Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Hey NFL, Why Stand? Billions in Subsidies, Say Thank You

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Two years ago, Colin Kapernick began to take a knee in protest on racial injustice. That gesture has manifested and is now twisted into a race issue on national television on the field for all to see. Okay, we see it. What is the message today? What are the demands? Where is the cogent debate and proposed solutions? Why are kids in Pee Wee football taking a knee?

This began under the Obama administration and the Obama White House invited on countless occasions representatives to meet and work out the solutions that included re-tooling law enforcement and the approach of the Department of Justice. Now what? The fans are heartbroken and the division widens. So why not stand and work collectively? Let’s go deeper, shall we?

USAToday: In the course of everyday life, there are very few opportunities for the people of the United States to come together, pause and reflect on the hope that is only possible with freedom and democracy. Our national anthem is a statement of respect for this hope, not a declaration that those present agree with everything our nation does or fails to do.

That’s why members of the military and other public servants love sports and why sports love them. As the 18th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I witnessed the public ritual of playing the national anthem at sporting events dozens of times and saw Americans rise above their own self interests and celebrate something that is greater than themselves. More recently, I was in Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics and stood with enormous pride as our flag was raised and the anthem played when outstanding athletes across a variety of sports were moved to tears by the honor of representing their country.

Life presents plenty of opportunities for us to disagree with one another and seemingly fewer opportunities on which we agree. Standing together during the national anthem at sporting events should be one of those times when we agree, when we focus on the things that bind us together, even as we prepare to let our voices be heard in disagreement about which team is the better team.

It’s important to remember that our military is composed entirely of volunteers. It obviously takes a special kind of patriotism for people to volunteer to risk their life for their country. Theirs is not blind patriotism that pretends there is nothing wrong with the country. Every man and woman in uniform knows we still have work to do to achieve the equality, opportunity and justice for all to which we aspire. But every member of the military also knows that what is right about America is worth defending. And if it’s worth defending, it’s worth honoring.

I spent my professional life defending individual rights, and I did so with the knowledge that sometimes people would use those rights in ways that might be hurtful or insensitive. I just hope that the athletes who are using the anthem as a protest understand why people like me intend to keep standing during the national anthem. We do so not because we agree with everything America has done, or everything that has been done in America’s name, but because despite all of that the world is a better place because America exists. That seems to me to be worth the honor of respect during the national anthem.

What’s wrong about America can’t be fixed unless we acknowledge, protect and, yes, honor what is right about America. For for those who don’t like standing because they disagree with what America has done, stand and pay it forward for what you think America should do. Then, as the last echoes of the anthem fade away, go back to arguing for change from that foundation of promise that is the national anthem.

Martin E. Dempsey is a retired Army general, a Duke University Rubenstein Fellow and chairman of the Jr. NBA Leadership Council.

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Regardless of how much 160 million football fans will enjoy the current season — it’ll be the taxpayers who inevitably lose.

Last month, the Atlanta Falcons opened Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the 22nd new NFL stadium built or renovated over the last 20 years. Almost half of the total cost of new stadiums — $5.9 billion — came from public funding from state and local governments. And that doesn’t even include the $750 million that Nevada’s legislature gave to the Raiders last fall.

New England’s Gillette Stadium opened in 2002 for a comparatively modest $542 million. Local taxpayers paid “only” $72 million of that — a bargain considering that the average public subsidy for NFL stadiums is $266 million. In comparison, the Chiefs updated Arrowhead Stadium with a $375 million renovation in 2010, with state and local governments covering two-thirds of the cost. But that’s not all Missouri taxpayers are on the hook for.

Kansas City, Jackson County, and the state of Missouri also contribute around $8.5 million annually to a special maintenance fund for stadium upkeep. But here’s the real kicker: In 2012 a whistleblower revealed that an amendment to the stadium lease contract allows the team to use the money for management and operations expenses. From 2007 through 2012 the Chiefs spent $18.3 million on non-maintenance purposes, including more than $800,000 in payroll taxes.

That’s right, the Chiefs are using taxpayer money to pay their own taxes.

Even more infuriating, the public subsidies given to the Chiefs could have bought taxpayers every ticket in the stadium for the last seven seasons.

That suggestion is absurd, of course — just like the idea that people who will never tangibly benefit from a stadium should pay for it. But it illustrates an important tradeoff: Public money spent on professional sports can’t support schools, police or roads.

Beyond lost public services, a large body of academic research conclusively shows that the “economic development” promised by stadium subsidy advocates never materializes. Instead, fans simply shift their spending from one kind of entertainment to another, creating winners and losers among local bars, restaurants and entertainment venues.

Sadly, this problem is not new. In the 1986 tax reform, Congress tried to reduce the amount of public money spent on private projects. Instead, it made the problem much worse by increasing the incentive to use tax-exempt municipal bonds for stadium subsidies. Then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-New York, spent the rest of his career trying to close the loophole he accidentally helped create, to no avail.

Now, research by the Brookings Institution estimates that the 17 NFL stadiums built since 2000 have effectively collected $1.1 billion in federal subsidies.

Earlier this year, Sens. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, and James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, picked up Moynihan’s torch with a bipartisan proposal to remove the tax exemption for sports facility funding. It’s not a silver bullet — like economist Art Rolnick’s suggestion that the IRS tax any stadium subsidy at a rate of 100 percent — but it’s a first step.

Polls suggest 70 percent of Americans are against stadium subsidies, so it seems strange that the special interests who advocate for them would have a winning record. This is a classic case of “concentrated benefits and dispersed costs,” meaning the costs of any stadium subsidy are spread out over a large number of people, while the benefits go toward a select few.

So team owners have good reason to fight hard for the handout, while each individual taxpayer has less motivation to avoid their small share of costs. In situations like this, it’s actually more surprising when the underdog wins, like when San Diego voters rejected a stadium subsidy for the Chargers last year.

But to paraphrase Ice-T, we shouldn’t hate the players, we should hate the game. Our political system is set up to allow sports teams to pursue government handouts. That’s why broad reforms addressing the root of the problem, like ending the municipal bond tax exemption, are so important. Just like the NFL tweaks the rules each year, policymakers need to address how to make football fair for taxpayers.

Mueller Obtains Search Warrant on Facebook

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Facebook sold ads for up to $100,000 each incident. Facebook is expected to send a representative to participate in a panel in a Senate hearing.

It is also important to note Russia Today, now known as RT is to formally register as a foreign agent. Sputnik News may be asked to do the same.

Related reading: FBI investigates Russian government media organizations accused of spreading propaganda in U.S.

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In part from Newsweek:

The recent news that Robert Mueller obtained a search warrant for the contents of Facebook accounts associated with Russian operatives trying to undermine the 2016 presidential election was a key turning point in our knowledge of his investigation that could transform the scope of the inquiry and the legal strategy of the people in the special counsel’s sights.

Before news of the Facebook search warrant broke, it appeared that Mueller was focused on several discrete areas of inquiry, such as potentially false disclosures by former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, potential tax charges and alleged obstruction of justice related to President Donald Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey. Mueller’s warrant tells us that the special counsel is closing in on specific foreigners who tried to undermine our democracy, that he’s serious about going after Russian interference and he is far enough along to convince a federal judge that he has good evidence of such a crime. Read the full article here.

Deeper Dive

The Hill: The American public should be furious about the recent revelations regarding Russian manipulation of social media. What the public should not be is surprised. Although exploitation of cyber venues may be a new twist, it is just another chapter in an old story.

For the better part of a century, Russia (including its Soviet predecessor), Soviet proxies, as well as other countries have attempted to exploit wedge issues and social unrest to interfere with U.S. internal politics. These countries’ objectives are likely twofold: driving policies toward a desired outcome and forcing the United States to focus inward, distracting it from international developments.

From the 1930s onward, the Soviet Union and its Russian successor have consistently exploited divisions in American society to Moscow’s advantage. Moscow, starting with its Popular Front strategy in the mid-1930s, has insinuated its proxies into grievance-driven domestic coalitions.

 

These ranged from the Great Depression’s disenfranchised, to the anti-nuclear and pro-peace crowds. More recently, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Russia attempted to co-opt populists on both ends of the ideological spectrum by facilitating both the Occupy movement, via the Russian television network RT, and the far right, members of which have looked to Vladimir Putin as an exemplar of traditional values.

In addition to efforts at co-optation of mass movements, the Soviet Union attempted to inflame tensions within American society. In the 1960s, Soviet officials skulked around Capitol Hill, querying offices on a variety of issues including the dynamics of the civil rights movement.

For instance, one official specifically wanted to know about which civil rights leaders had been excluded from a White House meeting. This collection activity probably indicated Moscow’s desire to get smarter on a hot-button topic, which it could then exploit through an “active measures” campaign.

The civil rights issue came full circle when, in 1980, the Soviets surfaced a forgery which purported to show the U.S. government as using the CIA against African-Americans.

Cuba, a Soviet satellite, pursued similar disruptions against the United States. The Cuban government viewed American minorities as a constituency that Havana could incite to create mayhem on U.S. soil. Fidel Castro, himself, suggested that he could prompt a race riot at a time of his choosing.

Furthermore, Cuba arguably attempted to weaponize criminality against the United States when, in 1980, it seeded 8,000 criminals into the Mariel boatlift’s refugee population.

Given Venezuela’s status as a protégé of Cuba, it is hardly surprising that Caracas, under Hugo Chavez, sought to exploit socioeconomic tensions by distributing subsidized heating oil for low-income Americans as a propaganda ploy.

The Soviet/Russian-perpetrated and inspired attempts to exploit divisive U.S. political issues is notable but hardly unique to Moscow and its minions. China, during the 1960s, courted U.S. Maoist-inspired groups, including the Revolutionary Union, that embraced militancy.

More recently, the Chinese government, known for keeping a tight rein on social media, nevertheless seemed to let its WeChat platform off the leash to stir up rallies against the New York Police Department in 2016.

This history of foreign-sponsored disruption suggests that U.S. adversaries and competitors are sufficiently knowledgeable about the tensions within American society to effectively exploit them. The jury is out on whether Washington is paying similar attention.

Both the Church and Pike investigations of American intelligence in the mid-1970s produced skittishness about looking too closely at domestic actors, as indicated by the guidelines issued by Attorney General Levi, in 1976, regarding domestic security investigations.

Such trepidation about identifying dangerous domestic dynamics appears to persist, if the outraged reaction to the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 report on right-wing extremism is any indication. Is it possible that risk-aversion has become willful blindness?

Social media may be a new front in foreign exploitation of tensions in the United States, but the underlying concept of exacerbating divisions and inciting conflict on American soil is a timeworn strategy.

Although Russia is the perpetrator of current interest, it is not alone in its effort to disrupt American politics through the sowing of dissent and division.

For Washington to anticipate (and, hopefully, deter) future, foreign-sponsored attacks on the public’s perceptions, it must ensure that it is aware of the vulnerabilities inherent to the domestic setting that U.S. adversaries and competitors may manipulate to their advantage.

Darren E. Tromblay served as an intelligence analyst with the U.S. intelligence community for more than a decade and is the author of the forthcoming book, “Foreign Influence on U.S. Policymaking: How Adversaries and Allies Manipulate and Marginalize the American Electorate,”

 

Citizenship for Sale in U.S and EU, the Golden Ticket

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In the United States, with a starting number such as $500,000, you can buy a passport and with just a little more you can advance to citizenship under the EB-5 visa program. Swell huh? It has been going on for years and even Senator Dianne Feinstein has an issue with it. So, where is President Trump on the matter? Crickets…..

In February of this year, Senator Grassley and Feinstein introduced legislation to stop the EB-5 abuse.

The EB-5 program is inherently flawed,” Feinstein said in a joint statement with Grassley on Friday. “It says that U.S. citizenship is for sale. It is wrong to have a special pathway to citizenship for the wealthy while millions wait in line for visas.”

Roughly 10,000 EB-5 visas are awarded each year, with more than 85 percent going to Chinese investors in 2014, according to a study by Savills Studley, a real estate services firm. The program, begun in 1990 to stimulate the economy, has turned into a convenient way for wealthy Chinese citizens to become permanent U.S. residents and later bring over their family members. More here.

The Chinese, the Ukrainians and the Russians, all oligarchs are the largest exploiters of the program and most of these oligarchs are corrupt, paying for speedy processes with dirty money.

We know there are multiple investigations going on inside the DC Beltway regarding Russian interference and rightly so. Both Democrats and Republicans have some complicity in foreign collaboration.

In March of this year, this site published an extensive summary of Russian relations with people in the Trump camp as well as with Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. Few take a look at Secretary Wilbur Ross and his Cyprus connections. Cyprus is a location where abuse and corruption is as normal as breathing. One interesting person is Dmitry Rybolovlev, who happens to know Donald Trump as well as Wilbur Ross.

Beyond paying for a speedy process to obtain a passport or citizenship, there is also yet another method and that is money laundering illicit funds through U.S. real estate purchases where the buyer’s name is not listed if cash is paid. You dont say…..yup. This site published a summary of such activities in July of 2014.

So, while we have examined the issue in the United States and in Cyprus, it is the same for the European Union.

Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs suspected of corruption are among hundreds who have acquired EU passports under the “golden visa” program – a bourgeois shortcut to European citizenship in exchange for cash investments, the Guardian reported Sunday.

A list of recipients seen by The Guardian includes “prominent businesspeople and individuals with considerable political influence.”

The paper claims that Cyprus alone has made over $US 4 billion selling passports to international oligarchs, “granting them the right to live and work throughout Europe,” completely legally.

However, Cyprus is not alone. “The Golden Visa program for Spain, Portugal, Malta, Greece and Cyprus are the most prominent. Bulgaria and Hungary offer residency and citizenship by investment in Europe through government bonds,” the Golden Visa website states.

The BBC reported about this kind of purchasable citizenship three years ago.

“Just like you diversify an investment portfolio, you want to diversity your passport portfolio,” investment expert Christian Kalin, told the BBC.

The list of individuals who have received Cypriot citizenship includes Bashar al-Asad’s cousin, who was previously placed under American sanctions because of allegations he benefited from corruption. It also includes a former member of the Russian parliament and the founder of Ukraine’s largest bank.

According to Global Witness, an international NGO dedicated to exposing global corruption, global visas have the potential to give applicants fleeing persecution a “get out of jail for free card.”

Portuguese MEP, Ana Gomes, said golden visas are an immoral way to grant citizenship.

“I’m not against individual member states granting citizenship or residence to someone who would make a very special contribution to the country, be it in arts or science, or even in investment. But granting, not selling,” said Gomes.

Gomes also questioned the secrecy of obtaining golden visas. If they’re legal, why is it so hard to see who has them, asked Gomes.

The European Parliament will be debating the legality of golden visas in light of the leak, The Guardian reported.

So, for the leaders of respective countries, the definition of citizenship and the spirit of that loyalty means nothing when it comes to money, dirty money.

Perhaps we should be pushing harder for the Grassley/Feinstein legislation at a minimum….what say you?

 

Starfish Prime, a Response to North Korea?

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The United States knows all too well about an EMP. With regard to North Korea, the Kim regime has acknowledged it was active in EMP pursuits. The U.S. has EMP weapons developed by Boeing.

So what is Starfish Prime?

On July 9, 1962 — 50 years ago today — the United States detonated a nuclear weapon high above the Pacific Ocean. Designated Starfish Prime, it was part of a dangerous series of high-altitude nuclear bomb tests at the height of the Cold War. Its immediate effects were felt for thousands of kilometers, but it would also have a far-reaching aftermath that still touches us today.

In 1958, the Soviet Union called for a ban on atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons, and went so far as to unilaterally stop such testing. Under external political pressure, the US acquiesced. However, in late 1961 political pressures internal to the USSR forced Khrushchev to break the moratorium, and the Soviets began testing once again. So, again under pressure, the US responded with tests of their own.

It was a scary time to live in.

The US, worried that a Soviet nuclear bomb detonated in space could damage or destroy US intercontinental missiles, set up a series of high-altitude weapons tests called Project Fishbowl (itself part of the larger Operation Dominic) to find out for themselves what happens when nuclear weapons are detonated in space. High-altitude tests had been done before, but they were hastily set up and the results inconclusive. Fishbowl was created to take a more rigorous scientific approach. Read more here.

The Wall Street Journal published an item offering insight regarding North Korea and the threat of an EMP and the United States is not prepared for such a weapon in either a defensive or offensive posture without some exceptional consequence to life.

As South Korea performed some live fire drills in response to the last nuclear test by North Korea that measured a 6.3 on the Richter Scale, at issue is the immediate line of  an estimated thousands of rockets pointed at South Korea. It would take a robust offensive first strike to remove this border threat in cadence with other strike operations into the North Korea tunnel network where most of the weaponry is located.

Finally, South Korea’s leader has taken a more aggressive posture, leaning towards a military operation and this could bring the closer to Japan which is a positive indication where activities to neutralize North Korea is tantamount.

Tensions sharply escalated Sunday as the communist regime conducted what it claims to have been a test of a hydrogen bomb mountable on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The test was only the latest in a recent series of saber-rattling, including two ICBM tests in July.

In its report to the legislature’s defense committee, the defense ministry said that it, in consultation with Washington, will seek to deploy a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, strategic bombers and other powerful assets to the peninsula as a response to the North’s nuclear experiment.

It also unveiled its plan to stage unilateral live-fire drills involving Taurus air-to-surface guided missiles mounted on its F-15K fighter jets. The missile, with a range of 500 kilometers, is capable of launching precision strikes on the North’s key nuclear and missile facilities.

In his assessment of the sixth nuke test, Song said that the North is presumed to have reduced the weight of a nuclear warhead to below 500 kilograms. More here.

Adding more sanctions on China or those doing business with North Korea does not stop or deter North Korea at all. China knows precisely what North Korea is doing and has not moved to stop any of these missile or nuclear activity.

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North Korea’s nuclear test occurred in Punggye-ri, the same site where a nuclear test occurred in January 2016, about 50 miles away from the border with China. Tremors were felt in the Chinese border city of Yanji, home to about 400,000 people, Chinese media reported.  The latest test occurred as China hosted the leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries for their annual summit. China “strongly condemned” North Korea’s provocation and a draft communique from the BRICS summit quoted in Chinese state media “strongly deplored” North Korea’s nuclear test but called for a peaceful solution to the crisis. More here.

All the alleged professional continue to say the United States, Japan and South Korea have no good options with regard to North Korea, and there may be some truth to that given the descriptions as defined here.

What is left out of all conversations is the cyber abilities of the United States, knocking out North Korea’s space segments on existing satellites owned by China, Iran or Russia and lastly once again dusting off the files of Starfish Prime as described below:

Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 2 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place 250 miles (400 km) above a point 19 miles (31 km) southwest of Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yield equivalent to 1.4 megatons of TNT.

The Starfish test was one of five high altitude tests grouped together as Operation Fishbowl within the larger Operation Dominic, a series of tests in 1962 begun in response to the Soviet announcement on August 30, 1961 that they would end a three-year moratorium on testing.[2]

In 1958 the United States had completed six high-altitude nuclear tests, but the high-altitude tests of that year produced many unexpected results and raised many new questions. According to the U.S. Government Project Officer’s Interim Report on the Starfish Prime project:

“Previous high-altitude nuclear tests: YUCCA, TEAK, and ORANGE, plus the three ARGUS shots were poorly instrumented and hastily executed. Despite thorough studies of the meager data, present models of these bursts are sketchy and tentative. These models are too uncertain to permit extrapolation to other altitudes and yields with any confidence. Thus there is a strong need, not only for better instrumentation, but for further tests covering a range of altitudes and yields.”[3]   

More details here. 

 

3 More Russian Locations in U.S. Shuttered

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Putin promises retaliation in growing diplomatic feud with US

Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to retaliate against the State Department’s latest rebuke of his policies, his spokesman warned.

“We regret the unconstructive stance taken by our counterparts in the United States and, of course, we cannot afford to leave unfriendly, and sometimes hostile steps towards us without retaliation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, according to state-run media.

That statement suggests that the diplomatic feud will escalate following the State Department’s decision to close three Russian facilities in the United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s team justified that move as a response to Putin’s requirement that the United States cut hundreds of personnel operating in Russia. But the State Department called for an end to the tit-for-tat, saying that the two sides had reached “parity” in the fight.

Tillerson ordered the closure of Russia’s consulate general in San Francisco, as well as two other facilities in New York and Washington, D.C., respectively.

“While there will continue to be a disparity in the number of diplomatic and consular annexes, we have chosen to allow the Russian government to maintain some of its annexes in an effort to arrest the downward spiral of our relationship,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Thursday.

The State Department said it had implemented the Putin team’s order to remove hundreds of U.S. personnel from Russia. Putin issued that requirement in response to Congress passing legislation that sanctions Russia on three fronts: the cyberattacks against the Democratic party and state election systems in 2016; the invasion of Ukraine; and Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“The United States hopes that, having moved toward the Russian Federation’s desire for parity, we can avoid further retaliatory actions by both sides and move forward to achieve the stated down of both of our presidents: improved relations between our two countries and increased cooperation on areas of mutual concern,” Nauert said.

Russian diplomats maintain that the United States is to blame for the strained ties between the former Cold War rivals. “By tradition we are for good-natured relations with the United States,” Peskov said. “Moreover, we believe that these relations must be advanced in the interests of peace and global stability and in the interests of settling crucial world and regional problems.”

*** Meanwhile, this Dmitry Peskov cat is well know to the Trump orbit and described below.

Moscow (CNN) Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Wednesday he got an email from Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump’s lawyer, asking for help moving a Moscow real estate deal forward, but said he did not respond and did not pass it to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Peskov was responding to a question from CNN on a conference call with reporters.
Cohen — who was executive vice president of the Trump Organization at the time he sent the email — said Monday that he had contacted the Kremlin for assistance in mid-January 2016 about building a Trump Tower in Moscow when the mogul was running for president, but denied that the project was related to Trump’s campaign. But the revelation appears to contradict Trump’s vehement denials of any such business connections to Russia in the past.
Cohen told CNN on Monday his message to Peskov was “an email that went unanswered that was solely regarding a real estate deal and nothing more.”
Peskov confirmed that his office had located a copy of the email, which said the development deal wasn’t moving forward and requested support.