How to Stop Obama/Kerry from Giving More Money to Iran

Posted on September 14, 2016September 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Rubio letter on Iran transaction by Daniel on Scribd

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), among other lawmakers, has petitioned the Obama administration to disclose the names of the U.S. and Iranian officials who played a role in the cash handoff.

“What U.S. official(s) escorted the pallets of cash to Iranian officials and what entity of the Iranian government received the funds and controlled the flight(s) that transported the cash to Iran?” Rubio asked in a Sept. 10 letter to the administration.

“Please provide a list of the Iranian officials present at the exchange of cash and include the Iranian government entities that employed them, including any past or current connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence,” Rubio wrote.

Lawmakers working to unearth further details about the exchange told the Free Beacon that it appears increasingly likely that the IRGC played a role in the cash exchange.

“For the Obama administration to argue that the IRGC was somehow not involved in the U.S. transfer of $1.7 billion—or more—in cash to Iran is totally unconvincing,” Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told the Free Beacon. “Given the IRGC’s extensive control of the Iranian economy, and its vast influence with Iran’s regime, it was most likely influential in the set-up and execution of the payment. Like other malicious actors, the IRGC is eager to get its hands on cash to fund its terrorist activities.”

*****

Congressional questions to Treasury begins. Treasury admits to what? Nothing….

treasury-response-to-rep-duffy-september-9-2016

Rubio said his new bill “would stop the Obama administration from making any further payments to Iran from the [Treasury Department’s] Judgment Fund until Iran returns the ransom money it received and pays the American victims of Iranian terrorism what they are owed.”

“President Obama may have attempted to appease our enemy with pallets of cash secretly delivered on an unmarked cargo plane, but Iran continues to cheat on the nuclear deal, harass our military, hold Americans hostage, and fund terrorism around the world,” Rubio added. “Iran should be held accountable, and the Obama administration’s misguided policies must be stopped.”

Rubio’s bill, called the No Ransom Payments Act, is co-sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R., Texas), Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.), John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), and Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.).

“Congress is taking a clear stand—demanding Iran return the more than $1 billion the Obama Administration wrongly gave them and putting a stop to any and all future money this administration, or any administration might want to give to state sponsors of terrorism like Iran,” Pompeo, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told the Free Beacon. “The American people know this is an unacceptable use of their taxpayer dollars and we wholeheartedly agree. It is unprecedented and dangerous for President Obama to be doling out millions to the Islamic Republic of Iran—in the dead of night, under wraps, and in cash. Kansans expect and demand better from their government.” More from FreeBeacon.

Mafia Using Islamic Terror Tactics

Posted on September 13, 2016September 13, 2016 by Denise Simon

Mafia gangsters in Naples styling themselves on Islamist terrorists

Telegraph: A new generation of mafia gangsters battling over drug turfs on the mean streets of Naples are styling themselves on the Islamist extremists of Isil and the Taliban, Italian prosecutors have revealed.

Police at the scene of a shooting in Naples in August 2016. The district has seen ambushes and clashes between rival clans of the Camorra mafia Credit: Fabio Sasso /REX

Mobsters belonging to the Camorra mafia are growing long beards and embracing a “cult of death” similar to that adopted by the terrorists of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. One clan, in the Sanita district of Naples, has taken to calling itself the “Barbuti” – the bearded ones.

The new generation, which is challenging the supremacy of older, more established Camorra families, flirts with death in order to give meaning to their lives, said Nicola Quatrano, a judge who recently condemned 43 mafia criminals to prison for a variety of serious crimes.

Click here for news video.

It is also a way of striking fear into their enemies, by presenting themselves as being as unscrupulous and murderous as Isil fighters.

“An existential thread links the young men who course through the streets of Naples with guns, and jihadi militants. Both groups are obsessed with death. Maybe they are in love with the idea, they are seeking it out, almost as if it is the only way of giving meaning to their lives,” the judge said.

Neapolitan gangsters have no interest in converting to Islam, but selectively base their “role models and modes of behaviour” on Islamist terrorists, Mr Quatrano said. “Some have grown bushy beards in the Taliban style,” he said, in a court document in which he outlined the legal arguments for his conviction of the 43 defendants.

A prominent example was Emanuele Sibillo, a Camorra gangster who grew a jihadist-style beard. He was shot dead last summer at the age of 19 during a turf war with a rival clan.

In their imagination, Islamic State represents ferocity and a lack of fearVincenzo Morgese

“Today he is regarded as a hero in the alleys and narrow streets of Naples’ historic centre, venerated almost like San Gennaro (the patron saint of Naples) on the altar which his family have erected in his memory,” the judge said.

Vincenzo Morgese, who works with young offenders in Naples, said: “In their imagination, Islamic State represents ferocity and a lack of fear. It’s a symbol of the fight against the State, against institutions and against other tribes.”

The desperate lives of young Camorra criminals in Naples is portrayed in a new Italian documentary, called “Robinu”. “When I have a Kalashnikov in my hands, I feel like the boss,” one young man says in the film.

One alleged member of the Camorra mafia said that holding a Kalashnikov was like having Belen Rodriguez, one of Italy’s most famous showgirls, in his arms Credit: Maria Laura Antonelli/REX

“A Kalashnikov is the most beautiful thing in the world. It’s like holding Belen (Rodriguez, one of Italy’s best-known models and TV showgirls) in your arms.”

Worth $2 Billion Secreted in the Mexican Desert

Posted on September 12, 2016September 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

An aluminum stockpile (pictured), worth $2 billion and representing six per cent of the world’s aluminum, was discovered two years ago in San José Iturbide, a city in central Mexico

Liu (center) controls China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd, the world’s second largest aluminum producer in its category. His current fortune is estimated at $3.2 billion

Liu, who is currently the deputy secretary of China’s Communist Party, told the Wall Street Journal he didn’t have any connection with the aluminum in San José Iturbide. He denied trying to route his aluminum through Mexico to avoid the payments. More from the DailyMail.

A Chinese billionaire may have hidden 6 percent of the world’s aluminum in the Mexican desert

It’s not every day that Mr. Bean makes an appearance on the Wall Street Journal’s commodities coverage.

And that might not even be the strangest finding in the Journal’s investigation into a massive pile of aluminum that allegedly just sat there, unused, in the Mexican desert for years.

To start, some background: China’s growing industrial sector has been hard on the aluminum producers in the United States. In 2000 there were 23 smelters operating nationwide, now there are only five.

So when an aluminum executive named Jeff Henderson got wind of a giant stockpile of Chinese aluminum just below the U.S border with Mexico, he decided to commission a plane to check it out.

What did they find?

Six percent of the world’s aluminum, worth some $2 billion and enough to make 77 billion beer cans, according to the Journal‘s fascinating report.

The revelation led to tensions between U.S. trade authorities and China, as U.S. industry executives insist that the metal is linked to Liu Zhongtian, who runs China Zhongwang Holdings, an enormous industrial aluminum company.

U.S. industry officials allege the metal got there as part of a scheme to evade trade restrictions. The idea was to move aluminum through Mexico into the U.S. where it could benefit from provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“These things have nothing to do with me,” Liu told the Journal, although the results of the investigation cast doubt on that claim.

Aluminum manufacturing is subsidized in China, and so Chinese firms were able to undercut U.S. producers; the United States responded by setting up tariffs to make domestic aluminum more attractive.

Routing Chinese aluminum through Mexico was a way to get around those tariffs.

Things went awry when a one of Liu’s alleged business partners Po-Chi “Eric” Shen, started to gain attention over some of his erratic practices, which the Journal report highlighted and included spending fortunes on dubious expenses like $70 million worth of red diamonds and rare Ferraris.

The relationship allegedly deteriorated quickly — Shen made headlines in 2014 when he wrecked Liu’s sports car while vacationing in Italy, and was rescued by Rowan Atkinson, of Mr. Bean fame.

The metal may never make it to the United States, in fact there are currently plans to ship it back to Asia, this time Vietnam.

Social Justice: National Sovereignty and the Right of Intervention

Posted on September 12, 2016September 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Where is this social justice movement coming from? Do you ever go keyboarding on the internet looking for one specific thing and uncover something related and much bigger? When it comes to this festering growth movement of ‘social justice’ as we are witnessing throughout the country, one must ask what is the genesis. We saw some demands surface after Ferguson and Baltimore. Between those two protests and legal investigations, the White House launched a 21st Century Policing Mandate. But how was this mandate conceived? Ah, seems we need to hop over to New York and that interesting building called the United Nations.

So, it is reasonable to consider the BLM movement is well funded and not only has made it’s way onto Elm Street, it is also taking a place onto network television, where we are forced to see it where the largest TV audiences merge, NFL football.

Are there some connections or collaboration going on here? It cant be proven, however this is a time you can be the judge as this appears to have history and will be with us for years to come.

There is a training program. There are countless issues that do need to be addressed and this movement does have valid reasons that deserve attention. The question is are all components being addressed including the true root causes?

Related reading and timeline: Black Lives Matter: The Growth of a New Social Justice Movement

This is a long United Nations document, almost 160 pages, but to help out the reader, begin at document page 11.

Circa 2006:

The application of social justice requires a geographical, sociological, political

and cultural framework within which relations between individuals and groups can

be understood, assessed, and characterized as just or unjust. In modern times, this

framework has been the nation-State. The country typically represents the context

in which various aspects of social justice, such as the distribution of income in a

population, are observed and measured; this benchmark is used not only by national

Governments but also by international organizations and supranational entities such

as the European Union. At the same time, there is clearly a universal dimension

to social justice, with humanity as the common factor. Slaves, exploited workers

and oppressed women are above all victimized human beings whose location matters

less than their circumstances. This universality has taken on added depth and

relevance as the physical and cultural distance between the world’s peoples has

effectively shrunk. In their discussions regarding the situation of migrant workers,

for example, Forum participants readily acknowledged the national and global dimensions

of social justice.

Social justice is treated as synonymous with distributive justice, which again is often

identified with unqualified references to justice, in the specific context of the activities

of the United Nations, the precise reasons for which may only be conjectured.

In its work, for reasons that will be examined in chapter 5, the United Nations has essentially

from the beginning separated the human rights domain from the economic

and social domains, with activities in the latter two having been almost exclusively

focused on development. Issues relating to the distributive and redistributive effects

of social and economic policies—issues of justice—have therefore been addressed

separately from issues of rights, including those inscribed in the International Covenant

on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The unfortunate consequences of

this dissociation must be acknowledged. To support the concept of social justice is

to argue for a reconciliation of these priorities within the context of a broader social

perspective in which individuals endowed with rights and freedoms operate within

the framework of the duties and responsibilities attached to living in society. Notwithstanding

the implied associations between social justice, redistributive justice,

and justice as a more general concept, the fact is that the explicit commitment to

social justice has seriously deteriorated; over the past decade, the expression has

practically disappeared from the international lexicon and likely from the official language

of most countries. The position will be taken here that the United Nations

must work to try to restore the integrity and appeal of social justice, interpreted in

the contemporary context as distributive justice.

****

This part is chilling just considering the concept:

2.1 National sovereignty and the right of intervention

The Forum noted that on two recent occasions, force had been used against States

Members of the United Nations without the formal approval of the Security Council

and outside the provisions of chapter VII of the Charter.10 Even prior to these events,

the “right of intervention”, legitimized by the overriding need to protect human

rights and in particular to prevent genocide, had been openly and vigorously debated

in international circles. Today, it is generally agreed that the principles of respect for

national sovereignty and non-interference in the domestic affairs of a State can be

legitimately suspended to address unchecked and unpunished violations of basic

human rights and fundamental freedoms. Intolerance for such violations represents

a heightening of the human consciousness and real progress, and is a necessary

step in the building of a true world community. Vexing questions arise, however,

with regard to the type of legal regime needed to govern this right of intervention.

How About it Wells Fargo, Big Fine

Posted on September 8, 2016September 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

You cant even trust a bank employee, much less the bank? And a big banking network. So who pays the fine, who goes to jail, who does the formal walk of shame?

CNN: Wells Fargo is being slapped with the largest penalty since the CFPB was founded in 2011. The bank agreed to pay $185 million in fines, along with $5 million to refund customers.

“We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” Wells Fargo said in a statement.

Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that the firings represents about 1% of its workforce.

“At Wells Fargo, when we make mistakes, we are open about it, we take responsibility, and we take action,” the bank said in a memo to employees on Thursday.

Wells Fargo to pay $185 million to settle allegations its workers opened fake accounts

LATimes: City and federal officials have reached a $185-million settlement with Wells Fargo over allegations that the bank’s employees, driven by strict sales quotas, regularly opened new accounts for customers without their knowledge.

The settlement, announced Thursday morning, calls for the San Francisco banking giant to pay $100 million in penalties to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the largest fine the federal agency has ever imposed — and $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, another federal regulator.

It also will pay $50 million in penalties to local officials and to compensate account holders for fees related to bogus accounts.

The bank did not admit any wrongdoing in the consent order but apologized to customers and announced steps to tighten its sales practices.

The questionable practices were uncovered by a 2013 Times investigation that found Wells Fargo pressured its employees to open more accounts and that some employees resorted to opening fake ones to meet sales goals.

Last year, Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer filed a lawsuit that alleged Wells Fargo “victimized their customers by using pernicious and often illegal sales tactics” including unrealistic quotas and policies that have “driven bankers to engage in fraudulent behavior.”

Feuer’s suit caught the attention of the CFPB and OCC, which conducted their own investigations into the bank’s sales tactics. The CFPB, citing an analysis by Wells Fargo, said bank employees may have opened as many as 2 million accounts — including more than 500,000 credit cards — without customers’ authorization.

The investigations found that employees would illegally transfer funds into unauthorized accounts, create PINs for debit cards customers never asked for and even created bogus email addresses to secretly sign customers up for online banking.

“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” said Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB, in a statement Thursday. “Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed.”

On a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Feuer called the bank’s practices “a major breach of trust.”

“It’s outrageous for a bank to use a customer’s private information without permission to open an unwanted account,” he said. “Customers must be able to trust their banks.”

The bank has consistently said such practices are not widespread and that workers who cheat to meet sales goals are disciplined or fired. In a statement Thursday, Wells Fargo confirmed the settlements and said it has set aside $5 million to cover refunds to customers.

The bank said it has already provided refunds to about 100,000 customers, paying a total of $2.6 million so far with payments averaging $25. The bank said the number of accounts refunded represent “a fraction of one percent of the accounts reviewed.”

“Wells Fargo is committed to putting our customers’ interests first 100 percent of the time, and we regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” the bank said in its statement.

The Times’ 2013 story, based on court records and interviews with dozens of former and current Wells Fargo employees, reported that workers opened duplicate accounts, ordered credit cards for customers who did not ask for them and even forged customers’ signatures.

In many cases, customers say they’ve had to pay fees related to accounts they never opened.

In a more extreme case, Mexican pop star Ana Bárbara this summer sued Wells Fargo, saying an employee opened up accounts without her knowledge then spent more than $400,000 in her name.

Wells Fargo employees have sued the bank alleging they were forced to work unpaid overtime as they tried to meet goals, while bank customers have sued alleging that fake accounts were opened in their names.

But the customers have so far been unsuccessful in their lawsuits. At Wells Fargo, as at many other banks, when customers sign up for accounts, they agree that any dispute with the bank will be handled in private arbitration rather than in court.

Judges have ruled that those arbitration agreements hold up even in cases in which customers are suing over accounts they never authorized.

Along with reimbursing customers and paying $25 million to the city of Los Angeles and another $25 million to the county, the bank will send notices to customers asking them to stop by a branch so that employees can “help you close any accounts or discontinue services you do not recognize or want,” according to the settlement agreement with Feuer’s office.

Already, Wells Fargo officials said the bank has hired an outside firm that has reviewed customer accounts looking for bogus accounts. The bank said the outside review was finalized before the settlements.

The bank said it has also disciplined and fired managers and employees who “acted counter to our values,” and has worked to improve training and monitoring programs.

Regulators said Thursday that their actions against Wells Fargo should send a message that banks must ensure their sales tactics do not lead to consumer harm.

The CFPB’s Cordray said banks can have sales goals and financial incentives for employees to open accounts for customers, but those goals and incentives must be carefully structured and monitored.

“What happened here is Wells Fargo built an incentive-compensation program that made it possible for Wells Fargo employees to pursue underhanded sales tactics,” he said. “Companies need to pay very close attention … to ensure that customers are protected.”

[email protected]