Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Qaddafi did NOT have to Go, But….

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He did and there was a larger agenda underway between the UK and the USA. He was behaving, he was trying to keep al Qaida out and what is more he was fighting hard against the Muslim Brotherhood knowing it was festering and growing in power to over-take his own rule.

But but but…..Obama and Hillary are loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood. Well yes they are and Tony Blair was too until late last year and he finally got the memo and then issued a report on the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile several countries in the Middle East have formally declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terror organization, when during the early 2000’s in the United States with the Holyland Foundation trial, the Muslim Brotherhood was proven to be a terror organization.

Meanwhile, Qaddafi was aiding the U.S. intelligence community and was indeed behaving. Obama, Hillary and Blair all had different missions for Libya post Qaddafi. That did not work out well, and all the predictions of Qaddafi have in fact come to pass.

Fail….

Gaddafi warned Blair his ousting would ‘open door’ to jihadis

Transcripts of 2011 calls reveal Libyan dictator predicted extremists would use his departure to start war in Mediterranean

Guardian: Muammar Gaddafi warned Tony Blair in two fraught phone conversations in 2011 that his removal from the Libyan leadership would open a space for al-Qaida to seize control of the country and even launch an invasion of Europe.

The transcripts of the conversations have been published with Blair’s agreement by the UK foreign affairs select committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the western air campaign that led to the ousting and killing of Gaddafi in October 2011.

In the two calls the former British prime minister pleaded with Gaddafi to stand aside or end the violence. The transcripts reveal the gulf in understanding between Gaddafi and the west over what was occurring in his country and the nature of the threat he was facing.

In the first call, at 11.15am on 25 February 2011, Gaddafi gave a warning in part borne out by future events: “They [jihadis] want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe.”

In the second call, at 3.25pm the same day, the Libyan leader said: “We are not fighting them, they are attacking us. I want to tell you the truth. It is not a difficult situation at all. The story is simply this: an organisation has laid down sleeping cells in north Africa. Called the al-Qaida organisation in north Africa … The sleeping cells in Libya are similar to dormant cells in America before 9/11.”

Gaddafi added: “I will have to arm the people and get ready for a fight. Libyan people will die, damage will be on the Med, Europe and the whole world. These armed groups are using the situation [in Libya] as a justification – and we shall fight them.”

Three weeks after the calls, a Nato-led coalition that included Britain began bombing raids that led to the overthrow of Gaddafi. He was finally deposed in August and murdered by opponents of his regime in October.

At one point in the conversations Gaddafi urged Blair to go to Libya to see the lack of violence in Tripoli, and held the telephone to a TV screen so Blair could hear people voicing their support for Gaddafi in the streets.

Blair said he had decided to act as an intermediary due to the contact he had with Gaddafi when he was prime minister. Both Washington and London knew of his phone calls to Gaddafi, he said.

During the calls Blair suggested he could engineer a peaceful exit for Gaddafi if he agreed to leave. Referring to him as the leader, Blair also insisted there was no attempt to colonise Libya. Gaddafi said he had to defy colonisation, insisting: “There is nothing here. No fight, no bloodshed. Come see yourself.”

Blair urged Gaddafi to give him a phone number so he could contact him urgently, and beseeched him to “do something that allows the process to start, end the bloodshed, start a new constitution”.

He told Gaddafi that if he made the right statements, ended violence, and lowered the political temperature, it might be possible to get the US and the EU to hold back from interfering.

“If you have a safe place to go, you should go there because this will not end peacefully and there has to be a process of change; that process of change can be managed and we have to find a way of managing it,” Blair said. “The US and the EU are in a tough position right now and I need to take something back to them which ensures this ends peacefully. If people saw the leader stand aside people would be content with that. If this goes on for another day or two days, we will go past that point. I am saying this because I believe it deeply. If we cannot find a way out very quickly, we will be past the point of no return. If this does not happen very fast the people of Libya will make this very destructive.”

Blair ended the call by saying: “ I would like to offer a way out that is peaceful … keep the lines open.”

Commenting on the exchanges on Thursday, the foreign select committee chair, Crispin Blunt, said: “The transcripts supplied by Mr Blair provide a new insight into the private views of Colonel Gaddafi as his dictatorship began to crumble around him. The failure to follow Mr Blair’s calls to ‘keep the lines open’ and for these early conversations to initiate any peaceful compromise continue to reverberate.

“The committee will want to consider whether Gaddafi’s prophetic warning of the rise of extremist militant groups following the collapse of the regime was wrongly ignored because of Gaddafi’s otherwise delusional take on international affairs. The evidence that the committee has taken so far in this inquiry suggests that western policymakers were rather less perceptive than Gaddafi about the risks of intervention for both the Libyan people and the western interests.”

In one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of Gaddafi, dozens of people were killed on Thursday in an apparent suicide bombing at a police training centre in the Libyan town of Zliten.

Buckle up the POTUS at SOTU Address and Parolees

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Who does a YouTube commercial about his last year as president?

Politico: President Barack Obama plugs his own State of the Union address in a video trailer the White House is releasing Wednesday afternoon as part of an effort to set expectations for the president’s speech next Tuesday, which unlike previous addresses won’t include a new legislative agenda.

Going into his final year as president, Obama plans to focus more on the big themes that have defined his presidency and eschew a laundry list of policy proposals His explanation: he’s got bigger things in mind than Congress, according to details shared with POLITICO.

“What I want to focus on in this State of the Union,” Obama says in the video the White House will release late Wednesday, is “not just the remarkable progress we’ve made, not just what I want to get done in the year ahead, but what we all need to do together in the years to come: The big things that will guarantee an even stronger, better, more prosperous America for our kids. That’s what’s on my mind.”

Standing in front of his desk in the Oval Office, Obama offers a broad preview of what he’ll say: where things were when he came in, and how much progress he’s led since.

Not mentioned: the Republican majorities in the House and Senate who would have stopped any legislative agenda from moving – especially in an election year- with the possible exceptions of the Trans Pacific Partnership and criminal justice reform.

In an email that will also be distributed on Wednesday, Obama chief-of-staff Denis McDonough echoes Obama’s more-optimistic-than-ever theme and lists some of what’s likely to be on Obama’s brag list: December’s budget agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, increased domestic oil production together with new environmental regulations, a peak in high school graduation rates and health insurance coverage, a drop in unemployment, crime and incarceration rates.

“What we have left to do is bigger than any one policy initiative or new bill in Congress. This is about who we are, where we’re headed, and what kind of country we want to be,” McDonough writes.

McDonough finishes with a plug for his new Twitter account, @Denis44, also inaugurated on Wednesday. His first tweet: “New Year’s Resolution: Join Twitter ✓And just in time for @POTUS’ final State of the Union,” with a link to the Obama video.

Oh, one more thing and it is a big one.

Obama Admin Boosting Staff for Massive Criminal Pardon Effort

Experts: End of presidency bid could free up to 20,000 convicted criminals

FreeBeacon: The Obama administration is seeking to significantly boost the number of staffers in the Department of Justice’s pardon office, leading some to speculate that the president is getting set for an end-of-administration effort to grant clemency to a range of criminals.

The Justice Department recently posted on its website a job listing seeking 16 lawyers for new spots in its Office of the Pardon Attorney, which codifies petitions for clemency and makes recommendations to the attorney general for clemency.

The new lawyers will assist “the President in the exercise of executive clemency,” according to the job description.

The department’s move to beef up staff in the pardon office has prompted speculation that President Obama will pursue a final term effort to grant clemency to a range of criminals, particularly drug offenders.

The Justice Department has been working for more than a year now on a new clemency initiative that outside organizations predict could free up to 20,000 convicted inmates from federal prisons. The effort has been described in news reports as “an unprecedented use of clemency power.”

The department says the new pardon office lawyers will work on this initiative and focus only on non-violent offenders.

“The Justice Department announced a new clemency initiative to encourage appropriate candidates to petition for executive clemency in order to have their sentences commuted by the President,” the job listing states. “The Initiative invites petitions for commutation of sentence from non-violent inmates who are serving a federal sentence, who by operation of law, likely would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of the same offense today.”

Thus far, “thousands of inmates” have filed petitions to have their sentences commuted and “more are likely to do so,” according to the Justice Department. “Evaluating these petitions for recommendations to the President is a high priority for the Justice Department.”

The attorneys will “review and evaluate petitions” submitted by prisoners and confer with Justice Department officials, as well as other administration agencies, to decide who meets the criteria to receive a pardon, according to the job description.

Government oversight organizations and experts are questioning the administration about the possibility that it could release those in the country illegally or those who have committed major drug offenses.

One congressional source familiar with the effort criticized Obama for abusing the presidential right to grant pardons.

“This fits perfectly with the administration’s two-term agenda of eroding the rule of law in America,” the source told the Washington Free Beacon. “While the president certainly has the constitutional power to pardon, I shudder thinking about how he plans to use it, given his determination to release dangerous criminals.”

Judicial Watch, a legal organization that has sought disclosure on the issue, petitioned the Justice Department in July through a Freedom of Information Act request to release all records discussing the clemency project.

Judicial Watch has predicted that the major clemency initiative “would empower President Obama to grant mass clemency to as many as 20,000 convicted felons now serving time for drug-related sentences.”

The clemency program is just one “part of the Obama administration’s effort to end alleged racial discrimination in drug-related sentences,” according to Judicial Watch.

Republican lawmakers also have expressed concern over the initiative.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, accused Obama at the time of “abusing his authority” under the Constitution to pardon prisoners.

“This is an example of the imperial presidency at its worst, and the American people have a right to know who is behind his errant usurpation of power,” Fitton said in a statement at the time.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for more information on the initiative.

 

2 Gitmo Detainees Transferred to Ghana, Why?

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From the Department of Defense:

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Ghana. As directed by the president’s Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of these cases. As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Atef and Al-Dhuby were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force. In accordance with statutory requirements, the secretary of defense informed Congress of the United States’ intent to transfer these individuals and of his determination that these transfers meet the statutory standard. The United States is grateful to the Government of Ghana for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Ghana to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures. Today, 105 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

Hey, well why Ghana? It seems this small country is awash in major corruption and for the most part cannot survive without the financial assistance of USAID? Below, the text is clear as it was published only a day ago. What is worse, this gives us clues that the Obama administration likely pledged to increase financial aid and perhaps even some political payoffs to accept 2 Gitmo detainees. This is not a proven fact however, the questions need to asked.

ModernGhana: Corruption in Ghana is more dangerous and cunning than terrorism, which currently threatens Ghana and has already overwhelmed Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Kenya, Somalia, Tunisia, and Egypt. This is because corruption corrodes society to its core; it erodes trust, honesty, good values, and builds mistrust and suspicion among a country’s population. To quote Dr. Kwesi Aning, corruption and its proceeds “undermine the state, through weakening its institutions, its local communities, and its social fabric”. Because corruption is parasitic in nature, it erodes the ability of the state to develop economically, transform itself socially and culturally, and move forward politically. It seriously undermines a country’s security and hence its ability to protect and defend itself against her enemies.

Corruption undermines a country’s security. It breeds terrorists and terrorism. One of the Ghanaians (Nazir Nortei Alema, the 25-year-old graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), who joined the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2015 cited corruption in Ghana as one of his reasons for joining the group. Corruption allows terrorists, cyber criminals and other enemies of the state to infiltrate key state institutions such as the military, police, immigration, and the customs. Corruption particularly in the military undermines morale and the ability of the armed forces to fight. In Nigeria, Boko Haram continues to dominate North-eastern Nigeria and the threat the group poses to Nigeria and West and Central African regions persists because junior soldiers would not fight them. They would not fight the terrorists because corrupt senior officers pocketed their salaries, and used the military’s budget for personal gain.

Ghana is awash with cocaine, heroin, and guns because the criminals have been able to buy airport, harbour, immigration, police and other officials of the security establishment. There is also rampant armed robbery in the country because of co-operation between the robbers and some agents of the state. This immoral relationship between officials and the actors of the criminal underworld makes it difficult for the state to fight organised crime. It strengthens the hands of criminals against the state and its security establishment. It particularly weakens institutions of the state and makes it easy for terrorists, drug lords, illegal weapons traders, pirates, human traffickers, and armed robbers to operate their parallel economy in the country without fear of reprisals from the state.

Corruption allows enemies of the state to exploit the country and opens the country to all kinds of attacks. Particularly, it allows unfriendly foreign governments, their spy and intelligence agencies to scheme against the state and undermines its interests and its ability to protect and defend herself. For example, hackers, intelligence agencies, corporations and other entities can easily steal state secretes and gain access to sensitive national information by bribing corrupt officials. Corruption creates a broken glass syndrome. It creates the feeling that no one cares about the country, a situation that allows the vultures of impunity to carry out their illegal activities against the state.

 

Cheryl Mills Hired by Hillary for Email Scandal

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People are just damned cold and focused on self in Washington DC. Cheryl Mills is a perfect example where very little emotion is offered when a top State Department official, an ambassador and other contractors die. So, what are your thoughts about this logo, the font and the colors?

Judicial Watch: New State Department Emails Reveal Top Clinton Aide Focused on Her Private Company’s Logo 24 Hours After Deadly Benghazi Attack

 

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released State Department emails, written 24 hours after the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate, in which former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills quickly moved past condolences over the slaying of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens to focus her attention on the design of her private company’s logo by prominent international advertising firm GSD&M.  Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation against the State Department forced Mills and other Clinton aides to turn over emails from non-State.gov accounts on which they conducted government business.

The emails, obtained under a court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, reference the logo design for the “cdmillsGroup,” a private company set up by Mills on January 3, 2013, a month before she left her job at the State Department.  The Mills “cdmillsGroup” logo discussion includes another government employee, Jean-Louis Warnholz, then-State Department senior advisor to Hillary Clinton. (Warnholz would go on to be a business partner with Ms. Mills in another company.)

The Judicial Watch lawsuit was filed on September 4, 2014, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)), seeking:

  • All records related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.

On September 13, 2012, at 4:31 p.m., Judy Trabulsi, a co-founder of the GSD&M advertising firm, sent Mills the following email:

Cheryl — I haven’t stopped watching the news and my heart breaks for Ambassador Stevens’ family, for Hillary (and you) and all those who worked with him. What an amazing life he lived and he had to be among the best Ambassadors in the Foreign Service.

I was going to give you the printouts of the new logos tomorrow (I think they are great) but thought you’d like to look at them over the weekend.

Sending a “heart hug” to you.

Much love – Judy

Trabulsi also attached for Mills another email describing proposed logos:

The first has the cdmillsGroup logo in the sans-serif and the second has it in the serif font. Adjusted the burnt orange color to be more accurate. Both pdfs show the logo, letterhead, business card and envelope.  The tag line is printed like a watermark on the letterhead. In addition, as we discussed, you’ll find the “double-globe endeavor branding element” used on a brochure cover and two powerpoint slides.  Don’t hesitate to email me back with any questions.

Mills responded to Trabulsi on September 13, 2012 at 11:32 p.m.:

Dear Judy

The bough bent and nearly broke this week – Chris was truly one of our best – HRC had picked him especially to go b/c of who he was and what he represented. And Sean was a rising star. Tomorrow we will welcome their remains home wondering how this would be possible. Thank you for your kind words.  And thanks for these – I really like them.

I think my preference is the one that is sans serif font. I will scan some comments on them this weekend – I think it’s exactly what I would want so would have only a few tweaks. Thank you so very much.

xo

cdm

Mills also forwarded the logo discussion to Jean-Louis Warnholz that night without comment.  Warnholz, a senior advisor to Mrs. Clinton at the State Department, responded the next day, September 14, 2012, at 1:06 p.m.:

I really like the cdmillsGroup in sans serif font (first attachment) with the slogan.  It’s clean and compelling.  I still have reservations about the two globes. It just feels a bit too generic to me.

Separate Judicial Watch FOIA litigation uncovered documents that show that Cheryl Mills used the cdmillsGroup to represent Hillary Clinton in communications with the State Department about Mrs. Clinton’s separate email system.

The cdmillsGroup is apparently still in business. The Hillary For America campaign’s September 3 FEC disbursement report lists a $28,500 payment to the “CdmillsGroup LLC.”

Judicial Watch previously released documents revealing that between 2009 and 2011 former President Clinton spoke to more than two dozen leading international investment firms and banking institutions, many of them on more than one occasion.  At least one of the documents shows that Mills used a non-governmental email account for the Clinton ethics reviews. Mills reportedly negotiated the “ethics agreement” on behalf of the Clintons and the Foundation that required the Clintons to submit to rigorous conflict-of-interest checks. Despite this, and in apparent violation of Obama administration ethics rules, the documents reveal that Bill Clinton’s requests for speaking engagement approval were invariably copied to Mills, who was involved in ethics reviews as chief of staff for Mrs. Clinton at the State Department.

The Washington Post reported that Mills was unpaid for her first few months at the State Department, “officially designated as a temporary expert-consultant — a status that allowed her to continue to collect outside income while serving as chief of staff.”  (Judicial Watch recently filed a FOIA lawsuit for the ethics and employment records of Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, another longtime Clinton aide.)

“These new Benghazi emails are almost obscene,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That Hillary Clinton aide and confidante Cheryl Mills was focused on the font for the logo of her new company – as our Benghazi facility was still smoldering – is unconscionable. And it is no coincidence that Mills used her new business to help Hillary Clinton cover up her email scandal.”

Oh, It was the Kuwaiti that Bought THAT House

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Al-Sabahs’ parties are so popular is that they are lavish. The ruling Al-Sabah family is extremely wealthy, thanks to Kuwait’s oil reserves, one of the largest in the world. When I called Buffy Cafritz, a longtime D.C. socialite, she read me a menu she’d saved from a recent luncheon at the embassy. “She served asparagus vichyssoise and sea bass and pureed potatoes and a raspberry sorbet,” Cafritz says, adding, “I remember she had a pretty tablecloth.”

Georgetown doyennes like Sally Quinn have been complaining for years that socializing in Washington has become aggressively partisan. But Al-Sabah invites Democrats and Republicans, no matter which party is in power. During the Bush years, she arranged benefits to raise money for malaria and education of Afghan women, a cause that Laura Bush championed. In 2009, in line with the newly elected Obama administration’s focus on the environment, she hosted a benefit to celebrate Earth Day, where she honored Leonardo DiCaprio and Hillary Clinton. “She is very astute,” McBride told me. “She pays attention to the issues that are important to the White House at the time and really tries to support those issues, so she marries the social and substantive perfectly. People who are engaged in these issues at higher levels of government will be there.”

But the big draw is undoubtedly the guest list. Al-Sabah skillfully brings together heavyweights from all arenas—including A-list actors, corporate tycoons, and people from the nonprofit world—which guests say offers huge appeal compared with the dreary wonky affairs that pass for Washington social life.

There is much more to this family but now you can begin to see how life rolls in Washington DC. Just ask John Kerry’s wife….

Kuwaiti Embassy buys one of the most expensive homes in Washington

Will that be paper or plastic?

WaPo: The house that Giant built will soon be in new hands. Fessenden House, the former home of Giant Food heir Samuel Lehrman, was purchased by the Kuwaiti Embassy in a deal closed last month, according to a deed filed with the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue.

There’s no word on whether the 22,000-square-foot manse will become the new home of Kuwaiti Ambassador Salem Al-Sabah and his wife, Rima, the power couple who have dominated the invitation-you-can’t-refuse dinner party circuit since arriving in 2001.

When we contacted the embassy, a representative said staff had “been instructed not to give out any information” about the sale. Reached via phone, Rima Al-Sabah, who counts Teresa Heinz Kerry as a close personal friend, offered “no comment.” But according to the Washington Business Journal, the home sold for $18 million.

Fessenden (so named because it’s the largest/fanciest property on the Upper Northwest street of the same name) was originally listed for $22 million in March. The $18 million price tag makes Fessenden one of the priciest single-family real estate transactions in the District last year. The former Textile Museum building, which also hit the market at $22 million, sold in May for $19 million.

Just five minutes from the embassy’s new Fessenden property, the Sabahs regularly host Washington’s VIPs at the ambassador’s modern residence on Tilden Street in Forest Hills, a tony neighborhood chockablock with grand embassy homes. Folks with last names such as Kerry, Clinton, Biden, Bush, Powell and Pelosi have been known to rub elbows with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Bolton at the Sabah residence. The parties that the ambassador and his wife throw are noticeably lavish, with Mrs. Sabah overseeing nearly every detail, including devising the perfect mix of A-listers and politicos from either side of the aisle.