$2900.00 per Acre or Condemned, Border Wall Order

Posted on March 16, 2017March 16, 2017 by Denise Simon

Primer: This notice did not come from the new Trump administration, it was generated by the Loretta Lynch Department of Justice on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security. This is known as a ‘Declaration of Taking Notice.

The nearly 2,000-mile southern border is composed of federal, state, tribal and private lands. There are 632 miles of federal or tribal land — 33 percent — and the other 67 percent, most of which is in Texas, is private or state-owned, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The Washington Post points out that the president would need Congress to pass a bill to acquire the tribal lands for his wall. More here.

Texans Receive First Notices of Land Condemnation for Trump’s Border Wall

The government offered $2,900 for 1.2 acres near the Rio Grande. If Flores chooses not to accept the offer, the land could be seized through eminent domain.

Observer: The week before Donald Trump’s inauguration, Yvette Salinas received a letter she had been dreading for years: legal notice that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants to build a border wall on her family’s land in Los Ebanos. The 21-page document, entitled a “Declaration of Taking,” is addressed to her ailing mother, Maria Flores, who owns the property with her siblings. The letter offers Flores $2,900 for 1.2 acres near the Rio Grande. If she chooses not to accept the offer, the land could be seized through eminent domain. “It’s scary when you read it,” Salinas says. “You feel like you have to sign.”

Jen Reel The ribbon left by the DHS in 2008 to note where the border wall would enter on Aleida Flores’ land still remains.

The 16-acre property has been in the family for so long that none of them can remember the year it was acquired. Salinas only knows they’ve had it for five generations. Her uncle runs a few head of cattle on the property, which lies not far from Los Ebanos’ most famous attraction, a hand-drawn ferry that shuttles cars and their passengers across the river to Mexico.

This is not the first time the federal government has wanted to seize the land for a border wall. In the wake of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, the Bush administration put up 110 miles of border fencing, much of it on private land in Texas. In 2008, Salinas’ family received a condemnation notice offering them the same low, low price of $2,900. Others in Los Ebanos were mailed similar notices.

***

But nature and time were on their side. Los Ebanos is squeezed into a bend in the Rio Grande, and lies entirely in the river’s floodplain. A treaty between the United States and Mexico forbids building any structures in the floodplain that could push floodwaters into surrounding communities.

***

Jen Reel The map given to Flores in 2008 by the DHS showing their proposed fence acquisition tract on Flores’ land.

Salinas’ family held off on signing the condemnation letter. As time passed, building a wall in Los Ebanos seemed less likely, because of the treaty and because the Obama administration made wall-building less of a priority. In the meantime, Aleida Garcia, Salinas’ cousin, said the government has increased security in the area by adding more surveillance, which she prefers to Trump’s proposed 30-foot wall. “Even if they build a wall, people will still come,” said Garcia. “What’s helped us tremendously and is less expensive is the technology — the aerostat balloons, the ground sensors and even boots on the ground.”

But Los Ebanos appears to be a prime target for the Trump administration. The surveying and planning work has already been done, and the Secure Fence Act authorizes more border fencing to be built. And in 2012, the United States half of the International Boundary and Water Commission, a binational organization tasked with managing the U.S.-Mexico water treaty, capitulated to lobbying by DHS and agreed to a wall in the floodplain.

Salinas says her family doesn’t want to give up their land, and they are consulting with lawyers to decide what to do next. But fighting the federal government could mean spending years in court. If they lose, DHS could take their land. Salinas, who is 29, says it makes her sad that the family’s legacy could be divided by an ugly wall that will cause problems for Los Ebanos. “We don’t want this wall — the town is pretty much united on that,” says Salinas. “But we don’t want to get sued by the U.S. government either.”

Shady Globalism Hurts Personally When it Involves Water

Posted on March 15, 2017March 15, 2017 by Denise Simon

We witnessed the Flint, Michigan water crisis, where it was just safe to drink and few cared until they did. The water crisis goes far beyond Michigan where drinking water and water for showers, cooking and washing clothes is just not safe. Gray or used water is scooped to flush toilets. Where you ask? California and it was not due to the 5 year drought. The crisis goes beyond California, it is in Arizona and the corn/wheat belt in the middle of the country.

Really? How does globalism fit into the issue?

Big corporations, Wall Street and Hedge Funds as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are part of the crisis.

Individual farmers and small agriculture business has faded away, sold out to big Agri-corporations where offers to buy the land is a cover as the water and aquifers are more valuable. Water is the new gold or oil. Urban and suburban areas, just plain people are paying the price to save water for the sake of water to be available for bigger operations. In fact it is so bad, domestic and foreign interests are pumping water in one location and transferring via privately owned pipe to locations up to and perhaps more than 100 miles away.

When it comes to the EPA controlling water access and use, the agency was not wrong but it was actually wrong for reasons far beyond the headlines. The EPA is protecting, controlling and managing water not for the individual but rather for Wall Street firms and foreign investments.

The EPA is not the only agency, it includes the Department of Agriculture. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue has not yet been confirmed however Scott Pruitt has been confirmed as Secretary of the EPA.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

Exports of U.S. food and agricultural products to Saudi Arabia reached a record $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2014. Major exports include coarse grains, soybeans, dairy products, and vegetable oils.

In September 2012, the United States signed a trade and investment framework agreement (TIFA) with the Gulf Cooperation Council (which includes Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain) to continue expanding and liberalizing trade relations. More here.

Trade is a good thing for sure for farmers but the little guy is shut out of the trade system due to access of water and volume. The United States is feeding the Middle East.

The Office of Agricultural Affairs (OAA) is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), which has 93 offices covering 171 countries

OAA promotes and facilitates exports of U.S. agricultural products to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

OAA promotes exports of U.S. agricultural products by:

Conducting and participating in market development activities with non-profit U.S. high value food product and commodity trade associations.

Hosting trade promotion events.

Identifying possible opportunities for U.S. products, and placing potential importers in contact with U.S. exporters.

Recruiting representatives of Saudi food and agricultural product importers to attend major regional and U.S. based food and agricultural shows.

Providing match making and trade lead services.

OAA facilitates the export of U.S. agricultural products by:

Reporting on market opportunities and conditions.

Resolving trade policy issues by working with the governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and with the Gulf Standardization Organization (GSO).

Counseling and informing exporters and importers of U.S. agricultural products.

Developing and maintaining contacts in the food, logistics and agriculture sectors.

Coordinating workshops, technical seminars, and other events with non-profit U.S. commodity trade associations and other organizations.

***

The Middle Eastern kingdom, Saudi Arabia, needs hay for its 170,000 cows. So, it’s buying up farmland for the water-chugging crop in the drought-stricken American Southwest. 14,000 acres to be exact. Almarai Co. bought land in January that roughly doubled its holdings in California’s Palo Verde Valley, an area that enjoys first dibs on water from the Colorado River. The company also acquired a large tract near Vicksburg, Arizona, becoming a powerful economic force in a region that has fewer well-pumping restrictions than other parts of the state.

“Southern California and Arizona have good water rights. Who knows if that will change, but that’s the way things are now,” said Daniel Putnam, an agronomist at the University of California, Davis.

Over the last decade, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates emerged as significant buyers of American hay as their governments moved to curb water use. Together they accounted for 10 percent of U.S. exports of alfalfa and other grasses last year.

The land purchases signal that Almarai doesn’t just want to buy hay; it wants to grow. And it’s not the only Arab-owned Gulf company to take that approach.

Al Dahra ACX Global Inc., a top U.S. hay exporter based in Bakersfield, California, is owned by Al Dahra Agriculture Co. of United Arab Emirates. It farms extensively in Southern California and Arizona and, according to its website, plans to add 7,500 acres in the United States for alfalfa and other crops. The exporter packages crops grown across the West at its two plants in California and one in Washington state.

Most of the farms that Arab companies own worldwide are in developing nations. For instance, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has holdings in Latin America and Africa.

But part of the kingdom’s long-term food security strategy means investing in higher-cost countries with greater political stability, said John Lawton, owner of Agriculture Technology Co., a farming company in Saudi Arabia. More here from CSMonitor.

*** What about household use of water that is not drinkable?

The problem is that the groundwater it is using is unsafe for nearly 800,000 residents, according to the state’s water resources control board, because of longtime contamination from nitrates and arsenic.

That’s meant less drinkable water in California’s struggle to survive more than three years of severely dry weather.

“Most areas affected by contamination don’t have surface water supplies so they have to find new groundwater sources,” said Kurt Souza, a branch chief of the division of drinking water at the California State Water Resources Control Board.

“But that’s not always easy to do,” Souza added. “Sometimes you can find new ground locations for water and sometimes you can’t.”

The lack of rain and subsequent heavy demand on ground wells—which are also facing supply problems—is making a bad situation worse, said Sara Aminzadeh, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, a statewide advocacy group for safe water. According to the state water resources study, unsafe levels of arsenic are the top contaminant in groundwater supplies, followed by nitrates.

Nitrates are most often traced to farming chemicals and animal waste. Arsenic is found naturally in soil and rock in much of the world and seeps into groundwater.

Chronic low exposure to arsenic has been traced to respiratory problems in children and adults as well as having links to diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancers of the skin. More here from NBC, video included.

For more confusion on the shadiness of the whole thing, here are a few additional items. If it is going on in California, perhaps we need to investigate and ask the same questions in other farming regions of the country. Then perhaps we need deeper research out of the EPA and the Department of Agriculture where most of this gained additional traction and success under the Obama administration.

By the way, it was never really about that pesky Delta Smelt fish that the other environmentalists were trying to protect. That was a cover story.

The Monterey Amendment: Monterey Amendment ended up in court, challenged by the Planning and Conservation League, Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara County, and a small SWP contractor, the Plumas County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.In 2000, a state appeals court agreed with the challengers that the Environmental Impact Report for the amendment did not analyze provisions for completion of the SWP or permanent water shortages.
In 2003, a settlement was reached that called for preparation of a new EIR, more detailed reporting of the project’s actual delivery capability and public participation on any project amendments.

DWR in 2007 released a draft EIR, which discusses the project alternatives, growth inducement, water supply reliability, as well as potential areas of controversy and concern. The final EIR was released in 2009. DWR decided to continue to operate the SWP under the existing Monterey Amendment to the SWP long-term water supply contracts, including the Kern Water Bank transfer, and under the Settlement Agreement entered in PCL v. DWR. DWR’s decision was challenged by two groups of plaintiffs on issues relating to the adequacy of the EIR and the validity of the Monterey Amendment. The cases are currently being heard by the trial court. Final resolution of the issues is likely to take a number of years.
Roll International Corporation/Kern Water Bank: The Wonderful Company LLC, formerly known as Roll Global, is a private corporation based in Los Angeles, California. With revenues of over $4.8 billion,^[1] it functions as a holding company for Stewart and Lynda Resnick, and as such is a vehicle for their personal investments in a number of businesses. The company currently counts as business divisions the following brands: flower delivery service Teleflora, juice company POM Wonderful, bottled water company FIJI Water, Wonderful Pistachios and Wonderful Almonds (formerly Paramount Farms), Wonderful Citrus (formerly Paramount Citrus), sea freight company Neptune Pacific Line, JUSTIN Vineyards and Winery, pest control company Suterra, and in-house marketing agency Wonderful Agency
Paramount Farming: Paramount Farming Company, LLC produces almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates in California. It also offers pomegranate, mango, tangerine, blueberry, and cherry juices. The company was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Bakersfield, California. Paramount Farming Company, LLC operates as a subsidiary of Roll International Corporation.
Westside Mutual Water Co., LLC.
IN 2014, California will establish statewide management of water pumped from the ground, under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown. This really limits household usage and benefits big farming entities.
California is sinking even faster than scientists had thought, new NASA satellite imagery shows. Some areas of the Golden State are sinking more than 2 inches (5.1 centimeters) per month, the imagery reveals. Though the sinking, called subsidence, has long been a problem in California, the rate is accelerating because the state’s extreme drought is fueling voracious groundwater pumping.
New NASA imagery reveals that parts of California are sinking at an astonishing rate, with some parts of the San Joaquin Valley sinking as much as 2 inches per month.

Credit: Canadian Space Agency/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 2:00 p.m. E.T.

California is sinking even faster than scientists had thought, new NASA satellite imagery shows.

Some areas of the Golden State are sinking more than 2 inches (5.1 centimeters) per month, the imagery reveals. Though the sinking, called subsidence, has long been a problem in California, the rate is accelerating because the state’s extreme drought is fueling voracious groundwater pumping.

“Because of increased pumping, groundwater levels are reaching record lows — up to 100 feet (30 meters) lower than previous records,” Mark Cowin, director of California’s Department of Water Resources, said in a statement. “As extensive groundwater pumping continues, the land is sinking more rapidly, and this puts nearby infrastructure at greater risk of costly damage.” [It’s Raining Spiders! The Weirdest Effects of California’s Drought]

What’s more, this furious groundwater pumping could have long-term consequences. If the land shrinks too much, and for too long, it can permanently lose its ability to store groundwater, the researchers said.

The state’s sinking isn’t new: California has long suffered from subsidence, and some parts are now a few dozen feet lower than they were in 1925, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

But the state’s worst drought on record — 97 percent of the state is facing moderate to exceptional drought — has only accelerated the trend. To quantify this accelerated sinking, researchers at the Department of Water Resources and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, compared satellite imagery of California over time. Thanks to images taken from both satellites and airplanes using a remote-sensing technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), which uses radar to measure elevation differences, researchers can now map changes in the surface height of the ground with incredible precision. For the current study, the team stitched together imagery from Japan’s satellite-based Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar and Canada’s Earth Observation satellite Radarsat-2, as well as NASA’s airplane-based Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar.

Certain hotspots are shrinking at an astonishing rate — regions of the Tulare Basin, which includes Fresno, sank 13 inches (33 cm) in just eight months, they found. The Sacramento Valley is sinking about 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) per month. And the California Aqueduct — an intricate network of pipes, canals and tunnels that funnels water from high in the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern and central California to Southern California — has sunk 12.5 inches (32 cm), and most of that was just in the past four months, according to the new study.

The unquenchable thirst for groundwater in certain regions is largely a result of agriculture: Most of the state’s agricultural production resides in the fast-sinking regions around some of the state’s most endangered river systems — the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. As the heat and lack of rainfall have depleted surface-water supplies, farmers have turned to groundwater to keep their crops afloat.

Subsidence isn’t just an aesthetic problem; bridges and highways can sink and crack in dangerous ways, and flood-control structures can be compromised. In the San Joaquin Valley, the sinking Earth has destroyed the outer shell around thousands of privately drilled wells.

“Groundwater acts as a savings account to provide supplies during drought, but the NASA report shows the consequences of excessive withdrawals as we head into the fifth year of historic drought,” Corwin said. “We will work together with counties, local water districts, and affected communities to identify ways to slow the rate of subsidence and protect vital infrastructure such as canals, pumping stations, bridges and wells.”

Proposed Trump Budget, Chain Saw or Scalpel?

Posted on March 13, 2017March 13, 2017 by Denise Simon

Back in January, The Hill reported on early meetings the Trump team was having to address the proposed governmental budget. Yippee…finally. However, are all the proposals a good thing once they are introduced? Trump’s White House wants to cut $10.5 TRILLION in 10 years. He is working to increase Pentagon spending by $54 billion.

***

Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned. The changes they propose are dramatic.

The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

*** So far, so good.

Okay, there are more clues, and you can decide for yourself.

The White House is proposing a 17% cut to the nation’s top weather and climate agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A $1.3 Billion cut to the Coast Guard.

There are other agencies that will be affected and they can lobby their case for more funding once the budget is presented, reviewed and accepted.

The budget plans that the White House is expected to send to departments and agencies on Monday are just one stage in a lengthy process.

The agencies can argue for more funding, and final spending plans must be approved by the U.S. Congress.

Trump’s budget assumes annual economic growth of 2.4 percent, the second official said. While campaigning for the presidency last year, Trump called for a “national goal” of 4 percent economic growth.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on Fox News earlier on Sunday, said Trump’s budget would not seek cuts in federal social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. More from Reuters.

Anyone remember the old discussion of balancing the budget? The Heritage Foundation has a money wing that has studied and examined all government agencies and has proposed the blueprint. It would be well for voters and those concerned with government budgets and spending to examine this blueprint and as such the Trump White House should do the same. The full blueprint is here and it is a stellar piece of work.

First up that must be scrutinized is ‘entitlements’. Just exactly where did that term come from anyway? Who is entitled to anything and why? If you can stomach entitlement spending and the associated charts, click here.

There are also federal government grant programs and the Trump White House has not mentioned these. The U.S. State Department is a major grant operation for non-government agencies (NGO) and click here for those details.

The Department of Justice provides grants and much of those dollars go to cities for sanctuary cities.

Then there is the Department of Agriculture with a grant program. In fact every agency has a grant operation and we have not mentioned subsidies. Whoa, that one will light your hair on fire.

As noted by the Daily Caller in 2015:

The federal government spends billions of dollars each year on business subsidies and tax credits, with most of the money accruing to large corporations, a new database reveals.

The database released Tuesday by the government accountability group Good Jobs First, called Subsidy Tracker 3.0, represents the first-ever comprehensive listing of federal economic development programs, expanding on the group’s existing database of state and local subsidies.

According to an accompanying report put out by the group, “two-thirds of the $68 billion in business grants and special tax credits awarded by the federal government over the past 15 years have gone to large corporations,” including numerous foreign firms.

C’mon White House, how about addressing the grants/subsidies/loan guarantee/pledges and types of aid to foreign countries that hate us.

First on the list is the money that should be terminated that the United States pays to UNRWA.

U.S. Funding for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA

The Palestinian Authority is hugely dependent upon foreign assistance, which accounts for about 66 percent of its annual budget. European Union funding for the PA amounted to $600 million in 2005.[2] The United States gives $70 million directly to the PA each year, as well as $225 million for humanitarian projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).[3] Between 1993 and 2004, the Palestinian Authority received $6.93 billion in aid from the international community.[4]

What do you want Trump to cut? Education? EPA? Section 8 Housing? United Nations? Ransom money to rogue nations? How about the waste, fraud and collusion of members of Congress? How about stopping ridiculous travel by federal government employees?

Maybe we need to look carefully too at what we NEED to be spending quality money on.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks as it is going to be a wild ride to stop spending and reforming the tax code.

C’mon Trump, Americans are Still Angry

Posted on March 13, 2017March 13, 2017 by Denise Simon

Hey President Donald, how about assigning a leader to a whistleblower task force that coughs up the goods on the Obama administration.

In the past eight years we have almost forgotten all the fraud, collusion, deception and nefarious work of the previous administration and how far reaching those operations were. We still want consequences….why? If left unchallenged, rather unexposed, those operatives will dig in deeper and with wild abandon. The media cannot be left out of this whistleblowing mission either. Complicity and political behavior modeling by the left will only gain traction if not forced into the sunlight.

Trump pledged to restore law and order, voters should know how far afield the law was fractured under the Obama administration.

Much in the news is the Russian intrusion into our election infrastructure, which did happen without dispute. Altering the vote count or influencing voters to cast votes to a preferred candidate did NOT happen, such there is no evidence. The Russians have a history of such intrusions beyond the United States including Ukraine, Germany and Europe. The U.S. intelligence agencies warned of forced log-ins long before the November election. Now British intelligence is making the same warnings.

A particular item that requires a whistleblower headline is how the Obama White House interfered in the election process in Israel paying operatives to remove Netanyahu from power. Hello Trump team, can you expose more details on this please? We already know about Jeremy Bird, but we want the full story and in the end, we want punishment.

Some items that need attention and exposure are noted below but this list is hardly complete. In fact you are invited to add to the list in the comments section.

We need to know the culprits, the money, the facts and the rest of the stories on many scandals. This is the moment now leading into the building mid-term elections, but mostly due to the DNC being led by two terrifying people Tom Perez and Keith Ellison. The DNC, DNCC, Center for American Policy and others are houses of UnAmerican activities, if we even remember what America is and should be anymore.

There is no better source or investigator than Trevor Louden. He helped us with his movie, ‘Enemies Within’ as he laid the foundation for the viewers to take the baton and run to expose more.

Congress has an ‘oversight committee’ that does investigate and expose countless cases yet it is time consuming and burdensome given scheduling, subpoenas, testimony and document requests. Then we have Judicial Watch that is doing great work using the legal machinery, but all reliance cannot be placed there.

The Trump White House has this lifetime opportunity to own the headlines, the stories of connected events and provide the full account of scandals and people that today are left still with unanswered question.

Here are some samples Mr. President we need to know more about, begin here with the whistleblowing now that your administration is in power with access.

The matter of Fast and Furious, the gun-running operation to Mexico was never fully told. Did Kevin O’Reilly ever cooperate and provide testimony, when in the middle of the scandal he was suddenly deployed to Iraq?
Judicial Watch just obtained almost 7000 documents relating to the IRS targeting scandal. Exactly why is John Koskinen still the commissioner and has anyone moved to sue Lois Lerner in civil suits? Is there evidence of White House collusion including some members of Congress?
What is the rest of the story when it comes to new solar/energy businesses launched with government loan guarantees that have gone belly up? Who is responsible, what did it really cost the taxpayer and are any monies recoverable? How about the DoJ investigations where some financial reports were altered?
Benghazi stands on its own..
Who at the Department of Energy is responsible for the lead in the water in Flint, Michigan and polluting the Colorado river?
With the ransom money given to Iran and the side deals all but forgotten of the Iranian nuclear deal, how much is still out there to be uncovered and reported? What more do we need to know about Ploughshares, NIAC, Ben Rhodes and John Kerry?
We have new leadership at the Veterans Administration. Great now how about exposing the hidden case files, the corruption of the unions, jailing those that falsified status reports and got big bonuses? The VA Inspector General has done some great work so far, but who in leadership is going down for the never-ending issues at the VA?
Can we have a team that reveals the ‘slush funds’ from the ‘stimulus money’ and who is guilty in both parties that scammed the taxpayers?
Clearly there is more to know about Obama’s amnesty and his DACA program. Who was behind it, how much money was involved? Are judges being paid off? Who gets grants to sponsor children and illegals and how much money was spent in transportation of people all over the country hiding the from the legal system?
Obamacare is a major topic, what more do we need to know such that it is being used to blame democrats and repeal the law? How about HHS contracts, sharing patient databases with outside agencies and foreign governments? What about cyber security, what about paying off big pharma and insurance companies?
Where are we with the Clinton Foundation and the emails to Hillary’s private server that included Obama emails and the computer belonging to Huma Abedin? Is anyone still at the State Department still providing the Clinton operation cover? Can Patrick Kennedy or John Kerry be prosecuted?
What is the rest of the story of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch on corporate fines for violations and company officials not going to prison?
The Department of Justice maintained a victims fund which selectively paid surviving family members in cases of attacks and murder victims. Why was Obama personally involved and how was it decided who got money and how much?
The DoJ funded leftist organizations. Two examples were National Council of La Raza, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the National Urban League.
Obama and his team negotiated with the Taliban. What is the real truth, how much money did we give the terror organization and where are the Taliban 5 released from Gitmo today?
Several on the Democrat side of the House of Representatives hired a rogue team of IT professionals that were not vetted and had access to computer systems and passwords causing more national security threats. Why? Who was fired, who is responsible? Are there more we don’t know about?

Once again, this is hardly a comprehensive list, we must know more. We want consequences. build the case, tell us what we need to know going forward.

Gen. Flynn, Bijan Rafiekian, and Carter Page, Yikes

Posted on March 10, 2017March 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

It is a matter of procedure to investigate these kinds of activities and the people involved in them. In the case of national security and protocol violations, the checks and balances are required and this includes agencies such as the State Department, the FBI, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

Bijan Rafiekian is Chairman, President, CEO and Secretary of the Flynn Intel Group, Inc. Other officers are Michael Flynn and Philip A Oakley.

–> 2 Items UPDATE:

1. More important names in the Flynn affair: Former FBI agent and Admiral

2. Supplemental Lobby Registration document

The Delaware filed NSD/FARA registration document is here. It was filed on March 7, 2017.

Further and quite curious is just how was Flynn lobbying Congress? Here is a document filed to the Senate as well along with payments.

12/21/16, Intelligence Online: “When he was a private consultant, Flynn worked for Inovo, a Dutch firm owned by Kamil Ekim Alptekin, the Turkish chairman of the U.S.-Turkey Business Council (USTBC) and a close advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Alptekin is very well-connected to the Turkish government security apparatus. He is the chairman of the board of ATH Defence and Security Solutions Co, which sells monitoring and intelligence equipment. According to our sources, ATH supplies materiel to the Turkish intelligence service MIT (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, and the Turkish police force’s intelligence units.”

12/15/16: Bloomberg: “[Flynn Intelligence Group] worked as a lobbyist for Inovo BV, a Dutch company with close ties to Turkish President Recep Erdogan.”

11/29/16, Al-Ahram Weekly: “[Trump’s] national security adviser, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a former head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), has been outed for signing a contract with a Dutch company operating as a front for a Turkish government contractor with close ties to the Erdogan regime.”

11/19/16, AP: “[Flynn’s] his private consulting firm has lobbied for a company headed by a Turkish businessman tied to Turkey’s authoritarian, Islamist-leaning government, which cracked down on dissent and jailed thousands of opponents after a failed coup in July against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

11/19/16, CNN: “According to the official document, Kelley was working on behalf of Inovo BV, a Dutch firm owned by Turkish businessman, Kamil Ekim Alptekin.
Alptekin told CNN in an email that the firm works to strengthen ‘the transatlantic relationship and Turkey’s future in that alliance.'” More here.

***

Bijan Rafiekian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and earlier in his career, he was president of GLOBTEL and Greezone Systems, Inc. At the Export-Import Bank, Rafiekian was assigned to work deals to export coal to third world countries.

Flynn’s company was paid $535,000 by Alpetkin between September of November of 2016 with an assigned focus to take on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania. If Trump and his White House press spokesperson declared they did not know about General Flynn’s outside lobby work, it is strains the fact that Bijan Rafiekian actually was named to the Trump transition team. Further, through this process, Flynn hired SGR LLC to do the public affairs work on the Inovo project. In all fairness however, all parties involved here were against Hillary Clinton winning the presidency. More here.

*** Another reason there is scrutiny of members of the early Trump team includes Carter Page.

WASHINGTON (AP) — At Moscow’s New Economic School, the annual graduation ceremony often features a prominent political figure. President Barack Obama addressed graduates at the prestigious institution in 2009. The former presidents of Mexico and the Czech Republic have spoken at recent ceremonies.

Last year, the university invited Carter Page, a little-known former investment banker and foreign policy adviser to then-U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It wouldn’t be the last time Page would draw unexpected — and some say outsized — attention for his relationship to Trump, his entanglements in Russia and the murky nexus between the two.

Page, who left the campaign before the election, has emerged as a key figure in the controversy surrounding Trump associates’ connections to Russia. The New York Times has reported that Page is among the Trump associates whose potential contacts with Russia are being investigated by the FBI. Congressional committees probing Russia’s hacking during the election and Trump campaign ties have asked Page to preserve materials related to their investigations.

For those who contend the scrutiny of Trump is overblown, Page is the sort of figure often associated with an understaffed presidential campaign that struggled to recruit policy advisers and spent little time vetting those who did join the team. But to those who believe Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia as it hacked Democratic groups, Page may be the key link between the candidate and Moscow. Page contends he’s the target of a plot hatched by Trump’s former rival Hillary Clinton and allies who engaged in “severe election fraud in the form of disinformation, suppression of dissent, hate crimes and other extensive abuses.”

Page’s appearance at the Russian university immediately raised eyebrows.

For an adviser to an American presidential hopeful speaking overseas, his message was strikingly critical of the U.S. It came as Trump’s calls for warmer relations with the Kremlin were a source of criticism from Democrats and alarm from some fellow Republicans.

Washington had a “hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change” in its dealings with Russia, Page said at the school.

Page and former Trump campaign officials say he made the trip in a personal capacity and not as a representative of the campaign. But university officials have been clear that Page’s connections and insight into the Trump campaign were the draw.

“We were interested in what was going on — already then, Trump’s candidacy raised eyebrows, and everyone was really curious,” said Shlomo Weber, the academic director at the New Economic School, in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.

A newsletter announcing Page’s visit read. “You are invited to a lecture by Carter Page, foreign policy adviser for Donald Trump’s election campaign.”

Page has said he asked for, and received, permission from the Trump campaign to appear in a personal capacity.

Page has offered contradictory answers about his contacts with Russian officials during his visit. On Thursday, he told The Associated Press he did not meet with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who also spoke at the graduation. But in September, he told The Washington Post that he did speak with Dvorkovich briefly.

Back in the U.S. a few days later, Page talked with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. at an event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke with the Russian envoy at the same event, a conversation he failed to reveal when asked about contacts with Russians during his Senate confirmation hearings.

Page, a former Merrill Lynch investment banker who worked out of its Moscow office for three years, now runs Global Energy Capital, a firm focused on energy sectors in emerging markets. According to the company’s website, he has advised on transactions for Gazprom and RAO UES, a pair of Russian entities.

In December, Page returned to Moscow, where he noted he had “the opportunity to meet with an executive from Rosneft,” the Russian oil giant, according to a video clip of his remarks posted on YouTube. Rosnet’s chairman, Igor Sechin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been targeted by U.S. sanctions, though Page says he was not referring to Sechin in his remarks.

Some of the suspicion surrounding Page stems from the fact that no one who worked for the campaign can quite explain how he ended up on Trump’s list of foreign policy advisers. Page has also sidestepped those questions, saying he doesn’t want to put others “in the same damaged pot as myself.”

One campaign official said Page was recruited by Sam Clovis, an Iowa Republican operative who ran the Trump campaign’s policy shop and is now a senior adviser at the Agriculture Department. Clovis did not respond to messages from The Associated Press.

Trump has distanced himself from Page, saying he never met him. Those who served on the campaign’s foreign policy advisory committee also said they had limited contact with Page.

“Only met him once very briefly,” said George Papadopoulos, the director of the Center for International Energy and Natural Resources Law and Security in London.

But in a letter late Wednesday to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Page cast himself as a regular presence in Trump Tower, where the campaign was headquartered.

“I have frequently dined in Trump Grill, had lunch in Trump Café, had coffee meetings in the Starbucks at Trump Tower, attended events and spent many hours in campaign headquarters on the fifth floor last year,” Page wrote. He also noted that his office building in New York “is literally connected to the Trump Tower building by an atrium.”

Page stopped advising the campaign sometime around the end of summer, though the exact circumstances of the separation are unclear. After the campaign, Trump’s lawyers sent Page at least two cease and desist letters, according to another campaign official, who like others, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

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AP writers Jim Heintz in Moscow and Maria Danilova contributed to this report.