Category Archives: Presidential campaign

Now it is Human Smuggling VS. Immigration

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Let’s start calling it for what it is and it is profitable to epic levels. We cannot overlook that the Syrian refugees were also smuggled, so there is no longer much separating the United States from Europe in this human crisis and yet Congress is not acting.

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Senator Lindsey Graham at least introduced a bill to address the asylum issue but is there Democrat on the House side that has visited the border or introduced anything? silence….

Arrests at the southwest border increased for the fourth straight month in May as authorities continued to grapple with an unprecedented influx of migrants from Central America. 132,887 people were arrested between ports of entry last month, up from 99,304 migrants in April, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection released Wednesday.

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The cartels have shifted their business model to include smuggling and it has an annual value in the BILLIONS. (hat tip to Rand Corporation)

Unlawful migrants from Central America apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border each year often hire smugglers for assistance or pay others for rights of way at some point during their journey north. Policymakers face concerns that a substantial share of migrants’ expenditures on smuggling services could be flowing to transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), entities that represent a potential threat to homeland security.

In response to these concerns, the authors of this report conducted a scoping study to develop a preliminary estimate of TCOs’ revenues from smuggling migrants from the Northern Triangle region of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) to the United States and to characterize the TCOs’ structure, operations, and financing. They conducted interviews with subject-matter experts, a review of literature, and an analysis of governmental and nongovernmental data on migration and human smuggling and found that human smuggling involves many different types of actors and that most TCOs’ activities and revenues cannot be separated credibly from those of ad hoc groups, independent operators, and others who engage in human smuggling. They developed a preliminary estimate of revenues from human smuggling flowing to all types of smugglers, not just TCOs — ranging from about $200 million to $2.3 billion in 2017 — with uncertainty stemming largely from analytical challenges related to data limitations and time constraints. Separately, they also produced a preliminary estimate of the taxes, or pisos, that migrants pay to drug-trafficking TCOs to pass through their territories, ranging from about $30 million to $180 million.

Key Findings

Characteristics of actors that engage in human smuggling

  • Actors that engage in human smuggling range from independent operators, to ad hoc groups, to loose networks, to more-formally structured networks, such as TCOs.
  • Many of these actors are subcontractors that offer their services to different networks or groups or other independent operators at the same time.
  • Many of the actors engaged in human smuggling do not appear to meet the statutory definition of a TCO.

Relationship between human smuggling and drug trafficking

  • There is little evidence that drug-trafficking TCOs engage directly in human smuggling, but they maintain control of primary smuggling corridors into the United States and charge migrants a “tax,” known as a piso, to pass through their territories.
  • Drug-trafficking TCOs might also coordinate unlawful migrants’ border crossings to divert attention from other illicit activities and recruit or coerce migrants to carry drugs.

Preliminary findings on revenue estimation

  • Estimating revenues from human smuggling requires data on (1) the number of unlawful migrants, (2) the percentage hiring smugglers, and (3) typical payments. A lack of reliable information on each point contributes to uncertainty in revenue estimates.
  • The authors’ preliminary estimate of revenues to all types of smugglers from smuggling migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, combined, ranged from a total of about $200 million to a total of about $2.3 billion in 2017.
  • The authors’ preliminary estimate of taxes paid to drug-trafficking TCOs by migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who passed through those TCOs’ territories ranged from $30 million to $180 million in 2017.

Recommendations

  • Target vulnerabilities of human smugglers. For example, consider expanding existing efforts to investigate payments made to human smugglers, especially in the United States, and working more closely with formal and informal banking services to identify suspicious payments. Also, consider expanding current efforts to work with foreign law enforcement partners to disrupt smuggling operations.
  • Use information about the value of the smuggling market to inform decisions about efforts to allocate resources to market disruption.
  • Consider standardizing and expanding the range of questions that border officials ask migrants during interviews to seek more consistent and detailed information from migrants about different types of smugglers, routes, and payments.
  • Use shared portal for data entry that can screen for errors and use a randomized survey process to reduce the administrative burden of data collection on frontline personnel and increase the likelihood of successful data entry.

Nadler’s Committee to Hold Mueller Report Hearings

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They have some old Nixon people to coming chat with them and this is after some select present and former IC officials have already been chatting with key democrats in the House. Swell eh?

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a series of hearings related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, with the first one titled “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes” taking place next Monday.

Next week’s hearing will feature John Dean — the former White House counsel who famously turned on President Nixon during the Watergate investigation, as well as “former U.S. Attorneys and legal experts,” according to the committee’s press release.

“These hearings will allow us to examine the findings laid out in Mueller’s report so that we can work to protect the rule of law and protect future elections through consideration of legislative and other remedies,” Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said in a statement. “Given the threat posed by the President’s alleged misconduct, our first hearing will focus on President Trump’s most overt acts of obstruction.  In the coming weeks, other hearings will focus on other important aspects of the Mueller report.”

The announcement comes as calls for opening an impeachment inquiry have grown louder among House Democrats, particular after Mueller made rare on-camera remarks reiterating his report’s finding that President Trump could not be cleared of obstruction.

It is unclear whether this new series of hearings will tamp down the impeachment inquiry talk. The committee has held other hearings broadly related to topics covered by Mueller’s investigation, while its attempts to get key figures — particularly former White House Counsel Don McGahn and Attorney General Bill Barr — to testify have been stymied.

Note as well that Pelosi said last week the House will only do what will get results. Due to pressure, has she changed her mind? Even Nadler added that impeachment will only work if that is the will of the American people. What about Adam Schiff? Well he too just said on ABC, that ‘we are not there yet’.

 

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Well, look, I think we’re going to do what’s right for the country and at this point, the speaker has not reached the conclusion and I haven’t had either it’s best for the country to put us through an impeachment proceeding that we know is destined for failure in the Senate. Now that calculus may change if the president continues to stonewall, if the president continues to demonstrate his unfitness for office. There may be little additional cost to going through that process.

It is in a way, even if unsuccessful in the Senate, the ultimate form of censure in the House. But we’re not there yet and I think if it is a close call, close calls go against putting the country through that. We have an important legislative agenda to try to advance, we have important oversight work we can do outside the context of impeachment, and I think at this point that is still the preferred course.

The democrats are resolute in ensuring this American political nightmare continues for many more months and they are fundraising from it all too. One has to ask if the DNC is paying media advertising rates to keep this up as long as ABC, CNN and the rest keep these talking heads on this topic…gotta wonder.

Hey Social Media, Here Comes Anti-Trust Scrutiny

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It has started with Google and this site has warned users of the Internet to stop using Google for years for various reasons. Now there are more. Oh, the Department of Justice may not stop with Google, so watch out Facebook, Yahoo News, Apple, Amazon and Twitter. Why?

Have you noticed how twisted news stories are? Have you noticed selective search engine results? Have you noticed search intrusions? Have you noticed censorship that may affect politics, truths or even voting habits?

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Well, it begins with these social media/tech companies stopping competition, free speech and lying by omission. Reliance on these investigative activities begin with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This is a law where the Federal government opposes monopolies when it comes to contracts, trade and commerce. Add in the Federal Trade Commission Act and consider the timing as we move towards the 2020 General Election(s).

A short definition of the Antitrust Laws is found here.

In part from C-Net:

The move by the Justice Department comes as Google and other Silicon Valley giants face renewed antitrust scrutiny in the United States. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic 2020 presidential candidate, has made it a key part of her platform to break up the big tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Amazon. Earlier this month, Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, also called for the breakup of the company he helped create.

In February 2018, President Donald Trump had signaled via his Federal Trade Commission leadership choice that he was open to investigating big tech companies.

Former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions last September reportedly met with state attorneys general to discuss whether Google and Facebook could be suppressing conservative views, after forming a task force to look into problems in the tech industry. However, once Sessions stepped down in November, the plan to follow up with the Justice Department was shelved.

The Journal report follows reports in March that Google could be facing an investigation over violations of antitrust or consumer protection regulations.

Google has also faced antitrust pressures from regulators in Europe. In March, the search giant was hit with a $1.7 billion fine from the European Commission for “abusive” online ad practices. The Commission said Google exploited its dominance by restricting its rivals from placing their search ads on third-party websites.

Last year, the EU’s executive arm fined Google a record $5 billion for unfair business practices around Android, its mobile operating system. The investigation focused on Google’s deals with phone manufacturers, requiring them to preload specific Google apps and services onto Android phones. After the EU announced the fine, Trump tweeted, “I told you so.”

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Earlier Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Trade Commission will examine how Facebook’s practices affect digital competition. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Amazon has come under heightened scrutiny by U.S. regulators. And on Friday, the Journal reported that the Justice Department is preparing a probe of Google, sending shares of parent company Alphabet down more than 7% Monday.

The possible Apple probe is linked to the Google probe, Reuters reported, and stems from meetings between the DOJ and the FTC.

The headlines together paint a daunting picture for Silicon Valley and the stock market’s most valuable companies. Big tech has long faced scrutiny from European regulators, but has so far shrugged off calls for government regulation in the U.S.

Apple has drawn increased criticism in recent months for what some — including streaming giant Spotify — see as anti-competitive behavior in the App Store. Apple owns and operates the online marketplace, collecting subscription fees from developers.

The so-called “Apple tax” accounts for a sizable percentage of Apple’s burgeoning services revenue segment, but draws the ire of developers who, in some cases, compete with Apple’s own apps in the store.

Spotify’s EU complaint against Apple, filed in March, is pending investigation by European authorities. More here.

Preezy Candidates Gillibrand and Buttigieg, What?

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We already know about Bernie Sanders praising Fidel Castro and the communist takeover of Nicaragua. Yet, he still seems to appeal to the millennial class while enjoying their campaign contributions. This demonstrates the failure of the education system for decades. Okay, so how about Kirsten Gillibrand and Pete Buttigieg?

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BuzzFeed reported Tuesday that the New York senator will endorse a new report recommending steps to reduce the racial wealth divide, including policies such as a commission to study slavery reparations.

“A draft of the report, titled ‘Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide,’ will be jointly released this week by the Institute for Policy Studies, the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition,” they report. Gillibrand told BuzzFeed News that she was “proud” to support the document.

One of the organizations Gillibrand is “proud” to partner with, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), was infamous during the Cold War for its defense of Communist governments and for its kneejerk support of the Soviet line.

Emory Professor and preeminent historian of American Communism Harvey Klehr dedicated an entire chapter of his book “Far Left of Center” to the IPS, which he characterized as “an intellectual nerve center for the radical movement, providing sustenance and support for a variety of causes, ranging from nuclear and anti-intervention issues to support for Marxist insurgencies.”

“IPS fellows have consistently maintained that the Soviet threat is largely non-existent and a product of the military-industrial complex,” he wrote. Klehr detailed how IPS fellows’ partnered with Soviet-funded “peace” organizations, defended USSR and Vietnam from charges of human rights abuses, defended the Sandinistas and other Latin-American terrorists, and denied the existence of the Cambodian genocide, even as two million people died.

Former Communist spy and defector Ladislav Bittman likewise wrote in his seminal book “The KGB and Soviet Disinformation” that the Soviets were “particularly interested” in IPS, whose “nucleus” was composed of “researchers and scholars with Marxist perceptions that Soviet foreign and military policies pose no threat to Western democracies.” More here.

Swell eh? Okay how about lil ol’ Pete Buttigieg?

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Well he was groomed politically by his father, a Marxist. Yep….

The father of Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was a Marxist professor who spoke fondly of the Communist Manifesto and dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Italian Communist Party founder Antonio Gramsci, an associate of Vladimir Lenin.

Joseph Buttigieg, who died in January at the age of 71, immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s from Malta and in 1980 joined the University of Notre Dame faculty, where he taught modern European literature and literary theory. He supported an updated version of Marxism that jettisoned some of Marx and Engel’s more doctrinaire theories, though he was undoubtedly Marxist.

He was an adviser to Rethinking Marxism, an academic journal that published articles “that seek to discuss, elaborate, and/or extend Marxian theory,” and a member of the editorial collective of Boundary 2, a journal of postmodern theory, literature, and culture. He spoke at many Rethinking Marxism conferences and other gatherings of prominent Marxists.

In a 2000 paper for Rethinking Marxism critical of the approach of Human Rights Watch, Buttigieg, along with two other authors, refers to “the Marxist project to which we subscribe.”

In 1998, he wrote in an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education about an event in New York City celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Manifesto. He also participated in the event.

“If The Communist Manifesto was meant to liberate the proletariat, the Manifesto itself in recent years needed liberating from Marxism’s narrow post-Cold War orthodoxies and exclusive cadres. It has been freed,” he wrote. More here.

So, now you have a head start on 3 of the candidates for President. How about choosing to do a few others and see what you will find. Here is a tip, Kamala Harris’ father, Donald, a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Stanford straddles between socialism and Marxism himself.

Title lll vs. Cuba for Cuban Exiles, About Time

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There is a provision of the Cuban trade embargo that no U.S. president has ever used. President Trump has decided to be the first, according to White House officials. But it’s far from clear if it will do much to dislodge the island’s communist government.

It’s called Title III. It allows Americans – in this case mostly Cuban-Americans – to use U.S. federal courts to sue foreign companies that do business in Cuba on property taken from them by the Castro revolution.

Conservative Cuban exiles insist President Trump’s activation of Title III (part of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act that tightened the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba) will have a chilling effect on foreign investment in Cuba – particularly for European and Canadian companies. That, they insist, will undermine the island’s economically failing regime.

“I do think it will be a turning point,” says Cuban-American attorney Marcell Felipe, who heads the Inspire America Foundation, a pro-democracy NGO in Miami. “For too long the Spanish and Canadian governments and their business interests have promoted respect for human rights everywhere in the world while they support a regime that imprisons anyone who dissents.”

But critics of Trump’s Title III move says it’s primarily another political bone tossed to his Cuban exile supporters – who he believes won Florida for him in the 2016 election.

Cuban-American attorney Pedro Freyre, who heads international practice at the Akerman law firm in Miami and represents firms that may face Title III lawsuits, warns it will be hard to collect money from those suits. Countries like Spain and Canada already have laws in place to block Cuban embargo-related litigation, and he points out that no U.S. president ever triggered the provision before for fear it could lead to retaliation against U.S. business interests around the world.

Freyre also believes it will probably take much more to topple Cuba’s repressive government.

“After watching the Cuban regime navigate 60 years of sanctions and having a rotten economy and a bad political system,” says Freyre, “it’s clear it’s particularly adept at survival. So I am skeptical that this will accomplish that.”

National Security Advisor John Bolton is expected to formally announce the Title III decision when he visits Miami on Wednesday. Sources close to the Trump administration tell WLRN the Title III decree may also include tightening U.S. government officials’ interaction with Cuban officials on the island – and possibly a dramatic scaling back of the amount of remittances Cuban-Americans can send to Cuba and the trips they can take there each year.

***  Image result for bolton in miami cuba

US National Security Adviser John Bolton is set to outline President Donald Trump’s plan to fully implement Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, a previously suspended section of the US trade embargo on the Communist-run country during a speech in Miami, the official said.
It is a move that is widely considered to be part of the administration’s efforts to ramp up pressure on Havana over its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — who Trump criticized as a “Cuban puppet” in February. Cuban officials have decried the increased sanctions on the communist-run island and offered to enter into negotiations to repay US companies for seized property.
During a speech in Miami last year, Bolton promised the crowd a tough US approach to the “troika of tyranny,” his term for Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, saying they represented “the perils of poisonous ideologies left unchecked.”