DoJ Investigates Harvard U, How About other Universities?

Posted on October 6, 2017October 6, 2017 by Denise Simon

We keep hearing the term ‘class warfare’ meaning the population in the United States has been officially divided into groups where the left has applied labels. This essentially translates to breaking down the profiles of people into segmented minority groups such as LGBT, color, religion, culture, country of origin and economic status. Hence the divisions manifest.

College campuses are the incubation hubs for where the defined groups are most notable and Harvard is being investigated by the Department of Justice on the matter of admissions related to exacerbating division and class warfare.

Investigating Harvard is a good start and may provide a model for what is occurring at other universities such as Berkeley, Columbia, Georgetown and hundreds more.

Harvard’s Affirmative Action Program is Now the Subject of a DOJ Investigation

The Trump administration is investigating Harvard University over whether the elite university is favoring particular racial groups in its admissions policies — a probe that critics say is an attack on affirmative action on campus.

The Department of Justice confirmed its investigation, which follows reports that the agency was hiring lawyers to begin a probe into whether Harvard was exercising “intentional race-based discrimination” to pick its student body, the New York Times reported in August.

Supporters of affirmative action, which allows colleges to use race as a factor in their selection process, said such an investigation would undermine educational opportunities for students of color.

“The Department of Justice has launched an unprecedented assault on efforts to promote racial diversity in higher education,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national watchdog group.

The Justice Department has not outlined which racial groups it believes are being favored at Harvard or, potentially, other universities. But the department’s actions under Attorney General Jeff Sessions are aligning with an argument popular in right-wing circles that affirmative action is reverse discrimination that hurts white students. Critics say the Justice Department investigation is a big by the Trump administration to energize its base.

The Justice Department’s move arrives when for the first time the majority of Harvard’s incoming class was made up of minorities, with 50.8 percent of the Class of 2021 from racial minorities, up from 47.3 percent last year.

“When you think about what the top priorities for the Department of Justice should be at this time when it comes to civil rights, I can’t imagine that chiming in for the first time against affirmative action policies should be at the top of the list,” Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, told Newsweek.

Evers’s group had filed a freedom-of-information request that led to the Justice Department revelation that it was indeed investigating Harvard.

Officially, the Justice Department has it was following up on a 2015 federal complaint filed by more than 60 Asian-American associations.

Harvard officials declined to comment on the investigation.

The alleged attack on affirmative action comes after Eric Dreiband, Trump’s pick to lead the Civil Rights Division, once defended the University of North Carolina when it was accused of discriminating against transgender people. Civil rights group protested his nomination to the position.

“The fact that Mr. Dreiband failed to separate himself from or condemn the politically charged investigations into affirmative action policies at colleges and universities makes his nomination even more concerning in light of this new information regarding the Department’s efforts,” Clarke said.

In 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the basic ideals of affirmative action, asserting that race could remain a factor considering a student’s admittance into a university. The court also cautioned universities to continually review their affirmative action programs and suggested that not all programs could stand up against “reverse racism” challenges. Supporters of affirmative action were frustrated that the High Court did not use the case to end all challenges to using race as a factor in selecting students.

Indeed, Harvard’s frustration was apparent in a statement issued to Newsweek with its no comment on Thursday: “To become leaders in our diverse society, students must have the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives,” the school said. “Harvard remains committed to enrolling diverse classes of students. Harvard’s admissions process considers each applicant as a whole person, and we review many factors, consistent with the legal standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Illegal Immigration, $135 BILLION a Year

Posted on September 27, 2017September 27, 2017 by Denise Simon

Primer: One of the easiest things to do is to scam and fraud the Federal government without consequence as noted by this report by the DHS Office of Inspector General when it comes to being illegal with multiple identities and claim any and or all benefits from entitlement programs and still not be deported.

photo

Illegal immigration costing record $135 billion a year, study shows

The swelling population of illegal immigrants and their kids is costing American taxpayers $135 billion a year, the highest ever, driven by free medical care, education and a huge law enforcement bill, according to the the most authoritative report on the issue yet.

And despite claims from pro-illegal immigration advocates that the aliens pay significant off-setting taxes back to federal, state and local treasuries, the Federation for American Immigration Reform report tallied just $19 billion, making the final hit to taxpayers about $116 billion.

State and local governments are getting ravaged by the costs, at over $88 billion. The federal government, by comparison, is getting off easy at $45 billion in costs for illegals.

President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and conservatives in Congress are moving aggressively to deal with illegals, especially those with long criminal records. But their effort is being fought by courts and some 300 so-called “sanctuary communities” that refuse to work with federal law enforcement.

The added burden on taxpayers and the unfairness to those who have applied to come into the United States through legal channels is also driving the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The added burden on taxpayers and the unfairness to those who have applied to come into the United States through legal channels is also driving the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The report, titled “The Fiscal Burden Of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers,” is the most comprehensive cost tally from FAIR. It said that the costs have jumped about $3 billion in four years and will continue to surge unless illegal immigration is stopped. It was provided in advance exclusively to Secrets.

“Clearly, the cost of doing nothing to stop illegal immigration is far too high,” said FAIR Executive Director Dan Stein. “President Trump has laid out a comprehensive strategy to regain control of illegal immigration and bring down these costs,” said Stein. “Building the wall, enhancing interior enforcement and mandating national E-Verify will go a long way in bringing these ridiculously high costs under control,” he added.

Over 68 often shocking pages, FAIR documents the average $8,075 in state, local and federal spending for each of the of 12.5 million illegal immigrants and their 4.2 million citizen children.

Broadly, the costs include $29 billion in medical care, $23 billion for law enforcement, $9 billion in welfare, $46 billion for education.

Just consider the cost of teaching an illegal alien child who doesn’t speak English. FAIR estimates an average cost of over $12,000 a year, and that can reach $25,000 in New York. Add to that welfare, health care, school lunches, and the per student price soars.

In state costs alone, California leads the list at $23 billion per year, followed by Texas at $11 billion, and New York at $7.4 billion.

And it also documents the taxes paid and how they don’t come close to offsetting the costs. What’s more, FAIR noted that 35 percent of the illegal population operate in an underground economy hidden from tax collectors. And worse, employers hire illegals and either pay them cheaply or under the table.

“The United States recoups only about 14 percent of the amount expended annually on illegal aliens. If the same jobs held by illegal aliens were filled by legal workers, at the prevailing market wage, it may safely be presumed that federal, state and local governments would receive higher tax payments,” said FAIR.

Key findings pulled from the report:

The staggering total costs of illegal immigrants and their children outweigh the taxes paid to federal and state governments by a ratio of roughly 7 to 1, with costs at nearly $135 billion compared to tax revenues at nearly $19 billion.

The nearly $135 billion paid out by federal and state and local taxpayers to cover the cost of the presence of 12.5 million illegal aliens and their 4.2 million citizen children amounts to approximately $8,075 per illegal alien and citizen child prior to taxes paid, or $6,940 per person after taxes are paid.

On the federal level, medical ($17.14 billion) is by far the highest cost, with law enforcement coming second ($13.15 billion) and general government services ($8 billion) third.

At the state and local level, education ($44.4 billion) was by far the largest expense, followed by general public services ($18.5 billion) and medical ($12.1 billion).

The top three states based on total cost to state taxpayers for illegal immigrants and their children: California ($23 billion); Texas ($10.9 billion), and New York ($7.5 billion).

Cost Study 2017 Web by Anonymous XPD7OrbmF on Scribd

The 1970’s NSA Watch List, Joanne Woodward?

Posted on September 25, 2017September 25, 2017 by Denise Simon

Gotta wonder if Jane Fonda had her own entire file cabinet. Hollywood did have many names included on the blacklist. A pamphlet titled ‘red channels’ included the names. For how this blacklist worked due to the FBI and HUAC, go here.

Ralph David Abernathy, Donald Sutherland, Women’s Liberation, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War – Among Those on NSA’s Watch List

Gregory Peck Joanne Woodward

NSA Biographic Files Included 73,000 U.S. Citizens, Including Journalists Art Buchwald and Tom Wicker and Actors Joanne Woodward and Gregory Peck

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2017 – The National Security Agency’s (NSA) own official history conflated two different constitutionally “questionable practices” involving surveillance of U.S. citizens, according to recent NSA declassifications published today by the National Security Archive, an independent research organization based at The George Washington University. During the mid-1970s, the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee investigated a number of such “practices” by NSA, including the so-called Watch List program, which monitored the international communications of anti-Vietnam war activists and other alleged “subversives.” The “Watch List” was one of the questionable activities; the other was the NSA’s creation of a voluminous filing system on prominent U.S. citizens whose names appeared in Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collected by the Agency. That filing system, abandoned in the early 1970s and destroyed in 1973, stayed secret for years.[1]

The files on well-known Americans were a product of the Agency’s sweeping efforts to track the communications of Cold War adversaries and to identify the individuals mentioned in them. Ultimately the filing system, and corresponding indexes, surpassed 1,000,000 names, including 73,000 U.S. citizens mentioned in SIGINT collected by the Agency. Among them were politicians, corporate leaders, trade unionists, Hollywood personalities, and journalists, ranging from Church Committee member Senator Walter Mondale (D-MN) and actor Joanne Woodward to IBM CEO Thomas Watson and United Auto Workers President Leonard Woodcock.

The recent NSA release has more information on the Watch List, such as the identities of a number of targeted individuals and organizations: Canadian actor and antiwar activist Donald Sutherland, civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy, journalist Seymour Hersh, antiwar activist David Dellinger, the Venceremos Brigade, and an entire social movement, Women’s Liberation.

Four years ago, the National Security Archive published a newly declassified National Security Agency history that included details about the Agency’s Watch List. As it turned out, the Agency’s history mistakenly folded in the NSA’s filing system on U.S. citizens into the Watch List, which focused on social reformers, revolutionaries, anti-war activists, and their organizations. Thus, the history incorrectly stated that Senator Howard Baker and journalists Art Buchwald and Tom Wicker, among others, were on the Watch List. Declassified documents confirm, however, that the NSA included those individuals and 73,000 others as part of the Agency’s name files of U.S. citizens. New documents that the NSA released to the Archive through a mandatory declassification review appeal provide an important corrective to the Agency’s official history by demonstrating that the Watch List and the biographical files were what the Church Committee – the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) – saw as two different “questionable practices” with respect to the Agency’s treatment of U.S. citizens.

To identify people mentioned in intercepted messages and other SIGINT products, the NSA (and its predecessors) created special indexes and sets of biographical files. The index to the biographical files was the “Rhyming Dictionary” used by NSA analysts as they decrypted and reported on SIGINT. Eventually including over a million names, the “Rhyming Dictionary” was organized in forward and reverse alphabetical order to make it easier for intelligence analysts to access the names of individuals and to retrieve biographical files as needed. When the Agency began to collect the names of U.S. personalities during the 1960s, it included them in the “Rhyming Dictionary” and created corresponding files that ended up filling 8-10 filing cabinets with over 73,000 entries.

According to the newly declassified documents, among the subjects of biographical files were prominent U.S. individuals. Besides Joanne Woodward, Thomas Watson, and Walter Mondale, the files included Washington Post humorist Art Buchwald, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur Burns, actor Gregory Peck, Congressman Otis Pike (D-NY), New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, civil rights leader Whitney Young, and members of the Senate Select Committee including Howard Baker, Jr., and Frank Church. The Church Committee regarded the creation of files on American citizens by a U.S. intelligence agency as an improper activity, but their specific existence was not disclosed at the time, even though the procedures that generated such files were discussed during hearings.

The NSA’s Watch List, the other dubious activity, had been created in the early 1960s to keep track of U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba. During the following years Watch List targets broadened. After President Kennedy’s assassination, it included possible threats to the president.[2] On 20 October 1967, the Watch List began including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights activists, after U.S. Army intelligence informed the Agency “that Army ACSI, assistant chief of staff for intelligence [General William P. Yarborough], had been designated executive agent by DOD for civil disturbance matters and requested any available information on foreign influence over, or control of, civil disturbances in the U.S.” That comported with the thinking of President Lyndon Johnson who privately claimed that covert financial support from “international Communism” was behind the anti-Vietnam War movement, which was then preparing for a major demonstration in Washington (21 October 1967).[3] To determine whether there were such connections, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began providing hundreds of names for the Agency’s Watch List. During the Nixon administration, the list expanded further to include narcotics traffickers and terrorist organizations.

According to testimony by NSA Director General Lew Allen, in October 1975, U.S. government agencies nominated the names of individuals and organizations that appeared on the Watch List. Thus, to cover the Defense Intelligence Agency’s “requirements on possible foreign control of, or influence on, U.S. antiwar activity,” DIA nominated the names of 20 U.S. persons who traveled to North Vietnam. The FBI “submitted watch lists covering their requirements on foreign ties and support to certain U.S. persons and groups,” with the lists including “names of ‘so-called’ extremist persons and groups … active in civil disturbances, and terrorists.” The FBI lists included about 1,000 individuals. The Secret Service nominated about 180 U.S. individuals and groups that “were potentially a threat to Secret Service protectees.” During 1967-1973, Allen testified, all of the lists combined had a “cumulative total of about 450 U.S. names on the narcotics list, and about 1,200 U.S. names on all other lists.”

Senator Church and his colleagues did not object to Watch Lists of narcotics traffickers or to genuine threats to the president, but they wondered about the “lack of adequate legal basis for some of this activity and what that leads to.” Allen agreed that there was a problem and spoke of “domestic intercepts which cannot be conducted under the President’s constitutional authority for foreign intelligence,” which meant that “we are not authorized by law or constitutional authority and they are clearly prohibited.” As General Allen explained, there were “interpretations which deal with the right to privacy [from] unreasonable search and seizure of the fourth amendment.” It was “self-doubt” (referred to in Document 10) that led the NSA to stop accepting Watch Lists with the names of U.S. citizens in the summer of 1973. When Attorney General Elliot Richardson raised questions about the propriety of FBI and Secret Service requests for information from NSA Allen officially closed down the program.

One of the most sensational revelations of the Church Committee was Operation SHAMROCK by which the major telecommunications companies RCA, Western Union, and International Telephone and Telegraph reluctantly shared their telegram traffic with the NSA and its predecessors from 1945 to the early 1970s. Near the program’s end, NSA analysts were reviewing 150,000 telegrams a month. Information from the telegrams provided grist for the Watch List, which, in the words of Frank Church, “resulted in the invasion of privacy of American citizens whose private and personal telegrams were intercepted.” Church also saw a betrayal of trust by companies whose “paying customers who had a right to expect that the messages would be handled confidentially.” In November 1975 those and other considerations led Church and the committee majority to unilaterally declassify facts about the SHAMROCK program over the objections of President Ford. According to former Committee staffer L. Brit Snider, “This was the “only occasion … where a Congressional committee voted to override a presidential objection and publish information the President contended was classified.”[4]

A mandatory declassification review request by the National Security Archive to the National Security Agency produced the documents in today’s posting. The subject of the request was the sources cited in an endnote to the NSA history. The documents in the Agency’s initial release were excised and more information on the watch list and the Rhyming Encyclopedia was released under appeal. Pending declassification requests to the FBI and other agencies may produce more information on the history of the Watch List.

To read the documents, go here.

Citizenship for Sale in U.S and EU, the Golden Ticket

Posted on September 20, 2017September 20, 2017 by Denise Simon

In the United States, with a starting number such as $500,000, you can buy a passport and with just a little more you can advance to citizenship under the EB-5 visa program. Swell huh? It has been going on for years and even Senator Dianne Feinstein has an issue with it. So, where is President Trump on the matter? Crickets…..

In February of this year, Senator Grassley and Feinstein introduced legislation to stop the EB-5 abuse.

The EB-5 program is inherently flawed,” Feinstein said in a joint statement with Grassley on Friday. “It says that U.S. citizenship is for sale. It is wrong to have a special pathway to citizenship for the wealthy while millions wait in line for visas.”

Roughly 10,000 EB-5 visas are awarded each year, with more than 85 percent going to Chinese investors in 2014, according to a study by Savills Studley, a real estate services firm. The program, begun in 1990 to stimulate the economy, has turned into a convenient way for wealthy Chinese citizens to become permanent U.S. residents and later bring over their family members. More here.

The Chinese, the Ukrainians and the Russians, all oligarchs are the largest exploiters of the program and most of these oligarchs are corrupt, paying for speedy processes with dirty money.

We know there are multiple investigations going on inside the DC Beltway regarding Russian interference and rightly so. Both Democrats and Republicans have some complicity in foreign collaboration.

In March of this year, this site published an extensive summary of Russian relations with people in the Trump camp as well as with Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. Few take a look at Secretary Wilbur Ross and his Cyprus connections. Cyprus is a location where abuse and corruption is as normal as breathing. One interesting person is Dmitry Rybolovlev, who happens to know Donald Trump as well as Wilbur Ross.

Beyond paying for a speedy process to obtain a passport or citizenship, there is also yet another method and that is money laundering illicit funds through U.S. real estate purchases where the buyer’s name is not listed if cash is paid. You dont say…..yup. This site published a summary of such activities in July of 2014.

So, while we have examined the issue in the United States and in Cyprus, it is the same for the European Union.

Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs suspected of corruption are among hundreds who have acquired EU passports under the “golden visa” program – a bourgeois shortcut to European citizenship in exchange for cash investments, the Guardian reported Sunday.

A list of recipients seen by The Guardian includes “prominent businesspeople and individuals with considerable political influence.”

The paper claims that Cyprus alone has made over $US 4 billion selling passports to international oligarchs, “granting them the right to live and work throughout Europe,” completely legally.

However, Cyprus is not alone. “The Golden Visa program for Spain, Portugal, Malta, Greece and Cyprus are the most prominent. Bulgaria and Hungary offer residency and citizenship by investment in Europe through government bonds,” the Golden Visa website states.

The BBC reported about this kind of purchasable citizenship three years ago.

“Just like you diversify an investment portfolio, you want to diversity your passport portfolio,” investment expert Christian Kalin, told the BBC.

The list of individuals who have received Cypriot citizenship includes Bashar al-Asad’s cousin, who was previously placed under American sanctions because of allegations he benefited from corruption. It also includes a former member of the Russian parliament and the founder of Ukraine’s largest bank.

According to Global Witness, an international NGO dedicated to exposing global corruption, global visas have the potential to give applicants fleeing persecution a “get out of jail for free card.”

Portuguese MEP, Ana Gomes, said golden visas are an immoral way to grant citizenship.

“I’m not against individual member states granting citizenship or residence to someone who would make a very special contribution to the country, be it in arts or science, or even in investment. But granting, not selling,” said Gomes.

Gomes also questioned the secrecy of obtaining golden visas. If they’re legal, why is it so hard to see who has them, asked Gomes.

The European Parliament will be debating the legality of golden visas in light of the leak, The Guardian reported.

So, for the leaders of respective countries, the definition of citizenship and the spirit of that loyalty means nothing when it comes to money, dirty money.

Perhaps we should be pushing harder for the Grassley/Feinstein legislation at a minimum….what say you?

September Busy for Congress CR and the Debt Limit Increase

Posted on August 28, 2017August 28, 2017 by Denise Simon

Developments in 2017 to learn more go here.

On March 7, 2017, CBO issued estimates that extraordinary measures could suffice to meet federal obligations until sometime in the fall of 2017.¹⁴¹ Such estimates are subject to substantial uncertainty due to changes in economic conditions, federal revenue flows, changes in the amounts and timing of federal payments, and other factors. On March 8, 2017, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin notified Congress that he would invoke authorities to use extraordinary measures after March 15, 2017, to ensure continued payment of federal obligations.¹⁴² On March 16, 2017, Secretary Mnuchin notified congressional leaders that he had indeed exercised those authorities.¹⁴³ The debt limit on that date was reset at $19,809 billion.¹⁴⁴

In testimony before Congress on May 24, 2017, Administration officials urged Congress to raise the debt limit before its summer recess.¹⁴⁵ Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney stated that the federal receipts were coming in more slowly than projected, which could imply that Treasury’s capacity to meet federal obligations could be exhausted sooner than previously projected.¹⁴⁶ A Goldman Sachs analysis found, however, that some major categories of tax receipts had shown stronger growth.¹⁴⁷

On June 28, 2017, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin sent a letter to Congress stating that extraordinary measures would be used until September 29, 2017.¹⁴⁸ Secretary Mnuchin’s letter did not state that Treasury’s cash reserves or borrowing capacity would be exhausted on that date, but he did describe the need for legislative action by that date as “critical.” Others have estimated that the U.S. Treasury would likely be able to meet federal obligations until sometime in early October 2017.¹⁴⁹ Treasury cash balances and borrowing capacity in mid-September, however, are projected to fall well below levels the U.S. Treasury has considered prudent to maintain operations in the face of significant adverse events.¹⁵⁰

The Constitution grants Congress the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States—one part of its power of the purse—and thus mandates that Congress exercise control over federal debt. Control of debt policy has at times provided Congress with a means of raising concerns regarding fiscal policies. Debates over federal fiscal policy have been especially animated in recent years. The accumulation of federal debt accelerated in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. Rising debt levels, along with continued differences in views of fiscal policy, led to a series of contentious debt limit episodes in recent years.

The 2011 debt limit episode was resolved on August 2, 2011, when President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; S. 365; P.L. 112-25). The BCA included provisions aimed at deficit reduction and allowing the debt limit to rise in three stages, the latter two subject to congressional disapproval. Once the BCA was enacted, a presidential certification triggered a $400 billion increase. A second certification led to a $500 billion increase on September 22, 2011, and a third, $1,200 billion increase took place on January 28, 2012.

Federal debt again reached its limit on December 31, 2012. Extraordinary measures were again used to allow payment of government obligations until February 4, 2013, when H.R. 325, which suspended the debt limit until May 19, 2013, was signed into law (P.L. 113-3). On that date, extraordinary measures were reset, which would have lasted until October 17, 2013, according to Treasury estimates issued in late September 2013. On October 16, 2013, enactment of a continuing resolution (H.R. 2775; P.L. 113-46) resolved a funding lapse and suspended the debt limit through February 7, 2014. On February 15, 2014, a measure to suspend the debt limit (S. 540; P.L. 113-83) through March 15, 2015, was enacted. Once that debt limit suspension lapsed after March 15, 2015, the limit was reset at $18.1 trillion. On October 15, 2015, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew stated that extraordinary measures would be exhausted no later than November 3, 2015, although a relatively small cash reserve would be on hand. Lower tax receipts and higher trust fund inflows, however, reduced Treasury’s headroom more than had been expected. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA2015; H.R. 1314; P.L. 114-74), which relaxed certain discretionary spending limits, suspended the debt limit through March 15, 2017.

On March 16, 2017, the debt limit was reset at $19,809 billion and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin notified Congress that he had invoked authorities to use extraordinary measures. CBO estimated that those measures could meet federal obligations until sometime in the fall of 2017, although in May 2017, Administration officials said slower than expected growth in revenues could require earlier action. Some independent analysts still expect that the U.S. Treasury could meet federal obligations until sometime in early October 2017. On June 28, 2017, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin notified Congress that extraordinary measures would be used until September 29, 2017, and urged action before that date.

Total federal debt increases when the government sells debt to the public to finance budget deficits, which adds to debt held by the public, or when the federal government issues debt to certain government accounts, such as the Social Security, Medicare, and Transportation trust funds, in exchange for their reported surpluses—which adds to debt held by government accounts; or when new federal loans outpace loan repayments. The sum of debt held by the public and debt held by government accounts is the total federal debt. Surpluses reduce debt held by the public, while deficits raise it. This report will be updated as events warrant.