Fracking the Saudi Kingdom, Cash Needed to Survive

When the price of oil at the barrel hovers in the range of $50.00, oil rich nations start to see red on the balance sheets due in part to U.S. fracking.

This too is a reason that Russia and Saudi Arabia are making some desperate decisions. While Russia has no intention of altering internal operations with regard to employment and consumption, the Saudi Kingdom has countless moving parts under consideration for a long term survival strategy especially with a rather new leadership in the order of Princes.

This is not a recent condition for the Saudi royals as it began with real attempts to control the outflow of money and playboy princes spending money globally including in fraudulent and illicit activities.

The kingdom has big plans for the future to compete and must remove all internal obstacles first to gain investment money.

Rhiayad has made a decision to no longer rely on oil for economic sustainability.

The future of Saudi Arabia is described here and is known as ‘Vision 2030‘.

It was once procedure to keep chaos in the Kingdom quiet, but not so much anymore.

King Salman’s sweep may have been foreshadowed two weeks ago, when Maan al-Sanea, a raffish Kuwaiti billionaire, was arrested at his home on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia.

An exceedingly messy affair ensued. The head of the Gosaibi family accused Sanea of opening the bank—which was called the International Banking Corporation, or T.I.B.C.—without his consent, and of systematically defrauding the family and the bank’s customers. Corporate investigators subsequently uncovered what they believed was evidence of a scheme involving forged signatures and the issuing of fake loans. Lawyers for Sanea claimed in court that the Gosaibis knew what he was doing all along, but they never explained the signatures or loans the investigators had raised questions about.

The financial complexities of the case were daunting—in part because of the opacity of the Saudi legal system. The dispute between the Gosaibis and Sanea played out in separate lawsuits in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Bahrain, the U.A.E., and other legal jurisdictions around the world. Yet only one jurisdiction, Sanea’s lawyers claimed, truly mattered. “Our client’s position has always been that the substantive dispute between him and the al-Gosaibi family can be dealt with properly in Saudi Arabia,” they said. More details here.

*** Then there is the case of Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd. Is he dead or not? The Kingdom says no he only being detained. Others say hold on….this too appears to be about flaunting money in some cases…dark corners, other places globally. Some real fascinating details are here.

Saudi Arabia has some competitors for economic survival, those being Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Then there is of course Iran, an even more devilish enemy to Saudi Arabia in many cases than it is to Israel and the United States.

Saudi Arabia has been at war in Yemen due to the Iranian back Houthi rebels for a few years and still has to contend with Bahrain which too has a Shia majority, often inspired by Tehran as was seen in the 2011 Arab Spring protests.

Then there is Lebanon. While Lebanon does have a sizable Christian population, it is essentially controlled by Iran’s Hezbollah and too holds the largest number of refugees from the Syrian civil war. Lebanon’s Prime Minister took a trip to Washington DC and the Trump White House in July, likely to explain conditions in the country taking a tailspin. In early November, Prime Minister Hariri traveled then to Saudi Arabia, probably at the Kingdom’s demand and soon resigned. He is reported to still in in Rhiayad under consultation and protection as he feared for his life in Lebanon as it is reported. Hariri may be hold up at the Ritz Carlton along with the dozen other detained princes under a tight military security condition.

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Iran is controlling Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and is working to do the same in Yemen. The Saudi Mission in the United Nations has justified a new blockade on Yemen by accusing Iran  of “direct military aggression”, linking Iranians and Hezbollah to a Burkan H2 missile fired by Houthi rebels towards Riyadh airport and oil facilities, as stakes raised between regional rivals. Iran’s president Rouhani declared Saudi Arabia to stay out of the business in Lebanon.

So is a larger conflict looming? The tea leaves reveal that probability. So, if that is the case, the Kingdom needs all wayward princes out of the way including those in opposition to the modernization of the Kingdom and money will be an issue. $800 billion is on the line so far and rumored to be confiscated.

What is notable is Saudi Arabia issued a declaration directly after Prime Minister Hariri resigned for all Saudi citizens in Lebanon to leave Lebanon immediately as Bahrain has done the same.

So, with regard to funds. a Saudi attorney general said legal probe underway suggests at least $100 billion has been misused in corruption and embezzlement over several decades. 208 were part of the legal probe and have been released, while others are detained and more investigations continue.

So far: The UAE, particularly its most commercially prominent emirate Dubai, is one of the main places where wealthy Saudis park their money abroad. In addition to bank accounts, they buy luxury apartments and villas in Dubai and invest in the emirate’s volatile stock market.

Huge amounts of money may be at stake. Corruption has over the years siphoned off $800 billion from Saudi state revenues, an official at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry has estimated; bankers believe much of it is held abroad, in countries including Switzerland and Britain.

ASSETS SOLD

Some wealthy Saudi individuals have been liquidating assets within Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf countries this week, apparently in an effort to move money out of the region and escape the crackdown, private bankers and fund managers said.

*** Whenever and wherever there is political unrest, Russia is always lurking. That is part in parcel why Russia was mentioned at the top of this article.

There is little doubt that Putin’s foreign policy centers on reviving Russia as a major international power, which seeks to undermine the global American alliance that has underwritten international security since the end of the Cold War.

Stretching across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, this alliance has continually thwarted Russia’s primary foreign policy ambitions. Seeking to break Russia free from America’s preeminence, Putin persistently employs tactics below the threshold of war to fracture the global system and artfully exploits the unintended consequences this inevitably creates.

Putin’s asymmetrical moves have sought to cast doubt on the credibility of American security guarantees in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic. And while alarm bells have sounded, Putin has shied away from direct military confrontation with NATO.

Putin has also now turned to a second front by exploiting the void left by U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East. The projection of Russian military power in Syria in the summer of 2015 ushered in a new era of expansion in the Arab world – particularly through arm sales and limited military involvement. In Moscow’s view, the Middle East is ripe for disruption, with lower risks of a direct confrontation with the United States.

Putin’s show of force unsurprisingly has found him new friends and new buyers. Regional powers are hedging against U.S. unpredictability and seeking out Russian benevolence. Furthering the sense of uncertainty is the lingering crisis between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Qatar. While the Gulf sees uncertainty, Russia sees an opportunity to prey on their doubts.

The announced sale of the S-400 missile defense system to Riyadh during the October visit of King Salman to Moscow, the first Saudi monarch to visit Russia, is a further sign of the deepening role Moscow is playing in an area of the world where the U.S. has traditionally been predominant.

This is not the first time Putin has ventured into arm sales in the Middle East, a region that is typically dominated by the U.S. weapons industry. Previous sales of the S-300 have been delivered to Iran, while Turkey recently signed a deal with Moscow to acquire the S-400 as well. Furthermore, Bahrain and Qatar, the home to the U.S.’s Fifth Fleet and the Al Udeid military base respectively, have also expressed interest in acquiring the system, according to Russian media. Its acquisition, if completed, raises important implications for the U.S.’s strategic posture in the Gulf. The proliferation of such systems is certainly not in America’s interest.

The acquisition of the S-400 by Riyadh comes after the U.S. recently sold $15 billion worth of THAAD equipment to the Kingdom. This system will be the premier ballistic missile defense system in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel’s. But for its new air defense system, Saudi Arabia felt the need to turn to Russia.

Riyadh’s rapprochement with Moscow is a way to hedge against a more uncertain U.S. engagement and to gain some leverage in its relationship with Washington. While the U.S. has tried to assuage Saudi concerns about its own steadfastness in the region, Moscow has been able to sow enough doubt in Riyadh to undermine American efforts. Riyadh is careful to show that it won’t completely fall in line either with Washington or Moscow but will try to balance one relationship with the other. While the agreement to purchase the S-400 is a signal towards Washington, it is equally telling that the sale of the THAAD missile defense system was approved amidst Salman’s visit to Moscow. More here by Andrew Bowen.

Not even a crystal ball or a higher power can really sort all of this out…but now you have some facts giving rise to some clues and can make a better estimation….right?

Anyone Paying Attention to Wilbur Ross, Commerce Sec?

What is Wilbur Ross worth? The answer is a slippery one when you ask Wilbur to respond. There is a dispute when it comes to his financials in the ranger of a billion or two. Further, where did his wealth come from you ask? Well there were allegedly family trusts, hotels, shipping companies, steel, banking in Cyprus and even those Rothschilds. More here from Forbes.

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Wilbur Ross’ company has been moving LPG for a Russian gas giant.

But now, in what might seem almost an echo of the Red Scare that lasted in America for generations, this business relationship is seen as tainted, an ominous connection to a country that unleashed cyberwar against American democracy and the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House.

Are all connections to Russia now suspect? Or are they sometimes merely an inconvenient consequence of doing business in a country where major corporations often are controlled by the Kremlin?

The latest tie between Russia, Trump and his campaign and administration officials came to light Sunday with news that the U.S. commerce secretary is a part owner of Navigator Holdings, a shipping company that transports LPG produced by Sibur, a big Russian company with ties to the Kremlin.

Some shipping business experts who follow the company are shrugging off the news.

“Russia has a lot of commodities that need to go somewhere else,” said Benjamin J. Nolan, a financial analyst who covers Navigator for Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. He added, “Odds are, they are going to have long term contracts with Western shipping companies.”

The Russian government is a powerful factor in almost every part of the country’s economy. Some of Russia’s biggest banks, such as Sberbank and VTB are state-controlled, with their management answering directly or indirectly to the Kremlin.

Then there is Gazprom, a big gas supplier to Europe, and Rosneft, the oil producer. Both are majority state owned.

***

Two people associated with Siber are under U.S. sanctions

***

How about Venezuela? Yup…

Despite U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s bond transactions in international markets and other restrictions against top officials, the Paradise Papers show that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has an important stake in multi-million dollar businesses related with state-oil giant Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

As reported by Newsweek on Sunday, Ross still retains interest in Navigator Holdings, a shipping company incorporated in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific that maintains a close relationship with Russia’s energy company SIBUR, which is run by President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law Kirill Shamalov and other individuals who have been sanctioned by the U.S. Navigator Holdings has received millions of dollars every year in earnings due to coastal shipping services provided to PDVSA.

PDVSA is no small client of Navigator Holdings. The state-oil company contributed to 10.7 percent of Navigator’s earnings during fiscal year 2014 and 11.7 percent in fiscal year 2015, according to Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. The company’s earnings translate into $33.7 million and $36.7 million for each fiscal year thanks to PDVSA’s use of the Navigator’s 29 tankers to carry liquefied petroleum gas during those years.

As he was awaiting confirmation, Ross failed to disclose any business interests with Putin’s family and his stake in the maritime industry. James Rockas, Ross’s spokesman, told the New York Times that the secretary of commerce “recuses himself from any matters focused on transoceanic shipping vessels, but has been generally supportive of the [Trump] administration’s sanctions of Russian and Venezuelan entities.”

But Ross’s businesses pose a potential conflict of interest, ICIJ reported. Ross has “the power to influence U.S. trade, sanctions and other matters that could affect SIBUR’s owners,” the Paradise Papers report added. More here from Newsweek.

 

California: 200,000 Acres and Epic Homelessness

Just how more twisted can it all get in California? Anyone heard from Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior lately?

AP: Homelessness is not a new issue to America’s West Coast. But it’s getting worse – much worse.

On any given night, more than 105,000 people are sleeping unsheltered in some of the country’s biggest and trendiest metropolises, driven there by soaring housing costs, rental vacancy rates that rival those in Manhattan and a booming tech economy that’s leaving thousands behind. Another 63,000 are sleeping in shelters or transitional housing with no safety net.

The rising numbers have pushed abject poverty into the open like never before.

San Diego now scrubs its sidewalks with bleach to counter a deadly hepatitis A outbreak that has spread to other cities and forced California to declare a state of emergency. In Anaheim, home to Disneyland, 400 people sleep along a bike path in the shadow of Angel Stadium. Organizers in Portland, Oregon, lit incense at a recent outdoor food festival to mask the stench of urine in a parking lot where vendors set up shop.

All along the coast, elected officials are scrambling for solutions .

“It’s a sea of humanity crashing against services, and services at this point are overwhelmed, literally overwhelmed,” said Jeremy Lemoine, who works for a Seattle nonprofit that provides various forms of assistance to the homeless. “It’s catastrophic.” The photo gallery is here.

SEATTLE (AP) — Housing prices are soaring here thanks to the tech industry, but the boom comes with a consequence: A surge in homelessness marked by 400 unauthorized tent camps in parks, under bridges, on freeway medians and along busy sidewalks. The liberal city is trying to figure out what to do.

Public health is at risk, several cities have declared states of emergency, and cities and counties are spending millions — in some cases billions — in a search for solutions. Organizers in Portland lit incense at an outdoor food festival to cover up the stench of urine in a parking lot where vendors set up shop.

They have no running water and no propane for the cook stove. They go to the bathroom in a bucket and dump it behind a nearby business.

After four months, the stench of human waste inside the RV is overwhelming. They are exhausted, scared and defeated, with no solution in sight.

“Between the two of us a month, we get $1,440 in disability,” he said. “We can’t find a place for that.”

Voters have approved more than $8 billion in spending since 2015 on affordable housing and other anti-homelessness programs, mostly as tax increases. Los Angeles voters, for example, approved $1.2 billion to build 10,000 units of affordable housing to address a homeless population that’s reached 34,000 people within city limits.

Jeremy Lemoine, an outreach case manager with REACH in Seattle, called it the situation a refugee crisis.

*** So, what role does the Department of Fish and Wildlife along with the Department of Interior play in this homelessness at least in California?

Seeking to free up about 200,000 acres from Ventura County to San Diego for housing, a group representing property owners, homebuilders and others has filed a lawsuit seeking to loosen the endangered species status for the coastal California gnatcatcher.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, Nov. 2, by the Pacific Legal Foundation, asks the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct a fair review of scientific evidence that has emerged casting doubt on the rarity of the bird. More here.

*** So we have this bird, a gnatcatcher that is getting in the way of housing and property rights at least in parts of California. Yup, you read that right. There is a lawsuit underway and honestly, it has been a legal issues for decades….yes….decades.

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Remember that Delta Smelt, that little fish that was destroying farming in California? (A case that is in fact still an issue in 2017) Now we have a bird, that is not an endangered species that is hurting property owners and the entire construction and housing industry in California.

Wonder if those homeless know about that gnatcatcher…

Hey Harry Reid, Ken Salazar, Kislyak What About Uranium One?

Note the date of this article….

In 2009, Gregory B. Jaczko was appointed to head the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Barack Obama and his previous position was working for Harry Reid as his appropriations advisor as well as his science advisor.

U.S. officials said Wednesday that they have proposed ending the Obama administration’s ban on new uranium mining leases on public land outside Grand Canyon National Park.

The Forest Service proposed the change in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order for federal agencies to eliminate restrictions on energy production. The Trump administration has moved to unravel former President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations aimed at curbing climate change.

“Adoption of this recommendation could reopen lands to mineral entry pursuant to the United States mining laws facilitating exploration for, and possibly development of, uranium resources,” according to a report last week by the Forest Service’s parent agency, the Department of Agriculture.

The Oct. 25 report also said it’s in the national interest “to promote the clean and safe development of America’s vast energy resources.” Nuclear power plants use uranium as fuel.

Conservationists are decrying the Forest Service’s move, saying that past uranium mining in the region has polluted soils, washes, aquifers and drinking water.

“The Forest Service should be advocating for a permanent mining ban, not for advancing private mining interests that threaten one of the natural wonders of the world,” said Amber Reimondo, energy program director of the Grand Canyon Trust based in Flagstaff.

In 2012, then-Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar banned new hard rock mining for 20 years on more than 1 million acres of national forest and Bureau of Land Management land near the Grand Canyon. He said he was acting to protect a “priceless American landscape.”

The ban did not affect existing mining claims in the region.

***  photo

TheHill: After the Obama administration approved the sale of a Canadian mining company with significant U.S. uranium reserves to a firm owned by Russia’s government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Congress and the public the new owners couldn’t export any raw nuclear fuel from America’s shores.

“No uranium produced at either facility may be exported,” the NRC declared in a November 2010 press release that announced that ARMZ, a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned Rosatom, had been approved to take ownership of the Uranium One mining firm and its American assets.

A year later, the nuclear regulator repeated the assurance in a letter to Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican in whose state Uranium One operated mines.

“Neither Uranium One Inc. nor AMRZ holds a specific NRC export license. In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One Inc. or ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the exports of uranium for use in reactor fuel,” then-NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko wrote to Barrasso.

The NRC never issued an export license to the Russian firm, a fact so engrained in the narrative of the Uranium One controversy that it showed up in The Washington Post’s official fact-checker site this week. “We have noted repeatedly that extracted uranium could not be exported by Russia without a license, which Rosatom does not have,” the Post reported on Monday, linking to the 2011 Barrasso letter.

Yet NRC memos reviewed by The Hill show that it did approve the shipment of yellowcake uranium — the raw material used to make nuclear fuel and weapons — from the Russian-owned mines in the United States to Canada in 2012 through a third party. Later, the Obama administration approved some of that uranium going all the way to Europe, government documents show.

NRC officials said they could not disclose the total amount of uranium that Uranium One exported because the information is proprietary. They did, however, say that the shipments only lasted from 2012 to 2014 and that they are unaware of any exports since then.

NRC officials told The Hill that Uranium One exports flowed from Wyoming to Canada and on to Europe between 2012 and 2014, and the approval involved a process with multiple agencies.

Rather than give Rosatom a direct export license — which would have raised red flags inside a Congress already suspicious of the deal — the NRC in 2012 authorized an amendment to an existing export license for a Paducah, Ky.-based trucking firm called RSB Logistics Services Inc. to simply add Uranium One to the list of clients whose uranium it could move to Canada.

The license, reviewed by The Hill, is dated March 16, 2012, and it increased the amount of uranium ore concentrate that RSB Logistics could ship to the Cameco Corp. plant in Ontario from 7,500,000 kilograms to 12,000,000 kilograms and added Uranium One to the “other parties to Export.”

The move escaped notice in Congress.

Officials at RSB, Cameco and Rosatom did not return repeated phone calls or emails seeking comment.

Uranium One’s American arm, however, emailed a statement to The Hill on Wednesday evening confirming it did export uranium to Canada through the trucking firm and that 25 percent of that nuclear fuel eventually made its way outside North America to Europe and Asia, stressing all the exports complied with federal law.

“None of the US U308 product produced to date has been sold to non-US customers except for approximately 25% which was sold via book transfer at the conversion facilities to customers from Western Europe and Asia,” executive Donna Wickers said. “Any physical export of the product from conversion facilities to non-US destinations is under the control of such customers and subject to NRC regulation.”

The United States actually imports the majority of the uranium it uses as fuel. In 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 24 percent of the imports came from Kazakhstan and 14 percent came from Russia.

The sale of Uranium One to a Russian state-owned firm, however, has created political waves that have led to multiple congressional investigations. Republicans say they want to learn how the sale could have been approved and whether there was political interference.

“The more that surfaces about this deal, the more questions it raises,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement released after this story was published. Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has launched an investigation into Uranium One.

“It now appears that despite pledges to the contrary, U.S. uranium made its way overseas as a part of the Uranium One deal,” Grassley said in the statement. “What’s more disturbing, those transactions were apparently made possible by various Obama Administration agencies while the Democrat-controlled Congress turned a blind eye.

“Americans deserve assurances that political influence was not a factor in all this. I’m increasingly convinced that a special counsel — someone with no prior involvement in any of these deals — should shine a light on this ordeal and get answers for the American people.”

Government officials told The Hill that the NRC was able to amend the export license affecting Uranium One because of two other decisions previously made by the Obama administration as part of a Russian “reset” in President Obama’s first term.

First, Obama reinstated a U.S.-Russia civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement. President George W. Bush had signed the agreement in 2008, but withdrew from it before it could take effect after Russia became involved in a military conflict with the former Soviet republic of Georgia, a U.S. ally, and after new concerns surfaced that Moscow was secretly aiding Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.

Obama re-submitted the agreement for approval by the Democrat-controlled Congress in May 2010, declaring Russia should be viewed as a friendly partner under Section 123 the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 after agreeing to a new nuclear weapons reduction deal and helping the U.S. with Iran.

“I have concluded: (1) that the situation in Georgia need no longer be considered an obstacle to proceeding with the proposed Agreement; and (2) that the level and scope of U.S.-Russia cooperation on Iran are sufficient to justify resubmitting the proposed agreement to the Congress,” Obama said in a statement sent to Congress.

Congress took no action, which allowed the deal to become effective 90 days later.

The other step that allowed uranium from the Russian-controlled mines in the United States to be exported came in 2011, when the Commerce Department removed Rosatom, Uranium One’s owner, from a list of restricted companies that could not export nuclear or other sensitive materials or technologies without special approval under the Export Administration Regulations.

“This final rule removes the Federal Atomic Power of Russia (Rusatom) now known as the Russian State Corporation of Atomic Energy (Rosatom),” the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security declared in a May 24, 2011, notice in the Federal Register that created few waves.

Rosatom had been on the list for a long time, so long in fact that it was still listed in the federal database under its old name, Rusatom. Officials said the effort to remove the Russian nuclear firm was a “policy decision” driven by the State Department, Energy Department, Commerce Department and other agencies with Russia portfolios designed to recognize that bilateral relations between Russia and the United States had improved slightly.

Nine months after Rosatom was removed from the export restrictions list, the NRC issued its license amendment to the trucking firm in March 2012 that cleared the way for Uranium One exports, making it effective for nearly five years, to the end of 2017. But the NRC also stipulated that Uranium One’s uranium should be returned to the United States.

“The uranium authorized for export is to be returned to the United States,” the NRC instructed in the export license amendment.

But that, too, didn’t happen. Officials told The Hill that the Energy Department subsequently gave approval for some of the American fuel to depart Canada and be exported to European enrichment centers, according to a 2015 letter the NRC sent to Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.).

The NRC explained to Visclosky that it had originally stipulated that after the American uranium was treated in Canada, it had to “then return the uranium to the U.S. for further processing.”

“That license stated that the Canadian Government needed to obtain prior approval before any of the U.S. material could be transferred to any country other than the U.S.,” the letter added. “Subsequently the U.S. Department of Energy granted approval for some re-transfers of U.S. uranium from the Canadian conversion facilities to European enrichment plants.”

The NRC added, however, it did not believe any of the American uranium made its way “directly” to Russia. And it added that the whole supply chain scenario was made possible by the resubmission of Obama’s Section 123 agreement in 2010.

“The transfer of the U.S.-supplied uranium from Canada to Europe noted above also was subject to applicable Section 123 agreements,” the NRC noted. Section 123 is the part of the Atomic Energy Act that allows for the U.S. to share civilian nuclear technology and goods with allies.

The Uranium One deal has been controversial since at least 2015, when The New York Times reported former President Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speech fee from a Russian bank and millions in donations to his charitable foundation from sources interested in the deal around the time the Uranium One sale was being reviewed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department and eight other federal agencies.

Hillary Clinton has said she delegated the approval decision to a deputy on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and did not apply any pressure. Bill Clinton has said the monies he received had no bearing on his wife’s policymaking decisions.

The 2015 Times article included a single reference to Uranium One officials saying they believed some of its American uranium made its way to Europe and Japan without any reference to how that occurred.

NRC officials said the multiple decisions documented in the memos, including the 2012 amendment of the third-party export license, provide the most complete description to date of how Russian-owned uranium ended up getting exported from the United States.

The entire Uranium One episode is getting a fresh look after The Hill disclosed late last month that the FBI had gathered extensive evidence in 2009 — before the mine sale was approved — that Rosatom’s main executive in the United States was engaged in a racketeering scheme that included bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering.

The probe was enabled by an undercover informant working for the FBI inside the Russian nuclear industry, court records show. But the Justice Department did not make that evidence public until 2014, long after Rosatom benefited from multiple favorable decisions from the Obama administration.

The Senate Judiciary, House Intelligence and House Oversight committees have all announced plans to investigate the new revelation, and the Justice Department has given approval for the undercover informant to testify for the first time about what he witnessed the Russians doing to influence Obama administration decisions favorable to Rosatom between 2009 and 2014.

Hillary Clinton and other Democrats have described the renewed focus on the Uranium One deal as simply a distraction from the current investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, in which Donald Trump became the 45th president. She also says that concerns about the Uranium One sale have long ago been “debunked.”

But it’s not just Republicans who have said that the revelation the FBI had evidence that Rosatom was engaged in criminality during the time it was receiving favorable decisions from the U.S. government deserves fresh scrutiny.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of both the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees, told The Hill she would like to learn more about what the FBI knew.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) has criticized Republicans for investigating Clinton, but said on “Morning Joe” last month he has “no problem looking into” the Uranium One deal.

And Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said Sunday on CNN that he believed it was appropriate for Congress to investigate the new information.

“One of the House committees has already begun an oversight committee hearing,” King said. “I always think oversight hearings are appropriate. I’ve been trying to understand this deal.”

King also repeated the oft-quoted narrative that the “company changed hands, but the uranium that is mined in the United States cannot leave the United States.” The NRC license now shows now that Uranium One was, in fact, allowed to export American uranium.

A legal expert on the CFIUS process told The Hill that the new revelation that the FBI knew that a Rosatom official was engaged in illegality on U.S. soil before the sale was approved could very well have affected the decision if that evidence had been made public in real time.

“Criminal behavior would be something the committee would take into consideration when evaluating a transaction with a foreign company,” said Stewart Baker, a foreign commerce law expert at the Steptoe Johnson firm. “It is a consideration, but it is not something that would guarantee a particular outcome.”

He said the committee board would need “to consider how serious the criminal behavior is, in the context of this transaction, how likely is it that someone acting against U.S. security interest would take action,” he added.

 

Read letter to Barrasso by kballuck1 on Scribd

 

Read NRC license amendment by kballuck1 on Scribd

Read Visclosky letter by kballuck1 on Scribd

Read Obama Section 123 statement by kballuck1 on Scribd

More here from The Hill

Proposed Tax Plan Called The Cut Cut Cut Bill?

It has been officially introduced. Do we like it? Check it out here.

If Schumer and Pelosi dont like it then perhaps it has some good things in it, right? Anyone talking about the spending and then servicing the debt?

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House Republicans are attempting the biggest transformation of the U.S. tax code in more than 30 years. The new bill aims to chop the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, as well as trim income tax brackets from seven to four, with the top rate of 39.6% to remain intact.

Here’s a look at the four new proposed tax brackets.

Currently, there are seven tax brackets: 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and 39.6%. 12%: This new rate applies to single filers starting at $12,000 up to $45,000 and married joint filers after the $24,000 deduction up to $90,000. 25%: This rate starts at $45,000 for single filers and $90,000 for married joint filers. 35%: This rate starts at $200,000 for single filers and $260,000 for married joint filers. 39.6%: This rate starts at $500,000 for single filers and one million plus for married couples.

The Heritage Foundation tax experts summarized it this way:

Months ago, conservatives began pressuring their lawmakers to ensure that tax reform followed five conservative principles. Here’s how the bill stacks up to those principles:

Lowering and Simplifying the Individual Tax Rates: The GOP proposal provides long overdue relief to millions of Americans by simplifying and lowering the individual tax rates to 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent. For married couples, the 25 percent rate starts at $90,000, the 35 percent rate starts at $260,000 and the top rate starts at $1 million. The bill will also double the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for families.

Lowering the Corporate Tax Rate: This bill will immediately lower the corporate rate to 20 percent — the rate demanded by conservatives for months — making American businesses more competitive with the rest of the world and providing hard working Americans with a much needed raise. Rates for small business pass throughs were also reduced by 15 percentage points, down to 25 percent.

Tax Free Entrepreneurship (Full Expensing): The GOP proposal includes full expensing for some investments that phases out after 5 years. This is a necessary boost to investment in the short-term, though improvements could be made as the process advances.

Establishing a Territorial Tax System: This bill attempts to eliminate the double taxation that defines our current worldwide tax system, though there are some provisions that could undermine the full value of that reform. Stay tuned for a more in-depth analysis.

Ending Cronyism in the Tax Code: Conservatives have also been fighting back against big-government special interest groups. The plan eliminates many special interest provisions including the State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT), though it allows a write off for property taxes. If not for conservative pushback, the swamp creatures would have been far more successful in defending the broken, corrupt status quo.

Here are some other things included in the bill you should know:

  • Repeals the Alternative Minimum Tax
  • Child tax credit goes to $1600 from $1000 plus additional $300 credit for parents and non-child dependents.
  • State and local deduction converted to property tax deduction with $10K cap
  • 401k’s are untouched
  • The Death Tax exemption will be doubled and eventually phased out after five years.
  • Preserves the home mortgage interest deduction for current mortgages and limits the deduction to $500,000 for new mortgages.
  • Preserves the Charitable Tax Deduction.

At first glance, the preliminary text released today has the potential to unleash economic growth, create American jobs, increase wages for American workers, allow families to keep more of their hard-earned money, and make U.S. businesses competitive across the globe.

According to documents released by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, a typical middle-income family of four, earning $59K (median household income), will receive a $1,182 tax cut under this bill.