March to aim nuclear missiles at Danish warships if Denmark joins NATO’s missile defense system.

As tensions between the West and Moscow sharpen over Ukraine, NATO countries have seen a dramatic spike in provocative actions that risk a harrowing accident or devastating miscalculation. A NATO-Russia military-to-military dialogue would reduce these risks — if President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin allow it.

NATO has ratcheted down its political dialogue with Moscow in protest over Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. But the alliance should seek to engage Russia on a professional military level to minimize the danger of missteps or misunderstandings when their forces operate in close proximity or near each other’s territory. They would have good antecedents to draw on: a set of Cold War agreements whose titles clearly convey their purposes.

Peeling Back More Layers of Hillary’s Camp

Posted on June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

First, Hillary’s campaign operation is an approved list of journalists allowed access.

The Daily Mail’s David Martosko was reportedly denied access to the Hillary Clinton campaign as a pool reporter Monday morning, initiating yet another tussle between the Democratic candidate’s camp and the political press corps:

Martosko said a member of Clinton’s camp told him he had not been approved as a print pool reporter when he arrived to cover the campaign’s New Hampshire swing. He was then sent up various rungs until he got to Clinton press aide Nick Merrill, who issued several apparently contradictory explanations, including that the Daily Mail was a foreign publication, then that the campaign was taking a day off to discuss pool procedures, then that no pool reporter had been designated for the day.

Merrill later responded to Politico’s Dylan Byers, saying, “We want a happy press corps as much as the press corps does. And we work very hard to achieve that in tandem with them. It’s a long campaign, and we are going to do our best to find equilibrium and best accommodate interest from as many news outlets as possible, given the space limitations of our events.”

Second, the campaign is operating on thin dimes or no dimes.

Experienced, adult political operatives who want to do grassroots work for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign currently have no choice but to work as unpaid, full-time interns, raising new questions about how the White House frontrunner runs her own labor force as she prepares to double down on young people’s role in the American economy.

The Clinton campaign is currently in the midst of what multiple Democratic sources described as a “hiring freeze” for paid organizing positions in the early campaign states where the former Secretary of State is laying the foundations of a massive national staff, with few if any paying jobs available for field operations.

Clinton’s camp has made headlines about its frugality and a hard sell on its fellowship program, which allows aspiring politicos between the ages of 18 and 24 to spend this summer as full-time campaign volunteers. The result, however, is the human-resources reality of a campaign – one scheduled to hold at least 26 fundraisers this month alone – that isn’t just taking on college students with political science degrees but expecting political veterans to gamble their careers on her without pay.

Third, she said she has lots of old friends and she is using them. As Hillary goes rogue leftists, her camp is exploiting those connections.

Senior policy advisor, Maya Harris hails from a family of female overachievers. Her late mother, Shyamala Harris, immigrated from India in the 1950s to obtain her PhD in endocrinology from U.C. Berkeley, and went on to make breakthrough discoveries in breast cancer research. Her big sister, Kamala Harris, is California’s attorney general, and is now running for U.S. Senate. At age 29, Maya herself became one of the nation’s youngest-ever law school deans when she took the reins of the Lincoln Law School of San Jose, a night school that prepares students for the California bar.

Then—as if choosing a spouse specially equipped to keep up with all this hard-charging ambition—Harris married fellow Stanford Law student (and her best friend) Tony West. West would go on to become the third-highest ranking official in the Obama Justice Department. Their friendship blossomed when Harris’ 4-year-old daughter Meena engaged West in games of hide-and-seek while her then-single mom was registering for classes. Following family tradition, Meena is now a Harvard law grad.

“It’s all justice all the time,” Harris laughs when asked about family dinner talk.

Harris’ mother, who mostly raised her girls alone (Harris’ Jamaican-born father was a Stanford economist), was swept up in the civil rights movement in and around Berkeley, so Harris grew up imbued with a healthy dose of activism. But the girls’ trailblazing mother also modeled a life of mentorship—always supporting her graduate students while also demanding high standards. “She was tough on them,” Harris recalls. “Until her dying day she never lost sight of this notion that if you’ve been able to walk through doors, you don’t just leave the doors open. You bring others along.” Many more details here.

Talking Points Against the Obama Immigrant Policy

Posted on June 14, 2015June 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

Cost of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Just in 2012

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative agency in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). With more than 20,000 employees worldwide, ICE is a key component of the DHS layered defense approach to protecting the United States. ICE has requested an annual budget of more than $5.8 billion for FY 2012, with budget figures in key categories detailed below.

Salaries and Expenses

Homeland Security Investigations

ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) enforces trade and immigration laws through the investigation of activities, persons and events that may pose a threat to the safety or security of the United States and its citizens.

HSI’s Domestic Investigations investigates illegal trafficking in weapons (including weapons of mass destruction), the smuggling of narcotics and other contraband, human smuggling and trafficking, money laundering and other financial crimes, fraudulent trade practices, identity and benefit fraud, child pornography, child sex tourism, employers that hire illegal and undocumented workers, and health and public safety dangers.

HSI’s Office of International Investigations conducts investigative efforts in 69 Attaché offices in 47 foreign locations. The office works with foreign counterparts to identify and combat criminal organizations before they can adversely impact the United States, including the Visa Security Program, which focuses on high-risk visa-issuance locations to identify and interdict potential threats before they enter the United States.

Cost of Detention

Back in 2013: Keeping illegal immigrants behind bars costs $120 a day per inmate, or $2 billion a year. Congress has twice rebuffed White House budget requests to cut the quota so ICE can turn to less costly measures, such as ankle bracelets, to keep tabs on the immigrants it’s trying to deport. It’s “artificial,” Janet Napolitano, former secretary of Homeland Security, said at an April hearing. Without the mandate the agency could free low-risk offenders and put them on supervised release to ensure that detainees show up in court for deportation hearings, she said. “We ought to be detaining according to our priorities, according to public-safety threats, level of offense, and the like,” she said.

Getting Released

They are convicted rapists, child molesters, and kidnappers — among “the worst of the worst,” as one law enforcement agency put it. Yet the Globe found that immigration officials have released them without making sure they register with local authorities as sex offenders.

And once US Immigration and Customs Enforcement frees them, agency officials often lose track of the criminals, despite outstanding deportation orders against them. The Globe determined that Hernandez Carrera and several other offenders had failed to register as sex offenders, a crime. By law, police are supposed to investigate if such offenders fail to update their address within days of their release. But local officials said they did not learn that ICE had released the offenders until after the Globe inquired about their cases.

The following are some of the thousands of convicted criminals released by ICE in the US in recent years because their homelands refused to take them back.

“It’s chilling,” said Thomas H. Dupree Jr., a former deputy assistant US attorney general who led a 2008 federal court battle to keep Hernandez Carrera locked up. “These are dangerous and predatory individuals who should not be prowling the streets. In fact, they should not be in the United States at all.” Many more details here.

Street Protests and Fights

From the Daily Caller: A manhunt is underway in Fargo, N.D. after two separate groups of immigrants from unknown countries began waging what is being described as a “street war” against each other earlier this week.

According to Valley News Live, police are currently searching for Luke Goodrich and Isaac Nyemah for their involvement in an alleged armed home invasion that took place Wednesday morning.

The Fargo Police Department is asking for your assistance in locating two individuals of interest that are believed to…

Posted by Fargo Police Department on Wednesday, June 10, 2015

It is unclear how, but the two men are allegedly involved in trouble that began Sunday at a birthday party in a Fargo park.

A group of 70 people were gathered when an altercation of some sort ensued. Men affiliated with one immigrant group smashed out the window of a car with a crowbar. The same men vandalized another vehicle shortly after. Police were initially called to the park because a DJ had been hired and party-goers were drinking alcohol, in violation of park rules.

Russia China Pact with Snowden in the Middle

Posted on June 13, 2015June 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

Going beyond the major hack by China into the Office of Personnel Management that cultivated at least 14 million personnel files of government, intelligence and military, China is building a database of individuals in America. Would they share it with Russia? The wake of destruction is yet to be known and future predictions are impossible to imagine.

Russia is turning to China and likewise China is delighted for the relationship as proven by the Silk Road Economic objectives.

Putin’s vision of a ‘greater Europe’ from Lisbon to Vladivostok, made up of the European Union and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, is being replaced by a ‘greater Asia’ from Shanghai to St. Petersburg.

China's silk road

In part:

The rupture between Russia and the West stemming from the 2014 crisis over Ukraine has wide-ranging geopolitical implications. Russia has reverted to its traditional position as a Eurasian power sitting between the East and the West, and it is tilting toward China in the face of political and economic pressure from the United States and Europe. This does not presage a new Sino-Russian bloc, but the epoch of post-communist Russia’s integration with the West is over. In the new epoch, Russia will seek to expand and deepen its relations with non-Western nations, focusing on Asia. Western leaders need to take this shift seriously.

Russia’s Pivot to Asia
Russia’s pivot to Asia predates the Ukraine crisis, but it has become more pronounced since then. This is in part because China is the largest economy outside of the coalition that has imposed sanctions on Russia as a result of the crisis.

What was originally Moscow’s “marriage of convenience” with Beijing has turned into a much closer partnership that includes cooperation on energy trade, infrastructure development, and defense.

Putin’s vision of a “greater Europe” from Lisbon to Vladivostok, made up of the European Union and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, is being replaced by a “greater Asia” from Shanghai to St. Petersburg.

Russia is now more likely to back China in the steadily growing competition between Beijing and Washington, which will strengthen China’s hand.
Takeaways for Western Leaders
Russia’s confrontation with the United States will help mitigate Sino-Russian rivalries, mostly to China’s advantage. But this doesn’t mean Russia will be dominated by China—Moscow is likely to find a way to craft a special relationship with its partner.

With China’s economic might and Russia’s great-power expertise, the BRICS group (of which Russia is a part, along with Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) will increasingly challenge the G7 as a parallel center of global governance.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, due to include India and Pakistan this year, is on its way to becoming the principal development and security forum for continental Asia.

Through its enhanced relations with non-Western countries, Russia will actively promote a concept of world order that seeks to reduce U.S. global dominance and replace it with a broader great-power consensus. Much more detail here.

Enter Snowden

Confirmed: UK agents ‘moved over Snowden files’

Russia, China Decrypt Snowden Files

Russia and China have allegedly decrypted the top-secret cache of files stolen by whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to a report from The Sunday Times, to be published tomorrow.

The info has compelled British intelligence agency MI6 to withdraw some of its agents from active operations and other Western intelligence agencies are now actively involved in rescue operations. In a July 2013 email to a former U.S. Senator, Snowden stated that, “No intelligence service—not even our own—has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect. While it has not been reported in the media, one of my specializations was to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (i.e. China).” Many in the intelligence agencies at the time greeted this claim with scepticism. Now, one senior British official said Snowden had “blood on his hands,” but another said there’s yet no evidence anyone was harmed. Snowden eventually fled to Russia via Hong Kong after downloading some 1.7 million documents from U.S. government computers and leaking them to journalists out of a desire to protect “privacy and basic liberties.” The revelations of mass spying outraged populations and governments around the world, at least temporarily damaged relations, and eventually led to changes in the mass surveillance policies of the NSA and British GCHQ.

Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby DA, Corrupt DNA

Posted on June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 by Denise Simon

Marilyn Mosby’s Father Was A ‘Crooked Cop,’ Police Officer Grandfather Sued For Racial Discrimination

Marilyn Mosby has made it widely known that she comes from a long line of police officers, five generations of law enforcement to be exact. The 35-year-old Baltimore city state’s attorney’s father, mother, grandfather, and uncles have all at some point worked as cops — a history which Mosby cites to push back against the claim — as Fox News’ Griff Jenkins put it during a recent interview — that Baltimore’s finest believe the rookie prosecutor does not have their backs because of how she’s handled the Freddie Gray case.

“I come from five generations of police officers,” Mosby responded to Jenkins. “That’s absurd.”

But while it’s true that numerous Mosby family members have worn the badge, a thorough look reveals a more complicated picture of that law enforcement background than she has let on in public.

Start with Mosby’s father, a former Boston police officer named Alan James. In 1989, James and a fellow officer named Dwight Allen were arrested and charged with assault and battery for their role in several armed robberies in a high-crime area of Boston.

According to a Boston Globe article at the time, James, Allen and another suspect flashed badges and brandished guns while shaking down drug dealers. The officers identified themselves as “renegade police” and were reportedly drunk. During one robbery, one of the men fired his gun, though nobody was hurt.

James was arrested while on duty at a police station in Dorcester but was acquitted of charges in the case in 1991. After acquittal he was immediately fired for conduct unbecoming an officer, according to the Baltimore Brew, an independent newspaper.

Mosby has not publicly acknowledged this mark on her family’s policing legacy. Though, according to the Brew, she acknowledged her father’s troubled past in a biography written for her campaign for state’s attorney.

“My dad was a crooked cop,” Mosby said, according to the document, which was not released to the public. “He confiscated drugs and money from the dealers on a regular basis.”

Then there is Mosby’s maternal grandfather, Prescott Thompson. Thompson, who went by Rick, sued the Boston police department in 1986, claiming that he was the target of racial discrimination after he was denied a job.

According to a 1994 Boston Globe profile, Thompson began working as a Boston cop in 1964. But in 1971, he suffered what seemed like a career-ending injury when a car battery exploded in his face, causing him to lose his right eye. With a glass eye replacement, Thompson remained on the force — but did not work — until 1976 when he reluctantly accepted a retirement offer.

Thompson was not content to stay off the force, however. As the Globe put it policing was in Thompson’s blood. But his dreams were dashed when his application was denied because of his glass eye.

“Sight in two eyes is a bonafide occupation qualification for the position sought,” Francis Roache, Boston’s police commissioner at the time, wrote in a letter to Thompson.

But Thompson saw something else at play, so he filed a lawsuit claiming he was not hired because he was black. In his lawsuit, Thompson argued that four white Boston police officers with sight in only one eye worked for the Boston police department. But the department’s personnel director responded by pointing out that those four officers worked in non-traditional police jobs. One was a clerk, and another was a hazardous materials inspector.

Thompson had a traumatic experience with police well before he became a cop himself. In the Globe profile, Thompson said that he was inspired to become a cop after an incident when he was 12 or 13 involving four plain-clothes officers. Thompson said he was running an errand for his family when the officers slammed him up against a brick wall. They said he matched the description of a purse snatcher. When the officers realized their error, they let him go. The incident stuck with Thompson. As the Globe reported, “he swore that he would become a police officer, and that he would prevent that sort of treatment from happening to another black child.”

During her many public statements about her family’s law enforcement history, Mosby has not mentioned either her father’s troubles or her grandfather’s grievances with Boston police.

She has also not acknowledged that Richard Miller, her uncle and Thompson’s son, filed his own discrimination suit against the Massachusetts state police.

According to the Globe, Miller filed a lawsuit in 1981 claiming that he was the target of discrimination. That case was settled in Miller’s favor, and he was awarded a $211,587 judgment.

Asked whether those many negative experiences have shaped how she thinks about policing and police departments, Mosby indicated that they have not.

“As a young child, what I saw was how hard my family worked,” Mosby said in a statement to The Daily Caller. “I have nothing but respect and admiration for all law enforcement officers who make tremendous sacrifices every day to keep our communities safe.”

There is much more. Marilyn Mosby is connected to both Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson. These 2 people were at the core of the Ferguson protests and they are connected to the White House and the Department of Justice in a most favorable standard.

Late last year, in December, the White House held a series of sessions with hand chosen guests to map out the Presidential Task Force for 21st Century Policing. Additionally the White House has endorsed and fully supported a Non-Governmental Organization called Teach For America of which both Elzie and McKesson are former alumni.

Just for proof, the series of links below describe the fact that the protests beginning with Ferguson and later Baltimore, New York and McKinny, Texas are headed by groups that are supported and deployed by the Department of Justice and the White House.

DeRay McKesson Bio offered for the WH task force.

Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson took a medic class for tear gas.

The White House Task Force, note McKesson’s committee assignment.

Teach for America not only provides teaching jobs in designated towns but provides government grants to pay tuition and then offers to waive student debt.

Student loan forgiveness.

Trayvon’s mother is part of the movement. “Know Justice Know Peace”

Teach for America full access to the White House.

Teach for America Summit in St. Louis. White House Fact Sheet for Teachers.

Then there is Amnesty International, funded by the U.S. government and by George Soros, both Elzie and McKesson are on the payroll.

DeRay McKesson testimony at the White House.

DeRay McKesson teaching resume in the Baltimore school system.

University of Miami session Know Justice Know Peace

There is much more, but you by now understand, this is a scripted operation designed, deployed and managed by the White House and the Holder Justice Department. And so it goes.