Time to Start a Recall Process for California

Posted on June 11, 2019June 11, 2019 by Denise Simon

Recalling a governor has been done before (Gray Davis) in California for reasons not nearly as serious as those under the present Governor Gavin Newsom. Procedures are here.

Let’s take a look shall we?

He pardoned several felons just last month including that committed grand theft, solicited a murder for hire operation in a street gang network and even forgery.

There is a growing homeless problem that is so far out of control, the Center for Disease Control should declare several cities/counties a threat to public safety for disease control and prevention. In fact, the CDC spends more than $3 million out of their California office and most of that is earmarked for Los Angeles.

Remember that boondoggle of a high speed rail system? Well the Federal government kicked in $2.5 billion and canceled a balance of $930 million since Newsom for the most part terminated the rail construction. There is some chatter about restarting the high speed rail construction where the cost would blow up to $77 billion. But hold on….there is more about this. California owes landowners under eminent domain. Seems many of those landowners moved away for nothing, literally nothing. Businesses too wonder about their financial sacrifice. Others could not sell their real estate that was not part of the rail system or eminent domain but was too near the proposed rail project, the land was essentially declared worthless.

John Diepersloot squinted under a bright Central Valley sun, pointing to the damage to his fruit orchard that came with the California bullet train.

He lost 70 acres of prime land. Rail contractors left mounds of rubble along his neat rows. Irrigation hoses are askew. A sophisticated canopy system for a kiwi field, supported by massive steel cables, was torn down.

But what really irritates Diepersloot is the $250,000 that he paid out of his own pocket for relocating wells, removing trees, building a road and other expenses.

“I am out a quarter-million bucks on infrastructure, and they haven’t paid a dime for a year,” he said. “I don’t have that kind of money.” Read more of the sad/pathetic stories here.

Now Governor Newsom has declared undocumented immigrants will get state paid healthcare. The state has already financial obligations it has not paid and must to make things right for her citizens before he can go spend $98 million. Where did that number even come from in the first place? Oh, another detail is a fine on people who don’t buy healthcare insurance, known as the individual mandate. He included in this budget (state budget is $214 billion) an additional $450 million over 3 years to fund insurance subsidies. Don’t forget that water tax too, it is still on the table while the state power companies are toggling power to users to save dollars. Sounds like a third world country more every day. Can the state even fund the $7.8 billion in the state employee pension fund? Oh, all diapers and menstrual products are tax exempt, there is rental assistance and a major housing shortage. Swell eh? photo

Don’t think this is just a California problem, rather it is a national problem. Remember federal dollars go to the state for all kinds of reasons, least of which is for the sanctuary status. People and disease can travel freely anywhere in the country.

It is prudent to review the members of the state legislature, the attorney generals office in Sacramento and the governor’s mansion and consider a real movement to encourage Californians to recall almost all of the state officials for the protection of national public safety and to stop the fleecing of all taxpayers.

Now it is Human Smuggling VS. Immigration

Posted on June 11, 2019June 11, 2019 by Denise Simon

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.

Don Bartletti shares some of his most memorable images ...

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.

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.

Could there be a Real Uprising Against Putin in the Making?

Posted on June 10, 2019June 10, 2019 by Denise Simon

Several events going on regarding Russia. The Russia Desk at CIA and the U.S. State Department must be real busy about now. Why? Could the United States and international friends be encouraging some of these items? One cannot overlook the fact that Russia continues to bomb Syria and then well, we have Russia still embedding itself in Venezuela….but read on…some interesting items below.

Jon Huntsman is expected to leave his role as U.S. ambassador to Russia this year ahead of a potential bid to be Utah’s next governor, The Atlantic reported Monday.Four sources familiar with the situation told the magazine that Huntsman is more seriously considering the job, which he already held from 2004 to 2009, than he previously had been.
“It’s not idle chatter,” Chuck Warren, a Republican consultant who served as Huntsman’s campaign manager during his first bid for governor, told The Atlantic. “He’s seriously considering it.”
Yet another mock gravestone bearing the name and image of President Vladimir Putin has appeared in Russia — this time in the southwestern city of Voronezh.”Incredible thief and liar. Political corpse,” read the accompanying text featuring Putin’s surname, initials, and birth year, and listing 2019 as the year of death.
Soon after that a mock gravestone emerged in Moscow, and a third in Berlin. On April 3, activists placed one opposite the famed St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, garnering widespread attention.

Agit Rossia has taken responsibility for at least some of the gravestones. In an interview with Meduza in April, spokesman Grigory Kudryavtsev said the group was created to “fill a niche” left behind by the lack of street protests in Russia.

photo
Vladimir Putin’s decision to offer Russian citizenship to those living in Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine and possibly others as well may be intended not only to extend Russian power over that country further but also to help solve Russia’s demographic collapse, according to a Russian blogger who writes under the screen name “Ded Moroz” [Grandfather Frost].He suggests that the extremely negative demographic figures of recent months mean that “the massive distribution of passports may be the only way to save [Russia] from withering away altogether” (cont.ws/@Ded-Moroz/1310165 reposted at newizv.ru).
If Russian government claims that 86 percent of the population in Russian-occupied portions of the Donbas are correct, this policy would immediately produce some two million new Russian citizens and be a boost to the country’s total population.

Many analysts had concluded that the declining number of women in the prime child-bearing ages and declining birthrates present Russia with an almost intractable problem especially given that the number of immigrants has fallen sharply, Grandfather Frost says. But it turns out that this all can be solved not just by falsification of demographic data but by “the stroke of a pen.” Complete summary here.
Ukraine is still under military attack by Russia.

Russia’s hybrid military forces on June 9 mounted 26 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. “In eight instances, they used the weapons banned by the Minsk agreements – 122mm artillery systems, 120mm and 82mm mortars,” the press center of Ukraine’s Joint Forces Operation said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on June 10, 2019.

Russia-led forces also used weapons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, anti-tank missile systems, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms. Under attack were Ukrainian positions near the town of Avdiyivka, as well as near the villages of Vodiane, Talakivka, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Verkhniotoretske, Pisky, Berezove, Nevelske, Novo-Oleksandrivka, Zaitseve, and Novoluhanske.

*** There is more but now it stands to reason that since Europe has joined the United States by pushing back on countless items of Russian aggression, it is no wonder Putin is looking for a deeper relationship with China, both for sure rogue nations that are in a hybrid war against the United States. Putin was not invited to any of the D-Day events so he met with Xi Jinping and they declared the best of friendships.Putin’s message got a boost, if a superficial one, from Xi, who called him “my best friend” and presented a pair of pandas – Ru Yi and Ding Ding – that China is loaning Russia for 15 years for what was described as a joint research project.

In what seems like some sort of metaphor for Russia’s lopsided relationship with China, whose economy is nearly 10 times the size of Russia’s, state news agency TASS reported that the pandas will remain the property of the Chinese government “and their offspring, if any, will also belong to China.”

And Putin’s message at the forum was undermined by a warning from longtime former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin, who suggested that Calvey’s arrest in February was behind a doubling of capital flight from Russia, which he said reached $40 billion so far this year.
Meanwhile, there has been almost no reporting of the near purposeful collision of a Russian destroyer with a U.S. Navy cruiser.USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) was attempting to recover a helicopter when it was approached by a Udaloy-class destroyer at about 11:45 a.m. local time, according to a Friday statement from 7th Fleet.“While Chancellorsville was recovering its helicopter on a steady course and speed when the Russian ship DD572 maneuvered from behind and to the right of Chancellorsville accelerated and closed to an unsafe distance of ~50-100 feet. This unsafe action forced Chancellorsville to execute all engines back full and to maneuver to avoid collision,” read the statement.

The Friday incident in the Pacific follows an unsafe aircraft interaction between a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon and a Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter. By the way, notice towards the end of the video where the Russian sailors are on the stern sunbathing… More here.

Nadler’s Committee to Hold Mueller Report Hearings

Posted on June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 by Denise Simon

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.

Iran is Cheating, Does Media Really Care About Truth?

Posted on June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 by Denise Simon

In part from Senator Ted Cruz:

HOUSTON, Texas – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today issued a statement in response to reports that Iran has exceeded centrifuge limits set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action urging the United States to invoke the multilateral snapback in United Nations Security Council resolution 2231:

“Today’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms what I have long said: Iran is cheating on the catastrophic Obama Iran nuclear deal. In addition to secretly storing blueprints for nuclear weapons and refusing to turn over materials related to their nuclear weapons program, now they have pushed the envelope so far on centrifuges that the cheating can no longer be denied. The nuclear deal was designed to allow cheating, with the expectation that the Ayatollahs would blackmail the parties into ignoring their behavior. I have long said the nuclear deal should be ripped to shreds, and I applaud President Trump for all of the steps his administration has taken to that end. Now it is time to take the next step and invoke the multilateral snapback in United Nations Security Council resolution 2231, which the Obama administration rushed to pass in order to lock in the nuclear deal before Congress had a chance to weigh in.”

***

(This may add more context to the U.S. military deployment into the region and gotta wonder what John Kerry’s rebuttal is now…heh)

As Europe has been warned countless times by the the intelligence agencies in the United States, perhaps German intelligence will make a difference…..maybe? I received the one report but could not translate it. So, here is another version.

Iran's Weapons of Mass Destruction | Center for Strategic ... photo

The German intelligence agency for the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern wrote in its May report that the Islamic Republic of Iran is involved in the illicit procurement of technology for weapons of mass destruction.

In the 206-page report, that was reviewed by The Jerusalem Post, the intelligence agents wrote: “The fight against the illegal proliferation of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction and the materials needed for their manufacture, as well as the corresponding delivery systems [e.g. rockets], including the necessary knowledge, in cooperation with other authorities, also is the responsibility of counterintelligence.”

The intelligence report continued, “From these points of view, it is essentially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [North Korea] and the Syrian Arab Republic that need to be mentioned. The intelligence services of these countries, in many ways, are involved in unlawful procurement activities in the field of proliferation, using globally oriented, conspiratorial business and commercial structures.”

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern security officials noted that Iran’s regime, the Russian Federation and China are the main engines of intelligence gathering and should be viewed within a “security-related” context.

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern report covers the year 2018 and was published just days after a damning Bavarian state intelligence report on Iran’s illicit activities.

According to the Bavarian report, Iran’s regime is “making efforts to expand its conventional arsenal of weapons with weapons of mass destruction.” The Bavarian agents define weapons of mass destruction as “the spread of atomic, biological, chemical weapons of mass destruction.”

Iran was termed a “risk country” in the 335-page Bavarian document outlining serious threats to the security and democracy of the state of Bavaria.

German domestic intelligence agencies are situated in each of the country’s 16 states and are roughly equivalent to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).

The Bavarian report noted that the country’s criminal customs police prevented an electronic beam-welding machine from being sold to Iran.

“The machine can be used for the production of [missile] launch vehicles,” said the document.

According to the report, extensive attempts were made “to disguise the actual customer in Iran” with respect to the machine. The real end-user was in Iran but the illicit activity said the end-user company was in Malaysia. The efforts to illegally bypass German export control regulations resulted in a criminal conviction of the director of the Bavarian-based company that sought to sell the welding machine to Iran.

The Bavarian agency said it will continue “to monitor whether Iran consistently and consequently complies with the agreement signed in July 2015.”