It is Iran Stupid…

Posted on April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

A partial list of where Iran has their proxies: Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan…..there is more. Armed tribes and there is no dispute, Iran has a financial network in the United States giving validation to the notion that Iran is the country where the global terror banking system resides.

The White House, the National Security Council, the State Department, the U.S. Treasury, the FBI and ODNI as well as the CIA all have tangible proof of the machinations of Iran, yet still the diplomatic process continues with impunity.

Iran’s increasingly active involvement in the region’s proxy wars increases domestic separatist terrorism risk

Key Points

Although protests by Ahwazi Arabs are fairly routine, the participation of sympathisers from other Arab states indicates the potential for ethnic and religiously motivated unrest and insurgency to evolve.
Ahwazi Arab militants in Khuzestan and Jaish al-Adl militants in Sistan-Baluchistan province have increasingly positioned their separatist narratives in the context of the regional Iran-Saudi conflict, indicating their receptiveness to external support, potentially from Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Although IHS has no evidence of current Saudi involvement, Saudi support for these groups is a likely retaliatory option, in the event of perceived Iranian dominance in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, but this would likely be limited to funding and non-attributable low-capability weaponry. A sustained and high capability insurgency is unlikely in the one-year outlook.

EVENT

Hundreds of Ahwazi Arabs, along with Syrian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Yemeni sympathisers, gathered on 17 April outside the European Parliament in Brussels to protest Iran’s “occupation of al-Ahwaz” in the country’s Khuzestan province.

Iran’s perceived successes in the Sunni-Shia regional conflict make it more likely that Iranian-backed groups will challenge Saudi Arabia’s regional authority, and increase the pressure on the Kingdom to confront Iran more directly. However, regardless of whether Saudi Arabia is backing insurgent groups in Iran, any such attack or protest by regional-based groups are likely to be attributed by Iran’s government to Saudi Arabia, not least as a way of deflecting relevance from domestic opposition.

Ahwazi Arabs

Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of supporting Ahwazi Arab militants based in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, southwest Iran, although this claim has not been substantiated, and nor has Iran specified the extent of such support. The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) has carried out a series of successful attacks on Iran’s oil and gas pipelines using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Khuzestan, with the most recent wave of such attacks occurring in 2012 and 2013. Although the long remote stretches of pipelines are potential targets for further IEDs, Iran has since enhanced pipeline security and there have been no successful attacks reported since 2013. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) foiled a bomb plot on the Abadan-Mahashahr oil pipeline in November 2013, which the IRGC later claimed was by the ASMLA.

The ASMLA is likely to be receptive to external support from Iran’s opponents, principally Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the presence of Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Yemeni sympathisers at the 17 April Ahwazi protest rally held in Brussels indicates the group’s increasing alignment with those disaffected by Iran’s influence in those countries’ internal conflicts. Although Ahwazi Arabs are overwhelmingly Shia, the ASMLA dedicated the August 2013 attack on a gas pipeline to their Syrian ‘brothers-in-arms’, positioning the group’s agenda against Iran as part of the larger regional conflict. Moreover, the head of the ASMLA met with Mohammad Riad al-Shaqfeh, head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, in September 2012, indicating their potential co-operation. Nevertheless, the extent of Ahwazi Arab support for the ASMLA and militancy is unclear. Despite having economic grievances, Ahwazi Arabs sided with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).

Jaish al-Adl

IHS monitoring of Jaish al-Adl’s social media accounts shows that the group is increasingly reaching out to an Arabic-speaking audience, probably to secure funding from Gulf donors. It released a video purportedly showing the 6 April attack in Negur, Sistan-Baluchistan province, in which eight Iranian border guards were killed. The video included Arabic subtitles. Publishing videos of successful attacks is used by some Syrian militant groups to secure donor funding. Jaish al-Adl’s social media accounts also increasingly report on regional conflicts, particularly Yemen, marking a shift in its rhetoric from an exclusively Baluchi nationalist one to one that positions itself within the regional Sunni-Shia conflict.

Although there is no evidence to prove existing Saudi support for Jaish al-Adl, if this did occur it would most likely be through Pakistan, where the group’s core leadership is based and which has a history of support for the group. The Iran-Pakistan border is porous and the group can move across the border with relative ease. For its part, Pakistan’s unwillingness or inability to supply weaponry or forces to the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen might well create pressure on Pakistan to facilitate Saudi support for Jaish al-Adl in Iran, however even this might well prove problematic, given Pakistan’s interest in securing gas from Iran via a planned pipeline.

Kurds

Kurdish separatists have traditionally been active in their homeland of Iran’s northwestern provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan, but there has been little recent activity by its main group, Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (Partiya Jiyana Azada Kurdistane: PJAK). However, at least one faction of PJAK is likely to have been radicalised after Iran ignored the group’s call for negotiations in May 2014. A possible indication of such radicalisation was an alleged plot by ‘Islamist extremists’ to blow up a mosque in January 2015 in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan province, which Iranian authorities claimed to have foiled. The Iranian deputy interior minister Hossein Zolfaqari also claimed in March 2015 that Iran’s security forces have also dismantled several Islamic State-affiliated cells in the past year. The Islamic State has separately claimed to have Iranian Kurds among its recruits, although IHS has no evidence to substantiate this claim. Even if there is an appeal for Islamic State-inspired militancy in these provinces, Iran’s pervasive intelligence network is likely to mitigate risks of successful attacks. Meanwhile, as with Jaish al-Adl, it is quite probable that Iran will attribute alleged Islamist militancy amongst Iranian Kurds to external, principally Saudi, involvement, particularly in the event of fatalities amongst Iranian security forces or civilians.

FORECAST

Although Saudi Arabia has some incentive to provide limited support to opposition or insurgent/militant groups in Iran in the context of its regional proxy war with Iran, such support is likely to be confined to funding and non-attributable light weaponry. Even if this option were adopted, Iran’s transit routes are heavily guarded by the IRGC, and arms shipments through the Iraqi border or the Gulf coast would very likely be intercepted. Transfers of weaponry would be easier across the porous Pakistan border, but even then, Jaish al-Adl has not demonstrated the capability to move beyond the border area, much less transfer weaponry to Khuzestan. However, regardless of whether Saudi support is forthcoming, Iran would probably attribute blame to Saudi or other Gulf actors in the event of an increase in the frequency or capability of attacks in its peripheral provinces, which would also exacerbate the state of hostility between the two countries.

Is the White House Forcing the Pentagon to Lie?

Posted on April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

Islamic State is in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Militias standing with Islamic State have infested all of North Africa and Yemen. Analyzing the threat matrix takes a fleet of analysts, lawyers, policy and intelligence people to make any quality estimates however, it is dynamic, changing each week.

One other detail, while it was a few months ago that several Gulf States including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization, the Kingdom has twisted that definition and is working with the Brotherhood in Yemen….stay tuned.

“Exclusive: Pentagon Map Hides ISIS Gains,” by Tim Mak,

April 22, 2015:

The U.S. military presented evidence that it was beating back the so-called Islamic State but it doesn’t even count coalition setbacks.

The Defense Department released a map last week showing territory where it is has pushed ISIS back, claiming that the terrorist group is “no longer able to operate freely in roughly 25 to 30 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once could.” This was touted as evidence of success by numerous news outlets.

Pushing ISIS back is clearly a good step. But the information from the Pentagon is, at best, misleading and incomplete, experts in the region and people on the ground tell The Daily Beast. They said the map misinforms the public about how effective the U.S.-led effort to beat back ISIS has actually been. The map released by the Pentagon excludes inconvenient facts in some parts, and obscures them in others.

The Pentagon’s map assessing the so-called Islamic State’s strength has only two categories: territory held by ISIS currently, and territory lost by ISIS since coalition airstrikes began in August 2014. The category that would illustrate American setbacks—where ISIS has actually gained territory since the coalition effort began—is not included….

The map also shows areas where ISIS is “dominant,” as opposed to the terrorist group’s operational reach—the areas where it can inflict violence….

“ISIL’s own doctrine says it must gain and hold territory. This map shows they are not achieving their stated goals,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told The Daily Beast, using the government’s preferred acronym for the terror group.

But Warren seemed to acknowledge that the map isn’t entirely accurate.

The document “was not meant to be a detailed tactical map—it is simply a graphic used to explain the overall situation,” he said.

The entire battlefield of the ISIS war isn’t depicted, however. For some reason, the Pentagon’s ISIS map excludes the entire western side of Syria—which, coincidentally or not, is an area where ISIS has gained a significant foothold since the U.S.-led bombing effort began last year.

Western Syria is also an area dominated by the Syrian regime, led by President Bashar al-Assad. The United States has insisted that Assad must leave office, but has not elucidated a clear strategy for how to compel this to occur.

Jennifer Cafarella, a fellow specializing in Syria at the Institute for the Study of War, said that while the map, as presented, looked accurate, she would “highlight that the map doesn’t extend to include western Syria, where there is growing ISIS presence… the map cuts off, essentially ignoring ISIS in the Syrian-Lebanese border region and Damascus.”

ISIS gains in the area excluded from the Pentagon’s map should be noted, Cafarella continued, because “they are a forward investment for ISIS that will create long-term opportunities for further expansion into zones in which coalition airstrikes are unlikely, at least in the near term, to penetrate..”

Since airstrikes began in August, ISIS has also shown its force on the northeastern suburbs of Damascus, near Qabun. More recently, ISIS made international news through a violent takeover of the area surrounding a Palestinian refugee camp called Yarmouk, which U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has described as “the deepest circle of hell.”…

U.S. Immigrant Population in 10 Years

Posted on April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

Chart: U.S. Will Have More New Immigrants in 10 Years Than Population of Half-Dozen Major Cities Combined

A new chart from the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest has produced this chart showing that, “U.S. To Admit More New Immigrants Over Next Decade Than The Population Of A Half-Dozen Major American Cities Combined.”

The chart shows that there will be 10 million new legal permanent residents admitted to America in next 10 years, which is equal the population of Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta combined.

“The predominant supply of low-wage immigration into the United States occurs legally, and the total amount of immigration to the United States has risen dramatically over the last four decades,” the subcommittee, chaired by Republican senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

Under current federal policy, the U.S. issues “green cards” to about one million new Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) every single year. For instance, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. issued 5.25 million green cards in the last five years, for an average of 1.05 million new permanent immigrants annually.

New lifetime immigrants admitted with green cards gain guaranteed legal access to federal benefits, as well as guaranteed work authorization. LPRs can also petition to bring their relatives to the United States, and both the petitioner and the relatives can become naturalized citizens.

If Congress does not pass legislation to cut immigration rates, the U.S. will legally add at least 10 million new permanent immigrants over the next 10 years—a bloc of new residents larger than the cities of Atlanta (population: 447,000), Los Angeles (3.88 million), Chicago (2.7 million), Boston (645,000), Denver (650,000), St. Louis (318,000), and Dallas (1.25 million) combined.

In the post-World War II boom decades of the 1950s and 1960s, annual legal admissions were roughly two-thirds lower, averaging together less than 3 million grants of permanent residency per decade—or about 285,000 annually. Moreover, due to a variety of factors, including lower stay rates and stay incentives, the total foreign-born population in the United States actually declined from about 10.3 million in 1950 to 9.7 million in 1960 and 9.6 million in 1970. During this economic period, compensation for American workers nearly doubled. These lower midcentury immigration levels were the product of a federal policy change—after the last period of large-scale immigration that had begun in roughly 1880, President Coolidge argued that a slowing of immigration would benefit both U.S.-born and immigrant-workers: “We want to keep wages and living conditions good for everyone who is now here or who may come here. As a nation, our first duty must be to those who are already our inhabitants, whether native or immigrants. To them we owe an especial and a weighty obligation.” Indeed, recent immigrants are among those most economically impacted by the arrival of large numbers of new workers brought in to compete for the same jobs.

Beginning around 1970, a series of immigration changes (enacted 50 years ago, in 1965) began to take hold. Since that time, the foreign-born population in the United States has increased four-fold to a record 41.3 million in 2013. In some cities, like Los Angeles and New York, about 4 in 10 residents were born outside the United States. Another trend occurred during this period, as reported by the New York Times: “The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s…since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too.”

Yet the immigration “reform” considered by Congress most recently—the 2013 Senate immigration bill—would have tripled the number of green cards issued over the next 10 years. Instead of issuing 10 million grants of legal permanent residency, the Gang of Eight proposal would have issued at least 30 million grants of legal permanent residency during the next decade (or more than 3 times the entire population of the state of North Carolina).

Finally, it is worth observing that the 10 million grants of new permanent residency under current law is not an estimate of total immigration. In fact, increased flows of legal immigration actually tend to correlate with increased flows of illegal immigration: the former helps provide networks and pull factors for the latter. Most of the top-sending countries for legal immigration are also the top-sending countries for illegal immigration.

Additionally, the U.S. legally issues each year a substantial number of temporary visas which provided opportunities for visa overstays, a major source of illegal immigration. The Census Bureau therefore projects that absent a change in federal policy, net immigration (the difference between the number coming and the number going) will total 14 million by 2025. Not only is the population of foreign-born at a record level, but Census projects that, in just eight years, the percentage of the country that is foreign-born will reach the highest level ever recorded in U.S. history, with more than 1 in 7 residents being foreign-born and, unlike the prior wave, surge towards 1 in 6 and continually upward, setting new records each and every year. In 1970, less than 1 in 21 residents were foreign-born.

According to Gallup: “Fewer than one in four Americans favor increased immigration… More Americans think immigration should be decreased than increased, and by a nearly two-to-one margin.” And a poll from Kellyanne Conway shows by a nearly 10-1 margin Americans think companies should improve wages and conditions for workers already living inside therecorded in U.S. history, with more than 1 in 7 residents being foreign-born and, unlike the prior wave, surge towards 1 in 6 and continually upward, setting new records each and every year. In 1970, less than 1 in 21 residents were foreign-born.

According to Gallup: “Fewer than one in four Americans favor increased immigration… More Americans think immigration should be decreased than increased, and by a nearly two-to-one margin.” United States before bringing in new workers from abroad.”

A Coming Showdown Europe vs. Russia?

Posted on April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

Ukraine is the gateway for energy pipelines feeding Europe with fuel sources controlled by Gazprom. Given the aggressive moves by Putin in Ukraine, the Baltic States and eventually the rest of Europe, it appears that Europe has found corruption.

European Commission – Fact Sheet

Antitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Gazprom – Factsheet

22 April 2015

The European Commission has sent a Statement of Objections to Gazprom alleging that some of its business practices in Central and Eastern European gas supply segment the EU’s Single Market and constitute an abuse of its dominant market position in breach of EU antitrust rules.

Gazprom is the dominant gas supplier in a number of Central and Eastern European countries. It has a market share well above 50% and in some cases up to 100% in these markets. In light of its antitrust investigation, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom is hindering competition in the gas supply markets in eight Central and Eastern European Member States (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia).

The Commission’s preliminary conclusions in the Statement of Objections

On the basis of its investigation, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom is breaking EU antitrust rules by pursuing an overall strategy to partition Central and Eastern European gas markets with the aim of maintaining an unfair pricing policy in several of those Member States. Gazprom implements this strategy by:(i) hindering cross-border gas sales,(ii) charging unfair prices, and (iii) making gas supplies conditional on obtaining unrelated commitments from wholesalers concerning gas transport infrastructure.

1. Gazprom might be hindering cross-border gas sales

Gazprom has included a number of territorial restrictions in its supply agreements with wholesalers preventing the export of gas in eight EU Member States (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia). These clauses include:

export ban clauses – provisions that explicitly prohibit the export of gas;
destination clauses – provisions that stipulate that the customer (wholesaler or industrial customer) must use the purchased gas in its own country or can only sell it to certain customers within its country; and
other measures that prevent the cross-border flow of gas, such as requesting wholesalers to obtain Gazprom’s approval for exports or refusing to change the location to which the gas should be delivered under certain circumstances.

The Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom is using these territorial restrictions to prevent gas from flowing freely between and to the eight Central and Eastern European countries. As a result these Member States do not have access to imported gas at potentially more competitive prices.

Territorial restrictions have a negative impact on gas prices preventing cross-border flows of gas and leading to market partitioning. In particular, they hinder gas from flowing where it is most needed and where prices are commercially most attractive.

Wholesale gas prices across the Central and Eastern European Member States can differ significantly. If gas prices in one country are higher than in another, then the wholesaler in the low price Member State should be able to sell surplus gas that it does not need to meet its domestic consumption to a market where prices are higher. Territorial restrictions prevent such price arbitrage. As a result of these restrictions, wholesalers cannot compete with Gazprom, in other words, Russian gas cannot compete with Russian gas. This leads to higher prices and gas markets that are segmented along national borders.

The Commission has already made clear in past decisions that territorial restrictions and measures to partition the market are anticompetitive:

In 2004, the Commission adopted two decisions, regarding contracts concluded by GDF (Gaz de France) with Italian companies ENI and ENEL, confirming that territorial restriction clauses in the gas sector restrict competition. The territorial restriction clauses prohibited ENI and ENEL from selling in France the natural gas which GDF transported on their behalf. The clauses therefore prevented French consumers from obtaining their supplies from the two Italian operators and hindered competition in the market.
In 2009, the Commission fined EDF and E.ON under Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) not to sell gas transported over the MEGAL pipeline in each other’s home markets.

The Commission also has an ongoing antitrust case concerning territorial restrictions in the electricity sector in Bulgaria against Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), which may have limited purchasers’ freedom to choose where to resell the electricity bought from BEH. The Commission sent a Statement of Objections to BEH in March 2015.

2. Gazprom’s alleged unfair pricing policy

The Commission’s investigation concerns the prices that Gazprom’s customers such as gas wholesalers and industrial customers pay for their gas. These wholesale prices play an important role in determining the prices for gas charged at retail level to households and businesses. They can also impact the prices of industrial goods for which energy costs are an important factor in the production costs.

Generally, Gazprom pegs the price of the natural gas it sells to a number of oil products (so-called “oil indexation”). The Commission is investigating whether, and to what extent, the individual price levels in a country are unfair and how Gazprom’s specific price formulae based on oil indexation have contributed to the unfairness. The Commission does not consider that indexing a product’s price to oil products or any other product is in itself illegal. It also does not take issue with the fact that gas prices are different in different countries. Competitive conditions may vary in Member States, such as the importance of gas as an energy source in a country’s “energy mix”.

In order to assess whether individual price levels in a country are unfair, the different Member State prices were compared to a number of different benchmarks, such as Gazprom’s costs, prices in different geographic markets or market prices. On the basis of this analysis, the Commission has come to the preliminary conclusion in its Statement of Objections that the specific price formulae, as applied in Gazprom’s contracts with its customers, have contributed to the unfairness of Gazprom’s prices: Gazprom’s specific price formulae which link the price of gas to the price of oil products seem to have largely favoured Gazprom over its customers.

The Commission’s preliminary conclusion, as outlined in the Statement of Objections, is that Gazprom has charged unfair prices in five Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland).

3. Concerns on gas transport infrastructure

The Commission has concerns that Gazprom leveraged its market dominance in Bulgaria and Poland by making gas supplies conditional upon obtaining certain infrastructure-related commitments from wholesalers.

In Bulgaria, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom made wholesale gas supplies conditional upon the participation of the Bulgarian gas incumbent wholesaler in a large-scale infrastructure project of Gazprom (the South Stream pipeline project) despite high costs and an uncertain economic outlook.

In Poland, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom made gas supplies conditional upon maintaining Gazprom’s control over investment decisions concerning one of Poland’s key transit pipelines (Yamal). This pipeline is one of the main infrastructures that could allow gas from suppliers – other than Gazprom – to enter the Polish market.

Procedural background on antitrust investigations

Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position which may affect trade and prevent or restrict competition. The implementation of these provisions is defined in the Antitrust Regulation (Council Regulation No 1/2003), which can be applied by the Commission and by the national competition authorities of EU Member States.

A Statement of Objections is a formal step in Commission investigations into suspected violations of EU antitrust rules. The Commission informs the parties concerned in writing of the objections raised against them. The addressees can examine the documents in the Commission’s investigation file, reply in writing and request an oral hearing to present their comments on the case before representatives of the Commission and national competition authorities. The Commission takes a final decision only after the parties have exercised their rights of defence.

There is no legal deadline for the Commission to complete antitrust inquiries into anticompetitive conduct. The duration of an antitrust investigation depends on a number of factors, including the complexity of the case, the extent to which the undertaking concerned cooperates with the Commission and the exercise of the rights of defence.

Policy of Obama Routed From Chicago to White House

Posted on April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

The Betrayal Papers, Part VI: The Chicago Connection

This, the sixth and final installment of The Betrayal Papers, will explore various projects, schemes, and associations that tie Obama and his associates together. A preponderance of these project are based out of Chicago, the crossroad of the global Left, Islamic “civilization jihad,” and the Communist mafia. The themes to observe in each case are deception, greed, and power.

To have any chance to retain our freedoms and personal safety, we must recognize the depth of the treason from within; we must name the perpetrators and conquer them before they end America.

But first, three profiles of key Obama operatives, and one Maurice Strong.

Rahm Emanuel

As Obama’s initial Chief-of-Staff, Emanuel wielded considerable power during Obama’s early years in office, being the de facto gatekeeper to Obama. A former Clinton man, Emanuel ultimately clashed with Valerie Jarrett, leading to his departure from Washington, D.C. and return home to Chicago. Since being elected mayor (a bid supported by Obama & Co.), Emanuel has faithfully served to keep a lid on a number of Chicago-centric scandals that would damage, perhaps fatally, the credibility of the administration.

Rahm Emanuel is a seasoned political operative in Democrat circles. He served as Bill Clinton’s Senior Advisor for six years, from 1993 through 1998, and three terms as a Congressman from Chicago in the House of Representatives, from 2003-2009.
During his service with the Clinton administration, Emanuel was part of the failure of Hillarycare, the forerunner to Obamacare.
Emanuel also served on the board of directors at Freddie Mac during the time of the major Democrat fundraising scandal involving Freddie Mac.
Emanuel has two brothers, equally influential in their own right. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is a Harvard-educated bioethicist and one of the of the Obamacare legislation and effort to pass it. He is the individual most associated with the term “death panels.” In 2014, Dr. Emanuel authored an infamous essay about the virtues of dying by the age of 75.
Ari Emanuel is a Hollywood “superagent” who represents liberal actors (including Ben Affleck and Matt Damon).
Despite Rahm Emanuel’s bona fides as a connected Democrat who is rahm-emanuel-moments/”dirty, Emanuel could not withstand the force of Obama’s Senior Advisor, Valerie Jarret. The two clashed, with Jarrett emerging victorious, and Emanuel heading back to Chicago to run for mayor.
Once safely back in Chicago, Emanuel ran for mayor and was supported by the Obama administration. In 2011, he replaced the corrupt Richard Daley. He was reelected in 2015 for a second term, again with administration support.
It is remarkable that the litany of scandals involving Obama and Chicago seem to have dried up since Rahm Emanuel became mayor. Indeed, the administration has a friend and ally at the top of the Windy City pyramid.

Eric Holder

As Attorney General, Eric Holder has served the role of Obama’s pit bull. Holder’s Department of Justice has elevated racial agitation to a high art, political correctness to an Orwellian contact sport, and gun control into a religion. His fingerprints are all over the administration’s various scandals, from Fast and Furious to Ferguson. Like other administration officials, Holder’s history and actions portray a man dedicated to overthrowing Constitutional government.

Eric Holder was born in the Bronx, New York in 1951. He attended Stuyvesant High School, Columbia University, and received a JD from Columbia Law School in 1976.
In 1970, then-Freshman Holder participated in a five-day “armed takeover” of Columbia University’s Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters.
During the Clinton administration, Holder was the Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno. He had a reputation as fiercely anti-Second Amendment, and in 1995 even advocated “brainwash[ing] people” (i.e., children) against guns.
In February 2009, shortly after being sworn in as Attorney General, Holder called America a “nation of cowards” for not discussing racial issues enough for his approval.
In November 2009, Holder proposed holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks) in New York City. This never occurred due to a backlash from the public. Deaf to the concerns of citizens, in 2014 Holder reiterated that his position would have been the “right decision.”
While Holder clearly believes law-abiding American citizens should not own guns, he had no problem arming murderous drug cartels. The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives, and ultimately Eric Holder’s Justice Department, were behind the crazy idea of arming Mexican drug cartels with hundreds of automatic weapons without tracking devices. The Fast and Furious program resulted in the deaths of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of innocent Mexicans and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
In 2012, Eric Holder became the first Attorney General in American history to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives, resulting from his refusal to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal.
Holder’s Justice Department has suspiciously scrubbed any mention of “Islam” or “Muslims” from counterterrorism training.
Whether it was in Florida or Missouri, when black teenagers were killed by gunfire in self-defense, Eric Holder, along with race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, were there to stir up emotion. In both cases, the shooters (George Zimmerman and Officer Darren Wilson, respectively), were initially threatened with civil rights charges from Holder’s DOJ; this, despite Zimmerman being found not guilty by a jury, and Wilson being no-billed by a grand jury.
Holder is a proponent of lighter sentencing, minimums, and generally freeing criminals from prison.
Holder approved illegal wiretapping/eavesdropping of the American press, including Fox News and the Associated Press.
Journalist Sharyl Attkisson was driven out of CBS News for her inquisitive reporting on Benghazi. In January 2015, Attkisson accused Holder’s Department of Justice of illegally accessing her computer to exfiltrate files related to her investigations.
Holder’s DOJ has also been instrumental in forcing local communities to accept mosque construction. According to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Explanatory Memorandum, mosque construction is the first step in Muslim colonization.
For several years until just recently, Holder held a “sword of Damocles” over General David Petraeus’s head, intending to silence his criticism of Obama’s disastrous Middle East policy. Petraeus was under investigation and being threatened with felony charges in connection with an affair he had with a biographer, with whom he allegedly shared classified documents.

David Axelrod

David Axelrod was born in New York City in 1955, the son of two Communists (described by David as “leftist Democrats”). His mother, Myril Bennett, worked for a Communist-infiltrated newspaper, New York-based “PM.” His father, Josef Axelrod, was a psychologist and member of the Communist Party USA. It is for these reasons that Axelrod has been described as a “red diaper baby.”

Every tyrant has his propagandist. The propagandist spins lies from half-truths, and the bigger the lies, the better. For candidate Obama to get elected to political office, indeed for Obama to rise to the Presidency so quickly and without any qualifying credentials, he needed the expert public relations advice of a seasoned spin-doctor and manipulator of public opinion. This was Axelrod.
After attending high school at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan (his years there overlapped Eric Holder’s) Axelrod entered the University of Chicago in 1972. Following his graduation, he worked as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune.
Axelrod first met Obama in 1992 through Project Vote, a community-organizing program directed by Obama which dramatically increased black voter turnout.
In 2002, Axelrod went to work for Barack Obama as a political consultant, just prior to his run for the U.S. Senate. The early Obama team was in place.
Just prior to the 2008 Presidential campaign, Axelrod, along with Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett, were involved in a “patient dumping” scandal at University of Chicago Hospital. In 2007, through something called the “Urban Health Initiative,” the “non-profit” hospital made more than $100 million. The scheme worked by “redirecting” indigent patients to other hospitals, and thus reserving the beds at University of Chicago Hospital for fully-insured patients.

Maurice Strong

Maurice Strong is the Canadian billionaire at the center of the United Nations’ plan for “sustainable development.” One of the lead proponents of Agenda 21, this would-be environmental totalitarian made much of his fortune due to a special deal with the Canadian government. In reality, Strong is an oil tycoon who is using his connections to governments, George Soros, and the United Nations to advance an international regulatory regime that would practically end human freedom as we know it.

In 1976, Canada’s socialist Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, asked Strong to head the newly- formed national oil company, PetroCanada. He leveraged his success at PetroCanada and went on to assume the Chairmanship of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, “the holding company for some of Canada’s principal government-owned resources.”
Prior to striking it rich through Trudeau, Strong was the first Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Program, UNEP.
Conceived in 1992, Agenda 21 is an international program for so-called “sustainable development.” As the principal figure in Agenda 21, Strong’s ambitions are bluntly totalitarian. They seek to dictate the minutia of daily life ranging from automobile ownership, through how an individual can use his or her private property, to the inclusion of such restrictive ideas in school curricula for the purposes of indoctrinating children.
One of Strong’s primary partners in Agenda 21 is none other than George Soros, who has donated millions to implement the agenda on local and municipal levels.
For the record, Obama benefactor Nadhmi Auchi’s holdings in BNP Paribas put him in the orbit of Strong, a fellow energy magnate.

The Chicago Connection

Notwithstanding the intricacies and nuances of Middle Eastern politics and tribal blood feuds, Chicago, by comparison, is a microcosm of parallel intrigue. For it is through this Midwestern city that Obama’s personal connections come together in a variety of tangled ways.

ACORN, Low Income Housing, and ShoreBank

Description: ACORN is a progressive community-organizing group which, through advocacy and politics, was instrumental in forcing banks to lower mortgage lending standards. This not only contributed to the housing bubble; it also enabled ShoreBank, a small Chicago-based community bank, to profit from these loans.*

Players involved: Obamas, Clintons, Valerie Jarrett, Tony Rezko.

Obama was once an attorney for ACORN, and Tony Rezko and Valerie Jarrett are both intimately involved in low income housing in Chicago.
Various associates of the Clintons and the Obamas were connected to ShoreBank. When the housing bubble burst, the Obama administration – in particular, Valerie Jarrett – helped to organize and steer not only government money but also Goldman Sachs capital into the crony coffers of ShoreBank.

* Note: ShoreBank failed in 2010, and following an acquisition, is now known as Urban Partnership Bank.

Chicago Red City

Chicago, the urban hub of the Midwest, was, through much of the 20^th century, also Communist central. The city was home to the tireless Communist Frank Marshall Davis, a primary mentor of Barack Obama. In Chicago, an intricate latticework of labor movements, civil rights organizations, and newspapers all carried the Soviet line, recruiting fellow travelers and useful idiots who helped advance the cause of their Soviet utopia.

Players involved: Barack Obama, Frank Marshall Davis, Valerie Jarrett, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, David Axelrod.

In the middle of the Chicago web is Valerie Jarrett and her family’s association with the Communists. Jarrett’s grandfather, Robert Taylor, and her former father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, were willing tools of Soviet Russia’s operation in the United States. As noted in Part V, the journalist Vernon Jarrett worked with Frank Marshall Davis.
There are in the Jarrett orbit two other individuals who figure prominently into Obama’s political career. David Axelrod (whose ties with CPUSA are detailed above) took a job as a political consultant to Obama in 2002, prior to his run for U.S. Senate. Jarrett and Axelrod met Obama at approximately the same time (approximately 1992).
Jarrett and Axelrod began their political union through their common devotion to Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. Washington, Communist sympathizer, was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, the same Communist-linked party that supported Barack Obama.
Jarrett’s connection to Bill Ayers, the terrorist who launched Obama’s political career, is more intimate. In 1966, Jarrett’s mother, Barbara Bowman, founded the Erikson Institute, a graduate school in child development. Thomas Ayers, Bill’s father, served on the Board of the Erikson Institute, as did Bill Ayer’s’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn.

The Chicago Climate Exchange

Description: The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is a carbon credit exchange that purports to help the environment by helping to cap carbon emissions and providing a platform on which they can be traded. In reality, the CCX monetizes capped “carbon emissions” and gives financial value to the carbon credits.

If you’ve ever wondered why it is that the myth of global warming/climate change persists despite an avalanche of empirical evidence against it, it is for one reason alone: personal enrichment of a clique of no-growth frauds and liars. Once carbon emission caps are passed into law in the United States or through a treaty via the United Nations, the value of carbon credits will increase exponentially.

The scale of this operation could potentially rival the total existing financial derivatives market and be valued in the trillions of dollars.

Players involved: Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Al Gore, George Soros, John Podesta, John Ayers (brother of Bill), Maurice Strong, Nadhmi Auchi, Henry Paulson, ShoreBank (major shareholder), Franklin Raines (disgraced former Fannie Mae head).

In 2001, the Joyce Foundation funded Bill Ayers’ brother, John Ayers, to found the CCX. (Recall that the Ayers family has a history in power generation.)
Obama was on the Board of Joyce at this time (1994-2002). Valerie Jarret was also on the Board of the Joyce Foundation, a position she assumed in 2002.
Goldman Sachs, which was instrumental in the bailout of ShoreBank, is also a partner in CCX.
Also connected to the CCX are George Soros, Valerie Jarrett, Bill Ayers, Al Gore, Maurice Strong, and Nadhmi Auchi. This story is worthy on its own of a book-length treatment. For the sake of brevity, a few highlights and key connections will be established to show an array of characters, from progressives to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, are part of the Obama nexus.
Another investment company involved with CCX was Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management (GIM). In the case of Gore, his connections to Qatar, the Gulf State home of the Muslim Brotherhood, are apropos. When climate crusader Gore liquidated his failed television station CurrentTV, he sold it to the Qataris so they could begin airing Al Jazeera America. Qatar, an energy-rich nation (possessing the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves), has a vested interest in hobbling America’s domestic energy extraction and production. It is no coincidence that Qatar hosts climate change conferences.
Approximately one year ago the White House, in particular the Soros-run Center for American Progress-connected John Podesta, launched an out-of-the-blue push for climate change legislation. What went unreported at the time was that in the middle of this aggressive effort, Podesta met with a Qatari delegation in Washington.
Finally, the mysterious Auchi, who snapped up the Pentagon’s power contracts in post-war Iraq, figures into the picture with fellow billionaire Maurice Strong. Strong’s former company, Canada’s Power Corporation, happens to be the center of its own web of power, connected to the United Nations, BNP Paribas (where Auchi was a major shareholder), in the highest echelons of Canadian government. Strong was a Board member on the CCX.

The Cult of Subud

What could tie together the Muslim Brotherhood, the infiltration of American intelligence agencies, an undeclared war to establish the Caliphate, a genocide and annihilation of Christian history, enormous financial benefit to a corrupt political and financial elite, and a president whose own history is more shadowy than moonlit forest?

In the case of Barack Hussein Obama, the evidence points to a little-known Islamic cult: Subud.

Players involved: Barack Obama, Stanley Ann Dunham, George Soros, Maurice Strong, Loretta Fuddy.

Subud was founded in Indonesia in the 1920s by Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, who claimed to have “received a series of intense and electrifying spiritual experiences that gave him an inner contact with a Higher Power.”
Subuh took the title “Bapak,” Indonesian for “respected father.” In developing Subud, Subuh was influenced early on by a British military intelligence officer named John G. Bennett, who had traveled extensively in the Middle East.
Though hardly a household name, Subud is not obscure. It has entries in the Encyclopedia of Islam, The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions, and has had consultative status with the United Nations since 1989. There are Subud chapters all around the world, including in New York City, in close proximity to Washington, D.C., as well as in Hawaii and Chicago.
The central teaching of Subud is a process called latihan, which they describe as the “reappearance of a primordial Power hidden within human beings and all creatures.” Although latihan is non-denominational, and although Subud has members of all faiths, Subuh was a Muslim, and many Subud members celebrate Ramadan. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement actively engages in interfaith activities. Moreover, conversion to Islam is not uncommon among Subud members.
Subud has been a persistent theme in Obama’s life. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a member of Subud, a fact mentioned in her biography. An official 2011 newsletter features an article about and a picture of Stanley Ann and Barack. Moreover, an immigration document from 1968, an application filled out by Stanley Ann Dunham to extend her 1965 passport for an additional two years, has the name “Soebarkah” appended to Obama’s name. It is speculated that “Soebarkah” was young Obama’s Subud name. (Members of the movement routinely take a Subud name.)
Subud also has an incredible connection to the ongoing birth certificate controversy. Following Donald Trump’s vociferous calls with an offer of $50 million for its public release in 2011, the State of Hawaii made available Obama’s certificate of live birth (not, as they termed it, his long form birth certificate). The woman who verified and approved the release of the document was Hawaii’s State Health Director, Loretta Fuddy.
Fuddy was Chairwoman of HYPERLINK “http://www.subudusa.org/Portals/0/Attic/Newsletters/123%20JulyAug06.pdf”SHYPERLINK “http://www.subudusa.org/Portals/0/Attic/Newsletters/123%20JulyAug06.pdf”ubudHYPERLINK “http://www.subudusa.org/Portals/0/Attic/Newsletters/123%20JulyAug06.pdf” USA, based in Seattle, from 2006-2008. Consistent with Obama’s mysterious moniker Soebarkah, Fuddy’s Subud name was “Deliana.” Fuddy, prior to her appointment to the Hawaii Department of Health, co-authored (with two others) a paper which was published out of the University of Illinois at Chicago – the university where faculty lounge politics are under the sway of Professor Bill Ayers.
In December, 2013 Fuddy was killed when her plane went down off the coast of Hawaii. The entire crash was captured on video. Fuddy was the only fatality of the eight people on the plane.
Finally, this treatment of Subud would not be complete without at least a mention of the Central Intelligence Agency. Part I of The Betrayal Papers noted that the CIA actually courted the Muslim Brotherhood into its effort to defeat Soviet Communism. Was Subud, which is explicitly (see page 13) anti-Communist, a Muslim Brotherhood ally of the CIA in Indonesia? After graduating from Columbia University, Obama himself was employed by Business International Corp., cited by The New York Times as a CIA-related entity.

The Ties that Bind

What is the glue that ties this motley crew of Obama-connected miscreants together? Here are some additional cross-over points between Obama and his associates.

Why would George Soros have such an affinity for an Islamic supremacy and terrorist organization? Soros and the Muslim Brotherhood collaborated with Nazi Germany during their formative years. When it comes to destructive politics in the United States today, from the disregard of the rule of law to the intimidation of political opponents and private citizens, it is obvious that the Muslim Brotherhood has a partner in crime in George Soros.
The leftist Joyce Foundation also funds the (Soros) Tides Foundation. There is a myriad of foundations (Joyce, Tides, the Woods Fund, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, etc.) that ultimately fund the same leftist causes. They are an intentional shell game designed by progressives to keep the public in the dark about their motives.
Of all the eccentric philanthropic causes, Subud has inexplicably (or not) captured the attention of both George Soros and Maurice Strong. In 2005, Soros funded Yayasan Usaha Mulia, a Subud humanitarian effort in Indonesia. Strong, meanwhile, donated land in Colorado to the cult.
Is the residual CIA-Muslim Brotherhood alliance against Communism the key to understanding the enigmatic and traitorous Obama?

Conclusion

An ancient proverb states, “The fish rots from the head.” So it is with the corrupt and infiltrated government of the United States. The people, organizations, and schemes mentioned above and throughout this series of articles are not important. They have been named here only to establish their culpability in the attempted and (thus far) successful destruction of the country.

Obama is the head of this rotten fish. He is, as Winston Churchill put it, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” With each investigation into his personal history, only more questions are unearthed. He appears to be a cutout character rather than a man with a true life history. The only consistency in his story is offered by his associates, all of whom are subversives, many whom are evil.

On one side of him is the Muslim Brotherhood. Every step of the way, the Obama administration has enabled these terrorists to overthrow friendly governments and form jihadi armies. Today the Middle East is more volatile than it has been in a century. There is an ongoing genocide of Christians and other minorities, and a rape of humanity’s common cultural heritage in Mesopotamia.

There now exists a crisis in diplomacy. The Islamic State has effectively dissolved borders, and Washington’s new ally, Iran, is quickly filling the void. America’s traditional allies in the region, including Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, do not trust Obama or his destructive minion, John Kerry. America’s allies in Europe have truly never been so skeptical of Washington. Relations with Russia have so deteriorated that war threatens.

On the other side of Obama stands a powerful financial cartel led by George Soros. The cartel’s operations are thoroughly intertwined with the Muslim Brotherhood to such an extent that they support and fund global Islamic jihad. Soros and his associates, to coin a phrase, are “stratoscrats;” they answer to no nation’s laws, they operate across borders, and they are the primary actors behind global regulation by the United Nations. These self-appointed masters of the universe purchase and then use sovereign countries for their own gain; the United States is their latest and crowning acquisition.

These two sides have prevented any meaningful economic recovery. A nation’s government is supposed to strengthen the country, but Obama has intentionally done the opposite. We are historically weak right now, while our enemies grow stronger.

A fifth column is operating the government through regulation of the (formerly) private sector, and deep penetration of the intelligence and security services. Even the venerable, powerful, and highly-respected U.S. military has been hobbled by these criminals.

Rome’s greatest statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, witnessed the end of the Roman Republic. Before paying with his life, he spoke to the Roman Senate:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

When a country is captured by traitors who write its laws and punish dissenters, it can rightly be regarded as a colony. The people can likewise be regarded not as citizens, but as subjects, or slaves.

In 1776, the Colonists fatefully decided to “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

The situation we face today is imminently dangerous. We are threatened with the loss of our God-given freedoms. Though the cost may be high, the American people can still secure the blessings of liberty. We must. We owe it to posterity.