Drug Cartels 1 Biden Administration 0

Posted on June 1, 2021June 1, 2021 by Denise Simon

Primer: Secretary of State, Tony Blinken is traveling to Costa Rica to meet with several country leaders from Central America.It is said he will discuss regional issues including economic growth, the pandemic and climate change impacts. But wait, what about VP Kamala Harris, where is she? Furthermore, what about the issue of immigration, narcotics trafficking or human smuggling?

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is feckless when it comes to the real issues and solutions, especially the cartels….so read on.

Graphic: Bodies of drug runners, human traffickers ... source

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The notoriously violent Jalisco cartel has responded to Mexico’s “hugs, not bullets” policy with a policy of its own: The cartel kidnapped several members of an elite police force in the state of Guanajuato, tortured them to obtain names and addresses of fellow officers and is now hunting down and killing police at their homes, on their days off, in front of their families.

It is a type of direct attack on officers seldom seen outside of the most gang-plagued nations of Central America and poses the most direct challenge yet to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of avoiding violence and rejecting any war on the cartels.

But the cartel has already declared war on the government, aiming to eradicate an elite state force known as the Tactical Group which the gang accuses of treating its members unfairly.

“If you want war, you’ll get a war. We have already shown that we know where you are. We are coming for all of you,” reads a professionally printed banner signed by the cartel and hung on a building in Guanajuato in May. Read more here.

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Organized crime involving even the police is an integral part of the worsening immigration crisis. Criminal organizations are involved at every stage of the migration process, from motivating migrant departures for the United States to security along human smuggling routes through Mexico, to the mechanisms for entering the United States undetected.

There are two kinds of criminal groups at work here — transnational gangs and transnational criminal organizations. The brutal violence and unchecked extortion perpetrated by transnational gangs in the Northern Triangle (the nations of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala), targeting both civilian populations and rival gang members, motivate Central Americans to uproot their lives and families in the hope of a better, safer life in America.

Transnational criminal organizations control, regulate, and tax every land port along the southern border. They also control smuggling routes through Mexico and impose a tax, called a piso, on the smugglers and migrants who use them. These groups control the flow of migrant caravans, strategically diverting Border Patrol resources from sectors of the border that are used to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States.

For those who choose to leave the Northern Triangle for a better life in America, the escape from territory controlled by transnational gangs leads them into territory controlled by the transnational criminal organizations.

In most cases, they use coyotes — human smugglers and traffickers who charge them thousands of dollars. Human smugglers range from independent operators and loose networks to subsidiaries of the transnational criminal organizations themselves.

Beyond what migrants pay up front, as the Associated Press reports, many are kidnapped and tortured “until they reveal the phone numbers of relatives in the United States and holding them for ransom.”

If they can’t pay — or if their families can’t — they’re killed. As one analyst points out, “It’s a long trail of extortions, and it’s a very dangerous journey for all of them.”

The groups also sometimes use migrants as drug mules. They will coerce migrants traveling through their territory into carrying large bags, or mochilas, filled with illegal drugs. Not only does this perpetuate the stream of narcotics into the U.S., it also victimizes migrants, making them desperate to unlawfully enter and remain in the U.S. — even if imprisoned on drug charges — for fear of being killed if they are sent home.

The bottom line is that throwing open our borders — as President Biden has effectively done — only serves to empower these transnational criminal enterprises. His immigration policies aren’t humanitarian; they’re creating more victims.

Biden’s Covid Relief: Waste, Fraud and Abuse Globally

Posted on May 24, 2021May 24, 2021 by Denise Simon

Hair on FIRE!

FNC/Chaffetz: President Biden’s COVID relief is quickly devolving into shocking stories of waste, fraud and abuse, along with a dose of misdirection and political spin.

Biden bellowed on COVID relief, “This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation, working people, middle-class folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance.” That was the promise, but that is not the reality.

What Biden didn’t tell Americans is their money is actually being sent overseas for projects bearing little relation to the public health crisis. Scuba gear in Uruguay, gas turbine engines in Canada, HIV research in Ukraine, and management consulting services in Fiji are all part of what Democrats consider urgent emergency relief. Even “Disinformation and fake news, TV, radio and multimedia project for PD” in South America via the Department of State.

These are just some of the grants listed at pandemicoversight.gov, where the government’s independent inspectors general have created an important resource for Americans to monitor government aid.

In just a few minutes, I was able to learn that Democrats have budgeted to build two gazebos at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The budget for the 20-foot by 30-foot and 16-foot by 20-foot structures, ordered from The Cedar Store, is $600,000 for two gazebos.

Roughly $5 million went to Russia for “civil society” grants. $24 million went to Syria to encourage them to wash their hands.

In Gabon, the U.S. Department of Defense received more than $180,000 for ejection seat repairs on a T-38C airplane.

The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), chaired by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, created the website to reveal “who received pandemic funding, how much they received, and how they’re spending the money.” The PRAC urges Americans to use the site to report fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement of the funding going forward.

Sifting through the data, I repeatedly find expenses that should be part of our regular budget disguised as COVID relief.

There was $363 million for the planning of the building of the USS Boise (evidently they appear to have received $11 million more than the modified existing contract). Paying the full bill for an attack submarine for the Department of Defense is hardly what the Democrats promised was COVID relief.

source

Though government waste is a sad fact of life – and a reason many of us prefer to keep the role of government limited – the unprecedented volume of COVID relief aid makes it a prime target for fraud.

Already we’ve seen multiple cases of fraud prosecuted with regard to CARES Act funding. A man in Massachusetts recently pled guilty to filing four fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) applications worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. A Florida couple has been charged in federal court in a scheme to collect $4 million from the Economic Impact Disaster Loan program. These are likely the tip of the iceberg.

In March the Department of Justice reported it had charged nearly 500 people in criminal schemes to collect pandemic aid money. And that’s the low-hanging fruit. Those are the people here in the United States who are applying for funds. What happens when that money is being scattered abroad in countries over which American law enforcement has no jurisdiction?

Fiji is seeing daily cases in the single digits, yet they’re getting $61 million in emergency relief funding. What is that really for? Particularly when you consider that India, which has seen a massive spike since April, originally got just $17 million in emergency aid.

It’s as if the pandemic is nothing more than a pretext to spend money Democrats can’t justify through the regular (such as it is) budget process. Who knows what else we’ll find relief funds buying in the coming years.

Transparency is going to be more important than ever. Horowitz and his fellow inspectors general have a huge job to do if they want to trace how budgeted money ultimately got spent. The job is made even bigger by the fact that so many media outlets, who would normally be counted on to report waste, fraud and abuse, have become cheerleaders for the party in power.

It is incumbent upon American citizens and responsible media to watch closely where these emergency dollars end up and to hold accountable those who perpetuate waste, fraud and abuse because what we are being told is not what is actually happening.

Jason Chaffetz is a Fox News contributor who was the chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee when he served as a Republican representative from Utah. He is the author of the upcoming book “They Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: The Truth About Disaster Liberalism.”

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Biden Ignoring Ukraine in Favor of Russia

Posted on May 21, 2021May 21, 2021 by Denise Simon

The real hurt and consequence is Ukraine as you read on.

The Biden administration has waived sanctions on a company building a controversial gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.

The US also lifted sanctions on the executive – an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin – who leads the firm behind the Nord Stream 2 project.

The move came in a report on Russian sanctions delivered to Congress by the Department of State.

Critics say the pipeline is a major geopolitical prize for the Kremlin.

The project, which would take gas from the Russian Arctic under the Baltic Sea to Germany, is already more than 95% complete.

The Department of State report notes that Nord Stream 2 AG and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig, a former East German intelligence officer, engaged in sanctionable activity.

Nord Stream 2: Biden waives US sanctions on Russian pipeline - BBC News

How it bypasses Ukraine further putting Ukraine into a financial crisis –>

Ukraine crisis: Europe's stored gas high as prices soar - BBC News

But it concludes that it is in the US national interest to waive the sanctions.

The Department of State also imposed sanctions on four Russian ships involved in the building of Nord Stream 2, though detractors said that would not be enough to stop the pipeline.

Meanwhile:

Ukrainians breathed a collective sigh of relief last month when Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would withdraw the majority of more than 100,000 troops that had been shifted to the Russian-Ukrainian border. So did the U.S., NATO and the rest of Europe.

But nobody should be breathing easy: Putin isn’t one to stay on the retreat. So, where should we expect his next provocation? Very likely, the waters of the Black Sea.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and carved off the strategically vital peninsula of Crimea, the largest land grab from a sovereign state in this century. Since then, he has supplied money, training, arms and military advisers to separatist forces in the Donbas region of southeast Ukraine.

The recent buildup was probably a signal to the West of how relentless Putin will be on pressuring Ukraine, and of his deep opposition to it joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was also a distraction from his persecution of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, and played well with Putin’s base in Russia, where his approval rating soared during the Crimea annexation. Finally, the buildup allowed the Russian military a pretty effective practice run, in case Putin does decide to roll the dice and invade across the border.

Although one should never underestimate Putin’s ability to surprise his geopolitical rivals, this doesn’t seem like the moment for a full-blown land incursion. Putin is already financially overextended with his overseas adventures. Reconstructing Syria will come with a huge bill. Support to Ukrainian separatists is expensive. He has a great appetite for expensive new weapons (militarizing space, for example). And he remains under significant sanctions from the West. source

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Seems President Biden got the lobby memo to support Moscow.

OS: Biden has not made any moves that would prevent completion of the pipeline, which would transfer natural gas from Russia to Germany while bypassing Poland and Ukraine. That’s a win for both Berlin and Moscow. It’s also a win for Washington lobbyists.

Companies involved with the pipeline spent more than $1 million lobbying on sanctions and other issues related to the project through the first three months of 2021.

Nord Stream 2 AG spent $840,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2021, on pace to surpass its nearly $3.6 million lobbying spending last year. The Swiss firm is wholly-owned by Russia’s state-run energy firm Gazprom. Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s executive chairman, is longtime Putin ally, as is Nord Stream CEO Matthias Warnig.

The company spent $600,000 to dispatch Vincent Roberti, a top lobbyist and prolific Democratic donor. Roberti reported lobbying on “issues related to the U.S. position toward the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, including potential financial sanctions affecting the project.” The firm spent another $240,000 to dispatch BGR Group’s Walker Roberts, a former Republican staffer for foreign affairs congressional committees.

Other foreign firms are also dispatching lobbyists to advocate for the pipeline. Five foreign companies partnering on the project — Austria’s OMV AG, the Netherlands’ Shell International, France’s ENGIE, and Germany’s Wintershall and Uniper SE — hired lobbyists at McLarty Inbound to lobby the State Department and the National Security Council. They collectively paid the firm more than $840,000 for lobbying in 2020 and $210,000 in the first quarter of 2021.

McLarty managing partner Richard Burt, the former U.S. Ambassador to West Germany and a member of several influential Washington think-tanks, reported lobbying for a slate of foreign companies that have partnered on the project on “Russian sanctions issues” and “natural gas as an element of European energy security.” Burt donated $2,000 to Biden’s 2020 campaign and $10,000 to pro-Biden super PAC Unite the Country while he was a registered lobbyist for foreign companies partnering with Nord Stream on the pipeline. Biden’s campaign had not refunded Burt’s money at the time of publication, more than 6 months after the donations were given, despite pledging to reject lobbyist donations.

Because firms working for proponents of the pipeline registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act instead of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, details of which government officials the lobbyists met with remain hidden from the public.

Lobbyists for private entities that would otherwise be required to follow FARA disclosure requirements may choose to instead register under the LDA with the House Clerk’s Office and Secretary of the Senate so long as the “principal beneficiary” of the influence operation is not a foreign government or political party. Nord Stream is owned by a Russian state-run firm, but the Kremlin has insisted the pipeline is a “commercial project.”

CNA Financial reportedly paid $40 million due to Ransomware Demand

Posted on May 21, 2021May 21, 2021 by Denise Simon

CNA is the seventh largest commercial insurer in the United States as of 2018. CNA provides property and casualty insurance products and services for businesses and professionals in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.

CNA itself is 90% owned by a holding company, Loews Corporation. This holding company also has interests in offshore oil and gas drilling rigs, natural gas transmission pipelines, oil and gas exploration, hotel operations and package manufacturing.

CNA Financial Corporation – Jenkins MBA Careers | Poole College of Management | NC State University

CNA Financial, one of the largest US insurance companies, paid $40 million to free itself from a ransomware attack that occurred in March, according to a report from Bloomberg. The hackers reportedly demanded $60 million when negotiations started about a week after some of CNA’s systems were encrypted, and the insurance company paid the lower sum a week later.

If the $40 million figure is accurate, CNA’s payout would rank as one of the highest ransomware payouts that we know about, though that’s not for lack of trying by hackers: both Apple and Acer had data that was compromised in separate $50 million ransomware demands earlier this year. It also seems like the hackers are looking for bigger payouts: just this week we saw reports that Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom to hackers. While that number isn’t as staggering as the demands made to CNA, it’s still much higher than the estimated average enterprise ransomware demand in 2020.

Law enforcement agencies recommend against paying ransoms, saying that payouts will encourage hackers to keep asking for higher and higher sums. For its part, CNA told Bloomberg that it wouldn’t comment on the ransom, but that it had “followed all laws, regulations, and published guidance, including OFAC’s 2020 ransomware guidance, in its handling of this matter.” In an update from May 12, CNA says that it believes its policyholders’ data were unaffected.

According to Bloomberg, the ransomware that locked CNA’s systems was Phoenix Locker, a derivative of another piece of malware called Hades. Hades was allegedly created by a Russian group with the Mr. Robot-esque name Evil Corp.

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Ransomware Attack Payment

Ransomware attack payments are rarely disclosed. According to Palo Alto Networks, the average payment in 2020 was $312,493, and it is a 171% increase from the payments that companies made in 2019.

The $40 million payment made by CNA Financial is bigger than any previously disclosed payments to hackers, The Verge reported.

Disclosure of the payment is likely to draw the ire of lawmakers and regulators that are already unhappy that companies from the United States are making large payouts to criminal hackers who, over the last year, have targeted hospitals, drug makers, police forces, and other entities that are critical to public safety.

The FBI discourage organizations from paying ransom because it encourages additional attacks and does not guarantee that data will be returned.

Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts the data of the victim. Cybercriminals using ransomware usually steal the data too. The hackers, then, ask for a payment to unlock the files and promise not to leak stolen data. In recent years, hackers have been targeting victims with cyber insurance policies and huge volumes of sensitive consumer data that make them more likely to pay a ransom.

Last year was a banner year for ransomware groups, with security experts and law enforcement agencies estimating that victims paid about $350 million in ransom. The cybercriminals took advantage of the pandemic, a time when hospitals, medical companies, and insurance companies were the busiest.

As per Bloomberg’s report, CNA Financial initially ignored the hackers’ demands while pursuing options to recover their files without engaging with the criminals. However, within a week, the company decided to start negotiations with the hackers, who were demanding $60 million.

Payment was made a week later. source

CNA notifying cyberattack

Source

The ransomware cyberattack interrupted the company’s employee and customer services for three days as the firm closed down “out of an abundance of caution” to prevent further damage. Certain CNA systems were impacted, including corporate email.

Apple’s Loyalty to China Threatens our Security

Posted on May 18, 2021May 18, 2021 by Denise Simon

Hat tip to the Federalist as they read the very long article that I did this morning about Apple risking it all just to favor the Chinese Communist Party. With that, I will use their summary.(It is extraordinary however that the New York Times is exposing Apple and it’s faults and policy for the sake of doing business in China)

The Apple data center in Guiyang as seen in a satellite image. Apple plans to store the personal data of its Chinese customers there on computer servers run by a state-owned Chinese firm.

Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China

Apple built the world’s most valuable business on top of China. Now it has to answer to the Chinese government.

Apple willingly compromises certain privacy and security business practices to build a partnership with the Chinese government, a new report from the New York Times explains.

Not only does the Big Tech company store personal data of Chinese users on servers that are managed and serviced by a firm owned by the communist regime, but Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has spent years “making frequent, statesmanlike visits and meeting with top leaders” in the Asian country and caving to its wishes.

Credit…Keith Bradsher/The New York Times

Apple often boasts that it believes “privacy is a fundamental human right,” but the company’s relationship with China seems to discard that “core value” in exchange for doing China’s bidding such as removing certain encryption technology and digital key that the communist regime disagreed with.

“We have never compromised the security of our users or their data in China or anywhere we operate,” the company said.

But in data centers similar to the one being built outside Guiyang, China, experts and Apple engineers warn, “Apple’s compromises have made it nearly impossible for the company to stop the Chinese government from gaining access to the emails, photos, documents, contacts, and locations of millions of Chinese residents” who they aren’t afraid to oppress.

The Chinese government also has a long list of human rights abuses including enslaving the Uyghurs, a minority group located in the Xijiang province, and squashing pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong, but once again, Apple is unbothered. Despite offering a long creed promising a commitment to human rights causes, Apple has repeatedly bowed to the wishes of the communist regime to censor apps and blacklist people that government officials think could pose a danger to Xi Jinping or his rule.

Over the last few years, tens of thousands of apps containing content considered objectionable to the communist government were removed from the Chinese version of the app store. Some of the most notable disappearances were apps for worldwide news outlets, pro-democracy organizations, certain religious institutions and figures such as the Dalai Lama, and even apps that provided encryption or shortcuts to users who wanted more digital privacy and security.

“After Chinese employees complained, it even dropped the ‘Designed by Apple in California’ slogan from the backs of iPhones,” the Times report says, noting the regime’s unwillingness to let Apple’s branding remain “American.”

Cook has repeatedly tried to quiet criticism of Apple’s relationship with China by noting how efficient it makes the company. Not only does Apple’s partnership with the regime allow for access to, housing for, and factories for Chinese workers who “assemble nearly every iPhone, iPad, and Mac” to rake in at least “$55 billion a year from the region, far more than any other American company makes in China,” but it also gives the company an easy global reach.

China’s power over Cook and the company, however, is quite evident. In addition to bending to the regime’s will on censorship and privacy, Apple went out of its way to give data to the Chinese government, despite American laws prohibiting it, by giving legal ownership of user data to Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, a “company owned by the government of Guizhou Province, whose capital is Guiyang.”

“Apple recently required its Chinese customers to accept new iCloud terms and conditions that list GCBD as the service provider and Apple as ‘an additional party,’” the Times says. “Apple told customers the change was to ‘improve iCloud services in China mainland and comply with Chinese regulations.’”

Apple did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.