Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Veterans Caught in the Middle of DC Politics

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A year after Americans recoiled at new revelations that sick veterans were getting sicker while languishing on waiting lists – and months after the Department of Veterans Affairs instituted major reforms – government data shows that the number of patients facing long waits at VA facilities has not dropped at all.

No one expected that the VA mess could be fixed overnight. But The Associated Press has found that since the summer, the number of medical appointments delayed 30 to 90 days has largely stayed flat. The number of appointments that take longer than 90 days to complete has nearly doubled. *** Last month, Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald on Friday released the names of members serving on a new panel intended to improve VA services and help in long-range reform planning.

The committee members bring together a range of experiences and specialties from the private sector, state government, health care, academia and veterans organizations.

“The collective wisdom of our committee members is invaluable and each of them understands that VA must improve customer service and focus the Department on the needs of our Veterans. They are dedicated to that mission and I am grateful for their principled service to our Veterans,” McDonald said.

*** Simply put, there is no improvement at the VA and to date there are no viable solutions except to throw money at it each year, where discretionary spending appears to go without oversight. That spending is also in the billions. The VA budget in 2014 was $153 billion, in 2015 it is $140 billion and the requested budget for 2016 is $168 billion with $70.2 in discretionary funds. All the while the number of overdue claims still hovers at 600,000. Navigating the Veterans Administration for a veteran is a Herculean task and for the most part impossible.

So, the normal Congressional process is to take political postured footing and then hear Barack Obama put in his ever so common veto threat. Sadly, the veterans are as always caught in the middle. Having a real accounting of spent funds, wasted funds and lost funds is a prudent objective which would be forced with smart budget planning.

House Dems bolster Obama veto threat

Bolstering a White House veto threat, House Democrats on Wednesday began lining up against a Republican bill funding the Veterans Affairs Department next year.

“I won’t support it,” Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said Wednesday, “and I don’t believe our Caucus will support that, either.” Addressing the Democrats at a closed-door caucus meeting in the Capitol Wednesday, VA Secretary Robert McDonald warned the lawmakers that the GOP’s $77 billion bill funding the department and military construction projects in fiscal 2016 falls short of the resources needed to provide health and other services to the nation’s veterans.

Relaying McDonald’s message, Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said the GOP’s bill would scale back health benefits for roughly 70,000 veterans, while also denying funds for medical research, education and veterans’ cemeteries.

“The secretary came and sent a very strong message, something we rarely hear: ‘Please don’t let this funding bill become law, if you care about our veterans. We must do better for them,'” Becerra said.

Passed with bipartisan support by the House Appropriations Committee last week, the bill provides a 5.6 percent increase for the VA over 2015 levels, but falls more than $1 billion shy of the figure President Obama had included in his 2016 budget request.

Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) hailed the measure as “a balanced, thorough bill that will help improve the quality of life … [and] address the current and future needs of our veterans.”

The Democratic leaders see it differently, accusing the Republicans of adhering to spending levels dictated by the “incoherent” sequester law at the expense of veterans.

“We should not use the excuse — anyone in Congress — that sequester made you do this,” Becerra said. “If we divest in the Veterans Administration for something as incoherent as a bad law … then we’re doing injustice and disservice to our veterans.”

Scheduled for a floor vote Wednesday evening, the VA funding bill is expected to pass with overwhelming Republican support.

But the White House on Tuesday issued a statement threatening to veto the measure, saying it “fails” to fund building upgrades on military bases and expansions to medical facilities used by veterans.

The staunch opposition from leading Democrats suggests the president’s House allies would be able to sustain a veto if GOP leaders passed the bill and attempted to override the president.

 

 

Will Hillary Blame Lois Lerner?

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Trickle down or rather trickle out to someone else. Hillary and the Foundation insider operatives are likely in a war room concocting damage control and a blame agenda. Could Lois Lerner at the IRS be in their target sites?

 

The IRS cant be blamed for book deals and speaking fees arranged through the State Department. Blame cannot go to Lois Lerner for 1100 non-recorded foreign donors to the Foundations unless, Lerner was told to look away. But, since the IRS Inspectetor General has successfully located even more of Lois Lerner’s emails, perhaps she does hold some blame and Hillary pointing fingers elsewhere may be a viable ploy.

‘Out-of-control family affair’: Experts question Clinton Foundation’s true charitable spending

The charity run by the Clintons has raised $2 billion since it was founded in 2001 — $144.3 million in 2013 alone — but only a small fraction of the take went to its “life-saving work,” according to analysts who monitor non-profits.

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation claims 88 percent of the money it raises goes to actual charity work, but experts who have looked at the books put the number at about 10 percent. The rest, they say, goes mostly to salaries, benefits, travel and fund-raising.

“That claim is demonstrably false, and it is false not according to some partisan spin on the numbers, but because the organization’s own tax filings contradict the claim,” said Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative online magazine.

The foundation, originally called the Clinton Global Initiative, has come under close scrutiny as Hillary Clinton prepares for a presidential run. Revelations in the soon-to-be-released book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer, have spurred numerous media investigations into the relationship between Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, the foundation’s solicitation of foreign money and the ex-president’s lucrative speaking engagements around the world.

“It sounds like another out-of-control family affair.”

– Reg Baker, CPA and board member of non profit organizations

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon defended the charity’s work in Africa and elsewhere and said in a statement there isn’t “a shred of evidence” that Hillary Clinton did anything to benefit Clinton Foundation donors while in office.

The foundation raised $144.3 million – and spent $84.7 million in 2013 – allocating $8.8 million to grants for other organizations, Davis said. The Clinton Foundation’s own IRS tax filings show the organization spent $8.5 million, or 10 percent of all 2013 expenditures, on travel, and another $4.8 million — or 5.6 percent of all expenditures — on office supplies, Davis said, questioning whether plane tickets, hotel accommodations, ink cartridges and staplers “directly change lives.”

Organizations that rate charities on their effectiveness in spending donations on the causes they champion say gauging the Clinton Foundation is difficult, but they have raised flags.

CharityNavigator.org added the Clinton Foundation to its “watchlist,” noting the organization officials “had previously evaluated this organization, but have since determined that this charity’s atypical business model cannot be accurately captured in our current rating methodology.”

While maintaining its removal of The Clinton Foundation from its website is “neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity,” the Clinton Foundation is one of only 23 charities on the watchlist.

Another charity rating organization, GiveWell, said the Clinton Health Access Initiative declined in November 2012 to participate in its review process, and hasn’t since. The Clinton Health Access Initiative in 2008 and 2009 acted as a drug distribution powerhouse, purchasing $226 million in prescription drugs at a discount to distribute worldwide, a practice ended by 2012.

In 2012, the Better Business Bureau reported the Clinton Foundation did not meet the standards of an accountable charity, failing on six counts, largely because of a lack of transparent financial reporting. According to the Better Business Bureau website, the charity is again under review and a new report will be released soon.

Some of the financial reporting can be messy to follow, in part because the Clintons created separate entities, such as the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Haiti relief initiative, Clinton Global Initiative, the Clinton Presidential Center and the Clinton Climate Initiative.

While IRS filings show the Clintons do not receive a salary, compensation comes through other means, such as travel, speaking fees and consulting contracts.

As first noted by Politico, the organization’s 990 forms show travel costs for the Clinton Foundation more than doubled in 2013 to $8.448 million largely because of “extraordinary security and other requirements” for the Clintons.

Schweizer’s book explores one way the foundation brought in money from donors who had business before the State Department, Fox News Channel reported. The charity accepted millions of dollars from the head of Uranium One, and a firm promoting its stock, while the Russians sought approval from U.S. agencies, including the State Department, to take over the company. The deal had to be approved by the State Department headed by Hillary Clinton because the sale gave the Russians control of 20 percent of the uranium production in the U.S.

During negotiations, Uranium One’s chairman donated $2.3 million to the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton also reportedly received $500,000 from a Russian firm promoting the company’s stocks, for a speech in Moscow. None of these transactions appear in Clinton Foundation disclosures.

A separate investigation by government watchdog group Judicial Watch revealed Bill Clinton earned $48 million from 215 speeches he made while his wife headed the State Department, and State Department officials, who were charged with flagging conflicts and ethics concerns, did not object.

A Washington Post investigation revealed Bill Clinton’s earnings for speeches were closer to $100 million.

In another controversial deal, Canadian mining executive Stephen Dattels donated 2 million shares of the company Polo Resources to the Clinton Foundation, which the foundation did not disclose, and weeks later, America’s Bangladesh ambassador reportedly used political influence to convince the Bangladesh prime minister to approve open pit mining there, boosting Polo Resources’ profits, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a slush fund for the Clintons,” Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the government watchdog group, Sunlight Foundation, told the New York Post.

Reg Baker, a certified public accountant who has offices in Hawaii and Las Vegas and has served on several non-profit boards, told FoxNews.com the foundation is not run like most charities.

“It sounds like another out-of-control family affair,” Baker said. “It is totally out of sync with charitable organizations’ best practices.”

The 2014 fundraising numbers for the Clinton Foundation have not been released publicly yet, but the amount raised is likely to increase.

In 2008, the Clinton Foundation raised $188.2 million, and that revenue spiked to $249 million in 2009. In 2010, while Hillary Clinton headed the State Department, the foundation’s revenue dropped to $140 million in 2010, $56.3 million in 2011, and $51.5 million in 2012. Since she’s returned, the foundation’s revenue jumped back up to $144.4 million, Davis noted.

After a barrage of investigative reports across a wide variety of media highlighting the foundation’s lack of transparency and disclosure, including during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation announced last week it will amend its tax returns for the last five years.

 

Malik Shabazz Invitation to Honduras

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As the media in recent days has interviewed the militant agitators in Baltimore, the responses contain the same rhetoric of police abuses. The operatives in Baltimore that have incited the riots and destruction are made up of gang members, political combatants, thugs and criminals. Their collective call to action is to impose unrest in cities across the country in a measure and scripted operation using ‘PURGE’ as their symbolic ethos.

In a statement released Monday, Baltimore Police say they have “received credible information that members of various gangs including the Black Guerilla Family, Bloods and Crips have entered into a partnership to ’take-out’ law enforcement officers,” according to the statement.

Simply said, they are demanding a change to police tactics, recrafting laws and sentencing applications that are all under the cover of non-violent narcotic use and trafficking. Their mission is to establish NO-GO zones.

 

NO GO zones are pockets of neighborhoods in towns across the country that are self-imposed and in some cases even barricaded off from civil authorities, meaning off limits to police, fire and the application of investigations and law. There are many of these zones already across America.

 

So, we should tender an earnest invitation to Malik Shabazz, the former leader of the New Black Panthers and now founder of Black Lawyers for Justice to take his operation to Honduras. Shabazz is part of a collisional mission with other organizations such as Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Louis Farrakhan sect known as the Nation of Islam, where these and other militant anti-American operations collaborate. Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Nicaragua are but a handful of breeding grounds that well satisfy their objectives being ripe for their nefarious leadership.

In recent years, analysts and U.S. officials have expressed ongoing concerns about the increasing rates of violent crimes committed by drug traffickers, organized criminal groups, and gangs in Central America.1 Central American governments, the media, and some analysts have attributed a significant proportion of violent crime in that region to youth gangs or maras, many of which have ties to the United States. U.S. concerns about gangs have accelerated as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a particularly violent group with ties to Central America, has increased its presence and illicit activities in the United States.

 

Estimates of the overall number of gang members in Central America vary widely, with a top State Department official recently estimating that there may be 85,000 MS-13 and 18th Street gang members in the northern triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). In 2012, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated total MS-13 and M-18 membership in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras at a more modest 54,000 11 According to UNODC, in 2012 there are roughly 20,000 gang members in El Salvador, 12,000 in Honduras, and 22,000 in Guatemala. El Salvador has the highest concentration of gang members, with some 323 mareros (gang members) for every 100,000 citizens, double the level of Guatemala and Honduras. In comparison, in 2007, UNODC cited country membership totals of 10,500 in El Salvador, 36,000 in Honduras, and 14,000 in Guatemala.

 

Sharpton, Shabazz, Marc Lamont Hill (Morehouse College professor), Baltimore mayor Rawlings Blake and more of their ilk will find lawless paradise in Central and South America to their liking. They would have unfettered opportunities to rule those countries and create their own lawless empire that would include commerce, trade and trafficking. How sweet right?

Since there has been a change in leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice, where Eric Holder resigned and has been replaced by Loretta Lynch, the White House has driven the selective prosecution operation, Lynch will continue to apply this White House policy. The policy is titled “21st Century Policing”. The mayor of Baltimore, Rawlings-Blake is on that task force. This new policy from the White House is to re-tool the criminal justice system for the single benefit of criminals and places law enforcement into a permanent restrained condition.

 

None of this will result in a peaceful nation going forward. Inviting the criminal base to find a new area of operation may be the right solution and those criminal and militant soldiers operating in America can transfer with them. While hope is not a strategy, the facts remain the same with no cure in America without real leadership and the will to win our country back.

Muslim Brotherhood by the Missing Dollars

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The top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood is found here. And last month, Morsi himself was sentenced to 20 years in Egypt. The United States has gifted Egypt more than $1 billion per year since 1987.

The Muslim Brotherhood, just a few years removed from its political ascendancy, once again finds itself outlawed. Many of its leaders remain imprisoned, including former president Mohamed Morsi. Egyptian authorities have formally designated it as a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood’s political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, has been dissolved by court order. Many former Brotherhood members are in exile, and the Egyptian government has accused the group of fomenting violence, which it denies. According to one article in Foreign Affairs, “The Brotherhood’s stubbornness—even in the face of such severe setbacks—is not particularly surprising. Far from being a ‘moderate’ or ‘pragmatic’ organization, as many optimistic analysts once described it, the Brotherhood is a deeply ideological, closed vanguard.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of taking 10 billion Egyptian pounds (U.S. $1.5 billion) from the American government, according to claims by Egyptian lawyers.

An immediate investigation into the accusation was ordered by Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah on Thursday.

The lawyers, Mohamed Ali Abd al-Wahab and Yasser Mohamed Sayab, filed the complaint against the Muslim Brotherhood for the allegedly illegal money transaction, Egypt’s private daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported on Jan. 3.

Translated:

The National Coordinating Committee for the recovery of funds and assets of smuggled Egyptian, headed by Justice Minister, Saber archives Monday, regular meeting with Committee members, to operate to speed recovery.
The Committee discussed, during their regular meeting, follow-up to the legal and practical measures for the recovery of funds and assets of contraband for codes and systems Morsi, in coordination and cooperation with the organs concerned, under the rules of the international cooperation on measures and practical steps to recover the funds.

And the Committee on the recovery of funds, membership Advisor Yusuf Osman, Assistant Minister of Justice for graft, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the unit for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and a representative of the international and cultural cooperation at the Ministry of Justice, a representative of the public prosecutor and the Director of the public funds Investigation Department of the Ministry of the Interior, and a representative of the national security agency, and a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a representative of the administrative control authority, a representative of the Central Bank.

Statistical daily spotted  “witness ” Kuwait 17 companies financed terrorist groups in Kuwait, through decades of studies and consulting, and Government contracts and tenders for electronic parts worth 186 million, causing its exposure to losses exceeded 90% of the capital in the past 10 years, because of its focus on the financing of the international regulation of terrorist brotherhood, and personal interests.

These companies suffered losses exceeding 90% of the capital in the last 10 years because of its focus on the financing of the international regulation of terrorist brotherhood–suggests that many of the companies approached the disappearance from the scene, the brotherhood in the financing objectives of the citizens ‘ money to kill innocent people in neighboring States, and that funding for the brothers from Kuwait during the year 2011 amounted to 600 million, and in 2012 the corporate finance 450 million and in 2013 have turned through Turkey More than 350 million dinars.

The statistics confirmed that the 17 companies assets recorded a decline of up to 80% by last year’s financial results, due to loss of funds in the financing of the special interests of the community and those companies with financing terrorist groups by nbfcs, and transfer money through private companies, and a difficult tracking methods.

And companies that financed the Community Government bids and contracts from Kuwait and other neighboring countries, spearheaded by many known and calculated investment blocks, this was not the first case, reiterated these scenarios in Gulf States raised issues and is trapped by the provisions, as well as the companies that went bankrupt, and the 17 companies, Government and capital lost, leaving only the cries of small investors.

And petroleum investments, referring to the loss of investment in renewable energy technology fund, with $ 12 million from 2008 to 2013, 6 million dinars, while the real estate sector has seen successive losses in the same period amounted to 700 million dinars, raising question marks about the evolution of the finance and investment community hidden in many States. ***

 

Russian Terrorist in U.S. Court Today

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Russian arraigned in Virginia on new terrorism charges
By LARRY O’DELL – Associated Press – Tuesday, April 28, 2015

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – A Russian man charged with leading a Taliban attack against U.S. forces in Afghanistan repeated his pleas of not guilty to terrorism-related charges Tuesday.

Irek Hamidullin was arraigned on a new 15-count indictment in U.S. District Court in Richmond. He previously pleaded not guilty to 12 charges. Three additional counts of trying to kill or injure an American were added in a new indictment last week.

Hamidullin is being held in federal custody until his five-day jury trial, which is set for July 27.

Handcuffed and wearing leg irons, Hamidullin listened to the proceedings Tuesday with the help of an Arabic translator and answered “not guilty” in English when asked for his plea.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gill said many of charges, including providing material support to terrorism and trying to destroy U.S. military aircraft, are punishable by up to life in prison. Attorney General Eric Holder chose not to seek the death penalty for a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction.

Hamidullin is the first military detainee from Afghanistan to be brought to the U.S. for trial. The Obama administration is trying to show that it can use the criminal court system to deal with terror suspects – a move criticized by some Republican lawmakers who believe such cases should be handled by military tribunals.

According to U.S. officials, Hamidullin is a Russian veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who stayed in the country and joined the Taliban. He was captured in 2009 after an attack on Afghan border police and U.S. soldiers in Khowst province. He had been held at the U.S. Parwan detention facility at Bagram airfield before being brought to the U.S.

*** While we have not been paying much attention on November 4, 2014:

WASHINGTON—Irek Ilgiz Hamidullin made his first appearance today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on federal terrorism offenses arising from his alleged participation in an attack on U.S. troops and Afghan Border Police in the Khost Province of Afghanistan in November 2009.

Hamidullin was indicted by a federal grand jury on twelve counts, including conspiring to provide and providing material support to terrorists; conspiring and attempting to destroy an aircraft of the armed forces of the United States; conspiring and attempting to murder a national of the United States; and other offenses.

The charges carry a potential maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Hamidullin, a Russian national approximately 55 years of age, was taken into custody in November 2009 and held by the Department of Defense in Afghanistan until being turned over to the FBI on Nov. 3 and brought to the United States to face charges.

The defendant was indicted on Oct. 8, 2014, and the charging document was unsealed today.

Arraignment is set for Friday at 10:00 a.m. in front of U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson at the federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia.

An indictment is merely a formal allegation that a defendant has committed a violation of criminal laws and every defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty.

The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office with substantial assistance from various other government agencies. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.