Showing posts with label Politicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politicians. Show all posts
Sunday, August 9, 2026
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
It's All For A Reason: Netanyahu hopes to 'taper' Israel off US military aid in next decade
By Reuters
JERUSALEM, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to "taper off" Israeli dependence on U.S. military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
"I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years," Netanyahu told the Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering "down to zero," he said: "Yes."
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel "very deeply" appreciates "the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we've come of age and we've developed incredible capacities."
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the U.S. and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defence systems.
Israeli defence exports rose 13% last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defence technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defence systems.
U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that "we need not wait ten years" to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
"The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the U.S. military," Graham said. "I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable." [SOURCE]
Sunday, August 2, 2026
REALITY CHECK: How Owned Are We?_The 2027 NDAA provision deepens Israel's access to our military-industrial complex
Published Jun 3, 2026, 5:00 AM EDT
https://www.military.com/topics/national-defense-authorization-act-ndaa
2027 NDAA Provision Seeks Sweeping US-Israel Defense Tech Integration
Critics warn that Section 224 could deepen both countries' military ties, which may be difficult to reverse.
A provision tucked into the House Armed Services Committee’s draft version of the Fiscal Year 2027 defense policy bill could move the U.S.-Israel military relationship beyond traditional aid and into a far deeper form of defense-industrial integration.
Section 224 of the drafted National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” would require the defense secretary to designate an executive agent to coordinate U.S.-Israel defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration and industrial cooperation. It specifically describes the provision as covering bilateral defense technology work, integration and industrial cooperation.
Supporters view the proposal as a way to strengthen cooperation between two longtime security partners while critics argue it would move the relationship beyond traditional military aid and into a far deeper system of defense-industrial integration that would be harder for Congress, taxpayers, and even future administrations, to monitor or unwind. The U.S. and Israel jointly struck Iran on Feb. 28, leading to the ongoing war in the Middle East that has enveloped multiple nations.
Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, warned in Responsible Statecraft that “Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries," adding that the measure could intertwine the two countries’ military sectors at a level not previously seen in any U.S. allyship.
Freeman told Military.com that the provision reaches across “seemingly every area of defense tech,” including artificial intelligence, quantum technology, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber and biotechnology. He said the most alarming terms were “network integration” and “data fusion,” since the bill does not clearly define them.
Ben Freeman is director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute.
The proposal also arrives as senior American and Israeli officials increasingly discuss moving beyond the traditional aid framework. On June 1, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote on X that a future U.S.-Israel security agreement would move away from direct aid, stating, “New MOU w/ Israel ends aid & will be based on trade.”
The statement echoed previous comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials advocating a gradual transition away from direct military assistance and toward joint projects and defense cooperation.
Freeman argues that this shift is not simply a change in accounting. It represents a fundamental change in how the relationship operates.
'Sky is the Limit'
The United States and Israel currently operate under a 10-year memorandum of understanding that runs from fiscal 2019 through FY 2028 and provides $3.3 billion per year in foreign military financing, plus $500 million per year for missile defense cooperation.
That aid model has long been controversial, but it is at least visible. Congress can debate it, lawmakers can try to condition it, and the public can understand the top-line number.
Freeman argued that Section 224 points toward something different: Moving support out of the foreign-aid framework and into Pentagon procurement, licensing, co-production and research channels.
That shift matches a broader debate described by Steven Simon in a Quincy Institute brief, “The Disappearing Aid Check,” which argues ending traditional grant aid would not necessarily end U.S. support for Israel’s military. Instead, support could move into procurement contracts, joint development programs, sustainment pipelines and industrial-based investments.
Reserve and Guard leaders speak with 25 HASC staff members to outline readiness challenges and legislative priorities, aiming to inform work on the upcoming national defense bill at the Rayburn House Office Building. (DVIDS)
Freeman said that matters because the new model would be harder for ordinary Americans to see or influence. Aid is capped by a memorandum of understanding and publicly appropriated, but procurement and industrial cooperation can expand through numerous contracts, programs and partnerships spread across different parts of the Defense Department.
Under the aid model, he said, a voter who objects to Israeli military actions can call a member of Congress and demand a vote against aid. But under the procurement model, “You have no one to call."
"You basically have to call up the Department of Defense and say, ‘Hello, Pete Hegseth, please stop doing business with Israel,'" he said.
The transparency concern is sharpened by the Pentagon’s own accounting problems. The Defense Department completed its seventh consecutive department-wide financial statement audit in 2024 without receiving a clean opinion, while stating that it aims to achieve an unmodified audit opinion by the end of 2028.
Freeman said that if U.S. support for Israel is spread across contracts, data-sharing arrangements, licensing agreements and joint ventures, “There is no upper bound for the level of cooperation here."
“The sky is the limit," he said. "It would be all but impossible to come up with a full estimate of exactly how much U.S. money is going to Israel.”
Data Fusion and Intelligence Risks
Perhaps the most controversial language in Section 224 involves “network integration” and “data fusion.” The legislation does not clearly define either term. Freeman said that ambiguity is exactly what concerns him.
“I take it as meaning the U.S. military's data could soon be the Israeli military's data,” he said, adding that his concern is rooted in previous disputes over technology-sharing.
In 2020, the U.S. Army acquired two Israeli-made Iron Dome batteries. However, Army officials later concluded that the system could not be fully integrated into the Army's broader air and missile defense architecture.
After providing the equipment, Israel was unwilling to provide source code and technical information necessary for full integration. The Army ultimately decided not to pursue additional Iron Dome purchases.
To Freeman, that history raises an obvious question. If Israel previously resisted sharing critical technical information with the United States, what guarantees exist that future data-sharing arrangements would be fully reciprocal?
The Jobs Trap
Freeman believes the most politically significant aspect of Section 224 may have nothing to do with technology. Instead, he points to jobs.
Section 224 could encourage Israeli-linked defense firms to expand co-production facilities, joint ventures and manufacturing work inside the United States. Once those jobs exist, they become political assets.
Freeman called that possibility “the real Trojan horse” in the proposal. He argued that Israeli firms could replicate the familiar American defense-industry strategy of spreading production across congressional districts, making lawmakers reluctant to oppose programs that support local employment.
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2020 Conference, Monday, March 2, 2020 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The F-35 program offers the clearest example of how that works. Lockheed Martin spread suppliers and jobs across dozens of states, helping create political support that makes the program extraordinarily difficult to cancel.
Freeman compared that dynamic to what could happen if Israeli defense firms build deeper U.S. manufacturing footprints.
“They would put that on top of what is already, arguably, the most powerful special interest in all of U.S. politics,” he said. “It would put the Israel lobby on steroids.”
The issue is not hypothetical. Recent reporting has already identified Israeli-linked defense manufacturing and drone production inside the United States, including facilities connected to companies such as XTEND.
Hard to Unwind
Freeman points to Turkey's removal from the F-35 program as an example of how difficult defense-industrial disentanglement can be.
After Ankara was expelled from the program over its purchase of Russia's S-400 air defense system, the Pentagon spent years shifting production away from Turkish suppliers that had been manufacturing hundreds of F-35 components. The transition required finding and qualifying replacement suppliers, restructuring portions of the supply chain, and absorbing additional costs before Turkey could be fully removed from the program.
That was one program. Section 224 would potentially touch multiple domains at once.
Freeman argued that if Israel later took actions that caused Washington to reconsider the relationship, disentangling the two defense sectors could take years and create real national security costs.
A Dangerous Time to Integrate
Recent Middle East diplomacy shows why deeper integration is risky.
President Donald Trump said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to reduce hostilities, but Netanyahu said Israel would continue “to operate as planned” in southern Lebanon unless Hezbollah stopped its attacks. Trump reportedly lashed out at Netanyahu, calling him "crazy," according to Axios.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony commemorating Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers, or Yom HaZikaron, at the Military Cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Tuesday April 21, 2026. (Ilia Yefimovich/Pool Photo via AP)
Iran then halted communications with mediators, according to Iranian reports, while Trump said talks were continuing.
To Freeman, the episode proves that U.S. and Israeli interests are not always compatible.
“Netanyahu is proving right now that Israel’s interests are not always America’s interests,” he said. “Trump is trying to negotiate an end to this conflict, and Netanyahu—over and over again—is doing things that violate the ceasefires and make ending the conflict impossible.”
A Shift in Public Opinion
That concern comes as public opinion has shifted sharply on Israel.
Gallup reported in February 2026 that Israelis no longer lead Palestinians in Americans’ sympathies, with independent-leaning voters now sympathizing more with Palestinians than Israelis.
In May 2026, an Institute for Global Affairs poll found that only 16% of Americans want the United States to keep supplying Israel with weapons without new restrictions, while 38% want weapons transfers stopped entirely and 24% want them conditioned on how they are used. Among Republicans, 35% back unrestricted supply, 29% want conditions, and 18% want to halt supply entirely.
On the other hand, some lawmakers have pushed institutional links beyond procurement. In 2024, H.R. 8445 proposed extending certain protections under federal law to U.S. citizens serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
Freeman said he has seen bipartisan concern about Section 224, including interest from figures on the right and left.
His plea to Congress was direct: “The American people don’t want it. Listen to your constituents, not your lobbyists. Strip out Section 224 from the NDAA.” [SOURCE]
Saturday, July 25, 2026
How It Happened: The Corruption Of Donald J Trump
What does Israel have on Trump, one might ask?
— BRITT (@54BRITT54) May 27, 2026
Let’s have a look… shall we. pic.twitter.com/IAbkJ7wpQu
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The White House: Was He A Manchurian Candidate The Whole Time Or Was He Compromised?
Was Trump lying the whole time?
— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) July 24, 2026
or was he just a puppet the whole time? pic.twitter.com/ATCdJUhPIZ
Sunday, February 8, 2026
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Sunday, November 24, 2024
DSSO: When The Conspiracy Turns Out To Be True_‘ROTTEN TO A CORE’: 5-Year FEMA Veteran Reveals Woke Bias at Disaster Relief Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is under fire after a supervisor directed staff to avoid helping Florida residents with signs supporting Donald Trump, but that incident illustrates a larger culture of woke priorities undermining FEMA’s central mission, according to one current employee and one former employee who spoke with The Daily Signal on condition of anonymity.
The FEMA veterans said that, under the Biden-Harris administration, the agency prioritizes racial minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and climate initiatives, undermining its mission of helping Americans face disasters and leading Americans to distrust the federal government. FEMA pushes diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, at the risk of saving fewer lives, they said.
“FEMA’s rotten to a core,” said an employee who worked there for about five years and left earlier this year. “It’s overstaffed, it’s bureaucratic, [and] they don’t really help anybody.”
“FEMA needs to help people. It doesn’t help people right now,” he said. “It’s so biased and racist [against those perceived as white].”
(Note: This article refers to both the former staffer and the current staffer using male pronouns, but this editorial decision should not be taken as revealing the sex of either person.)
The current FEMA employee, who has over a decade of service in federal agencies, said the woke bias undermines FEMA’s disaster response goals.
“I think such an approach more broadly undermines trust in government,” the employee told The Daily Signal. “While FEMA aims to help people through noble missions, such emphasis on DEI compartmentalizes people, further dividing the country and sowing distrust.”
“The current FEMA administrator made a conscious decision to sacrifice a ready and prepared nation for a divisive DEI agenda and unserious climate goals,” the staffer added, referring to Deanne Criswell, who was appointed by President Joe Biden.
FEMA did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.
The Trump Signs Scandal
A FEMA supervisor, Marn’i Washington, told workers in a message to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida, to identify residents who could qualify for federal aid after Hurricane Milton, The Daily Wire’s Leif Le Mahieu reported last week. Employees of FEMA told The Daily Wire that Washington relayed this message both verbally and via a group chat.
Her directive reportedly prevented FEMA from offering post-hurricane aid to at least 20 homes displaying Trump signs or flags between late October and November.
Criswell confirmed the story and announced on X that Washington had been fired.
“More than 22,000 FEMA employees every day adhere to FEMA’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors,” Criswell wrote. “Recently, a FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values & principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.”
The FEMA administrator called the actions “reprehensible” and pledged to “continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again.”
Recently, a FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values & principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.
— Deanne Criswell (@FEMA_Deanne) November 9, 2024
Yet after her firing, Washington told journalist Roland Martin that FEMA’s avoidance of Trump supporters is a “colossal event” that also occurred in North Carolina and South Carolina after both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
“They all alleged that these actions were made on my own recognizance, and from my own political advances,” Washington said. “However, if you look at the record, there is what we call a community trend and unfortunately, it just so happened that the political hostility that was encountered by my team—and I was on two different teams during my own deployment—they just so happened to have the Trump campaign signage. FEMA always preaches avoidance first and then de-escalation, this is not isolated. This is a colossal event of avoidance, not just in the state of Florida, but you will find avoidance in the Carolinas.”
Washington also claimed that her FEMA team witnessed hostility and “verbal abuse” from residents who had Trump signs on their property, leading to the instruction to avoid Trump supporters. She said her staff did not canvass at homes with Trump signs to avoid facing the alleged “verbal abuse” and “hostile encounters” at the behest of Chad Hershey, a FEMA supervisor above Washington who allegedly instructed them to avoid homes they felt were unsafe.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is under fire after a supervisor directed staff to avoid helping Florida residents with signs supporting Donald Trump, but that incident illustrates a larger culture of woke priorities undermining FEMA’s central mission, according to one current employee and one former employee who spoke with The Daily Signal on condition of anonymity.
The FEMA veterans said that, under the Biden-Harris administration, the agency prioritizes racial minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and climate initiatives, undermining its mission of helping Americans face disasters and leading Americans to distrust the federal government. FEMA pushes diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, at the risk of saving fewer lives, they said.
“FEMA’s rotten to a core,” said an employee who worked there for about five years and left earlier this year. “It’s overstaffed, it’s bureaucratic, [and] they don’t really help anybody.”
“FEMA needs to help people. It doesn’t help people right now,” he said. “It’s so biased and racist [against those perceived as white].”
(Note: This article refers to both the former staffer and the current staffer using male pronouns, but this editorial decision should not be taken as revealing the sex of either person.)
The current FEMA employee, who has over a decade of service in federal agencies, said the woke bias undermines FEMA’s disaster response goals.
“I think such an approach more broadly undermines trust in government,” the employee told The Daily Signal. “While FEMA aims to help people through noble missions, such emphasis on DEI compartmentalizes people, further dividing the country and sowing distrust.”
“The current FEMA administrator made a conscious decision to sacrifice a ready and prepared nation for a divisive DEI agenda and unserious climate goals,” the staffer added, referring to Deanne Criswell, who was appointed by President Joe Biden.
FEMA did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.
The Trump Signs Scandal
A FEMA supervisor, Marn’i Washington, told workers in a message to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida, to identify residents who could qualify for federal aid after Hurricane Milton, The Daily Wire’s Leif Le Mahieu reported last week. Employees of FEMA told The Daily Wire that Washington relayed this message both verbally and via a group chat.
Her directive reportedly prevented FEMA from offering post-hurricane aid to at least 20 homes displaying Trump signs or flags between late October and November.
Criswell confirmed the story and announced on X that Washington had been fired.
“More than 22,000 FEMA employees every day adhere to FEMA’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors,” Criswell wrote. “Recently, a FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values & principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.”
The FEMA administrator called the actions “reprehensible” and pledged to “continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again.”
Yet after her firing, Washington told journalist Roland Martin that FEMA’s avoidance of Trump supporters is a “colossal event” that also occurred in North Carolina and South Carolina after both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
“They all alleged that these actions were made on my own recognizance, and from my own political advances,” Washington said. “However, if you look at the record, there is what we call a community trend and unfortunately, it just so happened that the political hostility that was encountered by my team—and I was on two different teams during my own deployment—they just so happened to have the Trump campaign signage. FEMA always preaches avoidance first and then de-escalation, this is not isolated. This is a colossal event of avoidance, not just in the state of Florida, but you will find avoidance in the Carolinas.”
Washington also claimed that her FEMA team witnessed hostility and “verbal abuse” from residents who had Trump signs on their property, leading to the instruction to avoid Trump supporters. She said her staff did not canvass at homes with Trump signs to avoid facing the alleged “verbal abuse” and “hostile encounters” at the behest of Chad Hershey, a FEMA supervisor above Washington who allegedly instructed them to avoid homes they felt were unsafe.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that FEMA engaged in discrimination against Floridians. Gov. Ron DeSantis, also a Republican, supported the lawsuit.
“It’s unacceptable for the federal government to discriminate against Floridians who voted for Trump, and especially egregious in the aftermath of a hurricane,” DeSantis said Thursday. “I’m supportive of this legal action by the Attorney General’s Office, and I have instructed state agencies to likewise take any action necessary to investigate and ensure those who engaged in this behavior are held accountable.”
‘I’ve Seen That’
The former FEMA employee told The Daily Signal that he also witnessed FEMA leaders encouraging staff to avoid whites and conservatives on the supposition that they would be hostile.
“They were told to avoid Trump, avoid any house that has a Trump sign, in a verbal meeting,” he said. “I’ve seen that happen.”
“We were told, ‘Don’t go into any house that looks suspicious,’” the former employee recalled. “They would use words like, ‘hick,’ ‘cowboys,’ ‘rednecks.’ You can change that over to ‘Trump supporters,’ ‘MAGA.’”
Referring to Washington, the fired supervisor, the former employee said: “She’s saying, ‘I didn’t make this up on my own.’ I believe her because I’ve totally seen it.”
“I believe she did exactly what she was told to do,” he said. “I read Deanne’s statement—it’s a lie, it’s a complete lie.”
The current employee agreed regarding Criswell, FEMA’s administrator.
“The good people at FEMA deserve stronger leadership,” he said. “I believe the FEMA administrator to be premature, shortsighted, and misleading in her assessment of this incident.”
“While public responder safety is a paramount objective, responders are given the necessary latitude to determine whether unsafe conditions exist,” the FEMA employee added. “The extreme liberal ideology behind DEI that this Biden-Harris administration has prioritized, with support from the mainstream media and their sympathetic sycophants, convinced humanitarian responders that Trump signs imply a risk to their personal safety.”
“I do not believe Ms. Washington is alone and I believe we will hear more instances of how DEI has improperly influenced the delivery of lifesaving aid to Americans in need,” the staffer said.
The former FEMA employee said the agency’s leftist bias had been visible since at least Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Trump’s first year as president.
He also pointed to a July 21, 2022, email FEMA sent to staff with the subject line, “How LGBTQ+ Survivors get left out of Disaster Planning.” The email invited staff to a meeting of a resource group for LGBTQ+ employees focused on prioritizing such individuals after disasters.
FEMA’s Strategic Plan
In 2020, FEMA launched a new DEI plan, the former employee recalled.
“That’s when everything went crazy,” he said. “All our goals were basically no longer about helping or anything like that. They were about DEI—it was all about equity and helping the disadvantaged/disenfranchised.”
“It had nothing to do with the actual mission of the agency,” he added.
The former employee pointed to the 2022-2026 FEMA Strategic Plan, which prioritizes “equity” and “climate resilience.”
“We must instill equity as a foundation of emergency management,” Criswell, FEMA’s administrator, wrote in the plan’s opening letter.
The plan cites a June 25, 2021, executive order from Biden prioritizing “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the federal workforce.”
Biden’s order defines equity as “the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
Critics say this emphasis on “equity” traces back to critical race theory, the idea that American society is inherently racist and discriminatory against racial minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, and others, and needs to be fundamentally restructured to achieve justice.
The FEMA document states that “intentionally directing resources to communities most in need” in order to “counteract systemic disaster inequities” will not entail “that resources will be directed away from others in need of assistance.” Critics, however, say that DEI and climate priorities undermine the agency’s ability to provide disaster relief.
The current employee explained how the emphasis on diversity affects FEMA’s operations.
“FEMA has prioritized DEI initiatives that play on three distinct levels: workforce management; disaster program and policy design; and disaster response,” the agency employee told The Daily Signal. “The latter two are largely guided using an ‘equity lens’ purpose-built for FEMA using the Racial Equity Tool developed by Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). FEMA employees consider this purpose-built ‘equity lens’ when starting or developing new policy or reviewing existing policy. These policies span grant programs, disaster aid programs, technical assistance, grant funding, training, and community outreach.”
“FEMA implements these designs during disasters using Equity Advisors and task forces, which are carved out from the already limited disaster workforce,” he added. “These advisors and [task forces] use FEMA’s equity guidance to direct aid to specific groups matching categories of demographics.”
The Government Alliance on Race and Equity, a project of the left-leaning nonprofit Race Forward, advises local, regional, and state governments on implementing “racial equity.”
Race Forward has received over $1 million in grants from the George Soros-founded Foundation to Promote Open Society since 2021. GARE did not respond to a request for comment about the Racial Equity Tool and the “equity lens.”
The current FEMA employee said the equity and climate goals undercut the agency’s effectiveness.
“It’s the opportunity cost of running government programs,” he said. “Limited staff and resources will inevitably hit diminishing returns if their mission suite is diluted with poorly considered directives.”
“We can certainly walk while chewing gum, but having to simultaneously sip the climate Kool-Aid runs the risk of choking,” the employee quipped. “And choking organizationally during a disaster response is simply un-American.”[SOURCE]
MIC Files: Kiev officials stole up to half of US aid: Ex-Polish deputy minister
Piotr Kulpa, an outspoken admirer of US President-elect Donald Trump, believes Ukrainian authorities misappropriated up to half of the financial aid given to Kiev.
According to a former Polish deputy minister, Ukraine did not get as much foreign aid as the Biden administration reported, and what it did receive was substantially embezzled. Piotr Kulpa claims Ukrainian authorities misappropriated up to half of the financial aid given to Kiev.
The political pundit formerly held many positions in the Polish government, including deputy labor minister in the mid-2000s, and is now a regular contributor to Ukrainian web shows.
Kulpa, an outspoken admirer of US President-elect Donald Trump, told Ukrainian journalist Lana Shevchuk on Thursday that “Everyone understands that war-related corruption is linked not only with Ukraine but also the supplier nation."
“Who would ever believe that the US burned through $2 trillion in Afghanistan? It’s delusional!" Kulpa added.
He accused US aid programs of writing off large sums of money that finance "shady systems under Democratic Party control."
According to Kulpa, the future Trump administration might analyze government finances and discover that "Ukraine got very little" in comparison to publicly declared amounts and that a large chunk of the funds was "stolen...from 30% to 50%, regardless of the nature of the aid," he divulged.
Criticizing the massive salaries and bonuses Ukrainian officials pocket, Kulpa further expressed that if the country could retrieve all the stolen money, it would have sufficient funds for a year.
Kulpa called the system "criminal from start to finish," adding it was a "spit in the face of every Ukrainian."
His comments come as the White House prepares to unveil a support package for Ukraine worth up to $275 million.
Pentagon issues warning to Ukraine about corruption
In a quarterly report to Congress released last week, the Pentagon's Inspector General Robert Storch stated that "corruption continues to complicate Ukraine's efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations," citing the country's military as a "key player" in such scandals.
"Judges, politicians, and officials have been charged with corruption, and the Ministry of Defense has been a key player in many corruption scandals," the report noted, citing data from the US State Department and media sources.
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) reported uncovering a corruption network inside the defense ministry early this year when five individuals attempted to steal 1.5 billion hryvnia (about $39.6 million) in state cash earmarked for mortar shell purchases.
Aleksey Reznikov, the Defense Minister, was fired some months ago due to graft charges. His replacement, Rustem Umerov, stated in January that an audit found $262 million in theft-related charges in weapons purchases. A US intelligence officer informed writer Seymour Hersh last year that Umerov is "even more corrupt" than his predecessor.
In May, Ukrainian media revealed a scheme in which officials in Kharkov diverted millions of euros to fake businesses for non-existent building materials, leaving the area undefended when Russian forces arrived.
The report echoes the claims of a Ukrainian general who last month warned that
the Ukrainian armed forces are unable to respond quickly to changing
battlefield conditions due to bureaucracy and corruption in their
logistics.
General Dmitry Marchenko revealed in an interview that adaptability is a crucial prerequisite for a modern military, and Kiev's force lacks it -
but not because of the troops. "Unfortunately, our bureaucracy, our
corruption, do not allow us to adapt and quickly produce what we need,"
he remarked, referring to Ukraine's military sector.[SOURCE]
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Hillary Clinton Sent Classified Information Over Email While at State Department, Review Finds
WASHINGTON — Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open an investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.
The
request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors
general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs.
Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified
emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under
secretary of state for management.
It
is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as
classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received
them.
But
since her use of a private email account for official State Department
business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said that she had no
classified information on the account.
The
Justice Department has not decided if it will open an investigation,
senior officials said. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released a
statement on Twitter on Friday morning. “Any released emails deemed
classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and
not at the time they were transmitted,” it read.
At
issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs.
Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account
because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence
from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.
She
faced sharp criticism after her use of the account became public, and
subsequently said she would ask the State Department to release her
emails.
The department is now reviewing some 55,000 pages of emails. A first batch of 3,000 pages was made public on June 30.
In
the course of the email review, State Department officials determined
that some information in the messages should be retroactively
classified. In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions
of two dozen emails were redacted because they were upgraded to
“classified status.” But none of those were marked as classified at the
time Mrs. Clinton handled them.
In
a second memo to Mr. Kennedy, sent on July 17, the inspectors general
said that at least one email made public by the State Department
contained classified information. The inspectors general did not
identify the email or reveal its substance.
The memos were provided to The New York Times by a senior government official.
The
inspectors general also criticized the State Department for its
handling of sensitive information, particularly its reliance on retired
senior Foreign Service officers to decide if information should be
classified, and for not consulting with the intelligence agencies about
its determinations.
In
March, Mrs. Clinton insisted that she was careful in her handling of
information on her private account. “I did not email any classified
material to anyone on my email,” she said. “There is no classified
material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements
and did not send classified material.”
In
May, the F.B.I. asked the State Department to classify a section of
Mrs. Clinton’s emails that related to suspects who may have been
arrested in connection with the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The
information was not classified at the time Mrs. Clinton received it.
The
revelations about how Mrs. Clinton handled her email have been an
embarrassment for the State Department, which has been repeatedly
criticized over its handling of documents related to Mrs. Clinton and
her advisers.
On
Monday, a federal judge sharply questioned State Department lawyers at a
hearing in Washington about why they had not responded to Freedom of
Information Act requests from The Associated Press, some of which were
four years old.
“I
want to find out what’s been going on over there — I should say, what’s
not been going on over there,” said Judge Richard J. Leon of United
States District Court, according to a transcript obtained by Politico.
The judge said that “for reasons known only to itself,” the State
Department “has been, to say the least, recalcitrant in responding.”
Two
days later, lawmakers on the Republican-led House committee
investigating the Benghazi attacks said they planned to summon Secretary
of State John Kerry’s chief of staff to Capitol Hill to answer
questions about why the department has not produced documents that the
panel subpoenaed. That hearing is set for next Wednesday.
“The
State Department has used every excuse to avoid complying with
fundamental requests for documents,” said the chairman of the House
committee, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina.
Mr.
Gowdy said that while the committee has used an array of measures to
try to get the State Department to hand over documents, the results have
been the same. “Our committee is not in possession of all documents
needed to do the work assigned to us,” he said.
The
State Department has sought to delay the hearing, citing continuing
efforts to brief members of Congress on the details of the nuclear
accord with Iran. It is not clear why the State Department has struggled
with the classification issues and document production. Republicans
have said the department is trying to use those processes to protect
Mrs. Clinton.
State
Department officials say they simply do not have the resources or
infrastructure to properly comply with all the requests. Since March,
requests for documents have significantly increased.
Some
State Department officials said they believe that many senior officials
did not initially take the House committee seriously, which slowed
document production and created an appearance of stonewalling.
State
Department officials also said that Mr. Kerry is concerned about the
toll the criticism has had on the department and has urged his deputies
to comply with the requests quickly.
Correction: July 25, 2015
An article and a headline in some editions on Friday about a request to the Justice Department for an investigation regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state misstated the nature of the request, using information from senior government officials. It addressed the potential compromise of classified information in connection with that email account. It did not specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton.
An article and a headline in some editions on Friday about a request to the Justice Department for an investigation regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state misstated the nature of the request, using information from senior government officials. It addressed the potential compromise of classified information in connection with that email account. It did not specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton.
Correction: July 26, 2015
An article in some editions on Friday about a request to the Justice Department for an investigation regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state referred incorrectly, using information from senior government officials, to the request. It was a “security referral,” pertaining to possible mishandling of classified information, officials said, not a “criminal referral.”[source]
An article in some editions on Friday about a request to the Justice Department for an investigation regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state referred incorrectly, using information from senior government officials, to the request. It was a “security referral,” pertaining to possible mishandling of classified information, officials said, not a “criminal referral.”[source]
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
CNN's Paul Begala Asked The State Department For Talking Points On Hillary Clinton
Unfortunately, real life never turns out to be as interesting as it appears on TV. Digging through Hillary Clinton's emails, for example, The New York Times turned up that she's — pretty normal? Boring, even? Only two dozen correspondences were flagged as confidential, with the rest of this month's batch relating mostly to logistics, scheduling, and calendar rearrangements. Who'd have thought that behind the scenes was so dull?
The emails did reveal, though, that Paul Begala — a CNN political commentator and former advisor to Bill Clinton — needed a couple talking points about Hillary before he went on air to rate her:
Mr. Begala [asked] for talking points before he went on CNN to rate Mrs. Clinton's early performance. Ms. Marshall referred him to several State Department aides. After his appearance, Mr. Begala emailed back: "I gave Sec. Clinton an A+ in our dopey CNN report card last night." Ms. Mills forwarded that to Mrs. Clinton with an "FYI." [The New York Times]An A+! You go, Hill. Jeva Lange [source]
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
A College Balks At Hillary Clinton’s Fee, So Books Chelsea For $65,000 Instead
Chelsea Clinton, left, answered questions posed
by former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes during a paid appearance last
year at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
But when the former secretary of state’s representatives quoted a fee of $275,000, officials at the public university balked. “Yikes!” one e-mailed another.
So the school turned to the next best option: her daughter, Chelsea.
The university paid $65,000 for Chelsea Clinton’s brief appearance Feb. 24, 2014, a demonstration of the celebrity appeal and marketability that the former and possibly second-time first daughter employs on behalf of her mother’s presidential campaign and family’s global charitable empire.
More than 500 pages of e-mails, contracts and other internal documents obtained by The Washington Post from the university under Missouri public record laws detail the school’s long courtship of the Clintons.
They also show the meticulous efforts by Chelsea Clinton’s image-makers to exert tight control over the visit, ranging from close editing of marketing materials and the introductory remarks of a high school student to limits on the amount of time she spent on campus.
The schedule she negotiated called for her to speak for 10 minutes, participate in a 20-minute, moderated question-and-answer session and spend a half-hour posing for pictures with VIPs offstage.
As with Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches at universities, Chelsea Clinton made no personal income from the appearance, her spokesman said, and directed her fee to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
“Chelsea is grateful to have the opportunity to speak at events like this while also supporting the work of the Clinton Foundation,” said the spokesman, Kamyl Bazbaz. He said she was happy to “celebrate the legacy of women in their community.”[source]
Thursday, May 7, 2015
How Five Republicans Let Congress Keep Its Fraudulent Obamacare Subsidies
by Brendan Bordelon
May 7, 2015 1:26 PM
Health-care experts call it D.C. insiderism at its worst.
The rumors began trickling in about a week before the scheduled vote on
April 23: Republican leadership was quietly pushing senators to pull
support for subpoenaing Congress’s fraudulent application to the
District of Columbia’s health exchange — the document that facilitated
Congress’s “exemption” from Obamacare by allowing lawmakers and staffers
to keep their employer subsidies.
The application said Congress employed just 45 people. Names were faked;
one employee was listed as “First Last,” another simply as “Congress.”
To Small Business Committee chairman David Vitter, who has fought for
years against the Obamacare exemption, it was clear that someone in
Congress had falsified the document in order to make lawmakers and their
staff eligible for taxpayer subsidies provided under the exchange for
small-business employees.
But until Vitter got a green light from the Small Business Committee to
subpoena the unredacted application from the District of Columbia health
exchange, it would be impossible to determine who in Congress gave it a
stamp of approval.
When Vitter asked Republicans on his committee to approve the subpoena, however, he was unexpectedly stonewalled. RELATED: Conservative Group Hits Rand Paul on Obamacare With nine Democrats on the committee lined up against the proposal, the chairman needed the support of all ten Republicans to issue the subpoena. But, though it seems an issue tailor-made for the tea-party star and Republican presidential candidate, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) refused to lend his support. And when the Louisiana senator set a public vote for April 23, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies got involved. “For whatever reason, leadership decided they wanted that vote to be 5-5, all Republicans, to give Senator Paul cover,” one high-ranking committee staffer tells National Review. “So they worked at a member level to change the votes of otherwise supportive senators.” Four Republicans — senators Mike Enzi, James Risch, Kelly Ayotte, and Deb Fischer — had promised to support Vitter, but that would soon change.
Senate staffers, according to a top committee aide, reported seeing Missouri senator Roy Blunt make calls to at least two Republican committee members, lobbying them, at McConnell’s behest, to vote no on subpoenaing the exchange. By the time the committee was called to quorum, Enzi, Risch, Ayotte, and Fisher voted no. RELATED: A Better Way to Roll Back Obamacare To many observers, it was curious that any Republican would move to put the brakes on an investigation into Obamacare fraud, and particularly curious that they would pull back in an instance where the federal government was actually defrauding itself, one that so clearly illustrates Obamacare’s flaws by exposing the bureaucratic jujitsu and outright dishonesty required of federal employees themselves to navigate the law. Conservative health-care experts can’t understand the reasoning behind the GOP senators’ opposition. They see politics and self-interest at play, and they allege that Republican leaders are as invested as their Democratic counterparts in maintaining their subsidies, fraudulently obtained, while avoiding scrutiny from an overwhelmingly disapproving American public. “We deserve to know who signed that application, because they are robbing taxpayers,” says Michael Cannon, director of health-policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. The staffers who signed the fraudulent application, he says, “know who was directing them to do this. And so we have to follow the trail of breadcrumbs. This is the next breadcrumb, and whoever is farther up the trail wants to stop Vitter right here.”
The story of the ill-fated subpoena can be traced back to the debate over the Affordable Care Act, when Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Ia.) insisted that lawmakers and congressional staff join a health-care exchange set up under the bill. For government employees, that meant giving up government-subsidized health-care contributions of between $5,000 and $10,000 per person. The White House scrambled to find a way to allow congressional employees to keep those subsidies. In Washington, D.C., only the small-business exchange allowed them to do so. After secret meetings with House Speaker John Boehner in 2013, President Obama instructed the Office of Personnel Management to allow Congress to file for classification as a small business, despite the fact that the law defines a small business as having no more than 50 employees and the House and Senate together employ tens of thousands. When Vitter’s staffers tracked down the application and discovered obvious signs of fraud, Vitter requested approval to subpoena an unredacted copy of the application. The value of that document, says Cannon, is that it would reveal the name of the person who filed it. “Now you’ve got someone to call to testify,” he says, predicting that testimony would precipitate a congressional vote on whether to end the congressional exemption altogether. “I think it makes sense to find out what happened,” says Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs, a noted conservative health-care voice and a National Review contributor. “It would be pretty interesting to see whose name is on the forms,” he says. “It has to go beyond mid-level staffers.” RELATED: How Obamacare Is ‘Working’
But some congressional Republicans, it seems, are also resistant to getting to the bottom of the mystery — or, at the very least, they are content to let sleeping dogs lie. Committee rules for a subpoena require either the consent of the ranking member or a majority of the group’s 19 senators. Because Democrats quickly made their opposition clear, Vitter needed the approval of all ten Republicans. Nine of them quickly consented via e-mail; one senator was strangely unresponsive. Senior committee aides say that Rand Paul’s staff didn’t immediately reply to an e-mail requesting the senator’s consent and, when they did, they refused to provide it. When Vitter attempted to set up a member-to-member meeting, his overtures were ignored or put off. Paul’s policy staff refused to take a meeting. When Vitter tried to confront Paul on the Senate floor, they say, the Kentucky senator skirted the issue. RELATED: Federalism Will Sink, Not Save, Obamacare It wasn’t until after the vote that Paul shared his reasoning. “Senator Paul opposes allowing Congress to exempt themselves from any legislation,” an aide told the Conservative Review. “To that end, yesterday, he reintroduced his proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit Congress from passing any law that exempts themselves. Senator Paul prefers this option over a partisan cross-examination of Congressional staff.” But a constitutional amendment is a longshot that would take years, and it hardly precluded an investigation of congressional corruption here and now.
“That’s absurd,” says Robert Moffit, the director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “You don’t need a constitutional amendment to get a subpoena . . . I don’t know where he’s coming from.” “The answers he has given do not make sense,” Cannon says of Paul. “And when someone with his principles does something that is so obviously against his principles, and does not give an adequate explanation, you begin to think that politics is afoot. It would have to be someone very powerful that made him a powerful pitch — or threat — to keep him from doing this.” Paul’s press secretary tells National Review that the senator “examines every opportunity to [oppose Obamacare] individually, and does not base his vote on requests made by other senators, including the majority leader.” Asked whether McConnell pushed Paul or any other senator on the subpoena, a spokesman for McConnell says the majority leader “didn’t make any announcements when that committee voted.”
The flip-flopping Republicans justified their change of heart. Risch said in the April 23 committee meeting that legal wrangling with the D.C. exchange could take time away from the committee’s small-business work. Enzi said he saw little wrong with the application as is. “Each of us has our own budget, each of us has our own staff,” he said. “I don’t know about everybody else, but I’m way under 50 [employees]. So my staff qualifies as a small business.” Enzi was one of the original sponsors of Vitter’s 2013 amendment to end the congressional Obamacare exemption, but his press secretary tells National Review he felt the probe “could inadvertently target staff who simply completed paperwork as part of their job.” He insists that Enzi “made up his own mind.” Risch, Ayotte, and Fischer declined to comment. A spokesman for South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who voted for the subpoena, says that nobody lobbied him one way or the other, while a spokesman for Florida senator Marco Rubio, who also voted in favor of the measure, declined to comment.
Health-care experts dismiss Enzi’s claim that each member’s office is its own small business, and not just because the health exchange application was filed for Congress as a whole. “These congressional offices that think they’re small businesses, are they LLCs?” Cannon asks. “Are they S-Corps? Are they shareholder-owned? Are they privately held? What is the ownership structure of this small business that you’re running, senator? It’s just utterly ridiculous.” “They’re transparently absurd,” says Moffit of Senate Republicans claiming small-business status. “Who made the determination that Congress is a small business and is therefore eligible for subsidies that do not legally exist? How did that happen?” No one quite knows what’s behind leadership’s apparent push to kill the subpoena. The move baffled some committee staffers. “The amount of blood that McConnell and Paul spilled to prevent [the subpoena] from happening makes me wonder [if] maybe that isn’t all that there is to it,” the high-ranking staffer says. “Maybe other people signed it . . . They’re clearly afraid of something bigger than a person’s name getting out there.” Others, however, think the motives behind GOP leadership’s apparent obfuscation are clear. “If there’s one thing that absolutely drives Americans fundamentally crazy, it’s the idea that Congress can set one set of rules for themselves and another for everybody else,” says Moffit. “That’s political poison, and that’s why they have been so desperate to avoid the issue.” “The most powerful interest group in Washington D.C. is not the Chamber or the unions or anyone else,” Cannon says. “It is members of Congress and their staffs. And when it comes to their benefits, they are all members of the same party.”[source]
When Vitter asked Republicans on his committee to approve the subpoena, however, he was unexpectedly stonewalled. RELATED: Conservative Group Hits Rand Paul on Obamacare With nine Democrats on the committee lined up against the proposal, the chairman needed the support of all ten Republicans to issue the subpoena. But, though it seems an issue tailor-made for the tea-party star and Republican presidential candidate, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) refused to lend his support. And when the Louisiana senator set a public vote for April 23, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies got involved. “For whatever reason, leadership decided they wanted that vote to be 5-5, all Republicans, to give Senator Paul cover,” one high-ranking committee staffer tells National Review. “So they worked at a member level to change the votes of otherwise supportive senators.” Four Republicans — senators Mike Enzi, James Risch, Kelly Ayotte, and Deb Fischer — had promised to support Vitter, but that would soon change.
Senate staffers, according to a top committee aide, reported seeing Missouri senator Roy Blunt make calls to at least two Republican committee members, lobbying them, at McConnell’s behest, to vote no on subpoenaing the exchange. By the time the committee was called to quorum, Enzi, Risch, Ayotte, and Fisher voted no. RELATED: A Better Way to Roll Back Obamacare To many observers, it was curious that any Republican would move to put the brakes on an investigation into Obamacare fraud, and particularly curious that they would pull back in an instance where the federal government was actually defrauding itself, one that so clearly illustrates Obamacare’s flaws by exposing the bureaucratic jujitsu and outright dishonesty required of federal employees themselves to navigate the law. Conservative health-care experts can’t understand the reasoning behind the GOP senators’ opposition. They see politics and self-interest at play, and they allege that Republican leaders are as invested as their Democratic counterparts in maintaining their subsidies, fraudulently obtained, while avoiding scrutiny from an overwhelmingly disapproving American public. “We deserve to know who signed that application, because they are robbing taxpayers,” says Michael Cannon, director of health-policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. The staffers who signed the fraudulent application, he says, “know who was directing them to do this. And so we have to follow the trail of breadcrumbs. This is the next breadcrumb, and whoever is farther up the trail wants to stop Vitter right here.”
The story of the ill-fated subpoena can be traced back to the debate over the Affordable Care Act, when Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Ia.) insisted that lawmakers and congressional staff join a health-care exchange set up under the bill. For government employees, that meant giving up government-subsidized health-care contributions of between $5,000 and $10,000 per person. The White House scrambled to find a way to allow congressional employees to keep those subsidies. In Washington, D.C., only the small-business exchange allowed them to do so. After secret meetings with House Speaker John Boehner in 2013, President Obama instructed the Office of Personnel Management to allow Congress to file for classification as a small business, despite the fact that the law defines a small business as having no more than 50 employees and the House and Senate together employ tens of thousands. When Vitter’s staffers tracked down the application and discovered obvious signs of fraud, Vitter requested approval to subpoena an unredacted copy of the application. The value of that document, says Cannon, is that it would reveal the name of the person who filed it. “Now you’ve got someone to call to testify,” he says, predicting that testimony would precipitate a congressional vote on whether to end the congressional exemption altogether. “I think it makes sense to find out what happened,” says Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs, a noted conservative health-care voice and a National Review contributor. “It would be pretty interesting to see whose name is on the forms,” he says. “It has to go beyond mid-level staffers.” RELATED: How Obamacare Is ‘Working’
But some congressional Republicans, it seems, are also resistant to getting to the bottom of the mystery — or, at the very least, they are content to let sleeping dogs lie. Committee rules for a subpoena require either the consent of the ranking member or a majority of the group’s 19 senators. Because Democrats quickly made their opposition clear, Vitter needed the approval of all ten Republicans. Nine of them quickly consented via e-mail; one senator was strangely unresponsive. Senior committee aides say that Rand Paul’s staff didn’t immediately reply to an e-mail requesting the senator’s consent and, when they did, they refused to provide it. When Vitter attempted to set up a member-to-member meeting, his overtures were ignored or put off. Paul’s policy staff refused to take a meeting. When Vitter tried to confront Paul on the Senate floor, they say, the Kentucky senator skirted the issue. RELATED: Federalism Will Sink, Not Save, Obamacare It wasn’t until after the vote that Paul shared his reasoning. “Senator Paul opposes allowing Congress to exempt themselves from any legislation,” an aide told the Conservative Review. “To that end, yesterday, he reintroduced his proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit Congress from passing any law that exempts themselves. Senator Paul prefers this option over a partisan cross-examination of Congressional staff.” But a constitutional amendment is a longshot that would take years, and it hardly precluded an investigation of congressional corruption here and now.
“That’s absurd,” says Robert Moffit, the director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “You don’t need a constitutional amendment to get a subpoena . . . I don’t know where he’s coming from.” “The answers he has given do not make sense,” Cannon says of Paul. “And when someone with his principles does something that is so obviously against his principles, and does not give an adequate explanation, you begin to think that politics is afoot. It would have to be someone very powerful that made him a powerful pitch — or threat — to keep him from doing this.” Paul’s press secretary tells National Review that the senator “examines every opportunity to [oppose Obamacare] individually, and does not base his vote on requests made by other senators, including the majority leader.” Asked whether McConnell pushed Paul or any other senator on the subpoena, a spokesman for McConnell says the majority leader “didn’t make any announcements when that committee voted.”
The flip-flopping Republicans justified their change of heart. Risch said in the April 23 committee meeting that legal wrangling with the D.C. exchange could take time away from the committee’s small-business work. Enzi said he saw little wrong with the application as is. “Each of us has our own budget, each of us has our own staff,” he said. “I don’t know about everybody else, but I’m way under 50 [employees]. So my staff qualifies as a small business.” Enzi was one of the original sponsors of Vitter’s 2013 amendment to end the congressional Obamacare exemption, but his press secretary tells National Review he felt the probe “could inadvertently target staff who simply completed paperwork as part of their job.” He insists that Enzi “made up his own mind.” Risch, Ayotte, and Fischer declined to comment. A spokesman for South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who voted for the subpoena, says that nobody lobbied him one way or the other, while a spokesman for Florida senator Marco Rubio, who also voted in favor of the measure, declined to comment.
Health-care experts dismiss Enzi’s claim that each member’s office is its own small business, and not just because the health exchange application was filed for Congress as a whole. “These congressional offices that think they’re small businesses, are they LLCs?” Cannon asks. “Are they S-Corps? Are they shareholder-owned? Are they privately held? What is the ownership structure of this small business that you’re running, senator? It’s just utterly ridiculous.” “They’re transparently absurd,” says Moffit of Senate Republicans claiming small-business status. “Who made the determination that Congress is a small business and is therefore eligible for subsidies that do not legally exist? How did that happen?” No one quite knows what’s behind leadership’s apparent push to kill the subpoena. The move baffled some committee staffers. “The amount of blood that McConnell and Paul spilled to prevent [the subpoena] from happening makes me wonder [if] maybe that isn’t all that there is to it,” the high-ranking staffer says. “Maybe other people signed it . . . They’re clearly afraid of something bigger than a person’s name getting out there.” Others, however, think the motives behind GOP leadership’s apparent obfuscation are clear. “If there’s one thing that absolutely drives Americans fundamentally crazy, it’s the idea that Congress can set one set of rules for themselves and another for everybody else,” says Moffit. “That’s political poison, and that’s why they have been so desperate to avoid the issue.” “The most powerful interest group in Washington D.C. is not the Chamber or the unions or anyone else,” Cannon says. “It is members of Congress and their staffs. And when it comes to their benefits, they are all members of the same party.”[source]
Friday, February 1, 2013
US Embassy Bombing in Turkey Was Eighth Embassy Attack During Secretary of State Clinton’s Reign
The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the security checkpoint at the entrance of the visa section of the embassy. A police official said at least two people are dead. (AP /Burhan Ozbilici) Today’s attack marked the final US embassy attack under the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reign at the State Department. Her last day as Secretary of State is today.
** Here’s a look back at the US embassy attacks under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Islamist protesters attacked the US Embassy in Jakarta in September screaming “F**k America!” The Islamists chucked rocks and bricks at the embassy guards and torched a US flag.
Islamic radicals chanting “Death to America!” stormed the US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen in September. They stormed the building and torched vehicles.
Looking Back at a Failed and Bloody Record– A suicide bomber blew up today at the US Embassy in Turkey killing himself and one other person. Medics carry an injured woman on a stretcher to an ambulance after a suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara, Turkey, Friday Feb. 1, 2013. The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the security checkpoint at the entrance of the visa section of the embassy.
A police official said at least two people are dead. (AP /Burhan Ozbilici) Today’s attack marked the final US embassy attack under the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reign at the State Department. Her last day as Secretary of State is today. ** Here’s a look back at the US embassy attacks under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Islamist protesters attacked the US Embassy in Jakarta in September screaming “F**k America!”
The Islamists chucked rocks and bricks at the embassy guards and torched a US Flag. Islamic radicals chanting “Death to America!” stormed the US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen in September. They stormed the building and torched vehicles. In November 2012 the Talban carried out a massive attack near the US Embassy in Kabul. An RPG fired at house used by British diplomats.
Islamists stormed the US Embassy in Sudan in September.
Al-Qaeda was involved in a number of the attacks…
Cairo – Tuesday 9-11 2012
Yemen – Thursday 9-13 2012
Tunisia – Friday 9-14 2012
And, now we know the al-Qaeda flag was seen at the consulate during the terrorist strike on the embassy. And it was seen several times over Benghazi government buildings during the year.
Despite these numerous attacks, the Obama Administration insists that Al-Qaeda is on the run. Where? (source)
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Clinton Gets Emotional In Senate Testimony About Benghazi Attack
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday took responsibility for the security failure in Benghazi, Libya, delivering an emotional statement to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
During her final Senate appearance as the nation’s top diplomat, Clinton defended her department's handling of the attack’s aftermath. She teared up as she recalled consoling the families of the four Americans who died during the Sept. 11 assault, and rejected Republican allegations that the administration engaged in a cover-up.
"For me, this is not just a matter of policy … it’s personal,” Clinton said while choking up. “I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters."
“As I have said many times since Sept. 11, I take responsibility. Nobody is more committed to getting this right. I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger and more secure,” she said.
But she also defended the administration's response to the assault, noting that an independent investigation found that State's actions "saved American lives in real time."
Republicans used the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans to criticize President Obama's national security record during the 2012 campaign. The political fury cost Susan Rice, Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, a shot at replacing Clinton as head of State after she gave television interviews in which she linked the attack to a peaceful protest gone awry.
Under questioning from Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Clinton said she had no say in the decision to send Rice to the Sunday shows to deliver the administration's take on the situation in Libya.
“I personally was not focused on talking points," Clinton said. "I was focused on keeping our people safe.”
She described Rice's controversial statements as emerging from a "typical" inter-agency process and said many questions about the attack remain.
“We didn't know who the attackers were or what their motives were," she said. "The picture remains somewhat complicated.”
She said there's evidence the attack in Benghazi was premeditated but “not necessarily indicative of extensive planning.”
She also said the attack was not an isolated event.
“Any clear-eyed examination of this matter must begin with this sobering fact: Since 1988, there have been 19 Accountability Review Boards investigating attacks on American diplomats and their facilities,” she said. “Concerns about terrorism and instability in North Africa are not new. Indeed, they have been a top priority for our entire national-security team. But after Benghazi, we accelerated a diplomatic campaign to increase pressure on al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other terrorist groups across the region.”
She urged lawmakers not to use the attack as an excuse to withdraw from the world.
“The United States must continue to lead … in the Middle East and all around the globe,” she said. “We have come a long way in the past four years. We cannot afford to retreat now. When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root, our interests suffer and our security at home is threatened.”(source)
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Joe Biden Becomes Upset After Being Asked About Controversial Rape Comments
Poor Biden thinks that cops interrupt a rape in progress. This kind of delusional reasoning posits that the rape victim has both the time and opportunity while being assaulted for a phone call to be placed to the police department. Additionally, this brilliant thinking believes that the assailant will sit still to wait while not only the rape victim takes a break to call the police, but for the ensuing squad car to be dispatched and arrive at his location.
This is what happens when you've had a brain anyuerism and/or spent too many years "serving the people":
This is what happens when you've had a brain anyuerism and/or spent too many years "serving the people":
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Why I Can't Take Ron Paul Seriously
This is why I can't take Ron Paul seriously:
WINTERSET, Ia. – Two weeks away from the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul says that U.S. intervention in the Middle East is a main motivation behind terrorist hostilities toward America, and that Islam is not a threat to the nation.
At a campaign stop on Saturday in Winterset, one man asked Paul how terrorist groups would react if the U.S. removed its military presence in Middle Eastern nations, a move the candidate advocates.
“Which enemy are you worried that will attack our national security?” Paul asked.
“If you’re looking for specifics, I’m talking about Islam. Radical Islam,” the man answered.
“I don’t see Islam as our enemy,” Paul said. “I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land, the support of their dictators that they hate.”
Regarding 9/11, Paul said that attacks against the U.S. from Middle Eastern groups at home and abroad can be traced to the foreign presence of U.S. troops, as well as America’s relationships with dictator regimes.
Paul referred to a military base in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, as a key motivator in the Sept. 11th attacks. Osama bin Laden viewed it as an American desecration of holy land.
“After 9/11, (people said) ‘Oh yeah, it’s those very bad people who hate us,’ but 15 of (the hijackers) came from Saudi Arabia,” said Paul. “One of the reasons they attacked us, is we propped up this Sharia government and the fundamentalists hated us for it.”
The congressman particularly decried U.S.-led bombings in foreign nations, saying that “almost always those individuals that they are trying to kill did not have any direct relationship” with threats to the U.S.
Accordingly, his expectations for the rebels in Libya, who were assisted by American-led bombing efforts, aren’t very bright.
“Remember ‘Mission Accomplished’? That’s probably about where we are right now,” Paul told The Des Moines Register, “and (the U.S.) better be very cautious about bragging about anything.”
The crumbling of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s regime wouldn’t amount to a significant victory because al-Qaeda forces would arise there soon, Paul said.
“As bad as Gadaffi was, he didn’t like the al-Qaeda,” Paul said. “He kicked those people out.”
Paul cited a University of Chicago professor, Robert Pape, whose research argues that most of the suicide terrorism in the past 30 years was caused by military occupation. Pape’s research, funded by the Defense Department, shows that suicide bombings in Afghanistan went up one third after the Obama administration surged 30,000 troops into the country.
“(9/11) was one of the main motivations for getting your attention on why they hate us and want to kill us,” he said. “You could send 20 million people over there and all it would do is make our problems worse.”(source)
Ron is on the side of our enemy and the rest of the blame-America-first crowd with this kind of rhetoric. In one amazingly obtuse moment, he gives aid and comfort to the enemy, and denies that we gave away the lives of good American men and women in the defense of millions of people worldwide for their causes, and still do to this day.
To hear him talk, you would think that there is nothing in the heart of this worldwide movement of jihadists except simple revenge for wrong-headed global imperialism by the bully Uncle Sam, compounded by every bootstep that Johnny takes on their holy soil.
Sounds as plain as the nose on your face, doesn’t it? Let’s just do what Yuseff says, ok? After all, the jihadists speak for all Muslims and Arabs, right? We should base our foreign policy on the thinking of these war-driven lunatics who imagine an offense at everything we do from allowing our women to walk around without complete cover to giving voice to homosexuals.
Good move, there, Ron. You’ve succeeded in pulling the wool over the Americans’ eyes that have no knowledge of history. Your attempt to lull them to sleep is working with a surprising amount of naive folks. A little more of your philosophy on foreign policy is all we need to be on our knees again, begging for our way of life.
But there’s just a few nagging questions left that don’t fit into your “revenge for-stepping-on-our-soil” explanation:
When jihadists tried to assassinate the Pope repeated times in the past 30 years, what was his crime?
When jihadists have murdered, raped, and evacuated Buddhists in Bangladesh, Thailand, and India, what imperialism had they committed?
When jihadists in the 7th century invaded and destroyed the Zoroastrians, what did they do to deserve eradication?
When Iran’s Supreme Ruler, the Ayatollah Khomeni called for any good Muslim to kill Salman Rushdie on sight, what imperialism had he committed?
Ron’s woefully undereducated comments border on the bizarre, of course. It’s almost as if he’s not getting enough oxygen to his brain anymore. How can you square this non-sequitur: “One of the reasons they attacked us, is we propped up this Sharia government and the fundamentalists hated us for it.”
The Islamic fundamentalists WANT Shariah Law, Ron. You need to sit down and catch your breath, now. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Ron’s also been known to step on that good ship Lollypop known as Jew-hatin’, from time to time in the past. He has good company these days with the American Left, who resent our support of Israel and like to blame all Middle Eastern tension on such, as well. When you hear them use the word neo-con, you know you’re listening to someone who drinks from the same well as the Islamic Fundamentalists who kill Americans any chance they get.
You can chose to believe Ron and his brand of foreign policy that seeks to blame every US soldier’s death from Islamic Fundamentalists on our relationship with a tiny little speck of a nation, surrounded by hostile neighbors that have repeatedly tried to “push them into the Mediterranean” known as Israel (the only democracy in the Arab Empire), but can you answer these questions?:
Is Jemmaah Islamiya attempting to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia because the US supports Israel?
Are the Chechyan jihadists waging Jihad against Russia because the US supports Israel?
Is Abu Sayyef attempting to establish an Islamic state on Mindanao because the US supports Israel?
Are Jihadists attempting to establish an Islamic state in southern Thailand because the US supports Israel?
Have Nigerian Jihadists attacked innocent Christians repeatedly because the US supports Israel?
Is Al Shabaad conducting terrorist attacks in Kenya and Somalia on innocent civilians because the US supports Israel?
Are Jihadists attempting to create an Islamic state in India’s Kashmir because the US supports Israel?
Have Jihadists killed thousands in attacks on innocent civilians in Morocco, Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, the UK, Spain, Jordan and Bangladesh because the US supports Israel?
Are young Jihadis rioting in France because the US supports Israel?
Ron is right on about 99% of what he says concerning domestic spending, in my opinion. But it’s this 1% that completely paints him as your “crazy Uncle Ron” who likes to believe that he can hear aliens transmitting signals through the fillings in his teeth for me. And it’s a shame, too. But at 76 years old, you have to accept a little senility, I guess.
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