Category Archives: Presidential campaign

A Look Back at the Last Decade

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

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2010: The Arab Spring

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Apple introduces first iPad

President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law

7.0 Earthquake strike Haiti

Instagram Debuts

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2011:  Abbottabad Raid Killing Osama bin Ladin

8.9 Earthquake Hits Japan

Prince William Marries Catherine Middleton

Casey Anthony Acquitted of Killing her Daughter

Syrian Civil War Began

2012: Baumgartner’s Stratosphere Jump

Benghazi attack

Super Hurricane Sandy

Aurora, Colorado Theater Shooting

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

2013: IRS Targeting

Boston Marathon Bombing

Edward Snowden NSA leaks

Pope Benedict Resignation, First Ever

Black Lives Matter Activist Movement Originates

Failed Government Launch of Healthcare.gov

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2014: Malaysia Flight #370 Goes Missing

Actor Robin Williams Dies by Suicide

Bowe Bergdahl Taliban Prisoner Swap

Ebola Virus Outbreak

Boko Harem Kidnaps 200 Schoolgirls

Uber Launches Rideshare

Obama Normalizes Relations with Cuba

Islamic State (ISIL-ISIS) Battle Begins in Mosul

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2015:  San Bernardino Terror Attack

Pope Francis Speech to Joint Session of Congress

Hillary Clinton Email Scandal

Charlie Hebdo Terror Attack

Paris Stade de France Bombing

Bataclan Terror Attack

Syrian European Refugee Crisis

2016: Rio Olympic Games, Ryan Lochte scandal

U.S. Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage

Singer Prince Found Dead from Fentanyl Overdose

Colin Kaepernick Began Kneeling Protest

Brexit Vote for Withdraw of United Kingdom from European Union

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

2017: Rare Coast to Coast Full Solar Eclipse

#MeToo Movement Begins

Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Hotel Shooting Killing 58 Wounding 413

Arianna Grande Manchester Bombing

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

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

Hurricane Irma, Category 5

Hurricane Maria, Category 5

President Trump Launches #FakeNews

ANTIFA Launches National Activist Operations

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2018: Thailand Soccer Team Rescued from Cave

North Korea Agrees to Trump to Denuclearize

Cambridge Analytica-Facebook Scandal

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

Prince Harry Marries American Meghan Markle

Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting, Killing 17

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2019:  Robert Mueller Special Council Investigation Ends

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

Trump Installs Sweeping Immigration Enforcement Measures

U.S. China Trade Pact Finalizes First Agreement

Boeing Jets Grounded

Hong Kong Freedom Fighters Protest China for Freedom

Don’t Investigate Bidens Now, then When?

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As the U.S. presidential race began roaring to life in 2016, authorities in the former Soviet republic of Latvia flagged a series of “ suspicious” financial transactions to Hunter Biden and other colleagues at a Ukrainian natural gas company and sought Kiev’s help investigating, according to documents and interviews.

The Feb. 18, 2016 alert to Ukraine came from the Latvian prosecutorial agency responsible for investigating money laundering, and it specifically questioned whether Vice President Joe Biden’s younger son and three other officials at Burisma Holdings were the potential beneficiaries of suspect funds.

“The Office for Prevention of Laundering of Proceeds Derived from Criminal Activity … is currently investigating suspicious activity of Burisma Holdings Limited,” the Latvian agency also known as the FIU wrote Ukraine’s financial authorities.

The memo was released to me by the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office and confirmed by the Latvian embassy to the United States.

Latvian authorities said they did not get any incriminating information back from Ukraine to warrant further investigation and did not take additional action in 2016. But the memo adds to the mounting evidence that there was ongoing investigative activity surrounding Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden’s compensation as a board member in the weeks just before Joe Biden forced the firing of the Ukraine prosecutor overseeing the Burisma investigation in spring 2016.

The Latvian law enforcement memo identified a series of loan payments totaling about $16.6 million that were routed from companies in Beliz and the United Kingdom to Burisma through Ukraine’s PrivatBank between 2012 and 2015.

The flagged funds were “partially transferred” to Hunter Biden, a board member at Burisma since May 2014, and three other officials working for the Ukrainian natural gas company, the Latvian memo said. More here from Solomon.

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But hold on as the media knew much of this as did so many members of Congress and quite frankly our intelligence agencies including the U.S. Department of State.

Politico reported just recently: The Bidens took over Paradigm Global Advisors. In the late summer of 2006 Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Joe’s younger brother, James, purchased the firm. On their first day on the job, they showed up with Joe’s other son, Beau, and two large men and ordered the hedge fund’s chief of compliance to fire its president, according to a Paradigm executive who was present. At the time, the senator was just months away from both assuming the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second presidential bid.

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According to the executive, James Biden made it clear he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.

 

PCM Merger Agreement by Anonymous Q1yQNGqtP on Scribd

The Biden family have consistently mixed business and politics over nearly half a century, moving from one business to the next as Joe’s stature in Washington grew. None of the ventures appear to have been runaway successes, and Biden’s relatives have not been accused of criminal wrongdoing in their dealings. But over the years, several of their partners and associates have ended up indicted or convicted. The dealings have brought Joe unwelcome scrutiny and threaten to distract from his presidential bid. Read the long and full story here.

But hold there is still more beyond Burisma and China. That is we need to go back even further.

A son of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden was paid an undisclosed amount of money as a consultant by MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware, during the years the senator supported legislation that was promoted by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups.

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign said Biden helped forge a bipartisan compromise on the measure, which is now law and makes it harder for consumers to obtain bankruptcy protection in the courts.

MBNA’s consulting payments to Hunter Biden, first reported by The New York Times, followed his departure in 2001 from the company, where he had been an executive.

At the time Hunter Biden was receiving consulting payments from MBNA, he also was a Washington lobbyist at a firm he had co-founded.

“He was not a lobbyist for MBNA, and his work had absolutely nothing to do with the bankruptcy bill. Zero. Nothing,” said Wade.

Resurrecting Biden’s role in the bankruptcy legislation could undercut one of the Obama campaign’s lines of attack: That his Republican opponent, John McCain, is insensitive to the financial woes of middle-class Americans.

Consumer and civil rights groups and unions, as well as Democratic opponents, had argued that the bankruptcy legislation was unfair to low-income working people, single mothers, minorities and the elderly, and would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face mounting medical bills. More here.

But are there other politicians we need to look at? Yes.

Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.

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In 2018, the Daily Beast reported that a number of businesses linked to Kolomoisky hired Powell as an attorney. One of those firms paid Powell at least $700,000 over two years, according to public records.

The Miami Herald reported Powell was working for companies tied to Kolomoisky for 10 years. Powell made most of his money in the two years leading up to his wife’s election in 2018.

Kolomoisky has been accused of contract killings and embezzlement in the past. Yet, in 2018 when Mucarsel-Powell was running for her seat, she did not see her husband’s work as relevant to her campaign. More here.

As President Trump works diligently to be the law and order president, it is no wonder AG Barr, John Dunham, Rudy Guiliani and so many others including conservative media are doing the real investigative work…draining the swamp.

So, while we have elections around the corner, we have much more to learn and consider at the ballot box. Could it be that the Democrats led by Speaker Pelosi are scrambling to cover up some other nasty events we are slowly learning about?

 

 

 

FISA, Horowitz v. FBI

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The second hearing in the Senate where Inspector General Horowitz delivered more testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was quite chilling and revealing.
There was a particular exchange between Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Horowitz that explains the bias or perhaps even the plotting.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was blunt in trying to get to the bottom of what happened during Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.

“Were they just all incompetent?” he asked. Hawley then noted that due to the complexities involved, “it doesn’t sound like they’re very stupid to me.”

Hawley ultimately asked why the members of the FBI would commit such failures to mislead a court multiple times.

“That was precisely the concern we had,” Horowitz said. The inspector general made clear that he did not reach any conclusions regarding intent, but he did not necessarily accept the reasons people gave him during his investigation.

“There are so many errors, we couldn’t reach a conclusion or make a determination on what motivated those failures other than we did not credit what we lay out here were the explanations we got,” Horowitz said.

This echoed what Horowitz said in his opening statement, where he made clear that “although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or the missing information and the failures that occurred.”

Horowitz previously appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the aftermath of his report on the subject, but Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate homeland security panel comes a day after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) sharply criticized the FBI in a rare public order that referenced his findings.

Horowitz said that both Justice Department attorneys and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “should have been given complete and accurate information,” adding, “that did not occur and as a result, the surveillance of Carter Page continued even as the FBI gathered evidence and information that weakened the assessment of probable cause and made the FISA applications less accurate.”

So, the Democrats along with the media prepackaged the headlines prior to the Horowitz testimony that the IG report found NO bias. We are now getting more concise and factual information that says otherwise. Seems those on the top floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building opened some old history books on the former Director of the FBI and used several of Hoover’s tactics for all things Crossfire Hurricane and the 4 FISA warrants.

 

Image result for fisa courtThe IG report is teeming with deceit and clandestine maneuvers at the hands of the SSA’s (Special Agents) on the top floor and not those of 7 levels down from the Director level as Comey and McCabe have declared.

The first FISA application: “contained seven significant inaccuracies and omissions.”. None of these were corrected with an addendum or with the 3 renewals.  Contrary to Comey’s constant testimony, the dossier played the largest role in the warrant application and the FBI knew that Carter Page worked as an agent for the CIA to collect and share information on his Russian interactions, yet that was stripped out of the hundreds of pages in the warrant applications. By the way, both the FBI and the CIA as a matter of practice use civilian informants and even top leaders of global corporations to gather intelligence during foreign travels and interactions.

Now, where is the outrage of the pesky now very loyal and dedicated pro-Constitutional Democrats and where is the media on all this? In fact, with the top judge, Rosemary Collyer at the FISA court issuing a demand letter after the IG report and testimony to the FBI, what will the all the clean up measures include and will there be legal consequences for those who lied, cheated and deceived the court? Beware, much of our media, TV and print operates with wild abandon by applying propaganda….the Kremlin would be proud.

Time to Place a Terror Status on Drug Cartels

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

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

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

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

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

Death toll put at 20 for Mexico cartel attack near US ...

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

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

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

In part of this law for reference includes:

THE KINGPIN ACT

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

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

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

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

• Plays a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.

III. PROHIBITED TRANSACTIONS

E.O. 12978

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

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

THE KINGPIN ACT

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

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

The consequences are huge but it is time.

HPSCI Minority Report, No Evidence of Impeachment Grounds

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In part:

House Republicans delivered a point-by-point rebuttal Monday to Democrats’ impeachment efforts, claiming in their own report that the evidence collected in the inquiry to date does not support the accusations leveled against President Trump — or rise to the level of removal from office.

“The evidence presented does not prove any of these Democrat allegations, and none of the Democrats’ witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor,” Republicans said in a 123-page report, timed to be made public ahead of the majority Democrats’ impeachment report.

The dueling narratives are emerging following two weeks of House Intelligence Committee hearings, where witnesses detailed their own knowledge of efforts to pressure Ukraine to launch political probes as U.S. aid was withheld over the summer. The committee is set to vote on Democrats’ final report Tuesday – likely to be another party-line moment – before transmitting that document to the Judiciary Committee, which holds its first public hearing Wednesday.

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif.; Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Michael McCaul, R-Texas, penned the minority report, which has been reviewed by Fox News. In it, they broadly defend the president’s actions in the face of accusations he withheld military aid and a White House meeting as leverage to pressure Ukraine to launch a probe involving the Bidens. More here.

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Each year, the National Defense Authorization Act must pass both Houses of Congress and then have the President’s signature. For the last few years, military aid for Ukraine has been included as Ukraine has been fighting a hot war with Russia. Most recently, President Obama did fulfill the aid to Ukraine but it was all non-lethal aid as his reasons were to not further inflame tensions between the United States and Russia. The 2018 NDAA for Ukraine amounted to $350 million of lethal and non-lethal aid including training, technical assistance among other requests.

It should be noted that Ukraine maintains a military attache at the Pentagon that coordinates planning, war-gaming, training, aid and cyber with our own military experts assigned to Ukraine.

EXPLAINED: How Ukraine Uses U.S. Military Aid (Think ... photo

The 2019 NDAA has $250 million for Ukraine under what is titled the USAI ( Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative). Two other key details of this aid include the assignment of an executive agent responsible for overseeing the aid process. Additionally, the Department of Defense must sign off on the fact that the a small segment of corruption passes a standard set by the Unites States of which those details are is unclear before aid can be released. The DoD and the State Department certified twice that Ukraine had made sufficient reforms to decrease corruption and increase accountability.

Sufficient reforms?

By the way, the 2020 NDAA has $300 million in security assistance for Ukraine.

Yet….that does not settle any other parts of corruption in Ukraine. This is where the major disputes come from between the Democrats and Republicans. Corruption includes sham elections, money-laundering, banking financial fraud and theft and most recently the concerns of the Ukraine naval ships seized by Russia in the Kerch Strait. (Sidebar: Russia did return those 3 naval ships after almost a year and they were stripped of all weapons, equipment and even toilets.They were in such bad shape they had to be towed)

President Trump has long been demanding other nations step up to fulfill their NATO obligations and further he has had major concerns that other countries are not making any substantial contributions to Ukraine. This was the reason for the hold by the Office of Management and Budget to hold for a few weeks the full release of military aid to Ukraine as told in testimony by Mark Sandy who is the national security associate deputy at the OMB. Sandy included in the closed door testimony that there were several requests for additional information on what other countries were contributing to Ukraine and that information was provided to the Trump White House in early September. Trump officially released the aid on September 11. Aid had to be fully released by September 30 according to the law.

With a new president taking office in Ukraine it does stand to reason that the United States take a second look at conditions and the relationship between the United States and Ukraine given that the new president Zelensky was elected on combating corruption in Ukraine.

With all the new conditions and the slow moving parts of our own government, the Minority report of the HPSCI on the impeachment inquiries having no basis does have legitimate points.