Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Taxing Texting to Pay Entitlements/Cell Service for Indigents?

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Anyone old enough to remember the sin taxes? Well seems California has proposed to take it to a whole new level and to aid the poor…use cell phones…..didn’t the Federal government do that with the Obama-phones?

Anyone remember taxation without representation? Oh, just an archaic notion anymore.

How to Save Messages on Your iPhone | WIRED

SACRAMENTO, CA (NBC NEWS) — California residents may soon have to pay a tax on texting.

According to KNTV, the public utilities commission is floating the idea to help fund programs that give low-income residents access to cell phones.

It’s not clear how much the texting tax would be or how it would be collected.

Several business groups have come out against the proposal.

One business group says the program is flush with cash.

But state regulators say the program is breaking the bank after the budget for the program has been raised 300 million dollars in six years.

The wireless industry says the texting tax would put them at a disadvantage over other free messaging services like Whatsapp, Facebook messenger, Apple’s i-Message and others.

Mobile phone companies along with telecom providers are working to defeat this ridiculous proposal. There is no formal amount of the tax that has been announced but frankly the poor in California actually need places to live and employment rather than cell phones. There is some chatter that just a flat fee added to the mobile service or a surcharge would be proposed versus some tax per text.

The Bay Area and the California Chamber of Commerce are looking to create a fund estimated to be in the $40-50 million range per year. Oh wait….there is also some consideration to make these taxes retroactive going back 5 years. If that is the case, that fund would amount to well over $200 million.

A dense California Public Utilities Commission report laying out the case for the texting surcharge says the Public Purpose Program budget has climbed from $670 million in 2011 to $998 million last year. But the telecommunications industry revenues that fund the program have fallen from $16.5 billion in 2011 to $11.3 billion in 2017, it said.

“This is unsustainable over time,” the report says, arguing that adding surcharges on text messaging will increase the revenue base that funds programs that help low-income Californians afford phone service.

Telecom companies are already arguing that texting is an informational service like email and not a services under the authority of the commission’s authority.

Just imagine how much texting goes on through several platforms including iMessages, WhatApps, Skype or by Facebook. It is estimated that in one year alone, 3 trillion text messages are sent.

Often what begins in one state is later adopted in others. So, if you can stand it, it would be prudent to review the whole proposal by clicking here.

One more item going through the FCC:

The Federal Communications Commission says it is giving cellular carriers added authority to block text messages, saying the action is needed to protect consumers from spam or robotexts. But critics of the plan note that carriers are already allowed to block robotexts and worry that the change will make it easy for carriers to censor political texts or block certain kinds of messages in order to extract more revenue from senders.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s announcement acknowledges that carriers are already allowed to block illegal robotexts. Pai did not promise new consumer-friendly blocking services; instead, he said his plan “allow[s] carriers to continue using robotext-blocking and anti-spoofing measures to protect consumers from unwanted text messages” (emphasis ours).

Despite that, Pai is proposing to classify text messaging as an information service, rather than a telecommunications service. That’s the same legal classification that Pai gave to home and mobile broadband services as part of a December 2017 vote to deregulate the industry and eliminate net neutrality rules. The FCC has not previously ruled on whether text messaging is an information service or a telecommunications service.

An FCC vote on Pai’s plan is scheduled for December 12.

 

 

 

 

US Treasury’s Evidence Iran and Russia Cooperating in Syria

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The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned nine targets last week related to an illicit oil network between Iran and Russia.

“We are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the [Bashar] Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Central Bank of Iran officials continue to exploit the international financial system, and in this case even used a company whose name suggests a trade in humanitarian goods as a tool to facilitate financial transfers supporting this oil scheme.

“The United States is committed to imposing a financial toll on Iran, Russia and others for their efforts to solidify Assad’s authoritarian rule, as well as disrupt the Iranian regime’s funding of terrorist organizations,” he added.

Experts said this move was crucial in combating the Iranian threat.

“The scheme uncovered by the Treasury Department shows just how closely Iran and Russia are cooperating to not only help prop up the Assad regime financially, but to help finance the leading players in Iran’s global terrorism,” Boris Zilberman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told JNS. “So when Russia talks about cooperating with the United States to counter-terrorism this is empty rhetoric plain and simple.”

“As this scheme shows, Russia works hand in hand with some of the very terror groups we seek to counter,” he continued. “Russia is not a partner in our counter-terrorism efforts, but is, in fact, an adversary.”

“There are already sanctions on Russian arms exporters, but the United States should continue to uncover and sanction schemes such as this,” added Zilberman. “The administration could also consider, in conjunction with Israel, striking destabilizing arms transfers by Hezbollah.

“It’s an important step, and highlights just how much [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has supported Iran, Hezbollah and Assad, and how committed he is, despite hopes that Putin’s partnership with Iran is skin-deep short-lived,” the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Anna Borshchevskaya told JNS.

“Hard to tell if this pressure will succeed without being incorporated into a broader strategy,” she continued. “It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin said earlier this month it will continue to help Iran trade oil. It’s possible to imagine Moscow setting up another intermediary to continue shipping oil to the Syrian regime, but nonetheless, this is an important step.”

The State Department joined Treasury in sending a message to the Islamic Republic.

Islamic State crisis: US hits IS oil targets in Syria ...

“The sanctions levied today directly target the Iranian regime’s exploitation of the international financial system to hide revenue streams it uses to fund terrorist activity, provide support for sectarian militias responsible for abuses against civilian populations and destabilize the region,” said the department in a statement. “The Iranian regime, Iranian-commanded forces inside Syria and the proxy terrorist groups it supports such as those targeted today continue to foment instability to extend their malign influence. These actions by the Iranian and Assad regimes undermine the legitimate processes to resolve the conflict in Syria.”

This development preceded Secretary of State Pompeo blasting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday for calling Israel a “cancerous tumor” and a “fake regime.”

“This is a dangerous and irresponsible step that will further deepen Iran’s isolation,” warned Pompeo.

“The Iranian regime is no friend of America or Israel when they repeatedly call for the death of millions, including Muslims,” he added. “The Iranian people know better and do not agree with their government, which has badly represented them to the world for 39 years. The people have suffered under this tyranny for far too long.”

*** It is quite right that Iran is no friend of the United States or Israel. That Obama/Kerry nuclear deal was supposed to lay the groundwork for Iran to be a good citizen of the world….read on…not so much.

***

Two Iranian Men Indicted for Deploying Ransomware to Extort Hospitals, Municipalities, and Public Institutions, Causing Over $30 Million in Losses

A federal grand jury returned an indictment unsealed today in Newark, New Jersey charging Faramarz Shahi Savandi, 34, and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, 27, both of Iran, in a 34-month-long international computer hacking and extortion scheme involving the deployment of sophisticated ransomware, announced Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito for the District of New Jersey and Executive Assistant Director Amy S. Hess of the FBI.

The six-count indictment alleges that Savandi and Mansouri, acting from inside Iran, authored malware, known as “SamSam Ransomware,” capable of forcibly encrypting data on the computers of victims.  According to the indictment, beginning in December 2015, Savandi and Mansouri would then allegedly access the computers of victim entities without authorization through security vulnerabilities, and install and execute the SamSam Ransomware on the computers, resulting in the encryption of data on the victims’ computers.  These more than 200 victims included hospitals, municipalities, and public institutions, according to the indictment, including the City of Atlanta, Georgia; the City of Newark, New Jersey; the Port of San Diego, California; the Colorado Department of Transportation; the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and six health care-related entities: Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, California; Kansas Heart Hospital in Wichita, Kansas; Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, more commonly known as LabCorp, headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina; MedStar Health, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland; Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital now known as OrthoNebraska Hospital, in Omaha, Nebraska and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc., headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri would then extort victim entities by demanding a ransom paid in the virtual currency Bitcoin in exchange for decryption keys for the encrypted data, collecting ransom payments from victim entities that paid the ransom, and exchanging the Bitcoin proceeds into Iranian rial using Iran-based Bitcoin exchangers.  The indictment alleges that, as a result of their conduct, Savandi and Mansouri have collected over $6 million USD in ransom payments to date, and caused over $30 million USD in losses to victims.

“The Iranian defendants allegedly used hacking and malware to cause more than $30 million in losses to more than 200 victims,” said Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.  “According to the indictment, the hackers infiltrated computer systems in 10 states and Canada and then demanded payment. The criminal activity harmed state agencies, city governments, hospitals, and countless innocent victims.”

“The allegations in the indictment unsealed today—the first of its kind—outline an Iran-based international computer hacking and extortion scheme that engaged in 21st-century digital blackmail,” said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski.  “These defendants allegedly used ransomware to infect the computer networks of municipalities, hospitals, and other key public institutions, locking out the computer owners, and then demanded millions of dollars in payments from them. As today’s charges demonstrate, the Criminal Division and its law enforcement partners will relentlessly pursue cybercriminals who harm American citizens, businesses, and institutions, regardless of where those criminals may reside.”

“The defendants in this case developed and deployed the SamSam Ransomware in order to hold public and private entities hostage and then extort money from them,” said U.S. Attorney Carpenito.  “As the indictment in this case details, they started with a business in Mercer County and then moved on to major public entities, like the City of Newark, and healthcare providers, like the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles and the Kansas Heart Hospital in Wichita—cravenly taking advantage of the fact that these victims depend on their computer networks to serve the public, the sick, and the injured without interruption.  The charges announced today show that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey will continue to act to disrupt such criminal acts, and identify those who are responsible for them, no matter where in the world they may seek to hide.”

“This indictment demonstrates the FBI’s continuous commitment to unmasking malicious actors behind the world’s most egregious cyberattacks,” said Executive Assistant Director Hess.  “By calling out those who threaten American systems, we expose criminals who hide behind their computer and launch attacks that threaten our public safety and national security.  The actions highlighted today, which represent a continuing trend of cyber criminal activity emanating from Iran, were particularly threatening, as they targeted public safety institutions, including U.S. hospital systems and governmental entities.  The FBI, with the assistance of our private sector and U.S. government partners, are sending a strong message that we will work together to investigate and hold all criminals accountable.”

Savandi and Mansouri are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, two substantive counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two substantive counts of transmitting a demand in relation to damaging a protected computer.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri created the first version of the SamSam Ransomware in December 2015, and created further refined versions in June and October 2017.  In addition to employing Iran-based Bitcoin exchangers, the indictment alleges that the defendants also utilized overseas computer infrastructure to commit their attacks.   Savandi and Mansouri would also use sophisticated online reconnaissance techniques (such as scanning for computer network vulnerabilities) and conduct online research in order to select and target potential victims, according to the indictment.  According to the indictment, the defendants would also disguise their attacks to appear like legitimate network activity.

To carry out their scheme, the indictment alleges that the defendants also employed the use of Tor, a computer network designed to facilitate anonymous communication over the internet.  According to the indictment, the defendants maximized the damage caused to victims by launching attacks outside regular business hours, when a victim would find it more difficult to mitigate the attack, and by encrypting backups of the victims’ computers.  This was intended to—and often did—cripple the regular business operations of the victims, according to the indictment.  The most recent ransomware attack against a victim alleged in the indictment took place on Sept. 25, 2018.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s Newark Field Office.  Senior Counsel William A. Hall Jr. of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Cybercrimes Unit Justin S. Herring of the District of New Jersey are prosecuting the case.  The Department thanks its law enforcement colleagues at the National Crime Agency (UK), West Yorkshire Police (UK), Calgary Police Service (Canada), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Significant assistance was provided by the Justice Department’s National Security Division and the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs.

New Committee Chair Cummings has 64 Subpoenas for Trump

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Yup, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings will become the Oversight Committee Chairman in the new Congress and he has readied 64 subpoenas for Trump and his family over conflicting business deals, the hotel and more.

Meanwhile, the democrats are likely going to work to cut funding for the military, ICE and DHS. They will advance legislation to move the Federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour and will continue to bail out health insurers to save Obamacare.

Ah but this democrat agenda can become more contentious and nasty if the democrats want to play a legal warfare game as the republicans can take some major counter-measures. Of course none of this is really good for the country but as President Trump declared more than once, we will restore law and order and those who violated law should in fact receive a consequence.

So, what should the republicans consider?

  1. Declassify and release all Fast and Furious documents.
  2. Declassify and release all HolyLand Foundation trial documents.
  3. Declassify and release and IRS targeting scandal documents and subpoena emails and documents of Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, Doug Shulman, John Koskinen, Steven T. Miller, Daniel Werfel, Peter Kadzik, Elijah Cummings among others.
  4. Department of Justice to formally open a case on Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Pakistan IT scandal.
  5. Announce a formal investigation into Dianne Feinstein’s Chinese operative employed in her California office and to demand Feinstein submit her investments in Chinese corporations/organizations.
  6. Defund Planned Parenthood.
  7. Defund Export Import Bank.
  8. Investigate Maxine Waters and her use of campaign funds employing her daughter’s company.
  9. Investigate newly elected congresswoman Debbie Muscarel Powell and her association(s) with Ihor Kolomoisky, a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch.
  10. Open formal investigation into Keith Ellison.
  11. Re-open criminal case against New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez.
  12. Refer Bernie Sanders to the Senate Ethics Committee on loan scandal.
  13. Release all the text messages and emails of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
  14. Open a formal and announced investigation into the Clinton Foundation and release what is in the file now.
  15. Need we explain the Hillary email server thing? Git ‘er done.
  16. Comey, McCabe, Ohr, and that crowd with the FISA warrant, communications and the dossier.
  17. Investigate Sheila Jackson Lee’s office for the staffer’s doxxing operation.
  18. How about Uranium One, Rosemont Capital and Vistria?
  19. Then there is John Podesta, Tony Podesta, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and all of that.
  20. But we cannot overlook the tarmac meeting and the role Loretta Lynch and her DoJ played in the coverup.
  21. Benghazi? Was that ever resolved or the billions to Iran?
  22. How about release of details on the side deals or payments for the Taliban 5 and Bergdahl or the Iran nuclear deal? Include Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes in these details.
  23. Release communications on why Obama and the Justice Department canceled Operation Cassandra.
  24. Release full report on John Brennan, former Director of the CIA and his role in ‘spygate’ along his spying on member of the senate.
  25. Declare via Treasury and DHS, ANTIFA a domestic terror organization.
  26. Release all payments made by Office of Compliance due to congressional member’s misconduct.

There of course are many other things to add to this list. You are invited to include some of your own ideas in the comments.

400 Left the Caravan and Arrive in Tijuana

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Defense Secretary Mattis will spend Wednesday visiting the border. Customs and Border Patrol said it will close lanes at the San Ysidron and Otay Mesa crossing to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing in the Tijuana region of Baja, California.

The lead or first caravan is expected to arrive in an estimated two weeks with at least three other caravans are making progress heading north in Mexico. More details here.

Meanwhile, Ami Horowitz who is an onsite investigative journalist is traveling with and reporting on the real facts of the caravan. Horowitz has a vast resume of these kinds of investigations on his resume that include corruption at the United Nations and he also travel by boat with Syrian refugees arriving in Greece.

During this adventure by Ami Horowitz he found the following facts:

90-95% are males in the caravan.

There is a substantial logistical transportation operation aiding the migrants with trucks and buses.

Food, water, shelter, medicine, mobile hospitals, doctors and nurses are at each base camp along the way.

Mexican police are often found escorting the caravan.

Mexico is actively working with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and with UNICEF per the UN contact named Maria Rudi.

It is admitted there are violent and gang member people within the caravan. It takes work to keep them separated from the other members of the caravan daily.

The largest support comes from Pueblo sin Fronteras. This organization has hundreds of volunteers traveling with the caravan as noted in the video. The volunteers hold countless learning sessions with the migrants to teach them about applying for asylum, what a refugees and what their rights are according to U.S. law. United Nations workers are also traveling with the caravan and they along with the Pueblo Sin Fronteras wear vests noting who they are and some also wear badges.

Pueblo sin Fronteras has been reaching out to immigrants and migrants for more than 15 years aiding them to the United States demanding their human rights.On their website they even have a graphic that reads Otay Mesa Detention Resistance for Los Angeles and San Diego.

The leader of Pueblo sin Fronteras is Irineo Mujico. From Phoenix, Mujico was arrested in southern Mexico in October in Cuidad Hidalgo. He was there not as a leader but more as a coordinator of humanitarian assistance. He has been released but he did forfeit documents under the demand of the Mexican police. Mujico is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico.

Need Your Help on the Feres Doctrine

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Prepare for a little work on your part, it is a fight we need to win.

Reckless medical care, malpractice or malfeasance in the civilian world includes lawsuits and the removal of medical licenses. In the military….any and all active or former military service members can take NO action due to the Feres Doctrine.

OUTRAGEOUS

On newsstands this week photo

In 2002, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing to amend the Feres Doctrine or to at least include waiver language. It went no where.

You can read about that hearing at this link and see who was on the committee at the time.

This has nothing to do with the VA, these are military hospitals wherever they are across the world. The military has sovereign immunity.

From an article in 2017:

Under the Feres doctrine, service members are categorically banned from filing suits for harm incurred while on duty. Period, end of story. There are no exceptions, it is absolute.

Since its creation, courts and commentators have vehemently condemned the Feres doctrine. One of its most ardent critics was Antonin Scalia, the legendary conservative Supreme Court justice. In United States v. Johnson, Justice Scalia wrote that “Feres was wrongly decided and heartily deserves the ‘widespread, almost universal criticism’ it has received.” Yet, the Feres doctrine persists as national policy.

The given justification for the Feres doctrine is the protection of good order and discipline within the military. Without a doubt, commanding officers shouldn’t face the threat of a lawsuit for decisions made in combat or in preparing troops for battle. The Feres doctrine, though, goes too far by banning all suits “incident to service.”

Good order and discipline simply would not be harmed by the suit of a soldier burned due to known faulty wiring in his barracks, or a sexual assault victim, or a soldier who was secretly administered LSD to test its effects, or a Marine who had a towel left in his stomach during a routine procedure. Yet, the Feres doctrine summarily bans each of these suits.

By immunizing the military from civil liability, the Feres doctrine increases abuse of power and corruption by military officials. It is common sense that when officials are not held accountable for their misconduct, they tend to abuse their authority. That is why the Founders split the government’s power into three branches and allowed the courts to review the conduct of the other two branches. Judicial review is a cornerstone of our democracy.

Protected from lawsuits, however, military officials are freed from this constitutional accountability framework. Lawsuits not only allow victims of misconduct to be made whole, they inform the public of governmental wrongdoing. This information flow is critical in a representative democracy, where voters cannot change what they do not know.

*** How about the case of a wife and new mother dying due to malpractice?

On March 9, 2014, Walter Daniel’s wife, Lt. Rebekah Daniel, a Navy nurse stationed at Naval Hospital Bremerton in Washington, gave birth to a healthy baby girl at the facility where she worked. Four hours after the low-risk childbirth, she died due to blood loss.

In court documents, Daniel alleged the care team failed to prevent postpartum hemorrhaging, which caused Rebekah to lose “more than 1,500 ml of blood – nearly one-third of the amount of blood in the average human body” according to a statement put out by the Luvera Law Firm.

*** Now a terminal cancer case of a Green Beret that the hospital saw during an exam and did nothing, even refused to tell him. He has a year to live.

Sgt. 1st Class Richard Stayskal was deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, in 2004 when he was shot by a sniper. The round, which he kept as a souvenir, pierced his left lung and nearly killed him.

The round is “a reminder of how fragile life is,” he told Charlotte’s Fox 46. “Something could change everything in an instant.”

Despite beating the odds of such a grievous wound in combat, something else did change in an instant for the 37-year-old Green Beret when, following a June 2017 visit to a civilian doctor to address severe breathing issues the Army told him was a simple case of pneumonia, he received terrible news.

“Did a biopsy and when I woke up my wife was crying,” Stayskal told Fox 46. “And he [the doctor] was telling her that I had cancer.”

The tumor in Stayskal’s lungs had been egregiously misdiagnosed by Army doctors, the report said, allowing it to double in size and spread to other vital organs — and into stage four terminal lung cancer.

This is a fight we need to win for our war fighters….can you help and call your congress-person or senator and demand a new hearing and amendment to the Feres Doctrine? PLEASE?

There is an unknown number of victims of medical malpractice at military hospitals but does it matter?