Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

The Buzzwords are Refugee and Asylum

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UN pushes for migrants to be called refugees

In part: SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — United Nations officials are pushing for many of the Central Americans fleeing to the U.S. to be treated as refugees displaced by armed conflict, a designation meant to increase pressure on the United States and Mexico to accept tens of thousands of people currently ineligible for asylum.

Officials with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees say they hope to see movement toward a regional agreement on that status Thursday when migration and interior department representatives from the U.S., Mexico, and Central America meet in Nicaragua. The group will discuss updating a 30-year-old declaration regarding the obligations that nations have to aid refugees.

Sure there are thousands and in some cases millions that have fled their home country over brutal regimes, civil wars, disease, lack of economic opportunity and to perhaps incite attacks and terrorism in other countries.

U.N. Calls on Western Nations to Shelter Syrian Refugees

With Syria’s neighbors increasingly shutting their borders to refugees and thousands trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety, the war in Syria is creating the worst global refugee crisis in decades, putting new pressure on the United States and other Western countries to open their doors — and in turn, prompting domestic political backlash.

Not since the wave of people who fled Southeast Asia after the war in Vietnam have the world’s industrialized countries been under such intense pressure to share the burden of taking in refugees, experts say. Nor has the task of offering sanctuary been so politically fraught.

The United States is scheduled to take in its largest group of Syrian refugees to date — up to 2,000 by the fall of this year, compared with a total of about 700 since the civil war in Syria began four years ago, according to the State Department.

Here is a disturbing fact, the work that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees division does for refugees and asylees does NOT collaborate with U.S. agencies as they claim, unless it is on an exceptional basis. They maintain a database of applications and fingerprints that is not integrated or actually shared for background checks.

UNHCR seeks to contribute to informed decision-making and public debate by providing accurate, relevant and up-to-date statistics. As such, the Statistical Online Population Database provides data and trends on the “Population of concern to UNHCR”: refugees, asylum-seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) protected/assisted by UNHCR, returned IDPs, stateless persons, and others of concern to UNHCR, in more than 180 countries.

In a single electronic platform, UNHCR’s Statistical Online Population Database is bringing together for analysis and comparison standardized data on UNHCR’s population of concern at country, regional, and global levels.

The database is work-in-progress and will be updated on an ongoing basis. Currently, data up to 31 December 2012 can be downloaded from the Statistical Online Population Database. Some of the statistics contained in the Statistical Online Population Database, in particular the ones for 2012 should be considered provisional and subject to change. Some data in the database may differ from statistics published previously due to retroactive changes or the inclusion of previously unavailable data.

 

‘All data refer to the number of individuals with the exception of asylum-seekers in the United States of America, where figures are available only for the number of cases (which may include several individuals) submitted to the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). However, applications submitted to the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) of the United States department of Justice are recorded as individuals.’

‘A combination of armed conflict, deterioration of security or humanitarian situation and human rights concerns in a number of countries – notably the Syrian Arab Republic – have been among the main reasons for the sharp increase in the number of asylum-seekers registered among the main reasons for the sharp increase in the number of asylum-seekers registered among industrialized countries during 2014.’  Full document here. (It is a must read).

Sample application for asylum:

Note the cost of security weakness and lack of full collaboration:

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. There were significant security weaknesses in the Saudi government’s issuance of Saudi passports in the period when the visas to the hijackers were issued. Two of the Saudi 9/11 hijackers may have obtained their passports legitimately or illegitimately with the help of a family member who worked in the passport office.

 

 

 

$6Billion in Fines for Rigging Currency

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Just pay the fine and no one goes to jail. Those that pay the billions in fines are the stockholders, there is never a personal or individual consequence. Jamie Dimon should have been in prison years ago, next to Bernie Madoff. Even more troubling is Jon Corzine with his criminal activity.

Attorney General, Loretta Lynch knows the depths of the fraudulent activity and seems to be complicit in giving individuals a blind-eye.

Big banks to pay $6B for market manipulation

Six of the biggest names in finance have agreed to pay nearly $6 billion dollars in penalties, with five pleading guilty to criminal charges over long-running manipulation of key financial markets.

The Justice Department announced the massive settlement Wednesday, its latest in a series of deals to bring to a close probes of financial manipulation of everything from benchmark interest rates to top currency exchanges.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the latest settlement brings to an end a manipulation scheme of “breathtaking flagrancy,” in which traders conspired to artificially alter currency exchange markets to obtain illicit profits.

U.S. authorities said that traders from competing banks frequently used chat rooms to conspire with each other to maximize profits for their institutions by manipulating currency trades, forming a group they dubbed “the cartel.” Dating back to 2007, Lynch said traders “acted as partners rather than competitors” in a “brazen display of collusion.”

The banks will pay the Justice Department and the Federal Reserve a total of $5.7 billion in criminal penalties, with most of the institutions also agreeing to plead guilty to some criminal charges.

Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan and the Royal Bank of Scotland all agreed to plead guilty to charges of conspiring to fix prices. UBS agreed to plead guilty to charges stemming from a previous investigation after the bank’s role in this new probe led the Justice Department to toss out a prior agreement not to seek criminal charges. Bank of America agreed to pay a fine as well.

The announcement is just the most recent in a string of settlements the government has struck with huge banks over industrywide bad behavior.

In April, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a record $2.5 billion in fines, and fire several employees, for its role in rate-rigging. And in November, five large banks agreed to pay a combined $4.25 billion in penalties to U.S. and British authorities.

But those eye-popping numbers are unlikely to tamp down complaints from some lawmakers, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and from outside groups that complain the government has failed to bring charges against top executives for illegal activity at their banks. Rather, they contend banks are happy to continue paying large fines as the cost of doing business.

On Tuesday, UBS announced it will pay $545 million to settle claims that it was manipulating the foreign exchange market. The bank also noted that the Justice Department terminated a 2012 non-prosecution agreement it struck with the bank, which was part of a previous settlement over interest-rate-rigging where the bank paid $1.5 billion.

But the government argued that the new charges violated the terms of that deal.

While the bank faces no criminal charges from the recent currency probe, the bank agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud stemming from the previous rate-rigging investigation, and attributed the misbehavior to “a small number of employees.”

Bank CEOs Blame Currency Rigging on the Work of a Few Bad Apples

Wall Street’s biggest banks admitted Wednesday to rigging currency markets around the world. Within minutes of the Justice Department’s announcement, they were blaming it on a few rotten apples.

“I share the frustration of shareholders and colleagues that some individuals have once more brought our company and industry into disrepute,” Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer Antony Jenkins said in a statement announcing his bank’s guilty plea.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon also pointed a finger at a few currency traders.

“The lesson here is that the conduct of a small group of employees, or of even a single employee, can reflect badly on all of us,” Dimon said in a statement.

Dimon ran his bank during the length of the currency conspiracy, which the Justice Department said lasted from 2007 through 2013. Jenkins has been CEO of Barclays since 2012.

Barclays and JPMorgan were among banks that didn’t detect and address traders’ illegal cooperation to manipulate benchmark currency prices, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. Among the clues they missed: an instant-message group called “The Cartel,” where dealers exchanged information on client orders and decided how to trade.

Under a $5.8 billion settlement, JPMorgan, Barclays and units of Citigroup Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros.

‘Ethical Behavior’

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a news conference in Washington that the investigation is continuing. The Justice Department may bring charges against individuals, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Fostering a culture of ethical behavior has been, and continues to be, a top priority” for Citigroup, CEO Michael Corbat said in a statement. He added that the bank’s “internal investigation has so far resulted in nine terminations and additional disciplinary actions.”

RBS pinned the blame for violating U.S. antitrust law on one currency trader. Still, Chairman Philip Hampton said that more people may have been involved.

“We have dismissed three people and suspended two more pending further investigation,” Hampton said in a statement.

bin Ladin Wrote a Letter to America

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Guest house at the bin Ladin compound.

If you wanted to be an al Qaeda fighter, you had to fill out an application, found here.

The entire file of released documents are found here.  You will likely never see all the documents and that should be accepted as it would reveal the sources and methods on the actions today by intelligence and the rules of engagement against global enemies but al Qaeda was never on the run.

Curious timing of the declassification on the documents seized from the Usama bin Ladin compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, altering the focus from the failed campaign against ISIS in Ramadi to released bin Ladin documents by DNI.

George Bush was right, this was going to be a long slog of a war. Once control was gained in Afghanistan and Iraq, but since 2011, the wider slog of war continues without any campaign definition from the White House that provided a comprehensive foundation of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) delivered from Obama to Congress.

The Usama bin Ladin bookshelf is found here.

Here’s Osama Bin Laden’s Letter to the American People

Usama bin Laden wanted to speak directly to the American people.

An undated letter promising endless war is one of hundreds of documents collected in the May 2, 2011 raid on his compound in Pakistan that was released Wednesday. The full text is below.

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

From Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin to the American people,

I speak to you about the subject of the ongoing war between you
and us. Even though the consensus of your wise thinkers and
others is that your time (TN: of defeat) will come, compassion
for the women and children who are being unjustly killed,
wounded, and displaced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
motivates me to speak to you.

First of all, I would like to say that your war with us is the
longest war in your history and the most expensive for you
financially. As for us, we see it as being only halfway
finished. If you were to ask your wise thinkers, they would tell
you that there is no way to win it because the indications are
against it. How will you win a war whose leaders are pessimistic
and whose soldiers are committing suicide? If fear enters the
hearts of men, winning the war becomes impossible. How will you
win a war whose cost is like a hurricane blowing violently at
your economy and weakening your dollar?

The Bush administration got you into these wars on the premise
that they were vital to your security. He promised that it would
be a quick war, won within six days or six weeks; however, six
years have passed, and they are still promising you victory and
not achieving it. Then Obama came and delayed the withdrawal
that he had promised you by 16 more months. He promised you
victory in Afghanistan and set a date for withdrawal from there.
Six months later, Petraeus came to you once again with the
number six, requesting that the withdrawal be delayed six months
beyond the date that had been set. All the while you continue to
bleed in Iraq and Afghanistan. You are wading into a war with no
end in sight on the horizon and which has no connection to your
security, which was confirmed by the operation of ‘Umar al-Faruq
(Var.: Umar Farouk), which was not launched from the battlefield
and could have been launched from any place in the world.

As for us, jihad against the tyrants and the aggressors is a
form of great worship in our religion. It is more precious to us
than our fathers and sons. Thus, our jihad against you is
worship, and your killing us is a testimony. Thanks to God, Almighty, we
have been waging jihad for 30 years, against the Russians and
then against you. Not a single one of our men has committed
suicide, whereas every 30 days 30 of your men commit suicide.
Continue the war if you will.

(TN: Two lines of poetry that say the Mujahidin will not stop
fighting until the United States leaves their land.)

Peace be upon those who follow right guidance.

We are defending our right. Jihad against the aggressors is a
form of great worship in our religion, and killing us means a
high status with our Lord. Thanks to God, we have been waging
jihad for 30 years, against the Russians and then against you.
Not a single one of our men has committed suicide, whereas every
30 days 30 of your men commit suicide. Continue the war if you
will. Justice is the strongest army, and security is the best
way of life, but it slipped out of your grasp the day you made
the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our
brothers in Palestine. The path to security is for you to lift
your oppression from us.

ISIS Strategy, No Counterpunch, No Win

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Even from a liberal Democrat:

A senior congressional Democrat said Tuesday that he’s concerned the Obama administration’s strategy for defeating ISIS is heading in the wrong direction. To the extent that the administration has been measuring success against the Islamist group by ticking off the number of airstrikes against ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria, as a White House spokesman did Monday, “alarm bells should be going off,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told reporters during a question and answer session in Washington. Schiff, the most senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called ISIS’s capture of Ramadi, Iraq, “a very serious and significant setback” in U.S.-led efforts to defeat the extremist group.

Another battle and another chaotic retreat by Iraqi government forces, who abandoned their positions in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province, despite U.S. air support and a last-minute appeal by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who called on his soldiers to “hold their positions.”
Only hours before the fall, the Baghdad government sent in reinforcements to try to contain what was a counterpunch mounted by the militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, to their defeat in Tikrit just weeks ago. Tikrit, in neighboring Salahaddin province, was the first substantial city lost by ISIS and it was hailed by U.S., and Iraqi leaders, as the start in earnest of the rollback of the militants.
U.S. officials are couching the loss of Ramadi as a setback rather than a blow, arguing they had always expected ups and downs and reversals mixed in with steady progress in the fight against the Islamic extremists and their Sunni allies in Iraq. Only on Friday, Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, was describing to reporters how ISIS is “on the defensive throughout Iraq and Syria,” although he cautioned the terror army will still have “episodic successes” but they won’t “materialize into long-term gains.”

Then when the White House sends over to Congress an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and Congress cannot provide approval it speaks to a wide known fact that there is no strategy with defeating global enemies most of which is ISIS. John Boehner, Speaker of the House has called for a strategy and a new AUMF request.

Boehner Demands an Obama Do-Over on AUMF

John A. Boehner said Tuesday that President Obama should withdraw his current war request from Congress and “start over,” coming up with an entirely new strategy to fight the Islamic State after this weekend’s setback in Iraq.

“We don’t have a strategy,” Mr. Boehner said in calling for the do-over.

The Ohio Republican had spent much of last year demanding Mr. Obama send up a request for Congress to authorize the use of military force, known in Capitol-speak as an AUMF. But when Mr. Obama finally did send one up, it left Congress paralyzed, and no major legislative action has occurred in the three months since.

Facing stiff criticism from those who say Congress is shirking its duties, Mr. Boehner said it was Mr. Obama who was failing by sending up a bad request.

He said Mr. Obama asked for less power to fight the Islamic State than he currently has under the 2001 legislation that authorized war against al Qaeda and the Taliban — the powers the president has already been relying on to fight the Islamic State for a year.

“The president’s request for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force calls for less authority than he has today,” Mr. Boehner said.

The demand comes just days after Iraqi troops retreated and Islamic State fighters took control of Ramadi, a city 70 miles from Baghdad. But it also comes after a U.S. special forces raid in Syria on Friday killed about a dozen Islamic State terrorists.

The contrast left some military analysts insisting it was evidence that U.S. troops will be needed to win the fight against the Islamic State.

 

WH Task Force-Retooling Nations Law Enforcement

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Enter the new protected class as mandated by the White House Task Force, titled 21st Century Policing.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 13684 signed by Barack Obama is de-facto altering law enforcement across America. A sample action item includes:

Decouple federal immi-gration enforcement from routine local policing for civil enforcement and nonserious crime.

Another action item:

Law enforcement agencies should adopt and enforce policies prohibiting profiling and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, gender, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability, housing status, occupation, or language fluency.

There are many action items in the White House mandate found here.

 

The need for understanding, tolerance, and sensitivity to African Americans, Latinos, recent immigrants, Muslims, and the LGBTQ community was discussed at length at the listening session, with witnesses giving examples of unacceptable behavior in law enforcement’s dealings with all of these groups. Participants also discussed the need to move towards practices that respect all members of the community equally and away from policing tactics that can unintentionally lead to excessive enforcement against minorities.

Witnesses noted that officers need to develop the skills and knowledge necessary in the fight against terrorism by gaining an understanding of the links between normal criminal activity and terrorism, for example. What is more, this training must be ongoing, as threats and procedures for combatting terrorism evolve.

The Federal Government should support the development of partnerships with training facilities across the country to promote consistent standards for high quality training and establish training innovation hubs.

A starting point for changing the culture of policing is to change the culture of training academies. The designation of certain training academies as federally supported regional “training innovation hubs” could act as leverage points for changing training culture while taking into consideration regional variations. Federal funding would be a powerful incentive to these designated academies to conduct the necessary research to develop and implement the highest quality curricula focused on the needs of 21st century American policing, along with cutting-edge delivery modalities.

Get paid to protest law enforcement…it is lucrative.

Even ABC News found some alarming issues in the White House agenda.

6 Things the Obama Administration Is Doing to Improve Police-Community Relations

Amid continued tension between police and communities of color, President Obama will travel to Camden, New Jersey this afternoon to highlight the city’s efforts improve police-community relations.

In cities like Camden, “for too long, both jobs and hope have been hard to find. That sense of unfairness and powerlessness has helped to fuel the kind of unrest we’ve seen in Ferguson and Baltimore and New York and other cities across our country,” White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett told reporters. “It has many causes, from a basic lack of opportunity to folks feeling unfairly targeted by the police.”

But Camden – recently named a “promise zone” and a My Brother’s Keeper community challenge partner – is making strides, and the Obama administration wants to help other cities follow suit.

Here are six things they’re doing to shore up trust between law enforcement and minority communities:

1. Confidence ‘Blueprint’

After months of study by the president’s task force on 21st century policing, administration today is releasing its final “blueprint” for building trust between officers and the communities they serve.

“I can tell you, there is widespread understanding by the police that police- community relations must be improved, especially in communities of color,” Ron Davis, a former police chief who now heads the Justice Department’s COPS Office told reporters.

“We are without a doubt sitting at a defining moment in American policing,” Davis said. “We have a unique opportunity to redefine policing in our democracy, to ensure that public safety is more than the absence of crime, that it must also include the presence of justice.”

2. Data, Data, Data.

Statisticians, get ready: the White House has also launched a police data initiative designed to increase transparency and identify problematic trends.

According to officials, 21 jurisdictions have committed to release 101 data sets not previously accessible to the public, like reports on use of force, pedestrian and vehicle stops, and officer-involved shootings. (The administration’s “open data playbook” will set out best practices for other jurisdictions that want to post data publicly.)

“It’s equally important that we educate the community so they set the expectation for their agencies to follow those practices and not just leave it up to the police department by itself,” Davis said yesterday.

Internal data will be shared with analysts who can, in the words of Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz, “identify patterns to prevent problems or problematic behaviors before they lead to a crisis situation.”

3. $163 Million

The Justice Department today is announcing $163 million in hiring grants for positions focused on building community trust.

4. Virtual Body Cam Toolkit

In the wake of the Ferguson protests last year, President Obama pledged $75 million to buy 50,000 body cameras.

Today, the Justice Department is launching a web-based “toolkit” laying out best practices for hardware, software, and data storage, as well as dealing with public information requests, civilian privacy issues, and officers’ rights issues.

5. Bayonets, Be Gone

To curb the “militarization” of local police that upset so many people during the Ferguson protests, President Obama has authorized a series of recommendations to regulate the transfer of equipment from federal agencies to state/local law enforcement.

The plan divides equipment into two main categories: (1) “prohibited” equipment – including bayonets, grenade launchers, weaponized aircraft, tracked armored vehicles and large caliber weapons – that have been deemed inappropriate for local law enforcement and should not be made available local police “under any circumstances,” and (2) “controlled” equipment – including riot gear, explosives, armored vehicles, and specialized firearms – that police departments can acquire only if they comply with certain “vigorous” controls.

“The idea is to make sure that we strike a balance in providing the equipment which is appropriate and useful and important for local law agencies to keep the community safe, while at the same time putting standard in places,” Munoz said.

To obtain controlled equipment under these new recommendations, law enforcement agencies have to gain the consent of a local civilian governing body such as a mayor or city council and provide a “clear and persuasive explanation” for why the department needs the equipment. They’ll also be required to complete additional training in community and constitutional policing and collect data on how the equipment is used – particularly if it is involved in a “significant incident.”

6. National Community Policing Tour

Newly confirmed Attorney General Loretta Lynch is slated to travel to Cincinnati as part of a “national community policing tour.”

Lynch’s aides have indicated that one of her first priorities will be improving police morale and finding common ground between officers and minority communities.