Inauguration Day Protests, Looting, Destruction = Arrests

Posted on February 22, 2017February 22, 2017 by Denise Simon

Image result for black bloc A global operation that began apparently in 2001. While this article is not fully vetted, there is no reason to assume it is false.

Blocks away from the swearing in on Inauguration Day for Donald Trump, there were several pockets where all kinds of nasty things were going on by people associated with the Black Bloc. As reported by USA Today in early February:

Swarms of people dressed in black invaded what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration against right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulous on Wednesday evening.

The group tossed smoke bombs, set fires and started fights on the University of California – Berkeley campus where Yiannopoulous was slated to speak. He never would.

The protest’s organizers, the Berkeley Against Trump coalition, said the peaceful acts of the 1,500 demonstrators were marred by 50 to 75 anti-fascist Black Bloc protestors.

Outside of Berkeley, media outlets have linked Black Blocs to a number of modern protests, most recently in efforts opposing President Donald Trump. The Nation credits a Black Bloc protestor with punching alt-right leader Richard Spencer in the face on Trump’s inauguration day. The Washington Post said Black Blocs were involved with violent protests in Washington, D.C. on inauguration day and in Portland following Trump’s election win.

*** For more on the tactics, training and preparation of Black Bloc, go here.

So, where are we now on those protestors in Washington DC?

Per the indictment in part:

(hereinafter, the “Rioting Defendants”) willfully engaged, incited, and

urged other people to engage in a riot, that is, a public disturbance involving an assemblage of

five or more persons, that by tumultuous and violent conduct and the threat thereof, resulted in

serious bodily harm or property damage in excess of $5,000.

lt was a part of this riot that the Rioting Defendants and others gathered on the

morning of January 20, 2017 , in and around Logan Circle located at 1 3m Street and P Street

NW, Washington, D.C.

lt was a part of this riot that, on January 20, 2017 ,The Rioting Defendants used a

tactic called the “Black Bloc” in which individual defendants wore black or dark colored clothing,

gloves, scarves, sunglasses, ski masks, gas masks, goggles, helmets, hoodies, and other face concealing

and face protecting items to conceal their identities in an effort to prevent law

enforcement from being able to identify the individual perpetrators of violence or destruction.

lt was a part of this riot that, on January 20,2017, to facilitate violence and

destruction, individual defendants and others participating in the Black Bloc armed themselves

with items that could be used to damage persons and property. These items included hammers,

crowbars, metal poles, wooden sticks, wooden poles, bricks, rocks, pieces of concrete, lighters,

flares, firecrackers, and other explosive devices.

lt was a part of this riot that, on January 20, 2017, individual defendants and

others participating in the Black Bloc brought face masks, gas masks, and goggles to eliminate

or mitigate the effectiveness of crowd control measures that might be used by law enforcement.

lt was a part of this riot that, at or about 10:19 AM on January 20, 2017 ‘The

Rioting Defendants and others moved south from Logan Circle on 13h Street NW as part of the

Black Bloc.

7 . lt was a part of this riot that, at about 10:19 AM on January 20′ 201 7, individuals

participating in the Black Bloc carried flares and lit firecrackers and fireworks as the Rioting

Defendants and others moved south on 136 Street NW.

lt was a part of this riot that, at or about 10:2 1 AM on January 20, 201 7, within

t\ /o (2) blocks of leaving Logan Circle, individuals participating in Black Bloc started breaking (..)

Read the full document here along with the 200+ that were arrested and charged.

Trump’s Aggressive Immigration Plan Released

Posted on February 21, 2017February 21, 2017 by Denise Simon

When it comes to asylum seekers, a person under the Obama administration only needed to say they were seeking asylum. Trump’s plan raises the bar where conditions for being granted asylum must be proven.

Image result for trump immigration plan

In part from Reuters:

WHAT IS “CREDIBLE FEAR”?

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, an applicant must generally demonstrate “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

Immigration lawyers say any applicants who appear to meet that criteria in their initial interviews should be allowed to make their cases in court. They oppose encouraging asylum officers to take a stricter stance on questioning claims and rejecting applications.

Interviews to assess credible fear are conducted almost immediately after an asylum request is made, often at the border or in detention facilities by immigration agents or asylum officers, and most applicants easily clear that hurdle. Between July and September of 2016, U.S. asylum officers accepted nearly 88 percent of the claims of credible fear, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

Asylum seekers who fail the credible fear test can be quickly deported unless they file an appeal. Currently, those who pass the test are eventually released and allowed to remain in the United States awaiting hearings, which are often scheduled years into the future because of a backlog of more than 500,000 cases in immigration courts.

Between October 2015 and April 2016, nearly 50,000 migrants claimed credible fear, 78 percent of whom were from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala or Mexico, according to statistics from USCIS.

The number of migrants from those three countries who passed credible fear and went to court to make their case for asylum rose sharply between 2011 and 2015, from 13,970 claims to 34,125, according to data from the Justice Department. More here from Reuters.

Implementing the President’s Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements Policies by USA TODAY on Scribd

FNC: Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly moved Tuesday to implement a host of immigration enforcement changes ordered by President Trump, directing agency heads to hire thousands more officers, end so-called “catch-and-release” policies and begin work on the president’s promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent criminals and criminal organizations from destabilizing border security,” Kelly wrote in one of two memos released Tuesday by the department.

The memos follow up on Trump’s related executive actions from January and, at their heart, aim to toughen immigration enforcement.

The changes would spare so-called “dreamers.” On a conference call with reporters, a DHS official stressed that the directives would not affect Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and others given a reprieve in 2014. But outside those exemptions, Kelly wrote that DHS “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

A DHS official said the agencies are “going back to our traditional roots” on enforcement.

The memos cover a sprawling set of initiatives including:

Prioritizing criminal illegal immigrants and others for deportation, updating guidance from previous administration

Expanding the 287(g) program, which allows participating local officers to act as immigration agents – and had been rolled back under the Obama administration

Starting the planning, design and construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall

Hiring 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers

Hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents

Ending “catch-and-release” policies under which illegal immigrants subject to deportation potentially are allowed to “abscond” and fail to appear at removal hearings

It’s unclear what timelines the secretary is setting for some of these objectives, and what budgetary and other constraints the department and its myriad agencies will face. In pursuing an end to “catch-and-release,” one memo called for a plan with the Justice Department to “surge” immigration judges and asylum officers to handle additional cases.

While congressional Republicans have vowed to work with Trump to fund the front-end costs associated with his promised border wall, the same memo also hints at future efforts to potentially use money otherwise meant for Mexico – following on Trump’s repeated campaign vow to make Mexico pay for the wall. The secretary called for “identifying and quantifying” sources of aid to Mexico, without saying in the memo how that information might be used.

Mexican officials repeatedly have said they will not pay for a border barrier. DHS said it has identified initial locations to build a wall where current fencing is not effective, near El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and El Centro, Calif.

The DHS directives come as the Trump White House continues to work on rewriting its controversial executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program as well as travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. The order was put on hold by a federal court, and Trump’s team is said to be working on a new measure.

The directives also come as the Trump administration faces criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups for recent ICE raids of illegal immigrants.

DHS officials on Tuesday’s conference call stressed that they are operating under existing law and once again shot down an apparently erroneous news report from last week claiming National Guard troops could be utilized to round up illegal immigrants. That will not happen, an official said.

“We’re going to treat everyone humanely and with dignity, but we are going to execute the laws of the United States,” a DHS official said on the conference call.

Iran Buying War Torn Syria Real Estate, Pipelines Abound

Posted on February 20, 2017February 20, 2017 by Denise Simon

Damascus, Syria is known as the city of Jasmine. It is rich in religious history including Christians, Jews and Muslims. If there is any question about how Iran is advancing their power in the region to include Syria and eventually erasing history, then read on.

Now? AFP

BEIRUT: Syrian government forces fired rockets at a rebel-held area on Damascus’s outskirts on Sunday, pressing an attack that began the day before and has killed up to 16 people, a medical worker and war monitors said.
The medical worker and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was the biggest attack on the Qaboun area, to the city’s northeast, in at least two years.
At least three shells hit government-held areas closer to the center of Damascus and near Qaboun on Sunday, but there were no reports of casualties, a Hezbollah-run military media unit and a Reuters witness said.
On Saturday, a government sniper killed one person in the area and rockets hit a cemetery on Qaboun’s outskirts, the medical worker, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
The British-based Observatory also reported attacks on a cemetery.
Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.
There was no immediate government comment on the Damascus fighting.
The Observatory said 16 people had died in the violence around Qaboun since Saturday, the highest death toll from fighting there for more than two years.
The medical worker in nearby Eastern Ghouta, just outside Damascus, said at least 13 people had died. He said he could hear explosions coming from Qaboun early on Sunday.
Violence in western Syria has increasingly tarnished a shaky cease-fire which took effect on Dec. 30, backed by Damascus ally Russia and Turkey, which supports rebels.

***

The Syrian Commission for Media has issued a report regarding purchases and long-term renting carried out by figures with close ties to the Syrian regime, including Abdullah Nazzam, Iran’s man in Syria. Real estate offices in Damascus have confirmed Nazzam’s unprecedented activity in buying property in capital.

Reports from Damascus and Tehran said that Iran’s men have expanded their purchase activities to include a number of properties in the capital since last June.

The activities of pro-regime businessmen in the purchase of real estate were largely limited to areas of eastern Damascus, namely the Old City, but after June, Abdullah Nazzam expanded his sights on the entire capital.

In addition, the Iranians have also increased their purchasing activities in Eastern Ghouta, largely in Maliha, which is owned by the state, making it easier for the Iranians to circumvent local Syrian laws, especially after the decline of Eastern Ghouta’s battalions after fierce fighting rocked the region last year.

Syrian opposition sources confirmed earlier that many hotels – including Caldah, Iwan, Asia, Damascus International, Venice and Petra – are now owned by the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, in addition to holding shares in the Samiramis Hotel. The Iranian Embassy also sought to buy huge portions of real estate in the Old City of Damascus, specifically in the area extending from behind the Umayyad Mosque to the Bab Touma area, and in the western region of al-Maryamiyah neighborhood.

VOA

*** Iranians Buying Up Land in War-Torn Syria

New buildings are seen in Damascus, Syria, in this file photo. Iranians are investing in and providing labor for some of the construction in the war-torn country. AFP PHOTO/ LOUAI BESHARA

VOA: Iran’s government wants its builders to buy up property in Shi-ite majority neighborhoods of Syria’s capital, Damascus.

It is also asking construction workers to go to Syria.

This information comes from construction industry officials in Tehran and Iranian experts.

Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi said owning real estate gives Iran more control over Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

Rich and conservative Iranian business people with ties to the government are buying expensive homes in Damascus, according to news reports. This is influencing price increases in Syria’s real estate markets.

“Five million houses have been destroyed in the civil war,” said Syrian economist Khorshid Alika told Voice of America. “The increased Iranian demand to buy land and properties has naturally led to more inflation in the market.”

Iran’s interest in Syrian real estate is not new. But it increased after the rebel uprising began in 2011.

Government-run media have been reporting recently about how Iran joined Russia to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s government has been fighting against rebels and the Islamic State terror group.

Iran is not only asking people to buy homes and property in Syria. The country is also asking construction workers and contractors to take jobs there.

One contractor said a fellow contractor with close ties to the Iranian government told him he had a chance to make money in Damascus.

“When we asked about the security, he said that the zone is even more secure than Tehran,” Iranian contractor Amir Maghsoudloo told VOA.

Iran is home to about 3 million people from Afghanistan. Many fled the war-torn country. Most earn low wages in Iran. They are being offered better paying construction jobs in Syria.

Some Damascus construction projects are run by Afghan nationals from Iran, said Tahi Esmali. He is an Afghan national who works as a bricklayer. He had worked in Iran before moving to Syria in 2015.

Iranian interests are not limited to Damascus. Iranian business people and companies are looking to invest in projects in the central Syrian city of Homs. The Syrian military and its Lebanese Hezbollah allies recaptured Homs in late 2015.

The Iranian government has supported Syrian President Assad. Recent reports in state-run media say that Iran increased the size of its Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria.

*** What more is causing all the interest in Syria by Iran and Russia? Well there are other countries with interests as well….pipelines.

As noted in late 2015: The Syrian Civil War stems from a disagreement between the Saudis and Russia over the route for a new gas pipeline ducting Gulf gas to the lucrative European markets. Russia, whose only Mediterranean base is located in Tartus, Syria, supports Assad’s initiative of a gas pipeline from Iran through Iraq and Syria (the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline). But Saudi Arabia’s hardline Sunni Muslims wants to overthrow Syria’s Assad, who is a Shia Muslim, for religious reasons. They want to run a 100 per cent Sunni-controlled pipeline from Qatar through Syria and Turkey (the Qatar-Turkey pipeline), into Europe. As a result of this disagreement a proxy war is taking place in Syria between the aforementioned powers. Meanwhile displaced Syrian refugees are flooding into Europe with jihadis in their midst.

Originally, Europeans were strongly in favor of deposing Assad for so-called “humanitarian reasons”. Their humanitarian concerns for Assad’s repressive regime veil the truth – Europe resents depending on Russia for 40 per cent of its gas. Russian President Putin annexed Crimea and maintained a belligerent stance, pushing Europe to favor the pipeline proposal of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi plan to duct natural gas all the way to Europe through Syria and Turkey came with a catch – Assad would have to be toppled. The US supported the initiative as Russia’s only Mediterranean naval base would disappear with Assad. Thus, the Western world had itself a new plan that would bring peace and prosperity to the region. That is after the “initial shakeout” necessary to oust Assad.

The “initial shakeout” didn’t go as planned. Russia-backed Assad proved far more resilient than anticipated. But more importantly, western-backed Islamic militias committed such barbaric acts of terror they even made Assad, and Russia, look good in comparison. An emboldened ISIS gradually took over several of the region’s oil fields to fund its operations to the tune of $50 million per month by smuggling oil into Turkey. The routes and means were well established during the previous oil embargo on Iraq and so are the financial networks that profit from it in Turkey. Today, crude oil illegally smuggled by ISIS into Turkey accounts for a fairly significant 3.5 per cent of Turkey’s total oil imports. More here.

Russian Spy Operations History in the U.S.

Posted on February 20, 2017February 20, 2017 by Denise Simon

In 2015:

The FBI announced on Monday that it had busted a Russian spy ring that was allegedly focused on obtaining economic information including details about US markets and sanctions on Russian banks.

According to a federal complaint filed by FBI special agent Gregory Monaghan in a Manhattan federal court on Friday, an alleged spy, Evgeny Buryakov, posed as a banker in the New York office of an unnamed Russian bank.

Buryakov is reportedly being arraigned in the Southern District of New York.

Monaghan said Buryakov (aka”Zhenya”) was on “deep cover” and working for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) to gather intelligence and transmit it back to Moscow. The SVR used multiple forms of cover.

The complaint includes several stunning revelations, including claims that staffers at an unidentified Russian news organization in the US are engaged in spying; and indications that American law enforcement bugged the New York office of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

According to the complaint, Buryakov worked with two other men who were involved in intelligence-gathering activities for the SVR: Victor Podobnyy and Igor Sporyshev. The complaint said Sporyshev served as a trade representative to the Russian Federation in New York. Podobnyy was allegedly an attaché to the permanent mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. More here from BusinessInsider.

***

SPIES, SPIES EVERYWHERE
A journey through D.C. espionage

WaPo: Mystery and intrigue are running wild in the capital these days. Secret conversations with dangerous diplomats, explosive foreign dossiers on American leaders, handwringing over national security and leaky intelligence. If you dip into our new book “Spy Sites of Washington, D.C.,” you will find that sneaking, lying and skullduggery are as old as the republic itself. And our region is full of the traces: hotels and parks and saloons and embassies and government offices where the deceitful and disloyal got up to their antics. Here is a sampling of sites where our nation’s espionage history has played out.

Graphic by Chiqui Esteban; Text by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton

Founding through Civil war (1790-1865)

1 Dolley Madison, first-lady spy

First lady Dolley Madison established an observation post on the White House roof in 1814 to watch for the approaching British army. While fleeing to avoid capture, she saved the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington before the White House was set ablaze.

White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

2 Winder Building Signal Corps cupola

Winder Building | PHOTO: Library of Congress

One of the highest points in Washington at the time of the Civil War, the cupola of the Winder Building was chosen by the Union Signal Corps for point-to-point visual communications with nearby camps and forts.

600 17th St. NW

3 Lowe balloon launch site

Launching of Lowe’s balloon. | PHOTO: Library of Congress

Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe conducted the first aerial combat reconnaissance in our nation’s history from a tethered balloon west of Washington. On June 24, 1861, he observed and reported Confederate Cavalry activity.

Fort Taylor Park, North Roosevelt Street and Ridge Place, Falls Church, Virginia

4 Mansion House Hotel

Sarah Emma Edmonds. | PHOTO: University of Michigan

Sarah Emma Edmonds claimed to have donned multiple disguises and personas as a Union spy, including a young man, Irish peddler, Southern gentleman and African American laundress. Later, she worked as a nurse at the Mansion Hotel, which had been converted to a Union hospital.The hotel, once located in front of the Carlyle House, has since been demolished.

121 N. Fairfax St., Alexandria, Virginia

5 Kirkwood House Hotel

Sketch of the Kirkwood House.

The Kirkwood House Hotel was at times home to Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow, a spy of many disguises, who has been called the “Confederate James Bond.” George Atzerodt, a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, also stayed at the hotel; he was assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, who lived at Kirkwood House, but he lost his nerve, drank heavily and fled.

12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW

6 Gardner’s Gallery

Gardner Gallery | PHOTO: INSCOM

Alexander Gardner’s photographs provide an invaluable historical record of the Civil War, but at the time they were also used to identify spies and for cartography. His photographs of Ford’s Theatre following Lincoln’s assassination are among the first crime scene photographs.

511 7th St. NW

7 Old Capitol Prison

Old Capitol Prison | PHOTO: National Archives

Sprawling across the site of what is now the Supreme Court building, the Old Capitol Prison held two of the most infamous and flamboyant Confederate spies, Belle Boyd, who was arrested many times and released, increasing her fame, and Rose O’Neal Greenhow, whose information aided the Confederacy in its victory at the First Battle of Bull Run.

1st and East Capitol St. NE

8 Surratt boarding house

Mary Surratt’s boarding house. | PHOTO: Library of Congress

Southern sympathizer Mary Surratt ran a boarding house that served as a safe house and base of operations for conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination.

604 H St. NW

Post-Civil War to World War II (1866-1945)

1 Van Deman offices

Maj. Gen. Ralph Van Deman | PHOTO: INSCOM

Maj. Gen. Ralph Van Deman deserves the title “father of modern military intelligence”. As America entered World War I, he built the country’s first professional military intelligence organization in the Old Executive Office Building.

639 17th St. NW

2 A. Mitchell Palmer residence

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s residence after the explosion. | PHOTO: Library of Congress

In an act of World War I era terrorism, an anarchist blew himself up while bombing the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in June 1919, causing extensive damage.

2132 R Street NW

3 Bellevue Hotel

Drawing of The Bellevue Hotel. | PHOTO: ‘A Death in Washington’, Gary Kern and the New York Journal-American

In 1941, Soviet intelligence defector Walter Krivitsky was found dead in his room at the Bellevue Hotel, now known as the Hotel George, from a single gunshot to the head. Although ruled a suicide, suspicions still linger that Soviet intelligence directed the killing.

15 E St. NW

4 East Building, Office of Strategic Services headquarters

East Building, Office of Strategic Services headquarters. | PHOTO: Central Intelligence Agency

The East Building on Medicine Hill was headquarters to the OSS and later the first home of the Central Intelligence Agency. Today the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its clandestine history.

23rd and E streets NW

5 Vint Hill

Several original buildings remain at the former Vint Hill top secret cryptographic school and signals-intercept site, although in recent years the area has been redeveloped into a residential and business community.

4263 Aiken Drive, Warrenton, Virginia

6 Vichy French Embassy

Former Vichy French Embassy.

At the Vichy French Embassy, World War II spy Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, wearing only a necklace and high heels to throw off a guard, aided a safe-cracking operation to steal diplomatic codes.

2129 Wyoming Ave, NW

7 Arlington Hall

Arlington Hall during World War II. | PHOTO: INSCOM

Arlington Hall Junior College for Women became the location of America’s World War II code-breaking programs. The majority of the 10,000 workers were young women with an aptitude for math.

4000 Arlington Blvd., Arlington, Virginia

8 Mayflower Hotel

Mayflower Hotel.

Over the decades, the prestigious and popular Mayflower Hotel has offered quiet venues for clandestine meetings involving Nazi saboteurs, Soviet agents and American spies such as CIA agent Aldrich Ames, who spied for Russia, and government scientist Stewart Nozette, who attempted to sell classified information to the Mossad.

1127 Connecticut Ave. NW

Cold war espionage (1946-1991)

1 British Embassy diplomats and Soviet spies

Harold “Kim” Philby’s home on 4100 Nebraska Ave. NW.

Harold “Kim” Philby, the senior MI6 British liaison officer to the FBI and the CIA, was secretly a Soviet spy and leader of Britain’s Cambridge Spy Ring. Another member of the ring, diplomat Guy Burgess, was a frequent guest in Philby’s home. Both men worked at the British Embassy.

3100 Massachusetts Ave. NW (embassy), 4100 Nebraska Ave. NW (Philby house)

2 Air America

Air America, a CIA proprietary company, operated one of the world’s largest airlines during the 1950s and 1960s, with 20,000 employees and 200 aircraft. Its pilots flew hazardous missions, landing at remote jungle airfields and dropping supplies under enemy fire.

918 16th St. NW

3 Pullman House

The mansion was acquired by Russia in 1913 and served as the Russian and Soviet Embassy until becoming the Russian ambassador’s residence in 1994. Soviet and Russian espionage operations were planned and run from here.

1125 16th St. NW

4 Steuart Motor Company

Steuart Motor Company. | PHOTO: Jacqueline Dupree, JDLand.com

One of the most unlikely clandestine sites in Washington, the Steuart Motor Company building also housed the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center. Not so subtly, perhaps, guards armed with machine guns surrounded the building when unprocessed top-secret film from U-2 photos of Cuban missile sites was delivered.

5th and K streets NW

5 Exchange Saloon

During the 1970s, the Exchange Saloon was a capital hot spot for swingers. The husband-and-wife spy team of Karl and Hana Koecher of the Czech intelligence service Statni Bezpecnost spent time at the saloon looking for potential agents.

1719 G St. NW

6 Hanssen signal site

Mugshot of Robert Hanssen.

Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent turned Russian spy, used the Foxstone Park entrance sign as a signal site to communicate with his Soviet handlers. When a horizontal piece of adhesive white tape appeared on the sign, they knew that their spy had loaded the dead drop, code-named ELLIS, at the first footbridge inside the park.

1910 Creek Crossing Rd. NE, Vienna, Virginia

7 Aldrich Ames site

Aldrich Ames being arrested. | PHOTO: Central Intelligence Agency

Ames, a career CIA officer, spied for nearly 10 years while living in an upper-middle-class house that had been purchased with money received from the KGB. When driving to his CIA office in 1994, he was boxed in after stopping at an intersection a few blocks from his home. Pulled from behind the wheel, he was thrown over the hood of his beloved maroon Jaguar, handcuffed and arrested.

North Quebec Street and Nelly Custis Drive, Arlington, Virginia

8 Jonathan Pollard meeting site

Meeting site in Dumbarton Oaks.

In a scene worthy of a John le Carré novel, Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. intelligence analyst and spy for Israel, conducted a clandestine meeting with his Israeli handler on a bench in the gardens of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. In the idyllic setting, the two negotiated the pay Pollard would receive for classified documents.

1703 32nd St. NW

Today’s spies (1992-2016)

1 CIA memorial

Memorial outside CIA’s campus. | PHOTO: Central Intelligence Agency

A simple public memorial outside the CIA’s campus pays tribute to the two CIA officers murdered by Pakistani terrorist Mir Aimal Kansi on Jan. 25, 1993.

CIA headquarters, McLean, Virginia

2 Cuban Embassy

Cuban Embassy on 16th St. | PHOTO: Slowking4/Wikimedia

After the United States and Cuba broke diplomatic relations, Cuba maintained limited official status in its former embassy as an “interest section” operated through the Swiss government. Cuban intelligence officers met with reporters and others in the second-floor Hemingway Lounge and Bar.

2630 16th St. NW

3 Ana Montes residence

Mugshot of Ana Montes.

Nicknamed the “Queen of Cuba” for her research as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Montes showed uncommon discipline in her 17-year career as a Cuban spy. But an error in tradecraft — failure to wipe incriminating evidence from her computer — exposed covert communications with Cuban intelligence and led to her arrest in 2001.

3039 Macomb St. NW

4 Stanislav Gusev operation

Surveillance image of Stanislav Gusev by the State Department building. | PHOTO: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Exactly how Russian intelligence implanted a microphone and transmitter in a chair rail in the State Department remains a mystery. The operation was exposed in 1999 after FBI agents observed Gusev, a Russian technical officer, repeatedly repositioning his vehicle in different parking places nearby to remotely control the bug.

2201 C St. NW

5 Tysons-Pimmit Library

Tysons-Pimmit Library.

By using computers at public libraries, Brian Patrick Regan sought anonymity while planning espionage activities. Showing care for security, he devised a sophisticated private cipher that baffled investigators seeking evidence against him. But he was eventually tripped up in 2001 by his spelling errors.

7584 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Virginia

6 Final resting place

Arlington National Cemetery.

Many American intelligence officers are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, among them: OSS chief William “Wild Bill” Donovan; code-breakers William and Elizebeth Friedman; CIA director Richard Helms; and U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.

Arlington Veteran Cemetery, Memorial Drive, Arlington, Virginia

Dear President Trump, Please Stop It

Posted on February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 by Denise Simon

Remember the circle jerk where the Federal government gives Planned Parenthood $500 million a year for subsidizing the organizations low cost healthcare for women? Planned Parenthood has a political action committee that has donated to members of Congress….so Federal dollars get cycled right back to member of Congress. Some like this for 2016/ House: Total to Democrats: $534,489 Total to Republicans: $7,500

(See the recipients here) Related reading: Planned Parenthood workers, PACs donated $25M to Dems since 2000

Essentially the same model is used for corporate subsidies….hold on to you oh sh*t bar for this one:

First examine the Export Import Bank shall we? Authorization to fund the ExIm Bank in 2015 was stopped by Congress and corporations freaked out. Why you ask? Well one reason dealt with an investigation from 2014: The U.S. Export-Import Bank has suspended or removed four officials in recent months amid investigations into allegations of gifts and kickbacks, as well as attempts to steer federal contracts to favored companies, several people familiar with the matter said. More here from the WSJ.

The Export Import Bank was designed to give small business a better edge in competing on national and global markets. So…how has that worked out?

Using a report published in 2015:

Using a dataset that the US Export-Import Bank recently made available to the public, one can see which foreign companies are among the top purchasers of American exports financed by the bank’s subsidy programs. The following table shows the top 10 foreign buyers, based on the total amount of financing authorized from fiscal years 2007 through 2013.

**

The number one buyer was the Mexican state-owned petroleum company, Pemex, which has a market capitalization of $416 billion but has somehow needed more than $7 billion in US-taxpayer-backed financing to facilitate deals with American exporters in recent years. Such assistance from the federal government to Pemex, along with other oil companies on the list, raises eyebrows, particularly considering that the current administration, which supports the reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank, hasn’t exactly been pro-fossil fuels.

Other top buyers include foreign airlines that purchased aircraft from Boeing, which isn’t surprising given that Boeing is, by an overwhelming margin, the chief beneficiary of export assistance from the bank. Emirate Airlines, which has benefitted from $3.4 billion in US-backed financing, proudly boasts on its website that it has “recorded an annual profit in every year since its third in operation.”

The table further undermines the claim made by the Ex-Im Bank’s defenders that it provides critical support to US small businesses. Instead, it provides evidence that the biggest beneficiaries of the Ex-Im Bank’s largesse are large multinational corporations, here and overseas.

*** Okay, that is just the Export Import Bank…let us move on to other federal subsidies some of which during the campaign trail Senator Ted Cruz advocated for termination. He was right. How so?

From 2015: *(See any small companies listed below?) Read more here. Note the numbers below are BILLIONS.

Now the private and free enterprise system and corporations should have success. But are these companies standing on their own or just part of another circle jerk for political favors? Hah….rhetorical question until you see who is participating. How about Google….the most profitable and successful tech company out there. Well yes but… Besides Intel, Google is the top tech company that receives government subsidies, picking up more than $630 million from states like Oregon, North Carolina and a few others. What does a multi-billion dollar company that controls the majority of the world’s Internet need with more than $630 million in government subsidies, you ask? Well, you know, for things like property taxes and training reimbursements. What, do you all think that money just grows on trees?! Also, don’t even think about googling “Google government subsidies” because THEY WILL KNOW ABOUT IT. How about WalMart?

Yup, Walmart, the retail giant also benefits greatly from more than 260 different grants from multiple states totaling nearly $150 million. With that kind of money, it’s no wonder they can manage to sell anything and everything in their stores.

Seems Goldman Sachs had the red carpet to the cash the check here door too.

Remember that company that essentially caused the whole recession a few years ago and then managed to get billions in bailout money from the federal government because the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve were both stacked with the company’s former CEOs and high-level employees? Well, just so you know, they also do pretty well in the subsidies department. Goldman Sachs has raked in over $660 million, mostly from their home state of New York, but with some help from New Jersey, Utah and Michigan as well. Hooray! More here from PolicyMic.

Are we sure all these corporations including Disney or Intel are told to get these subsidies, they must hired American employees? Nope…hardly…but shouldn’t that be a stipulation? Disney has apparently survived a scandal by hiring foreign workers replacing Americans. It was just reported last year that Intel fired 12,000 employees only to be replaced by foreigners. Domestic corporations are getting big money from various federal programs and then abuse the H1B visa system.

Convoluted right? Where is the outrage? Hey President Trump….stop it all please…Please?