Meanwhile there is Rosneft, Deeper Russian Terror

Posted on August 11, 2016August 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer: From January 2015

Foreign Firm Funding U.S. Green Groups Tied to State-Owned Russian Oil Company

Executives at a Bermudan firm funneling money to U.S. environmentalists run investment funds with Russian tycoons, a shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president of a London-based investment firm whose president until recently chaired the board of the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.In addition to those roles, Hoskins is a director at a company called Klein Ltd. No one knows where that firm’s money comes from. Its only publicly documented activities have been transfers of $23 million to U.S. environmentalist groups that push policies that would hamstring surging American oil and gas production, which has hurt Russia’s energy-reliant economy.

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Why is this important? Arms trafficking….there is always a darker side including people. Anyone remember the name Viktor Bout?

Photo: CNN

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Notorious Russian arms dealer ‘refused US offer for lighter sentence’

FITSANAKIS: The wife of Viktor Bout, the imprisoned Russian arms dealer dubbed ‘the merchant of death’, said he rejected an offer by his American captors who asked him to testify against a senior Russian government official. Born in Soviet Tajikistan, Bout was a former translator for the Soviet military. After the end of the Cold War, he set up several low-profile international air transport companies and used them to transfer large shipments of weapons that fueled wars in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. He made millions in the process and acquired international notoriety, which inspired the Hollywood blockbuster Lord of War. But his business ventures ceased in 2008, when he was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, with the cooperation of the Royal Thai Police. He was eventually extradited to the US and given a 25-year prison term for supplying weapons to the Afghan Taliban, and for trying to sell arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Bout is currently serving his sentence at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center in New York.

In a newspaper interview on Tuesday, Bout’s wife, Alla Bout, said her husband could have gotten away with a considerably lighter sentence had he agreed to testify against a senior Russian government official. Speaking to Moscow-based daily Izvestia, Alla Bout said her husband had been approached by American authorities after being extradited to the United States from Thailand. He was told that US authorities wanted him to testify against Igor Sechin, a powerful Russian government official, whom American prosecutors believed was Bout’s boss. In return for his testimony, US prosecutors allegedly promised a jail sentence that would not exceed two years, as well as political asylum for him and his family following his release from prison. Alla Bout added that her husband’s American lawyers were told by the prosecution that the ‘merchant of death’ “would be able to live in the US comfortably, along with his wife and daughter”, and that his family could stay in America during his trial “under conditions”. Alla Bout claimed she was told this by Bout himself and by members of his American legal team.

From 2008 to 2012, Sechin, who has military background, served as Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister. Today he heads the Board of Directors of Rosneft, a government-owned oil extraction and refinement company, which is considered one of the world’s most powerful business ventures. Many observers see Sechin as the most formidable man in Russia after Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is also believed to be a senior member of the Siloviki, a secretive group of government officials in the Putin government who have prior careers in national security or intelligence. Although Bout and Sechin have never acknowledged having met each other, some investigators of Bout’s weapons-trading activities believe that the two were close allies. It is believed that the two men first met in Angola and Mozambique in the 1980s, where they were stationed while serving in the Soviet military. But the two men deny they knowing each other. According to Alla Bout, Viktor told his American captors that he “never worked for Sechin and did not know him in person”. He therefore turned down the prosecution’s offer and was handed a 25-year sentence. When asked by the Izvestia reporters whether Bout was simply protecting the powerful Russian government official, Alla Bout insisted that the two “have never even met, not once”.

**** Igor Sechin

Forbes: Igor Sechin may be the left hand man to the World’s Most Powerful Man, but that didn’t stop him or his giant oil company, Rosneft, from landing on a U.S. visa and financial sanctions list announced after the Russian military intervention in the Ukraine. “Putin trusts him more than anyone else,” says Russian expert Mark Galeotti of NYU. “And if Putin trusts you, power and wealth always follow.” Suffice it to say that the Kremlin is one of Rosneft’s major stockholders.

Hillary’s State Dept Access to Donors, Marc Rich Still Resonates

Posted on August 9, 2016August 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich continues to pay big/Gilbert Chagoury in a new scandal

Seems like the whole Lincoln bedroom playbooks was used at the State Department and perhaps even Hezbollah supporters like Michel Aoun of Lebanon had access.

Secret emails reveal how Hillary’s closest aide Huma was ordered by Clinton Foundation to open State Department doors to donors

Yet more emails from Hillary Clinton’s secret server are revealed and show how Huma Abedin took orders from outside the State Department
Clinton’s closest aide was told by Doug Band, of the Clinton foundation, to set up access to an ambassador for a billionaire donor
She was told to ‘take care of’ another unnamed person by Band
Another Clinton fundraiser emailed Hillary to push for someone to get a job at the State Department – and she told Abedin to ‘help’
Judicial Watch which sued for the emails says they raise questions over whether Clinton was ‘in violation of the law’ as Secretary of State

DailyMail: A Clinton Foundation official pressed Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin to give special State Department access to a major donor who was accused of laundering money from Nigeria, according to emails released on Tuesday.

Doug Band, a top official at the Clinton Foundation, emailed Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin in April 2009 and asked her to connect Gilbert Chagoury, a billionaire Lebanese businessman who pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative, with the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman.

Ties: Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigeria-born Lebanese billionaire who was convicted of money-laundering, was asked to be given access to a US ambassador

Chagoury, a former confidante of brutal Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, was convicted in 2000 of laundering Nigerian money to Switzerland in connection with the Abacha regime. Under a plea deal, he agreed to pay Nigeria $66 million, and the Swiss government later expunged his conviction.

According to U.S. diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks, Chagoury has also been a key financial backer of pro-Hezbollah Lebanese politician Michel Aoun. At the time of Band’s request to connect Chagoury with the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Aoun was running for parliament in Lebanon on the Hezbollah-aligned bloc.

In an October 2007 cable, the prime minister of Lebanon noted Chagoury’s ties to Aoun and ‘suggested that the U.S. deliver to Chagoury a stern message about the possibility of financial sanctions and travel bans against those who undermine Lebanon’s legitimate institutions.’

In 2010, it was discovered that Chagoury had been added to the U.S. No-Fly terror list and barred from boarding a private jet in New Jersey. He was able to obtain a ‘waiver’ to fly, and was later removed from the list and received a written apology from the U.S. government.

Chagoury pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009 and has contributed between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

In another email released by Judicial Watch, Band asked Abedin to help look for job openings for an ‘important’ associate, whose name is redacted from the message.

Band forwarded an email to Abedin from the unnamed individual that was headlined ‘A favor…’

‘Hi Doug,’ said the April 22, 2009 email. ‘I really appreciated the opportunity to go on the Haiti trip; it was an eye-opening experiences seeing both the depravity and promise of that island.’ The rest of the email is redacted.

Order: Doug Band (left) emailed Huma Abedin to tell her that it was ‘very imp’ for the billionaire Clinton Foundation donor to get access to Jeffrey Feltman, the ambassador to Lebanon (right)

Band passed on the message to Abedin with the noted ‘Important to take care of [redacted name].’

Abedin responded that the individual was ‘on our radar’ and ‘Personnel has been sending him options.’

In a third email, Clinton fundraiser Lana Moresky emailed Hillary Clinton and asked her about finding a State Department job for an individual whose name is redacted.

‘[Redacted] is looking for an opportunity to meet with a knowledgeable [Department of State] person to learn more about the structure and positions available,’ wrote Moresky in the April 29, 2009 email.

Clinton forwarded the message to Abedin with the note ‘Can you pls followup and help [redacted]?’

Judicial Watch said in a press release that the State Department favors ‘seem in violation of the ethics agreements that Hillary Clinton agreed to in order to be appointed and confirmed as Secretary of State.’

‘No wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts and Congress,’ said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement. ‘They show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law.’

SOME OF THE SECRET EMAILS

Two Surviving Family Members of Benghazi Sue Hillary

Posted on August 9, 2016August 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

The lawyer of record in the lawsuit against Hillary Clinton is Larry Klayman, the original founder of Judicial Watch and now with Freedom Watch, Inc., and has been a previous radio guest of The Denise Simon Experience.

It should also be noted that the father of Tyrone Woods is also a lawyer.

The lawsuit document is found here.

Parents of Two Benghazi Victims File Lawsuit Against Hillary Clinton

Mediaite: Hillary Clinton is being sued by parents of Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods, two of the four men who died in Benghazi in 2012.

The lawsuit alleges that Clinton’s negligence was directly responsible for Smith’s and Woods’ deaths, even saying that terrorists were able to locate them because of “the information that was obtained from Defendant Clinton’s ‘extremely careless’ handling of confidential and classified government information.”

But aside from the wrongful death and negligence charges, they’re also going after Clinton for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The defamation charge concerns this:

“Defendant Clinton made false and defamatory statements negligently, recklessly, purposefully, and/or intentionally with actual malice… by stating that Plaintiffs were lying about Clinton having told them that the Benghazi Attack was caused by an anti-Muslim YouTube video.”

The lawsuit makes multiple mention of Clinton’s emails as possibly related to Benghazi, including here:

It is highly probable, given Defendant Clinton’s history of reckless handling of classified information, that Defendant Clinton, as Secretary of State, sent and received information about Ambassador Christopher Stevens and thus the U.S. Department of State activities and covert operations that the deceased were a part of in Benghazi, Libya. This information was compromised from the second that it left Defendant Clinton’s private e mail server and easily found its way to foreign powers including, but not limited to Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea.

Both Patricia Smith and Charles Woods have recently spoken out strongly against Clinton, directly blaming her for their sons’ deaths.

You can read the full lawsuit here.

Here it Comes, Another Sin Tax, Sodas

Posted on August 8, 2016August 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

Ballot measures are slated for just about everyday and they range from the sublime to the ridiculous…have you paid any attention?

Just in case you need an overview:

Who’s backing 2016 ballot measures?

CPI: National advocacy groups are gearing up to push state ballot measures in 2016 on topics ranging from the minimum wage to marijuana legalization. Below is a sampling of groups and their plans.

For a sampling some of the work and in sight has already been provided such that you should be on alert by going here.

Soda tax battle brewing at 2016 ballot box

June 8, 2016: Opponents of a proposed sugary drink tax demonstrate outside City Hall in Philadelphia. (AP)

FNC: Local governments are always thirsty for revenue – and their taste for a soda tax keeps getting stronger, fueling a new battle this fall with America’s beverage industry.

Boosted in part by anti-soda warrior and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, proponents are trying to get a tax on sugary drinks approved at the ballot box in at least four more municipalities.

The initiatives mark a resurgence of sorts for the soda tax crusade. According to the American Beverage Association, voters have rejected 43 such measures in the past eight years. But in a major win for the movement, the Philadelphia City Council approved a 1.5-cents-per-ounce soda tax this past June.

Now, three California municipalities – San Francisco, Oakland and Albany – are slated to vote on a soda tax of a penny per ounce. Boulder, Colo., could double that, if voters OK a 2-cents-per-ounce tax. The initiatives, which have been approved for the ballot, target both sugary drinks and diet drinks.

Advocates cite health benefits in pushing the proposals. “The goal of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages is to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, which science has proven to be directly correlated to detrimental health impacts such as diabetes, obesity and heart diseases,” San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Malia Cohen told FoxNews.com.

Bloomberg, often ridiculed for his efforts to ban the big gulp in his home city, spent $1.6 million to advocate for the passage of the Philadelphia tax and reportedly will be bankrolling efforts in San Francisco and Oakland as well.

But the American Beverage Association is staunchly opposed. ABA spokeswoman Lauren Kane said the Philadelphia tax is highly unpopular and shouldn’t be a model for any other city.

“This is a regressive tax, it raises the price of groceries and it’s discriminatory because it singles out a single product in the grocery cart,” Kane told FoxNews.com. “Once the government reaches into the grocery cart, everything else is vulnerable.”

The beverage association contends that soda consumption is at a 30-year low, yet obesity has continued to climb in recent years. Further, it notes West Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee all imposed some soda tax, but rank among the most obese states in the nation.

“There is no single product that is responsible for obesity,” Kane said.

So far, only Berkeley, Calif., has enacted such a tax with voter approval, OK’ing a 1-cent-per-ounce tax in the 2014 election.

If a city the size of San Francisco adopts a tax at the ballot box, it could be a model for others, advocates hope.

“San Francisco has always been a pioneer in landmark legislation and I have no doubt the passage of a sugary beverage tax in San Francisco will encourage other municipalities to seriously consider implementing a similar tax,” said Cohen, who led the effort to have the measure placed on the ballot.

San Francisco would appear the most likely to adopt the measure since 56 percent of voters backed a proposed 2 percent tax increase in 2014. It needed a two-thirds majority to pass because the tax revenue was dedicated for a specific purpose. This year, it’s a proposed 1 percent tax that requires only a simple majority, since the revenue would be going to the general fund. If approved, the tax is projected to bring in $14.4 million annually – money supposedly to be used for health and nutrition programs.

Therein lies another concern. Kane said the revenue would be going into the general budget “with no strings attached” – so voters wouldn’t even know if the revenue would be used “to fight obesity.”

The ABA has a formidable foe in Bloomberg. He telegraphed his plans in a statement issued after the Philadelphia tax victory.

“In November, voters in three California cities will take up the issue, and it may also come before voters in Boulder, Colorado,” Bloomberg said. “When cities lead the way, solutions that were once considered non-starters can quickly catch fire and spread around the world. It would not be the first revolution Philadelphia has sparked.”

The issue even worked its way into presidential politics this year. After eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said she was “very supportive” of the Philadelphia proposal in April, her opponent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote an op-ed for Philadelphia Magazine calling it a “regressive grocery tax that would disproportionately affect low-income and middle-class Americans.”

Cohen objects to the charge of a regressive tax.

“What this assumption ignores is the fact Type 2 Diabetes is a regressive disease,” Cohen told FoxNews.com. “At today’s rate, 50 percent of African American youth vs. 25 percent White youth will contract Type II Diabetes in their lifetime. This is not a coincidence and we must do something today to address this crisis.”

Iran Executed the Nuclear Scientist, Mentioned in Hillary’s Emails

Posted on August 7, 2016August 7, 2016 by Denise Simon

Iran has executed a nuclear scientist it convicted of divulging state secrets to the U.S., its judiciary said Sunday.

Shahram Amiri had earlier been sentenced to death by a lower court, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejehi told the official Islamic Republic News Agency. The sentence was “confirmed and carried out,” he said.

He was allegedly paid $5 million dollars for his information helping the United States.

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EXCLUSIVE: Iran Nuclear Scientist Defects to U.S. In CIA ‘Intelligence Coup’

2010/ABCNews: An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials.

The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, “an intelligence coup” in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran’s nuclear program.

A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment. In its declassified annual report to Congress, the CIA said, “Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons.”

Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, went missing last June three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, according to the Iranian government. He worked at Tehran’s Malek Ashtar University, which is closely connected to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, according to the Associated Press. More here.

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Upon the orders of the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the regime’s executioners sent nuclear expert Shahram Amiri to the gallows after seven years of imprisonment. Shahram Amiri’s execution, whose news was published by his family, was carried out despite the fact that the mullahs’ judiciary had sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment and five years of exile on the charge of “relationships with hostile governments”. More here.

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Cotton: Clinton discussed executed Iranian scientist on email

WashingtonExaminer: Hillary Clinton recklessly discussed, in emails hosted on her private server, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was executed by Iran for treason, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Sunday.

“I’m not going to comment on what he may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman,” he said on “Face the Nation.” Cotton was speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave information to the U.S. about Iran’s nuclear program.

The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe.

“That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server. And I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe,” he said.

The revelation could cause further political damage to Clinton, who was already on the defensive Sunday after commenting oddly last week that she had “short-circuited” in a statement related to her honesty about the email scandal.

Republican nominee Donald Trump seized on the statement to question her mental stability.

Iran confirmed on Sunday that Amiri had been hanged for treason. He was convicted of spying charges in a death sentence case that was upheld on appeal, according to the Associated Press.

“This person who had access to the country’s secret and classified information had been linked to our hostile and No. 1 enemy, America, the Great Satan” a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said. “He provided the enemy with vital and secret information of the country.”

His body was returned to his mother with rope marks around the neck.

It would appear possible that discussion on an unclassified — and quite possibly hacked — email system about a person who was hanged as a spy will have a chilling effect on others who might want to engage in espionage for the United States.

Amiri disappeared while on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009, but he then resurfaced a year later in the U.S., where he visited the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy and demanded to be sent home to Iran. While Amiri told reporters that he was held against his will by both the Saudis and the Americans, U.S. officials said he was receiving millions of dollars for information he provided about Iran’s nuclear program.

The scientist shows up in Clinton’s emails back in 2010, just nine days before he returned to Iran.

“We have a diplomatic, ‘psychological’ issue, not a legal one. Our friend has to be given a way out,” the email by Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy, read, according to the Associated Press. “Our person won’t be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave so be it.”

Cotton Sunday also accused the Obama administration of “working like a gun cartel” by sending $400 million to Iran in what many regard as ransom for hostages.

Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine described the payment as “appropriate.”