Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

The Vatican and Jimmy Carter Team up Against Israel?

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When is enough…enough? How much land does Israel need to give up before the Palestinians are satisfied? The answer? ALL OF IT. If Israel was to vacate all of Israel and land on Mars, all the anti-Israel factions would still not be happy….why? Countless leaders and organizations was Israelis ….dead.

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Vatican to Recognize Palestinian State in New Treaty

 Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2014 with Presidents Shimon Peres of Israel, left, and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Franco Origlia/Getty Images

ZOA Appalled: Vatican Tours Erase Israel –– Visiting Jerusalem Sites Labeled ‘Palestine’

A Sinister Echo of Replacement Theology

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the Vatican for organizing and promoting tours of Christian sites in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city, as part of tours to ‘Palestine,’ erasing Israel from the picture. The ZOA regards this a sinister reiteration of Catholic replacement theology, whereby Jews and Judaism are theologically dismissed from history. Replacement theology served for centuries as the warrant and inspiration for theologically-inspired hatred, as well as vicious persecution of, and violence against, Jews.

A report from Italian journalist Giulio Meotti, a writer for the Italian daily, Il Foglio, indicates that Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, a Vatican office that organizes pilgrimages to Christian sites around the world, sponsors a trip in “Palestine,” with iconic Christian sites in Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem. This is in addition to the fact that, as Meotti writes, “Catholic tourist maps and pilgrimage brochures omitted the name ‘Israel,’ using instead the sanitized expression ‘Holy Land,’ one of the visible effects of the Catholic ‘replacement theology,’ which adopts a de–Judaizing language. It [is also] no secret that Catholic pilgrims spend virtually all their time visiting holy sites in Palestinian-run territory, staying in Palestinian Arab hotels and listening to Palestinian Arab tour guides. As a result, these pilgrims return filled with hatred towards Israel” (Giulio Meotti, ‘Vatican buses promote trips to Jerusalem, “Palestine,”’ Israel National News, November 23, 2016).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The ZOA is deeply critical of the Vatican’s organizing and promotion of tours to Israel, the biblical, historical and legal homeland of the Jewish people, which erase and thus deny the Jewish identity, indeed the very name, of the country, substituting ‘Palestine.’

“‘Palestine’ was never and is not now a sovereign state, much less one with legal responsibility or effective control of many of the sites being visited on these tours. Palestine is not even an Arab name but named by the Romans.

“With its Nostra Aetate declaration in 1965, the Catholic Church repudiated its historical position holding the Jewish people responsible for the death of Jesus, renounced its traditional claim that Jews had been rejected by God, condemned anti-Semitism, and called for ‘mutual understanding and respect’ between Catholics and Jews. It is difficult to see how this epoch-making new affirmation and policy is being in any way honored by the Vatican with respect to the tours to Israel that it organizes and promotes.

“When Pope John Paul II visited the Rome Synagogue in 1986 –– the first pontiff to visit a synagogue –– he embraced Rabbi Elio Toaff and declared Jews the ‘elder brothers’ of Christians. One does not treat an elder brother as non-existent and revise one’s language to avoid referring to him, while exclusively seeking the company of his hostile neighbors.

“We urge the Vatican to cease organizing and promoting tours to Israel that do not name the country, do not refer to its Jewish history and which shun contacts with the country of its ‘elder brothers.’”

**** On to Jimmy Carter:

Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama: Recognize the State of Palestine

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter delivers a lecture on the eradication of the Guinea worm, at the House of Lords, February 3, London. Carter has called for Barack Obama to recognize the State of Palestine. Eddie Mullholland-WPA Pool/Getty

Newsweek: Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who brokered peace between Egypt and Israel at Camp David, has called on Barack Obama to recognize the State of Palestine (as the United Nations refers to the non-member observer state) before he leaves office in January.

Of the U.N.’s 193 members, 136—more than 70 percent—recognize the State of Palestine and the Palestinian push for an independent state. But the U.S., Israel and dozens of other nations do not, with many arguing that the recognition of a Palestinian entity can only come about through direct talks and agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The current U.S. government supports a two-state solution but Israeli ministers have suggested that the election of Donald Trump as the next president has dealt a huge blow to hopes of a Palestinian state. On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and called for continued Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Carter has now stepped into the debate with an op-ed for the New York Times on Monday.

“It has been President Obama’s aim to support a negotiated end to the conflict based on two states, living side by side in peace. That prospect is now in grave doubt,” he wrote. “I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short.

“The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.”

Carter added that U.S. recognition of Palestinian hopes for a sovereign state, combined with a U.N. Security Council resolution “grounded in international law,” and U.N. membership for the Palestinians would assist future diplomatic efforts to seal a lasting peace agreement.

The former president, who published a book on the conflict entitled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid in 2006, warned that the prospect of peace is slowly slipping away from the Israelis and the Palestinians.

He said that Israeli moves in the West Bank, past the armistice lines marked before its capture of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, are bringing both sides ever closer to a “one-state reality” where Israel would preside over more than four million Palestinians living in the two territories, as well as the Gaza Strip.

“Israel is building more and more settlements, displacing Palestinians and entrenching its occupation of Palestinian lands,” Carter writes in the New York Times. “Over 4.5 million Palestinians live in these occupied territories, but are not citizens of Israel. Most live largely under Israeli military rule, and do not vote in Israel’s national elections.”

He continued: “Meanwhile, about 600,000 Israeli settlers in Palestine enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship and laws. This process is hastening a one-state reality that could destroy Israeli democracy and will result in intensifying international condemnation of Israel.”

The last U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed in April 2014 and Israel has rejected international initiatives proposed since, the most recent being the French plan to host an international peace conference in Paris. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he is open to talking with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas but only bilaterally and without pre-conditions, such as the removal of settlers from the West Bank or the end of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank.

Rehab Program with Fun Activities in Saudi is Fake

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Europe is trying to install and measure effectiveness of rehab programs for convicted and known terrorists. Such is the case in the United States with the DHS/WH program on Countering Violent Extremism, a euphemism to terrorist and such is the case for the failed programs in Europe. So, have these tests been modeled after those of Saudi Arabia? Let’s find out from a terrorist himself. Not sure, but memory tells us that the Guantanamo detainees actually did all of these activities during detention including having a soccer field.

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Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

NYPost: Counterterrorism experts have long suspected Saudi Arabia’s “rehabilitation” center for terrorists does a poor job of de-radicalizing jihadists. But a Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay now reveals it’s actually a recruiting and training factory for jihad.

According to recently declassified documents, senior al Qaeda operative Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi told a Gitmo parole board that the Saudi government has been encouraging previously released prisoners to rejoin the jihad at its terrorist reform school, officially known as the Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Care Center.

The Obama administration has praised the effectiveness of the Saudi rehab program — which uses “art therapy,” swimming, ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer to de-radicalize terrorists — and conditioned the release of dozens of Gitmo prisoners, including former Osama bin Laden bodyguards, on their enrollment in the controversial program.

To date, 134 Saudi detainees have been transferred to the Saudi reform camps in Riyadh and Jeddah. Last year, nine Yemeni detainees were sent there, as well, and more are expected to follow over the next two months, as President Obama strives to meet his campaign goal of closing Gitmo.

Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

Al-Sharbi dropped a bombshell on the Gitmo parole board at his hearing earlier this year when he informed members that the Saudi kingdom was playing them for suckers. “You guys want to send me back to Saudi Arabia because you believe there is a de-radicalization program on the surface.

“True. You are 100 percent right, there is a strong — externally, a strong — de-radicalization program. But make no mistake, underneath there is a hidden radicalization program,” al-Sharbi added. “There is a very hidden strong — way stronger in magnitude — broader in financing, in all that.”

Al-Sharbi is one of the longest-serving, and most unrepentant, prisoners at Gitmo. A Saudi national with an electrical engineering degree from King Fahd University, he attended a US flight school associated with two of the 9/11 hijackers. He traveled to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 and trained at an al Qaeda camp, building IEDs to use against allied forces.

Al-Sharbi was captured March 28, 2002, at an al Qaeda safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan, with senior al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. According to his US intel dossier, he told interrogators that “the US got what it deserved from the terrorist attacks on 9/11.”

Given a chance at parole after 14 years, however, al-Sharbi was surprisingly frank with the board.

He explained that Riyadh is actively recruiting and training fighters to battle Iranian elements in neighboring Yemen and Syria. Saudi views Shiite-controlled Iran as a regional threat to its security.

“They’re launching more wars and the [United] States is backing off from the region,” he said. “They’re poking their nose here and here and there and they’re recruiting more jihadists, and they’ll tell you, ‘Okay, go fight in Yemen. Go fight in Syria.’ ”

Al-Sharbi said the Saudis also are “encouraging” former detainees “to fight their jihad in the States.”

Photo: Getty Images

“It’s not like a past history,” he said. “It’s increasing.”

A growing body of evidence backs up his claims. Last month, for example, a WikiLeaked email from Hillary Clinton revealed, citing US intelligence sources, that Saudi Arabia has provided “clandestine financial and logistic support to” ISIS and other Sunni terrorist groups in the region.

Al-Sharbi said the kingdom is playing a double game.

“They will proudly tell you they will fight terrorism,” he said. “That means they will support it.”

Al-Sharbi told the Gitmo board he doesn’t want to enroll in the Saudi rehab program, because he would be used to “fight under the Saudi royal cloak.”

“This is in the cause of a king. This is not a true jihad,” he said. “And I’m not going to Saudi unless I am sure they’re not gonna be using me.”

The Saudi rehab ruse has carried a lot of weight with the Gitmo parole board. Earlier this year, it released “Saudi al Qaeda recruiter and fighter” Muhammed Al Shumrani after his lawyers insisted that repatriating him to Saudi Arabia and enrolling him in its “well-established reintegration program” would cure his admittedly “problematic behavior.”

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Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

Last year, the defense team of longtime bin Laden bodyguard Abdul Rahman Shalabi insisted that the same Saudi rehab program would make sure he’s reformed. In approving his release, the board said that it was “confident about the efficacy of the Saudi program.”

In both cases, US intelligence warned the board that the hardened terrorists would more than likely “re-engage in terrorist activity.”

By Riyadh’s own numbers, some 20 percent of the terrorist enrollees at its rehab club — which features golf carts, palm trees and an Olympic-size pool — go back to the jihad, returning to the ranks of the Taliban or al Qaeda. US officials believe the recidivism rate is much higher, but Saudi Arabia does not disclose criteria for evaluation.

One high-profile failure was Said Ali al-Shihri. After his graduation from the Saudi program, he returned to Yemen, where he ran an al Qaeda branch and helped plan the deadly bombing of the US Embassy and mastermind the failed plot to blow up a 2009 Christmas flight over Detroit, before a drone-fired missile finally caught up to him.

The Saudi center is more holiday resort than halfway house for paroled inmates. Jihadists are rewarded with gourmet meals, video games, ping-pong, jacuzzis and newly furnished private apartments reserved for conjugal visits. They also are allowed unescorted visits to family members. In September, the center granted “beneficiaries” Eid al-Adha holiday vacation for 12 days.

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Photo: Getty Images

Graduates are further rewarded with young brides and new cars.

Lending credence to al-Sharbi’s charges, the three-month program includes a few hours a day of lessons in Islam from Saudi clerics and “Shariah specialists.”

“Beneficiaries spend 15 hours a week in the Shariah program,” according to a local Jeddah press report, which is triple the amount of time devoted to psychological counseling.

Al-Sharbi’s parole was declined; he is still in Gitmo, along with 60 detainees — down from the 241 who were there when Obama started his term.

But with the administration rushing to reduce that number even further before the end of Obama’s term, how many more jihadists will be released into this highly suspect program?

Congress has an obligation to ask hard questions: Is this a pre-emptive campaign to prevent terror attacks or more likely an incubator for facilitating more attacks?

A Trifecta of Early Trump Admin Attacks Brewing?

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letter-to-chaffetz-re-trump-conflict-of-interests

Read the full letter in the link above. It has 17 signatures noted on the last page. It is obvious there is an operation underway to interfere in the Trump administration from the outset and to continue to political division within Congress.

It should also be mentioned that Politico posted an item regarding Hillary political operative David Brock that is working to destroy Trump. With Jill Stein challenging the voting results in a few states, something else is afoot here. Could the money raised so far which is estimated above $6 million be the launch of early petty cash to recruit, cultivate and mentor a new bench of democrat political hit personnel?

Brock: The Nation has described Brock as a “conservative journalistic assassin turned progressive empire-builder”; National Review has called him a “right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin” and Politico has profiled him as a “former right-wing journalist-turned-pro-Clinton crusader.”      (Wikipedia)

David Brock gathering donors to ‘kick Donald Trump’s ass’

The Clinton enforcer is launching Koch brothers-like donor network to rebuild liberal power.

Hillary Clinton’s attack dog David Brock is launching his own Koch-brothers-like donor network to finance attacks on President-elect Donald Trump and to rebuild the political left after Trump’s stunning victory over Clinton last week.

Brock on Thursday night emailed more than 200 of the biggest donors on the left — including finance titans George Soros, Tom Steyer and Donald Sussman — inviting them to a retreat in Palm Beach over inauguration weekend to assess what Democrats did wrong in 2016, figure out how to correct it and raise cash for those initiatives.

“This will be THE gathering for Democratic donors from across the country to hear from a broad and diverse group of leaders about the next steps for progressives under a Trump Administration,” Brock wrote to the donors in an email obtained by POLITICO.

The retreat, planned as the first in a series of regular gatherings, will feature appearances by an array of Democratic elected officials, operatives and liberal thinkers and group officials, Brock explained in an interview.

Though he said he had yet to extend invitations beyond those sent to donors Thursday night, he predicted there would be significant interest, noting that the keynote address at his last major donor conference, back in 2013, was delivered by former President Bill Clinton.

“What better way to spend inaugural weekend than talking about how to kick Donald Trump’s ass?” Brock said.

Brock — a self-described right-wing hitman-turned-Clinton enforcer — has used his relationships with some of the left’s deepest pockets to build an armada of aggressive political outfits that have become pillars of the institutional left and that raised a combined $65 million during the 2016 cycle.

Brock’s groups include the conservative media monitoring nonprofit Media Matters, the opposition research super PAC American Bridge and the legal watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Other groups in his network include the liberal media-funding vehicle American Independent Institute, the media-training nonprofit Franklin Forum and the for-profit social media operation ShareBlue, which The New York Times described as “Hillary Clinton’s Outrage Machine.”

A seventh group, a super PAC called Correct the Record that was created to coordinate directly with Clinton’s campaign, is winding down, though Brock said that a number of its functions and personnel likely will be absorbed by his other groups.

While the entire political left is grappling with how to move on after Clinton’s devastating loss, it could be a particular challenge for Brock and his groups, since he was so closely associated with Clinton.

Brock acknowledged in the interview: “There is no question that we poured our heart and soul into this election for Hillary, but these institutions were built before her campaign and were intended to outlast it.”

And in his email to donors, he pointed out that he created Media Matters more than a decade ago to help the left push back during George W. Bush’s presidency.

“In 2005, we were part of a successful progressive effort to regroup, retool and recover,” he wrote. “While today’s situation is more dire, media matters more than ever.”

One of the areas where the left has been at a disadvantage is using the legal and regulatory system to call out Republican politicians and groups, Brock said. He cited the success of the conservative group Judicial Watch in using the Freedom of Information Act and legal system to pry free emails from Clinton’s State Department.

“Judicial Watch has a $30 million budget, and they had a significant impact on the election,” he said, comparing it to CREW’s $2-million budget. “And if we’re heading into an administration that looks like it could well be as corrupt as the gilded age, we need to significantly reinforce the capacities for an aggressive ethics watchdog.”

The Palm Beach retreat in some ways seems to be a challenge to the 12-year-old Democracy Alliance, a club of liberal financiers that was started by Soros and a handful of other major donors to fund the institutional left.

In fact, the club, which held its annual winter meeting this week in Washington, helped launch Media Matters, and many of Brock’s donors are included among its ranks.

Brock said he’s inviting the president of the DA, as the club is known, to his Palm Beach retreat.

But, while the Democracy Alliance at its winter meeting discussed ways to push back on the Trump administration, many of the group’s members have tried to train its focus on pressuring Democrats from the left on issues like fighting climate change, money in politics and drug laws.

Brock’s network, on the other hand, is more overtly and aggressively political, and has been largely agnostic on the philosophical divisions with which Democrats are grappling.

“We don’t think of this as representing a faction of the Democratic Party, but a cross-section of it, so we’re not going to precook things ideologically,” he said. “It is very politically minded, and there is an urgency to it.”

Govt Wastebook Report, Repeat, Year After Year

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Snuggies, Shakespeare top annual government wasteful-spending list

WashingtonTimes: If Shakespeare is performed without the bard’s immortal words, is it really Shakespeare?

The National Education Association has committed $10,000 of taxpayers’ money to test that question — one of dozens of projects to make the wasteful spending list of Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican who’s continuing the tradition of former Sen. Tom Coburn’s annual Wastebook.

The National Science Foundation again comes in for an outsized share of criticism for its research spending, including a $1.8 million grant to a university that spent some of the money on embroidered Snuggies, the robe-style blankets that are a staple of As-Seen-On-TV trinket advertising.

NSF officials also paid $315,000 to study whether Americans see the court system as fair, Mr. Lankford said in his second annual “Federal Fumbles” report.

“Our current spending habits are unsustainable and irresponsible,” Mr. Lankford said in releasing the report, which documented more than 100 areas where he said the federal government botched its spending decisions.

The silent Shakespeare grant Mr. Lankford highlighted is actually a repeat-performance. The senator’s first report in 2015 also cited the NEA for funding the Synetic Theater’s attempt to convert verbal witticisms into expressive gestures. This year’s production was “Twelfth Night.”

Mr. Lankford said the theater company may be doing good work, but it should stand on its own, not with taxpayer money.

He said Congress and the executive branch need to spend more time scouring spending. He said one step toward that would be to enact the Grant Reform and New Transparency (GRANT) Act, which would give the public more information about the grant process, which accounted for some $617 billion in federal spending in 2015.

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Example:

X CONFERENCE: Spending

X TEAM: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

O FUMBLE: $6 million to repair a building that remains unsafe

O HOW TO RECOVER THE BALL: ICE should conduct a cost-benefit analysis and a feasibility

study before renovating an existing building, where the cost could exceed $1 million

Talk about a tale of woe! In San Pedro (essentially Los Angeles, CA), ICE used a former

Service Processing Center to house detainees until it had to close due to safety concerns. Then

ICE decided to move employees back into the building while it processed and held illegal

immigrants temporarily.

X CONFERENCE: Spending

X TEAM: National Institutes of Health

O FUMBLE: $2,658,929 weight-loss program for truck drivers

O RECOVERY: Congress should develop clearer expectations for areas of research for NIH

The American economy is powered in no small part by the thousands of trucks on the road

each day. It is certainly important for individuals behind the wheel of giant 18-wheelers to be healthy. But do taxpayers really need to spend more than $2.6 million on a trucker weight-loss intervention program?

 Heck. read the report here.

Agencies Presenting Midnight Regulations for Obama to Sign

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Agencies have their lists for Obama to approve. What does Trump know and what is he prepared for? The last days of the Obama administration could be the most dangerous of his administration, is anyone paying attention?

 

Obama is set to ram through last-minute ‘midnight’ regulations to secure his legacy and tie President Trump’s hands

  • ‘Midnight regulations’ are a last chance for a president to make his mark
  • As many as 98 final regulations are under review at the White House
  • These include air pollution from the oil industry and measures aiming to help highly skilled immigrant workers obtain green cards

DailyMail: Barack Obama is set to ram through last minute regulations to try and cement his legacy.

‘Midnight regulations’ are those introduced between November’s election and January’s inauguration of a new president.

It is a last chance for an outgoing Commander-in-chief to put his stamp on the presidency and, in the case of Obama, tie the hands of his controversial successor.

Obama can pass the rules because of a loophole in US law allowing him to put last-minute regulations into the Code of Federal Regulations (rules that have the same force as law).

As many as 98 final regulations are under review at the White House and could be implemented before the brash billionaire takes office.

Seventeen of those are considered ‘economically significant’, with an estimated economic impact of at least $100m a year, Politico reported.

Obama is trying to push through regulations on issues close to him such as air pollution from the oil industry and measures aiming to help highly skilled immigrant workers obtain green cards.

He is also pressing ahead with negotiations on an investment treaty with China and decisions by the Education Department on whether to offer debt relief to students at defunct-for-profit colleges.

By contrast, Trump has shown a disdain for climate change and campaigned on an anti-immigration rhetoric, describing Mexicans as ‘rapists’ and pledging to build a wall on the US border with Mexico.

The Republican has also criticized China’s trade and currency practices and threatened to impose tariffs up to 45 per cent on Chinese imports.

Gina McCarthy, US Environment Protection Agency Administrator, said: ‘We’re running – not walking – through the finish line of President Obama’s presidency.’

Obama has gone ahead with the ‘midnight regulations’ despite House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy warning him against doing so.

In a letter on November 15, he said: ‘Should you ignore this counsel, please be aware that we will work with our colleagues to ensure that Congress scrutinizes your actions – and, if appropriate, overturns them’.

Trump has also vowed to cancel ‘every wasteful and unnecessary regulation which kills jobs and bloats government.’

The so-called ‘midnight regulations’ can be reversed by the same executive agencies, but that requires a considerable rule-making process.

Congress could also effectively overturn them by passing more explicit statutory mandates – but risk turning an unwanted regulation into law.

A final powerful weapon at their disposal is the Congressional Review Act – however it has only ever been used once. This gives Congress 60 legislative days to review and overturn major regulations enacted by federal agencies.