A Look Back at the Last Decade

Posted on January 4, 2020January 4, 2020 by Denise Simon

Sadly, so much of the domestic and world events have affected our daily lives while other events have carried into this new decade. This is hardly a complete look back and readers are encouraged to leave comments with additional major events of the last decade. Congratulations for surviving and prevailing the last decade.

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2010: The Arab Spring

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Apple introduces first iPad

President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law

7.0 Earthquake strike Haiti

Instagram Debuts

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2011: Abbottabad Raid Killing Osama bin Ladin

8.9 Earthquake Hits Japan

Prince William Marries Catherine Middleton

Casey Anthony Acquitted of Killing her Daughter

Syrian Civil War Began

2012: Baumgartner’s Stratosphere Jump

Benghazi attack

Super Hurricane Sandy

Aurora, Colorado Theater Shooting

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

2013: IRS Targeting

Boston Marathon Bombing

Edward Snowden NSA leaks

Pope Benedict Resignation, First Ever

Black Lives Matter Activist Movement Originates

Failed Government Launch of Healthcare.gov

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2014: Malaysia Flight #370 Goes Missing

Actor Robin Williams Dies by Suicide

Bowe Bergdahl Taliban Prisoner Swap

Ebola Virus Outbreak

Boko Harem Kidnaps 200 Schoolgirls

Uber Launches Rideshare

Obama Normalizes Relations with Cuba

Islamic State (ISIL-ISIS) Battle Begins in Mosul

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2015: San Bernardino Terror Attack

Pope Francis Speech to Joint Session of Congress

Hillary Clinton Email Scandal

Charlie Hebdo Terror Attack

Paris Stade de France Bombing

Bataclan Terror Attack

Syrian European Refugee Crisis

2016: Rio Olympic Games, Ryan Lochte scandal

U.S. Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage

Singer Prince Found Dead from Fentanyl Overdose

Colin Kaepernick Began Kneeling Protest

Brexit Vote for Withdraw of United Kingdom from European Union

Russia Hacks U.S. Obama Expels Russian Diplomats and Spies

2017: Rare Coast to Coast Full Solar Eclipse

#MeToo Movement Begins

Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Hotel Shooting Killing 58 Wounding 413

Arianna Grande Manchester Bombing

Robert Mueller Named Special Council to Investigate Donald Trump and Russian Collusion

Hurricane Harvey, Category 4 Hits Leaving $125 Billion in Damage

Hurricane Irma, Category 5

Hurricane Maria, Category 5

President Trump Launches #FakeNews

ANTIFA Launches National Activist Operations

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2018: Thailand Soccer Team Rescued from Cave

North Korea Agrees to Trump to Denuclearize

Cambridge Analytica-Facebook Scandal

Christine Blasey Ford v. Brett Kavanugh (Supreme Court Nominee)

Prince Harry Marries American Meghan Markle

Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting, Killing 17

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2019: Robert Mueller Special Council Investigation Ends

U.S. House of Representatives Votes on Two Articles of Impeachment of President Trump

Trump Installs Sweeping Immigration Enforcement Measures

U.S. China Trade Pact Finalizes First Agreement

Boeing Jets Grounded

Hong Kong Freedom Fighters Protest China for Freedom

Did we Forget Freedom Fighters Around the World?

Posted on December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by Denise Simon

The country is still in collapse and Maduro remains in power. Question is why? Beyond Venezuela, there is Bolivia, Chile, Columbia and even Ecuador where tyranny and socialism is being protested.

Image result for protests in latin america photo Miami Herald

Image result for protests in iran photo The Atlantic
A quick review for Latin America is looking much like the freedom fighters in Hong Kong, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

* Two months after Chile lurched from an illusory calm to a fiery outburst of rage, there is still no sign that life is about to return to normal. After an agreement last month between political parties, the country will next year hold a referendum on drafting a new constitution – one of the protesters’ main demands.

But widespread anger still simmers over inequality, social exclusion and the high cost of education and healthcare. Demonstrators continue to gather across the country every day, and violence often erupts at nightfall.

Chileans have found themselves in a state of uncertainty – suspended between hopes of progress, and frustration over a political solution which seems beyond reach.

* In Columbia: The number of FARC dissidents now stands at around 3,000 combatants, already accounting for more than 20 percent of the 13,000 FARC members who demobilized. This number continues to grow and is likely to keep growing in the short and medium-term. While there are no indications that the ex-FARC mafia will ever reach the numbers of the FARC prior to demobilization, it is clear that the dissident elements are a threat to national security and could become more than just a localized threat within Colombia.

Faith in the FARC Peace Process – This is low, among the Colombian public, among former rebel combatants, and even within the government itself. Unless significant action is taken to reassure those rebels that remain in the peace process, the risk of further desertion is high. Add to this the killing of former FARC members, including some likely carried out by security forces, and the precariousness of the peace accord becomes clear.

Criminal Economies – The criminal economies that sustained the FARC for more than five decades are more lucrative than ever, with Colombia producing record amounts of cocaine. However, the ex-FARC mafia rely on more than cocaine. Marijuana, especially in the violence-ridden department of Cauca is a big earner, while the profits from poppy and the heroin it produces are also considerable. More here.

*After 12 days of nationwide unrest, several Indigenous peoples of Ecuador joined by social organizations succeeded in forcing the government of Lenin Moreno into scrapping a presidential decree eliminating fuel subsidies in the oil-producing nation.

The uprising saw thousands of indigenous people marching towards the capital Quito from different corners of the country. They occupied the city and received unprecedented solidarity from local volunteers and progressive universities, while protesters vigorously clashed with security forces for days around the presidential palace and National Assembly.

“You can call it a war zone. It is ugly, ugly, ugly,” said Margarita, a member of the rescue brigade of the Eugenio Espejo hospital in the Ecuadorian capital Quito, attempting to catch her breath. She had just returned to a health care post a few hundred meters away from the frontlines of the clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters.

President Trump has a huge opportunity to lead the world on the importance of freedom, liberty, capitalism, peace and economies. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is doing a great job yet the tasks are larger than one person and the Congressional Democrats and 2020 candidates should be shamed for selling socialism.

London Terror Attack Outrage

Posted on December 2, 2019December 2, 2019 by Denise Simon

In part: Usman Khan, 28, was jailed in 2012 for his role in an al Qaeda-inspired terror group that plotted to bomb the London Stock Exchange and the US Embassy and kill Boris Johnson.

The members of Usman Khan’s Al Qaeda-inspired gang who plotted to blow up the London Stock Exchange and kill Boris Johnson. From left to right: Mohammed Moksudur Chowdhury, Mohammed Shahjahan, Shah Mohammed Rahman. Middle row: Mohibur Rahman, Gurukanth Desai, Abdul Malik Miah. Bottom row: Nazam Hussain, Usman Khan, Omar Sharif Latif

Giving a statement outside Scotland Yard, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said Usman Khan was subject to an ‘extensive list of licence conditions’ on his release from prison and that ‘to the best of my knowledge he was complying with those conditions’.

A furious political row began today after it was revealed that Khan was released automatically from prison last year – though he was still tagged and monitored.

Khan, born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent, originally received an indeterminate sentence for public protection with a minimum of eight years behind bars after his 2012 arrest, meaning he would remain locked up for as long as necessary, to protect the public.

Passing judgment at the time, Mr Justice Wilkie said: ‘In my judgment, these offenders would remain, even after a lengthy term of imprisonment, of such a significant risk that the public could not be adequately protected by their being managed on licence in the community, subject to conditions, by reference to a preordained release date.’

But this sentence was quashed at the Court of Appeal in April 2013 and he was given a determinate 16-year jail term instead, meaning he would be automatically released after eight years.

It has been speculated that the attack may have been revenge for the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

It has also emerged today that he was a student and ‘personal friend’ of hate preacher Anjem Choudary. Khan spent years preaching on stalls that were linked to al-Muhajiroun, the banned terror group once led by Choudary.

As part of the plotting which led to his 2012 arrest, Khan’s group planned to set up a training camp in Kashmir, where his family had land.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that it was a ‘mistake’ to release Khan from prison and has vowed to crack down on early releases for inmates. The PM visited the scene of the attack today with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, and Home Secretary Priti Patel.

When first sentenced, yesterday’s attacker Khan was handed an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) with a minimum term of eight years by Mr Justice Wilkie in February 2012.

This was overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2013, when the indeterminate sentence was quashed. Instead, he was handed 16 years in jail with an extended licence period of five years.

At the time he was jailed, Khan had spent 408 days on remand and this was taken into account when considering his release date.

He was eligible for release after serving half of his 16-year jail term, less the time he had already spent on remand.

Khan was obliged to adhere to the notification provisions of the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act for a total of 30 years.

He was released from prison after agreeing to wear an electronic tag and be monitored by authorities.

Speaking before chairing a meeting of the Government’s emergency committee Cobra on Friday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he had ‘long argued’ that it is a ‘mistake to allow serious and violent criminals to come out of prison early and it is very important that we get out of that habit and that we enforce the appropriate sentences for dangerous criminals, especially for terrorists, that I think the public will want to see’.

Chris Phillips, a former head of the UK National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said today: ‘The criminal justice system needs to look at itself.

‘We’re letting people out of prison, we’re convicting people for very, very serious offences and then they are releasing them back into society when they are still radicalised. Much more here.

*** Just for consideration, there are an estimate 74 more cases of those just like Khan walking the streets of Britain. With the numbers of returning ISIS fighters to Europe….well it is easy to predict more attacks. ISIS may no longer have caliphate territory but the internet is for sure the headquarters for continued and successful militant Islamic fighters. Europe….hear the clarion call.

Time to Place a Terror Status on Drug Cartels

Posted on December 2, 2019December 2, 2019 by Denise Simon

President Trump has long pledged to sign off on declaring drug cartels as terror organizations going back to at least March of 2019.

Mexican security forces on Sunday killed seven more members of a presumed cartel assault force that rolled into a town near the Texas border and staged an hour-long attack, officials said, putting the overall death toll at 20.

The Coahuila state government said in a statement that lawmen aided by helicopters were still chasing remnants of the force that arrived in a convoy of pickup trucks and attacked the city hall of Villa Union on Saturday.

The reason for the military-style attack remained unclear. Cartels have been contending for control of smuggling routes in northern Mexico, but there was no immediate evidence that a rival cartel had been targeted in Villa Union.

Earlier Sunday, the state government had issued a statement saying seven attackers were killed Sunday in addition to seven who died Saturday. It had said three other bodies had not been identified, but its later statement lowered the total deaths to 20.

The governor said the armed group — at least some in military style garb — stormed the town of 3,000 residents in a convoy of trucks, attacking local government offices and prompting state and federal forces to intervene. Bullet-riddled trucks left abandoned in the streets were marked C.D.N. — Spanish initials of the Cartel of the Northeast gang.

Given the recent deaths in two attacks, momentum is building and what is taking so long? Frankly, it comes down to the trade deal(s) between the United States and Mexico which has been approved by Mexico, Canada and the Unites States but not ratified yet by our own Congress.

For some context on how easy it is to apply sanctions regarding ‘countering narcotics trafficking’ there is a law titled the King Pin Act. Recently updated this past June, The Foreign Narcotics King Pin Designation Act has 32 pages, two columns of named individuals or organizations.

In part of this law for reference includes:

THE KINGPIN ACT

On December 3, 1999, the President signed into law the Kingpin Act (21 U.S.C. §§
1901-1908 and 8 U.S.C § 1182), providing authority for the application of
sanctions to significant foreign narcotics traffickers and their organizations
operating worldwide. Section 805(b) of the Kingpin Act blocks all property and
interests in property within the United States, or within the possession or
control of any U.S. person, which are owned or controlled by significant foreign
narcotics traffickers, as identified by the President, or foreign persons
designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the
Attorney General, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security,
and the Secretary of State, as meeting the criteria as identified in the Kingpin
Act.

On July 5, 2000, OFAC issued the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions
Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 598, which implement the Kingpin Act and block all
property and interests in property within the United States, or within the
possession or control of any U.S. person, which are owned or controlled by
specially designated narcotics traffickers, as identified by the President, or
foreign persons designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation
with the Attorney General, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security and
the Secretary of State, as meeting the following criteria:

• Materially assists in, or provides financial or technological support for or
to, or provides goods or services in support of, the international narcotics
trafficking activities of a specially designated narcotics trafficker;

• Owned, controlled, or directed by, or acts for or on behalf of, a specially
designated narcotics trafficker; or

• Plays a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.

III. PROHIBITED TRANSACTIONS

E.O. 12978

E.O. 12978 blocks the property and interests in property in the United States,
or in the possession or control of U.S. persons, of the persons listed in the
Annex to E.O. 12978, as well as of any foreign person determined by the
Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Attorney General and the
Secretary of State, to be a specially designated narcotics trafficker.

The names of persons and entities listed in the Annex to E.O. 12978 or
designated pursuant to E.O. 12978, whose property and interests in property are
therefore blocked, are published in the Federal Register and incorporated into
OFAC’s list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List)
with the OFAC program tag “[SDNT].” The SDN List is available through OFAC’s web
site: http://www.treasury.gov/sdn.

THE KINGPIN ACT

The Kingpin Act blocks all property and interests in property within the United
States, or within the possession or control of any U.S. person, of the persons,
identified by the President, or foreign persons designated by the Secretary of
the Treasury, after consultation with the previously identified federal
agencies.

So, what is the problem? Actually it is likely the top government officials of Mexico would be sanctioned and the government itself would fall. The other suggestion is U.S. domestic banks would be implicated as well as some city officials in the United States including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Newark and Miami.

The consequences are huge but it is time.

Thousand Talents = J Visa = Espionage = Stupid

Posted on November 24, 2019November 24, 2019 by Denise Simon

It was just this morning that I sent a text to a former CIA operative asking if he was comfortable with the FBI being the lone government agency tracking foreign spies operating in the United States. His reply was NO. Sigh…My gut was telling me that espionage in the United States is out of control and while performing some research for about an hour, it IS out of control. Understand foreign operatives come from several countries into the United States using several visa methods and for the sake of this article, the concentration will be on China. It is a sure bet however, the same techniques are used by other rogue countries that just are for sure either best described as adversaries or enemies of our homeland.

So, back to the question of the FBI being the lone tracking government agency. One of the first Reuters articles had this headline: FBI wishes it had acted quicker as China stole intellectual property

The admission by John Brown, assistant director of the Counterintelligence Division at the FBI, backed up a Senate subcommittee report that found federal agencies had responded too slowly as China recruited the researchers, leaving U.S. taxpayers unwittingly funding the rise of China’s economy and military. Despite China’s announcement in 2008 of the Thousand Talents Plan – for which China had originally hoped to recruit 2,000 people but ended up recruiting more than 7,000 by 2017 – the FBI did not respond strongly until last year, the report released on Monday by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found.

Just a few days before that Reuters’ article there was this headline: U.S. charges Chinese national with stealing trade secrets

Haitao Xiang, 42, an employee of Monsanto and its Climate Corp subsidiary from 2008 to 2017, was stopped by federal officials at a U.S. airport before he could board a flight to China carrying proprietary farming software, the department said in a statement.

“The indictment alleges another example of the Chinese government using Talent Plans to encourage employees to steal intellectual property from their U.S. employers,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said.

Notice 9 years of employment above. Sigh. Read on, there is more.

US prosecutors have accused a tour guide of picking up US security secrets and delivering them cloak-and-dagger-style to Beijing. From October 2015 to July 2018, an FBI double agent conducted “dead drops,” in which, authorities say, Peng fetched information in the San Francisco Bay Area and Columbus, Georgia. Authorities say the double agent, identified only as “the Source,” went to the FBI in 2015, after the State Security Ministry tried to recruit him as a spy by telling him that he could rely on “Ed,” who had family and business dealings in China. As officials grapple with the threat of infiltrators trying to steal information from US companies, prosecutors have opened multiple cases against people suspected of spying for China. Last October, prosecutors charged a spy with attempting to steal trade secrets from several US aviation and aerospace companies.

Just last week in the Senate, the Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Portman held a hearing. Finding a summary from the hearing on the FBI website was the following:

Time and time again, the Communist government of China has proven that it will use any means necessary to advance its interests at the expense of others, including the United States, and pursue its long-term goal of being the world’s superpower by 2049. Among its many ways of collecting information, prioritized in national strategies such as the Five-Year Plan, the Chinese government oversees expert recruitment programs known as talent plans. Through these programs, the Chinese government offers lucrative financial and research benefits to recruit individuals working and studying outside of China who possess access to, or expertise in, high-priority research fields. These talent recruitment programs include not only the well-known Thousand Talents Plan but also more than 200 similar programs, all of which are overseen by the Chinese government and designed to support its goals, sometimes at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. Read on here.

Senate report accuses China of technology theft | NHK ...

200 similar programs? WHAT?

The Thousand Talents program is nothing more than a espionage recruiting operation. This past September, the FBI arrested Zhongsan Liu who was operating a front operation in New Jersey called the China Association for International Exchange of Personnel. According to the criminal complaint, Liu beginning in 2017 used the company to fraudulently procure U.S. visas for for many Chinese officials under J-1 research. Liu has actually led this front group however for 26 years. The program among others were created and directed by the Chinese government’s State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs. Liu is a senior official of that agency. He also worked at the Chinese embassy in Washington and at the consulate in New York while this recruiting operation was going on.

“Chinese government sources claim over 44,000 highly skilled Chinese personnel have returned to China since 2009 through talent plans,” the report said. “As noted by China Daily, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party: ‘China has more than 300 entrepreneurial parks for students returned from overseas. More than 24,500 enterprises have been set up in the parks by over 67,000 overseas returnees.'”

According to the Pentagon’s latest annual report on the Chinese military, the Thousand Talents Plan is used to bolster the People’s Liberation Army military buildup.

“China uses various incentive strategies to attract foreign personnel to work on and manage strategic programs and fill technical knowledge gaps, including the ‘Thousand Talents Program,’ which prioritizes recruiting people of Chinese descent or recent Chinese emigrants whose recruitment the Chinese government views as necessary to Chinese scientific and technical modernization, especially with regard to defense technology,” the report said.

The program of China’s Thousand Talents is really an unadvertised method to facilitate the legal and illicit transfer of U.S. technology, intellectual property and know-how as summarized by the National Intelligence Council.The NIC is a midterm and long term strategic thinking center formed in 1979. That report is found here. It is dated 2018 and titled: How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World

Do we really want a trade deal after all this with China? It can be argued that the trade has already taken place by China’s theft. This all complicates the bi-lateral signing of a trade deal between the United States and China or does it in the end?

Basic qualifications for the Thousand Talents program include the following:

1. Basic Qualifications for Candidates

The Recruitment Program for Innovative Talents (Long Term) targets people under 55 years of age who are willing to work in China on a full-time basis, with full professorships or the equivalent in prestigious foreign universities and R&D institutes, or with senior titles from well-known international companies or financial institutions.

2. Preferential Policies and Treatments

Awardees will be conferred the title of “National Distinguished Experts” and be provided with enabling working and living conditions.

(1) Enabling working conditions

Awardees are entitled to assume some leadership, professional or technical positions in universities, R&D institutes, central SOEs as well as state-owned commercial and financial institutions; to serve as project principals of the National Key Scientific and Technological Projects, “863 Program”(or the National High-tech R&D Program), “973 Program”(or the National Program on Key Basic Research Project), the National Nature Science Fund Projects; to apply for S&T funds and industrial development funds from government to support scientific research as well as production and operating activities in China; to participate in the consultation and demonstration of China’s major projects, the formulation of key scientific research plans and national standards, the construction of major projects, etc; to determine the expenditure and employment within the prescribed scope of responsibilities as project principals; to be engaged in various domestic academic organizations and the election of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering(foreign academicians) and become the candidates of a wide range of government rewards.

(2) Special living benefits

Awardees as well as their spouses and minor children with alien nationality may apply for “Permanent Residence for Aliens” and/or multiple entry visas, the validity of which lasts 2-5 years. Awardees with Chinese citizenship will be free to settle down in any city of their choice and will not be restricted by his or her original residence registry. Each awardee shall receive a one-off, start-up package of RMB 1 million yuan from the nation’s central budget; be entitled to medical care, social insurance including pensions, medical insurance and work-related injury insurance; and may purchase one residential apartment for personal use. The housing and meal allowance, removing indemnity, home-leave-subsidy, and children-education-allowance in the wage income in Chinese territory within 5 years shall be deducted before taxes in accordance with relevant laws and regulations. Employers have to offer job opportunities to spouses, and children will have guaranteed admission to schools. The income level should be decided on their previous jobs overseas through negotiation with due living allowances.

(3) Key points of the Recruitment Program of Global Experts in the Field of Liberal Arts and Social Science

By the end of 2010, overseas high-level scholars in fields of liberal arts and social sciences, particularly urgently needed professionals specialized in Intellectual Property Law, Environment and Resources Protection Law, International Law, Diplomacy, Psychology etc. are eligible to apply for the Key National Innovative Projects. People who are introduced by this program shall support the Communist Party of China and the socialist system, maintaining compliance with the Constitution, laws, regulations and policies of the People’s Republic of China, with full professorships or the equivalent in prestigious foreign universities, R&D institutes and other institutions of art and culture, enjoying a high global reputation and being influential in their academic fields which are urgently needed in China; they shall be within 60 years of age, andd willing to work in China on a full-time basis.

With regard to application procedures, the “Liberal Arts and Social Sciences” plan is a subdivision of “The Recruitment Program for Key Disciplines”. Overseas talents are required to sign an employment contract or a letter of intention for talent recruitment with employers before applying for the Program. Please refer to the application procedures of “The Recruitment Program for Innovative Talents (Long Term)”.