Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

Obama Not Stopping Russia

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Putin Aggression:

There are several people in the Ukraine that are hunting down Soviet loyalist soldiers and providing evidence of Putin’s continued aggression towards Ukraine. They are using social media, photos, tracing steps and following Russian troops footsteps.

The United States needs to take new steps to respond to the Ukraine conflict because economic sanctions and other Western actions have failed to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to reverse course, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said June 5.

Carter, speaking after conferring with U.S. diplomats and military officers in Stuttgart, Germany, said the Pentagon was concerned about “further things happening” after the worst upsurge in fighting in months broke out this week in eastern Ukraine.

Carter’s warning comes after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg accused Moscow of sending sophisticated new weapons to Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, including artillery and anti-aircraft systems.

“What’s clear is that sanctions are working on the Russian economy,” causing considerable hardship for ordinary Russians and a deep recession this year, Carter told reporters on his plane back to Washington.

“What is not apparent is that that effect on his economy is deterring Putin from following the course that was evidenced in Crimea last year,” when Moscow annexed the Ukrainian territory, he said. Read more here.

Then without any warning or briefing from the State Department, a Russian violation has not been corrected as it relates to intermediate ranged ground launched missiles from a 1987 arms deal.

WASHINGTON — The State Department reported on Friday that Russia had failed to correct a violation of a landmark arms control accord between Washington and Moscow that prohibits intermediate-range ground-launched missiles.

At issue is the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the I.N.F. Treaty, which the Obama administration says the Russians breached by testing a cruise missile. But American officials have made no discernible headway in persuading the Russians to acknowledge the compliance problem, let alone resolve it.

In December, the Pentagon told Congress that it had developed a range of military options to pressure Russia to remedy the violation or neutralize any advantages it might gain if the diplomatic efforts fail. But no Pentagon countermeasures have been announced.

The American allegation was outlined in the State Department’s annual report on compliance with arms control agreements. It comes as the Obama administration has sought to identify new areas for potential cooperation with Russia, including the crisis in Syria, even as it has continued to object to Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.

The State Department did nothing to draw attention to the report. An unclassified version of it was posted on the agency’s website late on Friday afternoon with no advance notice, and no officials were made available to discuss it. (A classified version of the report was provided to Congress earlier this week.)

Representative Mac Thornberry, the Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said that the Obama administration had not been forceful enough in pressing Moscow to comply with the agreement.

“Russia’s development of intermediate-range nuclear platforms is designed to hold our interests at risk and enable Putin’s expansionist policies,” Mr. Thornberry said in a statement, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin. “It is not a situation we should accommodate for two years running. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has proposed meaningful military options to deal with Russia’s I.N.F. violations. The president should order their implementation without delay.”

American officials say that Russia began carrying out flight tests of the missile as early as 2008, and Rose Gottemoeller, the State Department’s senior arms control official, first raised the possibility of a violation with Russian officials two years ago.

Despite the allegation of a violation, the State Department report asserted that it was in the interest of the United States not to withdraw from the agreement, which it said “contributes to the security of our allies and to regional stability in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region.” The accord bans American and Russian ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles that are able to fly 300 to 3,400 miles.

It is unclear what steps the Obama administration might take next. Ms. Gottemoeller told Congress in December that the development of ground-launched cruise missiles had proceeded far enough that Russia had “the capability to deploy it.”

Those concerns are not the only ones about Russian compliance with arms control accords. The State Department report asserted that Russia may have violated troop notification requirements under the Vienna Document, an agreement between the member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Russian forces who were massed near Ukraine last year, the State Department report said, “exceeded personnel and/or equipment levels intended to trigger notification requirements.” But when Russia was asked for additional information, “It failed to provide responsive replies.”

The report also faulted Russia’s adherence to the Open Skies Treaty, which seeks to reduce the risk of war by providing for unarmed observation flights.

In 2014, the report noted, Russia imposed new restrictions on such flights over Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized Russian enclave near the Baltic Sea.

“Russia continues to fail to meet treaty obligations to allow effective observation of its entire territory,” the report said.

Russia has leveled its own charges against the United States, including that the Aegis missile defense system that is being deployed in Europe is able to launch intermediate-range missiles.

The State Department report said that this system did not have any “offensive capability” and was allowed by the treaty.

Blumenthal Benghazi Testimony Date Set

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Without media, behind closed doors…but under oath?

A Interim Benghazi investigation report dated May 2015 by the Congressional Benghazi committee is found here.

Hillary Clinton’s next appearance before the committee is delayed due to the State Department slow walking document request production.

“The State Department has told the Committee that it cannot certify that it has turned over all documents responsive to the Committee’s request regarding the former Secretary’s emails. Absent access to the server that housed the former Secretary’s private emails, the Committee has no way to verify the assertions: (1) the former Secretary has produced the full universe of emails related to Benghazi and Libya; and (2) the server has been wiped clean and is currently void of any data that may reflect any email sent or received during her tenure as Secretary of State, including during the relevant time frame….,” the report said.

Because the State Department has been slow rolling the release of the Hillary emails, a judge determined the exact dates for release for which the State Department must comply.

“It is difficult to conduct a fact-centric congressional investigation when the Administration impedes the Committee’s progress by repeatedly failing to answer the Committee’s requests or to provide information in a timely manner,” wrote the South Carolina Republican.

“The largest impediment to being able to write the final, definitive accounting of what happened before, during and after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi is the Executive Branch itself.”

But Gowdy, who also has asked Clinton to appear before his panel, credits his committee with uncovering thousands of new emails and documents related to the administration’s handling of the attack that left four Americans dead.

Gowdy also said the panel wants to interview at least 60 more current and former officials, including Clinton, Susan Rice, Patrick Kennedy and three of Clinton’s top aides during her tenure as secretary of State: Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin.

Clinton has indicated she is willing to appear before the panel, but only once. Gowdy and the committee have requested two sessions, and Gowdy has also insisted she turn over to a third party the personal email server she used to store emails while at State.

Democrats on the GOP-controlled committee again on Friday dismissed the probe as little more than an attempt to smear the former secretary of State amid her presidential campaign.

“At every turn, the Select Committee comes up with a new excuse to further delay its work and then blames its glacial pace on someone else,” said ranking member Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., in a statement. “Like the investigation itself, this memo is short on substance, short on accomplishments, and short on a plan for how to get this investigation done.”

Ex-Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal to testify in private on Benghazi

A former aide to Hillary Clinton has agreed to testify in private later this month before the House panel investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Sidney Blumenthal, a long-time associate of the Clinton family, will appear for a closed-door witness deposition on June 16 at 10 a.m. The deposition with the House Select Committee on Benghazi will come just three days after Hillary Clinton launches her presidential campaign during a rally in New York.

The State Department made about 300 emails public last month that showed Clinton received about 25 memos from Blumenthal regarding Libya while she was secretary, including one that blamed the 2012 Benghazi attack on a “sacrilegious” Internet video depicting the prophet Mohammad. Blumenthal sent another memo the next day citing “sensitive sources” who believed it was an act of terrorism.

Blumenthal, who previously worked for former President Bill Clinton’s administration, most recently worked as an employee of the Clinton Foundation and served as an informal adviser to Hillary Clinton when she was in President Obama’s Cabinet. He also had business transactions with Libya’s transitional government.

The emails released to the public showed that Clinton forwarded some of Blumenthal’s missives to her senior staff at the State Department without identifying him as the source.

One exchange between Clinton aide Jake Sullivan and Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who died in the Benghazi attack, referred to Blumenthal as “HRC friend.”

The Benghazi panel, which is chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), has not yet announced when it will call Hillary Clinton to testify.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the Benghazi Committee’s top Democrat, has accused the GOP of tactics “straight out the partisan playbook of discredited Republican investigations” by leaking news of the subpoena before it was served and using two armed U.S. marshals to deliver it to Blumenthal.

Clinton downplayed Blumenthal’s influence on her tenure as Secretary of State when asked about the relationship last month.

“I have many, many old friends, and I always think that it’s important when you get into politics to have friends that you had before you were in politics and to understand what’s on their minds. He’s been a friend of mine for a long time — he sent me unsolicited emails, which I passed on in some instances, and I see that that’s just part of the give-and-take,” Clinton told reporters.

The Clinton Foundation paid Blumenthal about $10,000 a month while he worked for the organization, according to reports.

 

Obama Regime, Full Anti-Semite

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It’s Nuclear: On Iran, Obama and the Scope of Anti-Semitism

Does the president understand the depths—and destructive implications—of the ayatollahs’ radical views on Jews?

Yesterday, Jeffrey Herf, a professor of modern European history at the University of Maryland and the author of a number of books on Nazi Germany, published an article in The Times of Israel called “Obama and his American critics on Iran’s anti-Semitism,” which is worth a read. In it, Herf examines the “unusual” public discourse that has begun to swell—a chorus he breaks down bit by bit, who wonder about the bounds of Obama’s understanding of anti-Semitism, and “how his view on that subject affects prospects for a nuclear deal to stop the ayatollahs from getting the bomb.”

Herf argues that Obama, “apparently stung by criticism that his approach to Iran is facilitating rather than preventing its path to the bomb and that he bears primary responsibility for the tensions in American-Israeli relations,” has gone on the offensive by giving an interview to The Atlantic‘s Jeffery Goldberg (read our coverage here), then hitting up Adas Israel in Washington, D.C., in what CNN called “foreign policy damage control.” Herf then cites Michael Doran’s essay in Mosaic, “A Letter to My Liberal Jewish Friends,” in which the author argues that the existence of shared values”—a tenet of Obama’s speech—”though important, was not the key issue. It was, instead, the necessary criticism of Obama’s policies towards Iran’s nuclear program.”

Herf has longed for Obama to publicly discuss his views on “the role of anti-Semitism in the government in Tehran.” He was pleased when Goldberg told Obama about his concerns in negotiating with people who are “captive to a conspiratorial anti-Semitic worldview not because they hold offensive views, but because they hold ridiculous views.” Continue Reading→

Illegals Protected Class at California University System

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READ WRITE THINK AND DREAM

‘Undocumented Student Services’ at UC San Diego hosts workshops mandated by the school’s Vice Chancellor to plan strategies to get government financial assistance for housing, tuition, legal counseling with particular assistance for Latinos and Koreans. Remember that former Department of Homeland Security,Janet Napolitano is now the president of the University of California system.  She set aside $5 million dollars for such programs.

Not to be out done, CalState Los Angeles, CalState Fullerton and Long Beach all have the same programs. Suggestion: stop all federal dollars to the university system.

CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITIES ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Dreamers’ need a space ‘where they can feel safe’

Illegal immigrants in California are already eligible for state financial aid for college. Some public schools are now spending taxpayer money to help these students get money from other sources, even as legal students fight for sparse resources.

 

California State University-Los Angeles received a $1.6 million endowment late last month to fund the Dreamers Resource Center, which the school bills as a space that provides “academic guidance, referral assistance and other support” for so-called dreamers, or students whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally.

It’s just the latest Cal State campus to christen a center dedicated to students without documentation: Fullerton was the first a year ago and Long Beach came two months ago.

The Northridge campus has one “in the works,” and legislation pending in the Legislature would help create more centers across the Cal State system and in community colleges, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The CSU-LA gift will help the school underwrite staff costs and maintain a dedicated space for the center, which was created in October. It helps undocumented students with things like scholarship deadlines and applying for federal work authorization, the school said.

Erika Glazer, the philanthropist whose $1.6 million donation followed her earlier pledges of $700,000 for illegal immigrants, said in CSU-LA’s release that she hopes the center “will be obsolete in a few years and the funds can go toward other programs” at the school.

CSU-LA “has a long history in facilitating the academic success of special student populations” such as low-income students, Nancy Wada-McKee, assistant vice president for student affairs, told The College Fix in an email. She said the school also serves more than 700 veterans through their own resource center.

Technically, the Dreamers center is open to all students, Wada-McKee said, although it focuses on helping undocumented students.

Favoring one group over everyone else?

Under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and California law, Dreamers who meet certain criteria are eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

The 2011 California Dream Act also granted access to financial aid to so-called AB 540 students who attend a college or university in California.

In fall 2014, about 850 CSU-LA students met the requirements for in-state tuition under AB 540, the Times said.

The Long Beach Press Telegram reported a year ago that around 6,400 undocumented students were enrolled at Cal State’s 23 campuses.

CSU-Long Beach’s own “Dream Success Center,” not quite three months old, has already run into opposition from some students who think it’s a waste of valuable resource for a school that’s stretched thin.

The Fix previously reported on lobbying against the center by CSU-LB College Republicans Chairman Nestor Moto, Jr., who said the money that went into creating it could have been used to shrink overcrowded classes or offer more counselors for all students.

“We have 10 advising centers and that is who the money should have been allocated to,” not one special student population, Moto told The Fix in March.

The Daily 49er reported that the renovation for Long Beach’s center cost $16 million, and ongoing costs – including a full-time coordinator for the 650 undocumented students – run to $80,000 a year.

Just ‘leveling the playing field’

Besides the CSU-LA pledge from philanthropist Glazer, University of California President Janet Napolitano has set aside $5 million in non-state funds for undocumented students and resource centers.

UC said last week that Napolitano’s efforts – paying “trained advisers” to help students get “mentoring and emotional support” as well as “find internship and work-study jobs” – are simply “leveling the playing field” for illegal immigrants.

Jose Guevara, a CSU-LA center adviser and political science major who previously received a Glazer scholarship, told the Times that it was “important that [Dreamers] have a space where they can feel safe.”

Glazer is not the only multimillionaire philanthropist putting undocumented students ahead of other college students.

Former Washington Post owner Donald Graham and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman each donated $15 million to Graham’s scholarship fund for illegal-immigrant children, TheDream.us, the organization said Wednesday.

The new money – up to $25,000 each for 1,200 students at TheDream.us partner colleges – comes on top of $10 million each the duo previously donated. They want to spur other philanthropists to donate $30 million for another 5,000 scholarships, the organization said.

TheDream.us teamed up with the City University of New York last year to give scholarships to undocumented students who have already filed for temporary legal status.

 

4 Million Federal Employees Hacked Months Ago

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The Office of Personnel Management issued a warning today that all current and former federal employees may be the subject of hacking of personal data and security clearance information.

The Department of Homeland Security used a system called Einstein that determined the hack in April of 2015 but they did not reveal when the actual breach happened. Signs are pointing to China and the responsible country and it should be noted that Russia was responsible for an earlier breach of the IRS.

The Official Office of Personnel Management Press Release

Thursday, June 04, 2015 Contact: Sam Schumach
Tel: (202) 606-2402
OPM to Notify Employees of Cybersecurity Incident
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has identified a cybersecurity incident potentially affecting personnel data for current and former federal employees, including personally identifiable information (PII).
Within the last year, the OPM has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture, adding numerous tools and capabilities to its networks.  As a result, in April 2015, OPM detected a cyber-intrusion affecting its information technology (IT) systems and data. The intrusion predated the adoption of the tougher security controls.
OPM has partnered with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine the full impact to Federal personnel. OPM continues to improve security for the sensitive information it manages and evaluates its IT security protocols on a continuous basis to protect sensitive data to the greatest extent possible. Since the intrusion, OPM has instituted additional network security precautions, including: restricting remote access for network administrators and restricting network administration functions remotely; a review of all connections to ensure that only legitimate business connections have access to the internet; and deploying anti-malware software across the environment to protect and prevent the deployment or execution of tools that could compromise the network.
As a result of the incident, OPM will send notifications to approximately 4 million individuals whose PII may have been compromised.  Since the investigation is on-going, additional PII exposures may come to light; in that case, OPM will conduct additional notifications as necessary.  In order to mitigate the risk of fraud and identity theft, OPM is offering credit report access, credit monitoring and identify theft insurance and recovery services to potentially affected individuals through CSID®, a company that specializes in these services.  This comprehensive, 18-month membership includes credit monitoring and $1 million in identity theft protection services at no cost to enrollees.
“Protecting our Federal employee data from malicious cyber incidents is of the highest priority at OPM,” said OPM Director Katherine Archuleta. “We take very seriously our responsibility to secure the information stored in our systems, and in coordination with our agency partners, our experienced team is constantly identifying opportunities to further protect the data with which we are entrusted.”
OPM has issued the following guidance to affected individuals:
Monitor financial account statements and immediately report any suspicious or unusual activity to financial institutions.
Request a free credit report at www.AnnualCreditReport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228.  Consumers are entitled by law to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit bureaus – Equifax®, Experian®, and TransUnion® – for a total of three reports every year.  Contact information for the credit bureaus can be found on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website, www.ftc.gov.
Review resources provided on the FTC identity theft website, www.identitytheft.gov.  The FTC maintains a variety of consumer publications providing comprehensive information on computer intrusions and identity theft.
You may place a fraud alert on your credit file to let creditors know to contact you before opening a new account in your name.  Simply call TransUnion® at 1-800-680-7289 to place this alert.  TransUnion® will then notify the other two credit bureaus on your behalf.
How to avoid being a victim:
Be suspicious of unsolicited phone calls, visits, or email messages from individuals asking about employees or other internal information.  If an unknown individual claims to be from a legitimate organization, try to verify his or her identity directly with the company.
Do not provide personal information or information about your organization, including its structure or networks, unless you are certain of a person’s authority to have the information.
Do not reveal personal or financial information in email, and do not respond to email solicitations for this information. This includes following links sent in email.
Do not send sensitive information over the Internet before checking a website’s security (for more information, see Protecting Your Privacy, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-013).
Pay attention to the URL of a website.  Malicious websites may look identical to a legitimate site, but the URL may use a variation in spelling or a different domain (e.g., .com vs. .net).
If you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, try to verify it by contacting the company directly.  Do not use contact information provided on a website connected to the request; instead, check previous statements for contact information.  Information about known phishing attacks is also available online from groups such as the Anti-Phishing Working Group (http://www.antiphishing.org).
Install and maintain anti-virus software, firewalls, and email filters to reduce some of this traffic (for more information, see Understanding Firewalls, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-004; Understanding Anti-Virus Software, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-005; and Reducing Spam, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-007).
Take advantage of any anti-phishing features offered by your email client and web browser.
Employees should take steps to monitor their personally identifiable information and report any suspected instances of identity theft to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
Potentially affected individuals can obtain additional information about the steps they can take to avoid identity theft from the following agencies. The FTC also encourages those who discover that their information has been misused to file a complaint with them.