Category Archives: Cyber War

Feds on the Move to Counter Judge’s Immigration Stay

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Recently, Judge Hanon issued a temporary stay order against the Obama regime to stop the White House DAPA order on immigration. Now the Feds are on the move.

HOUSTON (CN) – The 5th Circuit on Monday will be asked to decide whether the Obama administration’s deferred deportation programs for immigrants who were brought to the United States as children are permissible because of prosecutorial discretion.
The Justice Department on Friday said it will ask the 5th Circuit today to stay an injunction that prevented hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants from applying for amnesty.
Twenty-six Republican-led states sued Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other top immigration officials late last year, claiming Obama’s executive actions are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, granted an injunction against the programs last week. Critics claim that the Republican states forum-shopped to sue in Hanen’s court. Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, was well known as a critic of Obama’s immigration policies.


Hanen did not rule that Obama’s programs are unconstitutional, but that they cannot take effect until legal questions are settled.
The Texas-led plaintiffs claim that because Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) would allow qualifying immigrants to apply for work permits and driver’s licenses, the states will be stuck with the cost of processing them.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services already has the authority to grant undocumented immigrants work permits, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and USCIS both are branches of the Department of Homeland Security.
Obama’s programs are simply an element of the process of prosecutorial discretion, which immigration officials use to decide who should be deported, according to Palmore.
“Under the deferred action process, and prosecutorial discretion as a whole, ICE is screening every alien we encounter, including those in custody,” Palmore said Friday.
“Decisions are based on the merits of each case, the factual information provided to the agency and the totality of the circumstances,” Palmore said.
“ICE is focused on smart and effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens, recent border-crossers and immigration fugitives who have failed to comply with final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts.”
Palmore said ICE would not discuss how it handles a particular case without the immigrant’s consent, as that information is protected by the Privacy Act.
The American Center for Law & Justice, a Christian conservative law firm based in Washington, D.C., joined 27 Republican congressmen in an amicus brief supporting the states’ lawsuit.
It claims Obama’s amnesty offer goes beyond the powers held by immigration agencies.
“As the judge indicated, there is no express or implied statutory authority to create entire new legal programs that go well beyond individualized discretion or resource-based priority determinations and extend into new, large-scale entitlements that actually contradict Congress’s expressed intent,” the firm said Friday in a statement.

DEFENDANTS’ EMERGENCY EXPEDITED MOTION TO STAY THE COURT’S

FEBRUARY 16, 2015 ORDER PENDING APPEAL AND SUPPORTING

MEMORANDUM

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

Defendants respectfully move for a stay, pending appeal, of the preliminary injunction entered in this case on February 16, 2015 [ECF No. 144], concerning the November 20, 2014, memorandum issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security (“Secretary”), setting forth guidelines for the consideration of deferred action for the parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (“DAPA”) and modifying existing guidelines for the consideration of deferred action for certain individuals who came to the United States as children (“modified DACA”) (collectively, “Deferred Action Guidance” or “Guidance”). Defendants have filed a Notice of Appeal [ECF No. 149] from the Court’s February 16, 2015 Opinion and Orders granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction [ECF Nos. 144 & 145].

A stay pending appeal is necessary to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS” or “Department”) is able to most effectively protect national security, public safety, and the integrity of the border. Specifically, the Deferred Action Guidance enjoined by this Court is an integral part of the Department’s comprehensive effort to set and effectuate immigration enforcement priorities that focus on the removal of threats to public safety, national security risks, and recent border crossers, thereby best securing the Homeland in the face of limited resources.

Absent a stay, DHS will sustain irreparable harm—harm that would not be cured, even if Defendants ultimately prevail on that appeal. Allowing the preliminary injunction to remain in place pending appeal would also harm the interests of the public and of third parties, who will be deprived of the significant law enforcement and humanitarian benefits of prompt implementation of the Guidance. When these harms are weighed against the financial injuries claimed by Plaintiffs (and found by the Court only as to Texas), the balance of hardships tips Case 1:14-cv-00254 Document 150 Filed in TXSD on 02/23/15 Page 5 of 24 decidedly in favor of a stay; the harms claimed by Plaintiffs are not imminent and are fully within their power to avoid.

A stay is also warranted in view of Defendant’s substantial case that the preliminary injunction was issued in error—all that Defendants must establish concerning a likelihood of success in order to warrant the requested stay. Defendants’ case is substantial indeed: the Court lacked authority to issue the preliminary injunction, both because Plaintiffs lack standing and because the Deferred Action Guidance is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion by the Secretary that is neither subject to challenge by the States, nor required to be issued through notice-and comment rulemaking. That the Court’s reasoning on standing and the merits has been rejected by other district courts further underscores the fact that Defendants have a substantial case on appeal.

Read the entire Federal appeal here that was filed today.

DHS was to begin accepting requests for modified DACA on February 18, 2015. On February 16, 2015, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ Motion and preliminarily enjoined Defendants from “implementing any and all aspects or phases” of DAPA and modified DACA, as set forth in the Guidance. Order of Temporary Inj. (“Order”) at 1-2 [ECF No. 144]. The Court found that “at least” Texas has standing to sue, stating that Texas would be required under the existing terms of state law to expend funds to provide driver’s licenses to individuals who receive DAPA and modified DACA at some point in the future. Mem. Op. & Order (“Op.”) at 22-36 [ECF No. 145].

Pssst, You ARE a Customer of This Bank

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“If the Desert Sunlight solar firm is the ‘beginnings of a renewable energy future,’ then the future doesn’t look bright for taxpayers, ratepayers and all Americans who think mega-corporations should make a living by selling their products, not by selling a bill of goods,” The Heritage Foundation’s Mitchell Tu and David Kreutzer wrote for The Daily Signal.

In addition to benefiting from the Department of Energy’s now-defunct 1705 loan program, two of the four firms involved also are significant beneficiaries of funding provided by the Export-Import Bank: General Electric and First Solar.

The Export-Import Bank provides taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign countries and companies for the purchase of U.S. goods. The bank’s charter is set to expire June 30, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are beginning to wade into the debate over whether it’s life should be extended.

Pulling back the curtain and going deeper…..

Communist Regime-financing Ex-Im Bank Fights for Survival

The U.S. taxpayer-backed Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), widely criticized for crony capitalism as well as for financing communist and socialist regimes with American money, is fighting for its very survival amid scandals as a growing coalition of lawmakers in Congress works to finally shut it down. From funneling billions in “loans” to state-owned banks in Russia and Communist China, to offering the corrupt Brazilian state-owned oil giant Petrobras $2 billion to “develop oil fields,” to hiring politically connected “green energy” cronies, the bank’s activities have come under increasing criticism on Capitol Hill. Now, with its charter set to expire this summer without congressional action, the Ex-Im Bank — originally created to subsidize U.S. exports to the mass-murdering regime ruling the Soviet Union — is sparring with the American people’s elected representatives over its fate.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, key figures in the establishment wing of the GOP, often dubbed “RINOs” for being alleged “Republicans In Name Only,” are pushing for the re-authorizing the Ex-Im Bank’s charter. Corporate welfare-loving Democrats, too, despite being in the minority in both chambers of Congress, are working to keep the controversial bank alive. Even the most extreme self-styled “progressives,” such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose specialty is attacking business and markets in the quest for ever bigger and more oppressive government, want to re-authorize Ex-Im. Meanwhile, Big Business lobbyists with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other special-interest outfits are right now twisting arms on Capitol Hill and plotting strategies to keep the taxpayer-backed Ex-Im cash flowing to their members.

Establishment Republicans anxious to please powerful special interests have proposed “reforming” the bank in an effort to make saving it more palatable to the public. Among them is Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), who introduced a bill with more than 50 GOP co-sponsors, so far, to “reform” the bank while re-authorizing its charter until 2019. Last week, a coalition of Big Government-loving Democrats led by ultra-leftist Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) tried to force the House Financial Services Committee to at least consider renewing Ex-Im’s charter, but conservatives on the panel voted down their amendment. Even Obama, who accurately described the bank as “little more than a fund for corporate welfare” while on the campaign trail in 2008, is now working hard to browbeat Congress into re-authorizing the Ex-Im Bank.

“Bipartisan support for corporate welfare and a corporatism state provides compelling evidence that in the end, it is money and power — not ideology — that drives the DC insider establishment,” wrote Tom Borelli, a senior fellow with the pro-market group FreedomWorks. “Instead of drawing a clear policy distinction over corporatism and making the Democrats own the label of ‘the party of big business and special interests,’ Republican backers of the Ex-Im Bank are blurring the lines between the parties and tarnishing the GOP’s brand.” He said that unless conservative activists express strong opposition to re-authorizing the crony-capitalist bank, conservative members of the House of Representatives would likely be “overwhelmed” by Democrats and “ideologically bankrupt Republicans.”

Supporters of the Ex-Im Bank point out that its taxpayer-backed loan programs are contingent on the foreign entities involved purchasing U.S.-sourced goods and services. As such, the controversial bank likes to argue that it helps “support American jobs” and promote exports. Numerous other national governments also have similar institutions that subsidize some companies or government-owned “enterprises,” so the Ex-Im claims that it, too, must subsidize certain U.S. firms and foreign entities. Another argument often cited by the Ex-Im Bank and its supporters — primarily Big Business — is that rather than costing taxpayers money, it sometimes earns some revenue for the Treasury. Even this may be misleading, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office forecasting that U.S. taxpayers will bear some $2 billion in Ex-Im losses over the next decade. Plus, there is always the prospect that enough bad loans from the bank could end up putting U.S. taxpayers on the hook for many more billions of dollars.

The federal bank also harms a wide array of Americans, experts say. “Ex-Im places the 99.96 percent of U.S. small businesses that it doesn’t subsidize at a competitive disadvantage because the subsidies artificially lower costs for privileged competitors,” explained Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow with the market-oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “Sadly, the privileges Ex-Im extends to the few come at the expense of countless American firms and their workers. Unsubsidized firms may see reduced revenues — and their employees may see their hours cut, their salaries stagnate, or their jobs simply vanish because their employers cannot compete on the uneven playing field created by the federal government….It is time for Congress to start cleaning up its house and agree to end programs that need to go away. Enough with the pretense of reform.”

Critics have also rallied against the bank in recent years citing a wide array of other arguments. For one, and perhaps most importantly, there is no authority in the U.S. Constitution for the federal government to create a taxpayer-backed bank that picks winners and losers by loaning money to foreign governments, banks, and companies. Secondly, if participants in the free-market do not consider loans to be wise enough to put private funds behind them, critics of the Ex-Im Bank say the federal government has no business putting taxpayers’ money on the line instead. And while it may be true that some businesses and jobs benefit from Ex-Im schemes, many others suffer as a result. Countless examples have been cited by experts.

Even putting those problems aside, another major concern surrounding Ex-Im Bank is its long history of subsidizing ruthless communist regimes — a sordid pattern that continues to this day. In fact, the bank was originally established in 1934 specifically to finance exports to the Soviet Union. Why would a U.S. taxpayer-backed bank be needed to finance exports to Moscow’s regime? Because anyone with any sense in the private sector knew better than to trust the collection of gangsters, mass-murderers, megalomaniacs, and cut-throats in Moscow enslaving the Russian people while trying to mooch off of Americans to pay for it. Numerous other brutal regimes also received Ex-Im financing under a variety of pretexts.

Despite the growing uproar, the Ex-Im Bank’s financing for brutal regimes that analyst say represent major national security concerns to the United States continues unabated. Between 1997 and 2013, for example, the bank provided almost $2 billion in loans and long-term guarantees just to banks in Communist China and Russia, CNSNews.com reported, citing Ex-Im’s annual reports. Among the recipients: Bank of China, the Russian Agricultural Bank, China’s State Development Bank, Gazprombank, and many more. Of course, despite claims to be shifting toward what they call “state capitalism,” the banking “industries” in both Russia and Communist China remain entirely dominated and largely owned by the respective regimes.

“I don’t think Ex-Im subsidies to Chinese and Russian banks or State-Owned Enterprises constitute good uses of taxpayer resources,” Dan Ikenson, the director of the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, told CNSNews.com. “But, believe it or not, Ex-Im does partner with foreign export credit agencies to fund export sales and infrastructure projects even though the primary rationalization for having Ex-Im in the first place is to counteract the advantages provided to foreign businesses by those export credit agencies. It’s a complete sham.” In a report about Ex-Im’s victims, Ikenson also noted that the bank causes “substantial” “collateral damage” to many American companies.

More recently, the Ex-Im Bank offered $2 billion to Petrobras, an oil conglomerate owned primarily by the corruption-plagued, Marxist-Leninist-dominated Brazilian government, currently headed by former communist terrorist and close Castro ally Dilma Rousseff. A series of scandals in recent years surrounding the state-owned giant, which has also counted billionaire Obama ally George Soros among its investors, revealed that Petrobras was being used by Rousseff’s extremist “Workers’ Party” to bribe politicians and help finance more socialist scheming in Brazil and Latin America. Aside from the national security concerns, U.S. lawmakers lambasted Ex-Im for funding Brazilian government oil exploration even while the Obama administration was working to shut down as much American energy production as possible and destroy Petrobras’ U.S. competitors.

A growing chorus of critics from across the political spectrum is calling on Congress to finally let the Ex-Im Bank’s charter expire as a first step to reining in cronyism, corruption, market distortions, and the financing of hostile foreign governments with U.S. taxpayer money. However, despite the mass opposition, unless the American people speak out loudly and clearly against Ex-Im and corporate welfare, analysts say the alliance of politicians in the pockets of Big Business and Big Government may yet succeed in re-authorizing the taxpayer-backed boondoggle.

_______

Detail about this bank: The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) is the official export credit agency of the United States federal government.[1] It was established in 1934 by an executive order, and made an independent agency in the Executive branch by Congress in 1945, for the purposes of financing and insuring foreign purchases of United States goods for customers unable or unwilling to accept credit risk. The mission of the Bank is to create and sustain U.S. jobs by financing sales of U.S. exports to international buyers. The Bank is chartered as a government corporation by the Congress of the United States; it was last chartered for a three-year term in 2012 and extended in September 2014 through June 30th, 2015.[2] [3] Its Charter spells out the Bank’s authorities and limitations. Among them is the principle that Ex-Im Bank does not compete with private sector lenders, but rather provides financing for transactions that would otherwise not take place because commercial lenders are either unable or unwilling to accept the political or commercial risks inherent in the deal. Its current chairman and president is Fred P. Hochberg.

The ‘Unwelcome’ mat for Netanyahu

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If you know anything about the Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency, they are not only covert, clandestine but assertive in gathering intelligence for the full safety and security of Israel. Given this fact, you can rest assured that Israel is very current on the P5+1 negotiations with Iran on their nuclear program in addition to being current on the status of that weapons program.

The White House has become defiant with regard to Israel in recent years and it has hit a crescendo with the formal visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the joint Congress on March 3. So, this begs the question, does Netanyahu have the ‘goods’ and he will tell all while the White House has dispatched his staff and cabinet secretaries to be somewhere else?

WASHINGTON (AP) – In what is becoming an increasingly nasty grudge match, the White House is mulling ways to undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Washington and blunt his message that a potential nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and the world.

There are limits. Administration officials have discarded the idea of President Barack Obama himself giving an Iran-related address to rebut the two speeches Netanyahu is to deliver during his early March visit. But other options remain on the table.

Among them: a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security aides and a pointed snub of America’s leading pro-Israel lobby, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington, according to the officials.

The administration has already ruled out meetings between Netanyahu and Obama, saying it would be inappropriate for the two to meet so close to Israel’s March 17 elections. But the White House is now doubling down on a cold-shoulder strategy, including dispatching Cabinet members out of the country and sending a lower-ranking official than normal to represent the administration at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the officials said.

Vice President Joe Biden will be away, his absence behind Netanyahu conspicuous in coverage of the speech to Congress. Other options were described by officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.

Netanyahu’s plan for a March 3 address to a joint meeting of Congress has further strained already tense ties between the U.S. and Israel. Congressional Republicans orchestrated Netanyahu’s visit without consulting the White House or State Department, a move the Obama administration blasted as a break in diplomatic protocol. Some Democratic lawmakers say they will boycott the speech.

U.S. officials believe Netanyahu’s trip to Washington is aimed primarily at derailing a nuclear deal with Iran, Obama’s signature foreign policy objective. While Netanyahu has long been skeptical of the negotiations, his opposition has increased over what he sees as Obama’s willingness to make concessions that would leave Iran on the brink of being able to build a nuclear weapon. His opposition has intensified as negotiations go into overdrive with an end-of-March deadline for a framework deal.  “I think this is a bad agreement that is dangerous for the state of Israel, and not just for it,” Netanyahu said Thursday.

The difference of opinion over the deal has become unusually rancorous.

The White House and State Department have both publicly accused Israeli officials of leaking “cherry-picked” details of the negotiations to try to discredit the administration. And, in extraordinary admissions this week, the administration acknowledged that the U.S. is withholding sensitive details of the talks from Israel, its main Middle East ally, to prevent such leaks.

The rebukes have only emboldened the leader of Israel, whose country Iran has threatened to annihilate. He has a double-barrel attack on the Iran talks ready for when he arrives in Washington. Not only will he address Congress, he will also deliver similar remarks at the AIPAC conference, an event to which administrations past and present have traditionally sent top foreign policy officials.

But maybe not this year.

An AIPAC official said Friday that the group has not yet received any reply to its invitation for senior administration figures to attend the meeting that starts March 1. The official stressed that last-minute RSVPs are not unusual, but the White House has been signaling for some time that a Cabinet-level guest may not coming.

Instead, the administration is toying with the idea of sending newly installed Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken to speak to the conference, according to officials familiar with internal discussions on the matter. But it’s possible Treasury Secretary Jack Lew could attend.

Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry, who have both previously addressed AIPAC, will be out of the country on foreign travel that appears to have been arranged to make them unavailable to speak. Biden will be visiting Uruguay and Guatemala on a trip that was announced after Netanyahu’s speech was scheduled, while the State Department announced abruptly this week that Kerry will be traveling to as-yet-determined destinations for the duration of the AIPAC conference.

Obama spoke to AIPAC in 2012, while he was in the midst of his re-election campaign.

*** But there is more that gives clues as to what Netanyahu may have in his brief case regarding the Iranian nuclear program. It comes down to two countries, Iran and North Korea.

Why The U.S. Can’t Trust Iran And Its Nuclear Plans
The White House thinks Iran’s compliance with the terms of the interim deal indicates that an agreement may still be reached. The only problem: Trusting Iran is the surest path to a bad deal.
The history of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs—so full of inconsistencies, prevarications, concealments and outright lies—makes it hard to escape the conclusion that Iran’s claim to be pursuing nuclear power for peaceful purposes is disingenuous. That is why only draconian restrictions—enforced through intrusive verification and unrestricted inspections over decades—can offer guarantees that Tehran will not try to cheat again.
Since the exposure of Iran’s illicit nuclear facilities at Arak and Natanz in 2002, Tehran’s nuclear program has remained opaque. At a minimum, those revelations show Iran had lied to the international community for more than a decade, as it was busy building those facilities. That concealment in itself should elicit considerable suspicion and warrant demands that Iran make a full disclosure of the history, nature and extent of its nuclear activities. Exposure of its undeclared facilities gave Tehran a chance to just do that—instead, it chose to defy the international community and pursue its nuclear goals.
The door has always been open for Iran to come clean
For the next three years, Iran played hide-and-seek with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Eventually, in September 2005, the IAEA declared that “Iran’s many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its NPT Safeguards Agreement… constitute non-compliance”and deferred Tehran to the UN Security Council.
Since then, punishment for Iran’s non-compliance has been slow and incremental, always leaving the door open for it to come clean. After two UN sanctions resolutions (1737 and 1747) failed to move Tehran, an August 2007 IAEA-Iranian joint working plan offered Iran a path to address all of the IAEA outstanding concerns about their past activities.
Instead, Tehran stalled for another six years.
In September 2009, President Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown exposed another industrial-size clandestine facility: the Fordow uranium-enrichment plant. Unlike previous discoveries, which Iran had sought to explain away in the context of a civil nuclear program, Fordow was too large to be a research facility and too small for civil purposes. It was, on the other hand, ideal for military-grade enrichment, having been dug deep under a mountain and supervised by Iran’s military.
Iran again demurred and denied the obvious.
                             
Evidence of Iranian nuclear subterfuge
The mounting body of evidence of Iranian nuclear subterfuge led the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano to lament in his February 2010 report Iran’s ongoing failure to address “concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”
At that point, a country loath to incur international isolation and eager to maintain economic growth, might recalibrate its course. By then, Iran had twice been offered a list of economic, political and diplomatic incentives in exchange for transparency and verification. The 2006 and 2008 proposals, formulated by the six world powers negotiating with Iran on behalf of the international community, were incorporated in UN Security Council resolution 1929 in June 2010 as a sign that Tehran could choose tantalizing economic incentives over sanctions if it only would own up to its past nuclear activities.
Iran again chose sanctions.
Frustrated with nearly a decade of foot-dragging, the IAEA published an extensive and damning report detailing possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program in November 2011.  As in the past, Tehran dismissed the information as Western “fabrications.”
Since the November 2013 interim agreement, none of the above questions has been addressed, and access to scientists and suspicious sites is still being denied.
Iran’s stalling tactics continue
One thing has changed, though. Rather than recognizing that Iran’s stalling tactics continue; or seeing Iran’s nuclear opaqueness as the greatest obstacle to a good deal; or objecting to a deal that does not fully address Iran’s past nuclear and ballistic missile research, the Obama administration has agreed to defer those issues to the ongoing IAEA work that Iran has stymied for more than a decade.
In June 2003, in a rare moment of public frustration, then-IAEA director Mohammad ElBaradei opined that “Iran should not wait for us to ask questions and then respond; it should come forward with a complete and immediate declaration of all its nuclear activities. That would be the best way to resolve the issues within the next few weeks.”
Twelve years on, ElBaradei’s sound assessment still resonates. Unless the coming nuclear deal rests on an unambiguous accounting of Iran’s nuclear past and present, the country will have obtained what it always wanted: an end to the sanctions regime and an unobstructed path to nuclear weapons.

Ask the Clinton’s About These Foreigners Please

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How about the HSBC bank that is embroiled in a major scandal? How long have the Clinton’s known the Brit Richard Caring? Have Hillary and Bill describe their relationship with Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining magnet. Then of course there is Huma Abedin, the Dubai Foundation, Friends of Saudi Arabia, Hani Masri, Oman, Saban Family Foundation and the Soros Foundation, just handful of the Clinton’s foreign friendly network.

So, where does all this lead? Foreign friends, NGO’s, foundations and powerbrokers buy presidential candidates and Hillary is no exception. She using the same page out of the money playbook that Barack Obama used.

Foreign Government Gifts to Clinton Foundation on the Rise

Donations raise ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up expected 2016 bid

The Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency.

Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline.

In 2009, the Clinton Foundation stopped raising money from foreign governments after Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state. Former President Bill Clinton, who ran the foundation while his wife was at the State Department, agreed to the gift ban at the behest of the Obama administration, which worried about a secretary of state’s husband raising millions while she represented U.S. interests abroad.

The ban wasn’t absolute; some foreign government donations were permitted for ongoing programs approved by State Department ethics officials.

The donations come as Mrs. Clinton prepares for an expected run for the Democratic nomination for president, and they raise many of the same ethical quandaries. Since leaving the State Department in early 2013, Mrs. Clinton officially joined the foundation, which changed its name to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and has become a prodigious fundraiser as the foundation launched a $250 million endowment campaign, officials said.

A representative for Hillary Clinton referred all questions to the Clinton Foundation.

A spokesman for the Clinton Foundation said the charity has a need to raise money for its many projects, which aim to do such things as improve education, health care and the environment around the world. He also said that donors go through a vigorous vetting process.

One of the 2014 donations comes from a Canadian agency promoting the proposed Keystone pipeline, which is favored by Republicans and under review by the Obama administration. The Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development agency of Canada, a first-time donor, gave between $250,000 and $500,000. The donations, which are disclosed voluntarily by the foundation, are given only in ranges.

One of the agency’s priorities for 2014-2015 was to promote Keystone XL “as a stable and secure source of energy and energy technology,” according to the agency’s website. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department was involved in approving the U.S. government’s initial environmental-impact statement. Since leaving State, Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly declined to comment on Keystone.

The Canadian donation originated from an agency office separate from the one that advocates for Keystone XL, a Foundation spokesman said.

While the Canadian donation didn’t appear in a Clinton Foundation online database of donors until recently, the donation of about $480,000 was announced in June in Cartagena, Colombia, where the program provides job training for youths.

Kirk Hanson, director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California, said the Clintons should immediately reimpose the ban, for the same reasons it was in place while Mrs. Clinton led U.S. foreign policy.

“Now that she is gearing up to run for president, the same potential exists for foreign governments to curry favor with her as a potential president of the United States,” he said.

If she becomes president and deals with these nations, “she can’t recuse herself,” added James Thurber, director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. “Whether it influences her decision making is questionable, but it is a legitimate thing to focus on by her political opposition.”

The donations weren’t announced by the foundation and were discovered by The Wall Street Journal during a search of donations of more than $50,000 posted on the foundation’s online database. Exactly when the website was updated isn’t clear. The foundation typically updates its website with the previous year’s donations near the beginning of the year. All 2014 donations were noted with asterisks.

At least four foreign countries gave to the foundation in 2013—Norway, Italy, Australia and the Netherlands—a fact that has garnered little attention. The number of governments contributing in 2014 appears to have doubled from the previous year. Since its founding, the foundation has raised at least $48 million from overseas governments, according to a Journal tally.

United Arab Emirates, a first-time donor, gave between $1 million and $5 million in 2014, and the German government—which also hadn’t previously given—contributed between $100,000 and $250,000.

A previous donor, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has given between $10 million and $25 million since the foundation was created in 1999. Part of that came in 2014, although the database doesn’t specify how much.

The Australian government has given between $5 million and $10 million, at least part of which came in 2014. It also gave in 2013, when its donations fell in the same range.

Qatar’s government committee preparing for the 2022 soccer World Cup gave between $250,000 and $500,000 in 2014. Qatar’s government had previously donated between $1 million and $5 million.

Oman, which had made a donation previously, gave an undisclosed amount in 2014. Over time, Oman has given the foundation between $1 million and $5 million. Prior to last year, its donations fell in the same range.

The Clinton Foundation has set a goal of creating a $250 million endowment, an official said. One purpose was secure the future of the foundation’s programs without having to rely so much on the former president’s personal fundraising efforts, the official said.

The Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman donations went to the endowment drive.

IMF Extends $17.5 Billion Credit To Kiev

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As the IMF bails our Kiev, the real winner is Russia, GAZPROM wants their money.

No sooner had the International Monetary Fund (IMF) extended $17.5 billion over four years in new credit to Ukraine, Russia’s private gas giant Gazprom was claiming $2.4 billion of it to settle Kiev’s gas debt.

That’s not exactly what the IMF had in mind. The international lender’s mission chief for Ukraine, Nikolay Gueorguiev, issued a statement on Feb. 13 saying the credit was meant to address “immediate macroeconomic stabilization as well as broad and deep structural reforms to provide the basis for strong and sustainable economic growth over the medium term.”

At the same time, Gazprom sent a letter to its Ukrainian counterpart, state-owned Naftogaz, seeking a payment of more than $2.4 billion, to cover $2.2 billion in debt, plus a penalty fee of about $200 million. The debt, which Kiev doesn’t acknowledge, will be the subject of hearings at the Stockholm Arbitration Institute in early 2016.

Discussing Gazprom’s demand on the Russian television station LifeNew, Kremlin Energy Minister Alexander Novak dismissed Ukraine’s stand on the status of the debt, saying, “Gazprom has every right to claim the funds” because the gas deliveries to Naftogaz are listed on invoices according to an active contract between the two gas companies.

So far, Naftogaz has been paying the $2 billion debt in installments. Now that Ukraine has received the IMF loan, Gazprom wants the entire debt paid now.

Ever since the autumn of 2013, when many Ukrainians were demanding closer ties with the European Union at the expense of Russia, its gross domestic product (GDP) has shrunk by about 7 percent, the IMF says. In February 2014, faced with a popular uprising, the country’s president, Viktor Yanukovich, fled to Russia, which responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Since then, the Kremlin has been suspected of providing weapons and even personnel to pro-Russian separatists fighting to create their own state in eastern Ukraine. The EU and the United States responded with economic sanctions that have, along with low oil prices, damaged Russia’s economy as well. Russia’s GDP is expected to contract by between 3 percent and 5 percent in 2015.

Then there is Saudi Arabia

A network of gas pipeline in cities is the only viable solution to the cooking gas crisis that happened in Jeddah recently, according to Victor Zubkov, chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom in Russia.
In an exclusive interview, Zubkov, who is also the Russian president’s special representative for cooperation with Gas Exporting Countries Forum, told Arab News after his meeting with the Ministry of Oil that the price is expected to be higher than its current price. He said: “I cannot disclose the rate right now but it will be reasonable.”
To overcome the cooking gas problem in Jeddah, there is a need to build gas pipelines’ network in place of cylinders, which have become outdated. “A better way is to build network in order to supply much accessible gas available at their homes and accommodation,” he said.
The top Russian official was in the capital last Tuesday to address the International Energy Forum (IEF) at its headquarters in the Kingdom. He also had a meeting with the Ministry of Oil.
He said 90 percent of the people in Russia use the gasification network. With the pipeline network, gas will come directly to apartments and houses requiring the people to pay only the monthly gas bill.
Zubkov said Russia and Saudi Arabia need more cooperation not only in the energy sector but also the agricultural one. “While there are big efforts for water desalination here and such water has no use for agriculture, Russia can supply wheat and many other agricultural products. In this case Saudi Arabia can invest in Russia’s farm sector and get quality products.”
“Saudi people, especially businessmen, need sufficient knowledge about Russia. As such, we need to have many meetings and, maybe, hold a business forum as well. Russia is a stable and dependable partner. Of course, we guarantee that we will implement all our proposals,” he added.
During his meeting with Saudi officials, Zubkov briefed them on opportunities in Russia’s energy sector as well as on their short- and long-range plans that include stability and sustainable supply for the European market and the Asian Pacific market as well.


“Of course, we are all concerned about oil price as it affects us all because many of our long-term contracts are connected with the oil price. We want the price to be higher than what it is now,” he said.
Zubkov added: “It is not only because our budgeting is based on the oil price but also because a lot of investment plans are now doubtful not only inside Russia but also in different countries as well. The negative impact on this will be felt by consumers as they outnumber the producers by over 10 times.”
According to him, the price should not be either too low or too high. It should reflect the situation in producing and transporting expenses. It should be stable in the interest of economy and, of course, to also avoid creating social unrest.
“Our message to the Saudi government is price should be higher than the current level. And, of course, I will not disclose here the new figure that we have discussed,” he said.