It is looking more and more Dem conspirators in the FBI and DOJ tried to fix the November 2016 election to Crooked Hillary’s favor. AND barring the failure of a Crooked Hillary election, then the conspiracy appeared intending to take out President Trump with fake evidence.
Here are two perspectives on Deep State intentions that essentially overthrows the U.S. Constitution with behind the scenes criminal-political coup d’état behavior.
George Papadopoulos was the “improbable match that set off a blaze that has consumed the first year of the Trump administration.” Like the Trump campaign itself, advisor Papadopoulos “proved to be a tantalizing target for a Russian influence operation.”
Thus opens a 2500-plus-word December 30 New York Times piece headlined “How the Russia Inquiry Began: A Campaign Aide, Drinks and Talk of Political Dirt,” by Sharon LaFraniere, Mark Mazetti and Matt Apuzzo, with reporting by Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Matthew Rosenberg. The multiple authorship betokens serious investigation but this piece shapes up as dezinformatsiya and the Times gives it away in the early going.
“It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign,” that started the investigation, and there is some truth to that. The dossier, one of the dirtiest tricks political tricks in US history, was only part of a plan revealed by FBI counterintelligence boss Peter Strzok in the office of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. As a Strzok email explained: “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40. . .”
Like FBI boss James Comey, Strzok was a partisan of Hillary Clinton, the likely reason he got the job of spearheading the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. It was Strzok who changed “gross negligence” to “extremely careless,” freeing the Democrat from the prospect of criminal charges. As David Horowitz said, it was the greatest political fix in American history.
The Clintons are not exactly short on cash and FBI deputy director “Andy” McCabe got some $500,000 from the Clintons for his wife’s political campaign. The establishment media are not curious whether Peter Strzok got a piece of the action, and if so how much. The Clinton’s faithful Odd Job would not be the first FBI man to grab the gold from under the table.
Strzok works counterintelligence but on his watch Pakistani-born Iman Awan enjoyed access to the computers of the House Intelligence Committee and the Democrats’ favorite IT man performed his IT work from Pakistan for several months a year. If Peter Strzok knew about Awan’s illicit data-mining operation it seems clear he did nothing to stop it. On the other hand, POTUS 44 had commanded the FBI to look the other way when Muslims were involved, and the Bureau, which wields a budget approaching $9 billion, duly followed orders.
In the office of Andy McCabe, Peter Strzok discussed the “insurance policy” with his consensual flame Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer and Clinton devotee. When that emerged, new FBI boss Christopher Wray did not fire Strzok and take his gun and badge. Instead Wray stashed Strzok in human resources, where he will still command access to FBI records.
After all this, and a lot more, the New York Times opts to point the finger at George Papadopoulos. The establishment media prefer to claim that the FBI’s Clinton fan club and the bogus dossier had nothing to do with the Russia investigation.
Did the FBI perchance deploy the dossier to secure a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign? Russophile Nellie Ohr, wife of demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr, duly hired on at Fusion GPS. What was Nellie’s role in the dossier? Who paid for the dossier? Congress has been trying to get answers but the FBI has been stonewalling. What are they trying to hide?
Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants the DOJ and FBI to hand over all documents related to the dossier on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. The committee also seeks to interview Ohr, Strzok, FBI attorneys James Baker, Lisa Page, and Sally Moyer and FBI assistant congressional affairs boss Greg Brower.
If the FBI and DOJ fail to comply in full, that will certify their partisan corruption, the larger back story of the Russia investigation. All testimony should be public so the people can watch on C-SPAN and avoid the deep-state disinformation of the old-line establishment media.
+++++++
TABLES TURN: NOW FBI PROBED FOR ELECTION INTERFERENCE
House Intel Committee investigates plot to stop Trump
WASHINGTON – What began as an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election has now become a probe into how federal law enforcement conspired to stop Donald Trump from becoming president.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has expanded its investigation that began with claims of Russian collusion and a fraudulent memo paid for by Trump opponents to one that focuses on members of federal law enforcement – both in the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI – and how they actively worked against the Trump campaign and the eventual Trump presidency.
In a startling turnabout, committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is accusing the Justice Department and the FBI of misleading him in “a pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated.” He charges that Justice claimed it possesses no documents related to the infamous Trump dossier, then, under pressure, produced “numerous” such papers.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is already opposing the move, even though he and other Democrats have conceded recently that finding a Russia-Trump conspiracy has produced no real evidence.
Nunes has put in place what amounts to a separate investigation of the FBI and the Justice Department hierarchy.
According to reports, the major components are:
Fusion GPS, the opposition research company that prepared the bogus Trump-Russia dossier with money from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
How the FBI allowed that dossier to fuel investigations since July 2016.
Investigative bias that has been discovered regarding several key investigators.
A key subpoenaed witness is David Kramer, an associate of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Kramer is one of the few people known to have possessed a hard copy of the dossier. McCain asked Kramer to represent him at a Nov. 28, 2016, meeting with Christopher Steele in Surrey, England. Steele compiled the 35 pages of memos making up the dossier based on his paid Kremlin sources.
Kramer then obtained a copy of the dossier from Fusion GPS and McCain hand-delivered a copy to then-FBI director James B. Comey in December 2016.
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According to an interview in Mother Jones magazine, Steele said he supplied his memos accusing Trump of a Russia conspiracy to the FBI in “early July” 2016. Comey has testified he began the counterintelligence investigation in “late July.” The memos accused the Trump team of a conspiracy with the Kremlin to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Nunes wants more information on how the bureau used the document to investigate Trump people. He has been unsuccessfully trying to gain access to FBI documents.
In a Dec. 28 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Nunes said the Department of Justice at first said dossier-related FBI interview summaries, known as 302s, “did not exist.” Weeks later, under an Aug. 24 subpoena, DOJ suddenly located “numerous FD-302s pertaining to the Steele dossier, thereby rendering the initial response disingenuous at best,” the House intel committee chief wrote.
Based on the record of stonewalling, Nunes said the committee no longer can accept Justice’s position that it cannot turn over other official investigative forms, called 1032s. They document meetings between the FBI and confidential human sources.
He gave the Justice Department until Wednesday to comply with his requests.
“Unfortunately, DOJ/FBI’s intransigence with respect to the August 24 subpoenas is part of a broader pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated,” Nunes wrote. “At this point, it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves.”
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I believe medical insurance reform is essential. I also believe the Obama/Dem effort at reform was a debacle of lies to Americans. Obamacare/ACA must be completely scraped to rebuild an actual affordable medical insurance plan. Justin Smith has the critique.
Americans need insurance plans that translate into real affordable health care and solutions for the mess created by Obamacare, which cannot be found in more Republican nonsense and Obamacare Lite bills, like Graham-Cassidy. More spending and continued regulation only moves America one-step closer to a nationalized single-payer health care system, and if Republicans truly believe Obamacare has harmed America, as often asserted, they have a duty to revitalize the free market segment of health care insurance, through a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
No matter how many welfare dollars Congress pours into these fabricated markets or any amount of price fixing they set, the exchanges are unsustainable, and Graham-Cassidy offered a permanent drain on this already strained system and the U.S. treasury. It also added a $700 billion dollardeficit next year to America’s $20 trillion dollar debt, without repealing a single Obamacare insurance regulation.
The only real solutions exist in a clean slate and a full repeal of Obamacare, ripping it up by the roots. At least a full repeal would save over a trillion dollars in spending over the next decade, instead of trying to save pennies on the dollar and leaving a poor health care system largely intact, through a bad bill like Graham-Cassidy.
Fortunately, Graham-Cassidy failed to be presented for a vote in the Senate, during the last week in September. It failed, after Susan Collins (R-ME), John McCain (R-AZ) and Rand Paul (R-KY) made it clear they would vote “no”, keeping it from the 51-vote threshold in a reconciliation vote.
Only Senator Rand Paul held the moral high ground in his decision. On September 20th, Senator Paul told Real Clear Politics: “That [Graham-Cassidy] is not what I promised voters. I promised repeal [of Obamacare]. … Block granting Obamacare doesn’t make it go away.”
Described as “a lousy process”, the New York Times (September 26th, 2017) quoted Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska stating: “The U.S. Senate cannot get the text of a bill on Sunday night, then proceed to a vote just days later, with only one hearing — and especially not on an issue that is intensely personal to all of us.”
Senator John McCain complained Republicans should have worked with Democrats, to restructure America’s $3 trillion per year health care system, which is simply asinine, in light of the fact, Obamacare is an entirely Democrat partisan piece of legislation, and it widely restructured a vital part of the national economy. These same Democrats destroyed dozens of governing norms through their lies, and they manipulated the Congressional Budget Score, in order to coerce every American’s participation.
Perhaps, once the problems associated with Obamacare compound themselves or Obamacare actually collapses, the Democrats will make an honest effort to compromise on substantive changes, rather than seek more spending and regulatory controls on consumer choice. However, to date, these Commie Travelers have had millions of ideas on how to expand the welfare state and not a single one to save Americans from it.
Americans want freedom of choice on their health insurance plans and plans with less comprehensive coverage than Obamacare allows, which would reduce the cost of premiums. They want the expansion of health savings accounts and an end to mandate taxes and penalties. And if possible, most of us would truly appreciate Medicaid reform.
President Trump has the full authority to place a sunsetdeadline on the Obama administration’s unconstitutional subsidy payments, which it created to keep Obamacare from imploding, and he should do so immediately. Let the Democrats howl “sabotage”. There is not any political, policy or moral reason for the GOP to continue the payoffs.
The recent request for a twenty-three percent rate hike byBlue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina[Blog Editor: BCBS asked for an updated a reductionto 14.1% 8/2/17] further illuminates the corruption within the current system. The company acknowledges that it would have asked for only an 8.8 percent increase, if President Trump had agreed to fund the federal subsidies through 2018, and so, the U.S. taxpayer gets raked over the coals and robbed blind by Obamacare once more.
Premium prices have doubled and quadrupled, and doctors are harder to find. Barack Obamapromised Obamacare would boost the economy, but across America, small and large businesses report Obamacare impedes their ability to expand and hire.
One must wonder how much of the Republican Party’s reluctance to fully repeal Obamacare lies with lobbyist efforts and donations to Republicans. Recordsshow that between 2011 and 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell received a total of $424,650 from Kindred Healthcare, Humana and Blackstone. Sen. Orrin Hatch received $133,500 from Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cancer Treatment Centers of America, while Sen. Lamar Alexander took $61,100 from Blue Cross Blue Shield and Community Health Systems in Franklin, Tennessee. And the list goes on.
After seven years of promises, where are the voices in the Senate offering passionate arguments for repeal? Where is the unified effort from the Republicans to speak for millions of Americans, who currently suffer under Obamacare’s spiking premiums and decreasing choices? It has all seemingly vanished, since repeal became a possible reality.
America’s well-being is more important than any political party’s legacy and any insurance company’s bottom line, and so, Republicans must not allow this abominable and failed Obamacare “law” to be prolonged and continue to hurt the American people in despicable fashion. The next Democratic administration will surely expand its reach and push towards a single-payer system, if it is not soon repealed, as suggested by Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT).
The Republicans and America really do not have any reason to save a failed Obamacare, and they certainly cannot afford to let it become more entrenched, while it cuts a liberty destroying path through our society. Until Republicans gather the backbone to counter the ACA or fully repeal it, the Republicans have broken faith with the American people.
By Justin O. Smith
__________________
Edited by John R. Houk
All text enclosed by brackets and All source links are by the Editor.
I saw on Fox News that Senator John McCain is publicly telling President Trump to put-up or apologize to the treasonous President Obama pertaining to the accusation of wiretapping during the 2016-election cycle. I don’t have the Fox News clip but here’s the CNN clip that Fox was referring to:
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that President Trump should provide evidence for his unsubstantiated claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower or retract the accusation.
My God! McCain might as well stop being a RINO and out right join the Deep State Democratic Party and become an overt Obama minion. No wonder McCain lost to the Marxist oriented Obama in 2008.
McCain is making all kinds of noise that more news will come out connecting President Trump yet keeping silent (copying MSM) on mounting evidence of Russian links to Crooked Hillary and family marking political favors for God only knows what nefarious purposes.
While the liberals are trying their hardest to set up the Republicans in questionable ties with Russia, it seems as though it is being used as a distraction to hide the Democrats’ own connection with Russia.
Hillary Clinton’s election campaign manager, John Podesta, was on the board of a small energy company, Joule Unlimited, when it was given $35 million from a Russian government fund which has ties to Putin. (via Breitbart)
This information was discovered in a 56-page report titled, “From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism.” Podesta did not disclose this, although he is required to do so by law.
This was written by a non-partisan government watchdog group, the Government Accountability Institute (GAI). Stephen Bannon, the Executive Chairman of Breitbart and the Chief Strategist in the Trump Administration, is also the Executive Chairman of GAI.
During the “Russian reset,” then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the flag bearer of U.S. involvement in Russia’s technology initiative, called Skolkovo, which is intended to be the Slavic version of Silicon Valley.
This “innovation city” was to be located outside of Moscow and employ 30,000 people. Their technologically advanced facilities would be under the strict control of the Russian government. In 2013, the building was described, by Slate, as reminiscent of the Soviet “utopia” building projects.
The GAI report revealed that the Department of State, under Hillary Clinton, recruited companies like Intel, Cisco, and Google to participate in Russia’s project. Of the 28 companies that participated in Skolkovo, 17 were donors to the Clinton Foundation or had paid Bill Clinton to speak.
As Clinton’s involvement increased in the project, so did the chance that this technological investment was actually a way to spy on American military technology. In 2014, the FBI gave out an “extraordinary warning” to the companies participating in Skolkovo.
Podesta failed to mention that he had memberships to the board of this company, even while knowing that Russian investment in it may have been an attempt to steal our military technology. It all seems a bit suspicious. Why was Clinton, the U.S. State Department, and John Podesta tied up in this affair?
I can understand the Leftist MSM not picking up connections between Crooked Hillary and the Russians, but what Senator McCain goes after Trump for proof NOW when even the MSM has suggested improper violations of Obama Administration of wiretapping is just nuts. McCain would serve American Patriotism and the GOP better if he called out Obama to prove President Trump is incorrect.
Here are some news tidbits that implicate Obama wiretapping much more than President Trump angrily tweeting villainous Obama wiretapped the Trump campaign in a moment of emotional display.
A quick look at Obama’s history reveals he has always had the inclination, motivation, and opportunity to snoop on and disseminate information about his political opponents. It’s how he made his political career: getting his opponents’private divorce records unsealed and leaked with the help of the Chicago Tribune.
He and his administration continued this pattern and practice of skirting laws throughout his eight years in office, As Matthew Vadum reminds readers:
“Obama used the IRS to target conservative and Tea Party nonprofits, along with Catholic, Jewish, and pro-Israel organizations. He brazenly lied about it, too. His Justice Department surreptitiously obtained telephone records for more than 100 reporters.”
Wikileaks revealed that under Obama, the NSA intercepted conversations of numerous foreign officials, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Angela Merkel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Silvio Berlusconi, and Nicolas Sarkozy.
So it is rather astonishing that so many disregard Trump’s claim that Obama and his aides spied upon him and his staff. There were several means at his disposal for him to do so, and it is increasingly likely that they did so. He apparently sought — twice — to get the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to approve tapping Trump communications, and was turned down once, in June of last year — a rare occurrence as in 10,000 applications in a six-year period only two were rejected. Reportedly the Obama administration tried again, using a slightly modified request and received permission. Heat Street reported this on November 7.
“What we don’t know is who was connected to that FISA,” Carter said on Sean Hannity’s show Wednesday night. “What was that FISA looking at? That is very highly classified. Nobody wants to talk about that particular FISA, right now. They said it did have to do with the Russian hacking on a very broad level, but it didn’t hone in directly on Trump is what I was told,” she said.
In addition to the FISA warrant in October, the FBI obtained a separate warrant that same month to look into a computer server tied to then-candidate Donald Trump’s businesses in Trump Towers (but not located in Trump Towers). According to the report, the feds used traditional investigative techniques to examine allegations of computer activity tied to two Russian banks and there had been no intercepts of Trump’s phone or emails.
The FBI quickly concluded, “the computer activity in question involved no nefarious contacts, bank transactions or encrypted communications with the Russians.”
The months-long FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential campaign briefly investigated a computer server tied to Donald Trump’s businesses near the end of the election but has not gathered evidence of election tampering to date that would warrant criminal charges against any of the president’s associates, Circa has learned.
But a FISA warrant is not the only way to surveil communications. Under Chapter 36 of Title 50 of the US Code, and pursuant to Executive Order 12333, the president can authorize electronic surveillance without a court order, and we don’t know if Obama utilized one of these means as well. Nor can we ascertain who’s leaking, as on his way out of office –-17 days before his term was up — Obama allowed the National Security Agency to circulate such intercepted messages among 16 other intelligence agencies without following longstanding protocols designed to insure privacy of those involved in the communications, in effect inviting selective leaking by partisans in those agencies.
This week former NSA official Bill Binney confirmed the veracityof Trump’s claim that his conversations had been tapped and monitored and claimed it was done outside the courts.
Binney told Fox the laws that fall under the FISA court’s jurisdiction are “simply out there for show” and “trying to show that the government is following the law, and being looked at and overseen by the Senate and House intelligence committees and the courts.”
“That’s not the main collection program for NSA,” Binney said.
In any event, both the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the head of the FBI James Comey have stated without equivocation that there was no evidence found of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
On the other hand, there is increasing evidence of Russian ties to Hillary Clinton and those closely connected to her.
Jerome Corsi connects a Russian billionaire to Putin with close ties. He provides documentary “evidence of the circuitous path the Russian government has been using since Hillary Clinton was secretary of state to make large financial payments to John Podesta and to the Clinton Foundation.”
These transfers were made at the same time Hillary Clinton was transferring “U.S. advanced technology to Russia.”
John Podesta is not the only family member enriched by the Russians. His brother Tony also rode the Russian gravy train.
Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, has confirmed that it hired the consultancy of Tony Podesta, the elder brother of John Podesta who chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, for lobbying its interests in the United States and proactively seeking the removal of various Obama-era sanctions, the press service of the Russian institution told TASS on Thursday.
[snip]
Previously, The Daily Caller reported that Tony Podesta was proactively lobbying for cancellation of a range of anti-Russian sanctions against the banking sector. In particular, he represented interests of Sberbank and was paid $170,000 for his efforts over a six-month period last year to seek to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Former President Barack Obama imposed the Russian sanctions following the break out in violence in east Ukraine in 2014.
Podesta’s efforts were a key part of under-the-radar lobbying during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign led mainly by veteran Democratic strategists to remove sanctions against Sberbank and VTB Capital, Russia’s second largest bank.
[snip]
The lobbying campaign targeted Congress and the executive branch, with Podesta and other lobbyists arranging at least two meetings between Sberbank officers and Department of State officials, according to Elena Teplitskaya, Sberbank’s board chairman, who spoke to House aides in August.
[snip]
The Podesta Group represented Sberbank and its subsidiaries, Troika Dialog Group in the Cayman Islands, SBGB Cyprus Ltd in Nicosia, Cyprus, and SB International in Luxembourg. Troika Dialog also was related to Klein, Ltd., a Cayman Island organization that once funneled tens of millions of dollars to environmental groups to oppose low-cost fracking in the U.S., which was hurting the Russian oil industry.
[snip]
Sberbank was the lead financial institution in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One, owned by one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends, Frank Giustra. Giustra and Bill Clinton lead the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an integral part of the Clinton Foundation. Giustra has additionally donated $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Giustra sought to sell his stake in uranium reserves that included ore deposits in the Western United States, and Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state, approved the sale. And in one felled swoop, 20 percent of America’s uranium ore was sold to the Russian state atomic agency.
During the pending sale, the Podesta Group represented Giustra’s company and tried to advance the transaction.
So there probably was surveillance on Trump and his associates, although no connection with Russia was established with them. Instead, all the connections to Russia were with Clinton and her closest associates.
What we also know was that, like Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Democrats repeatedly demonstrate a shocking disregard for national security. The Daily Caller has documented what the mainstream media is largely ignoring: the fact that dozens of Democratic congressmen, including the former head of the DNC, engaged three brothers from Pakistan and two of their wives at salaries multiple times over those similarly situated (over $4 million), gave them passwords, and allowed them access to sensitive computer files, even though it is impossible to fathom how people with their record of financial troubles got security clearances. These brothers are presently under criminal investigation accused of stealing House computer equipment and transferring information from Congressional files to a personal server. They owe $100,000 to an Iraqi businessman believed to have with ties to Hezb’allah who is a fugitive from U.S. authorities. This week, to cap it off, the brothers are under investigation for kidnapping and holding prisoner their stepmotherto prevent her from seeing her dying husband in Pakistan.
Politico reports that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former head of the DNC, refuses to fire one of the brothers even though he is banned from the House network. She’s keeping him on as an “adviser.”
Really, it’s impossible to parody Democrats these days. It would be too unbelievable.
+++
SUPERSTAR REPORTER GOES PUBLIC WITH OBAMA’S CREEPY SPYING ON HER
Shares bizarre details about hacked computer as she investigated scandals
“It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.” – George Orwell, “1984”
WASHINGTON – The woman who is perhaps the nation’s top investigative journalist is fighting back against Big Brother.
Sharyl Attkisson shared with WND a detailed and harrowing description of what it was like to experience a reality straight out of Orwell: The reporter claims she was spied on by the Obama administration while investigating its scandals.
What tipped her off?
Imagine what it must be like to watch your computer turn itself on and off.
“That’s one visible sign I noticed over many months,” Attkisson told WND in an email interview.
“At the time, I suspected it was some sort of phishing program seeking my passwords and contacts, and was confident my computer had sufficient protections. I never suspected it was connected to an intrusion of my systems until sources and forensics told me that it was.”
She also watched a different computer that she used delete files by itself.
After Attkisson released a video showing that as it was happening, Vox’s Max Fisher claimed it was more likely that she had a stuck backspace key.
WND asked, as an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist and now the anchor of her own Sunday morning national TV news program, “Full Measure,” did she find Fisher’s claim that she was confused by a keyboard plausible?
“It was just a silly attempt by a noted propagandist blog that had no firsthand information to deflect from the surveillance,” she replied dismissively.
“The ‘expert’ didn’t even know enough to understand there is no ‘backspace’ key on the computer shown, and — in any event — that holding down such a key cannot duplicate the super fast deletions demonstrated at the beginning of that particular video clip.”
The five-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting announced in January she is suing the Justice Department and seeking $35 million in damages for illegally hacking her computers and monitoring her work between 2011 and 2013.
Three separate computer forensic exams of her computers revealed what appears to be stunning evidence pointing straight to the Obama administration.
“The most important and irrefutable finding is: forensic evidence of a government-owned I.P. (internet protocol) address accessing my computer,” Attkisson told WND.
She said she was told that was “better evidence than the U.S. had when it accused China of various acts of hacking into our government, which the government accepts as proven.”
Her computers were examined by three independent forensics examiners including: a confidential source, an examiner hired by CBS News, and an examiner hired by her attorney.
What they found is just stunning.
Attkisson provided an itemized overview of some of their findings, and described what a confidential source and examiner hired by her attorney found:
“A government-owned I.P. address was used to access my computer.”
“We are able to see instances of exact date and time that the intruders entered my computers, and the methods they used to do so.”
“They used commercial, non-attributable software proprietary to the CIA, FBI, NSA or DIA.”
“The malware was constantly running on my computers. It included a feature that logged my keystrokes, accessed all my emails and collected my passwords.”
“Skype was surreptitiously used to listen in on audio.”
“My smartphone was also infected.”
“Three classified documents had been put on my computer.”
“Once sources notified me that I was likely being surveilled, and I discussed this in emails, the intruders took steps to erase evidence of their presence. However, the deletions themselves create a record of evidence.”
“Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012.”
“Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts.”
“An intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.”
“This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.”
“[Attkisson’s] systems were indeed subject to non-standard interactions between June 2012 and January 2013.”
“Definitive evidence that shows commands were run from Sharyl’s user account that she did not personally authorize.”
“This history has been deliberately removed from Sharyl’s hard drive.”
The intruders conducted an inordinate number of internal computer clock “time stamp” changes, likely to try to confuse any forensics that might be conducted.
Why her?
WND asked the former CBS Washington bureau investigative correspondent, did she think the administration considered her a foe? And acted to stop her out of purely political concerns?
“I have no idea, the perpetrators would have to answer that question and they certainly aren’t stepping forward,” she replied.
“But,” she continued, “my computer intrusions occurred in context of the Obama administration’s crackdown on whistleblowers and a lot of my work deals with whistleblowers.”
“Additionally, we know the administration was aggressively trying to control the narrative on a number of stories it saw as damaging, especially as the re-election year of 2012 shaped up.”
Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, records previously obtained by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch indicate Attkisson was targeted by the Obama administration because of critical reporting.
In 2014, Judicial Watch said it “obtained an October 4, 2011, email to White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz, Attorney General Eric Holder’s top press aide, (in which) Tracy Schmaler, described Attkisson as ‘out of control.’
“Schmaler added ominously, ‘I’m also calling Sharryl’s [sic] editor and reaching out to Scheiffer’ (an apparent reference to CBS’ Chief Washington Correspondent and Face the Nation moderator Bob Scheiffer). Schultz responded, ‘Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG’ (attorney general.)”
Given that Obama’s Justice Department had labeled her as “out of control” and tried to get the reporter’s employer to rein her in, WND asked Attkisson: What did she make of an administration that seeks to control reporters?
“I expect it,” was the sober response. “But it’s our job to resist it and we aren’t doing a very good job of that as an industry.”
“Yes. I was informed about my case prior to us knowing about any of the other cases, just before the Snowden revelations, and prior to former DNI (Director of National Intelligence James) Clapper falsely telling Congress that the government was not collecting data of millions of Americans…but all of these events occurred in the same general time frame.”
So, was it the administration that was “out of control?”
“You decide!” she replied, echoing a famous news slogan.
Investigating the truth about her own story, the award-winning reporter has faced what she called a Catch-22 dilemma.
“To find out who accessed my computer, we need the government’s cooperation, but the government isn’t cooperating.”
“In my lawsuit, we seek to learn who had access to the I.P. address that was used to infiltrate my computer,” she continued. “To date, the Department of Justice has taken multiple steps to block us from finding this answer.”
However, her persistence has revealed some compelling results.
“Finally, at my request, the DOJ (Department of Justice) Inspector General’s office sent investigators to look at a separate computer, my personal home computer.”
Attkisson said that although the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office will not release their notes and records, “and have improperly failed to respond to my Freedom of Information Act request for the information,” their forensics investigators reported to her that they found the following on her personal computer:
“Evidence of suspicious deletions of files that could not have been done by me.
“Use of my computer in ‘advanced mode’ (which was not done by me).”
“‘Someone’ installed software onto my desktop and executed it and overwrote some important logs effectively covering their tracks and erasing much evidence of their actions.”
“As with my CBS computer, they found a lot of unusual time and date setting changes on my personal computer as well (15 times in four days).”
“They executed data recovery, recovering previously deleted logs.”
Attkisson said the forensics examiners working for the Justice Department’s inspector general “told me they believed the intruder(s) were actually working in my house at the computer conducting these acts, rather than conducting them remotely, but, in fact, the acts were conducted remotely, as with the work computers referenced above.”
“Furthermore,” she continued, “the examiners indicated that prior to their supervisors signing off on their findings, ‘somebody’ narrowed their mission to only reporting on any ‘remote’ intrusions (i.e. not addressing the suspicious forensics they found by someone they believed was actually in my house working at the computer.)”
And that’s when the investigation hit a wall.
“At this point, as their report was sent to higher-ups for approval, they dialed back their communications with me and would not deliver the promised final report or the notes that went with it.”
Attkisson said she filed a FOIA to obtain them but it was ignored. Many months went by.
“When Congress pressed the issue, the DOJ IG issued only a summary and emphasized there was no evidence of ‘remote’ intrusion in that computer and left out the suspicious forensics they discovered,” explained the investigative super-sleuth. “To this day, the DOJ IG has failed to properly respond to my FOIA requests seeking the full information and report.”
As a result, “Many in the media misreported that this DOJ IG report was somehow conclusive evidence that my computers had not been infiltrated.”
“In fact,” she clarified, “the DOJ IG didn’t even examine the primary computers in question — referenced in the other exams above— because CBS would not allow them to look at the computers.”
Did she think the problem was specific to the previous administration, or was it due the growth of the surveillance community, its powers and lack of oversight?
“I think this is an outgrowth of technology that makes such surveillance possible, politicians and corporate interests who are willing to use it for improper purposes, and a weak and conflicted news media that has done little to stop it.”
Finally, WND said it would be remiss if it did not ask the ace reporter if her experience had given her any insight into President Trump’s accusations that his campaign had been spied on by the Obama administration.
However, Attkisson said she has not looked at, or reported, on those allegations.
American Thinker is a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans. Contributors are accomplished in fields beyond journalism and animated to write for the general public out of concern for the complex and morally significant questions on the national agenda.
There is no limit to the topics appearing on American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions — strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military — is emphasized. The right to exist and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us. Business, science, technology, medicine, management, and economics in their practical and ethical dimensions are also emphasized, as is the state of …READ THE REST
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SUPERSTAR REPORTER GOES PUBLIC WITH OBAMA’S CREEPY SPYING ON HER
I agree with about 95% of the speculative thoughts of one of my favorite bloggers Danny Jeffrey. For a long time I have bucked the Conservative trend that America should stay out of Syria. I had believed that Chemical Weapons was indeed a threat to our National Security. Syria has been and still is a rogue nation that is a client of Iran and a conduit to Shi’ite Islamic terrorists controlling Lebanon – i.e. Hezbollah.
I believed an attack to remove Assad, using the Chemical Weapon pretense, as a good goal to further encircle and mess up Iran’s Shi’ite alliances that desire to control the Middle East Gulf nations.
HOWEVER
Upon further consideration my distrust of Obama has led me to join my fellow Conservatives in demanding we stay out of Syria. If peace-at-all-costs Obama wants to use military force in Syria then there is something up. This is where Danny Jeffrey’s line of thinking has finally pushed me into the STAY-OUT-OF-SYRIA camp.
Apart from the reasons that Danny Jeffrey has presented over the years I have to say Islam definitely is the product of its founding prophet Mohammed. Islam is a cult of violence that is spread viciously until whole non-Muslim cultures are forced to submit to Islam. Sharia Law makes Islamic power simply too difficult for a non-Muslim culture to perpetuate where Muslims possess the power to rule. And that rule is vicious with one goal in mind; i.e. to transform the minds and souls of a non-Muslim culture into an Islamic culture. The alternative for not transforming is a perpetual life of second class misery. Only the most dedicated non-Muslims retain their religious heritage under such circumstances. AND even in retaining a religious heritage that moved the one-time majority to the minority culture, those people eventually conform to the public rules of Islam such as no public worship, no proselytizing of their faith, no criticizing of Islamic culture compared to non-Muslim beliefs as well as submitting to every subservient status that ensures Islamic Supremacism.
Yeah, Danny does not touch too much on Islam as a culture of a bunch of little antichrist Islamic Supremacist people ready to execute a bloodbath for any contrivance against Islam. Danny focuses on the political aspects of a Soros-Obama agenda to transform the world into the delusion of a Marxist-Socialist paradise in which all religion and morality is submitted to a State defined Secular Humanist morality. Danny has convinced me. The Soros-Obama gang use Islamic doctrine to destroy Christian Morality that has been the foundation that has made Western Culture and especially America exceptional.
You have to notice that the more and more that Christianity has been tossed into irrelevance in Europe the more Socialistic principles, Secular Humanism and State-defined Liberty has transformed the moral landscape of the once mighty Christian Europe. Secularist concepts of morality battles Christianity from the Left while protecting Islamic Radicalism which picks up the pieces of lost Christian morality in Europe. The problem about Islamic morality is its demand of medieval enforcement to conform or else face the prescribed extremely harsh punishment.
In the Garden of Eden God gave Adam and Eve were given a choice of faithfulness or to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve believed the devil’s temptation that eating the forbidden fruit would make them just as God Almighty knowing both Good and Evil. Typically of deceived humanity, Adam and Eve only listened to that which was perceived as self-aggrandized power and having deaf ears to the reality the fruit would also bring the knowledge of Evil. The Soros-Obama agenda is working to create the same circumstances in the USA attempting relegate the Light of Christianity into submerged darkness which is man-created – actually in a spiritual sense the Satanic agenda. Ever since God Almighty gave Lucifer the boot from Heaven along with 1/3 of Lucifer’s deceived Angels the slew-foot agenda was to dethrone the Creator.
George Soros and Barack Obama are the unwitting (or more nefariously perhaps witting) dupes of Lucifer-turned-Satan ultimate agenda. Satan is self-deceived that there can be a victory over God. Soros and Obama are a part of that delusive agenda of darkness wittingly or unwittingly.
Yeah I know the spiritual side of a future chaos is often not mentioned when Conspiracy dudes talk of economic collapse and a New World Order. Nevertheless, that is also a part of my world view.
Some tell us that our country is on the verge of collapse. I disagree. It has already collapsed, caved in upon itself, and is no more than fallen rubble. A nation’s collapse need not wait for economic ruin, military invasion, or civil war to begin. A great nation is finished when its people forsake their morality as ours have already done. When they follow blindly, choose to consume while not producing, and feed on hatred, then they as a people, are no more.
Danny Jeffrey is a modern Jeremiah warning that bad times are coming soon and the warning is now. I sure wish Danny – the 21st Jeremiah – would also show there is a redemption for lost people who blindly chose to follow the delusion. When chaos overtakes illusion, reality often turns the miserable to seek God. Jeremiah shared God’s Word that repentance would restore the Jewish nation. The paradigm is just as valid for Christians of faith.
Turning from God brings disaster. Check out God’s Mercy when people turn back to God:
Chapter 31
31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,[a] says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Chapter 32
31 ‘For this city has been to Me a provocation of My anger and My fury from the day that they built it, even to this day; so I will remove it from before My face 32 because of all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 33 And they have turned to Me the back, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. 34 But they set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. 35 And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.’
36 “Now therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence’: 37 Behold, I will gather them out of all countries where I have driven them in My anger, in My fury, and in great wrath; I will bring them back to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. 38 They shall be My people, and I will be their God; 39 then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. 40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. 41 Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.’
Chapter 33
14 ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah:
15 ‘In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David A Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. 16 In those days Judah will be saved, And Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.’[a](Jeremiah 31: 31-34; 32: 31-41; 33: 14-16 NKJV)
Really you should read the whole chapters of Jeremiah 31-33. You get a picture of a culture descending into immorality and then how misery returns people back to God who then dispenses Mercy rather than more Justice with a Promise of a better covenant. Can you say Jesus Christ the Son of God, Redeemer and Savior?
Now if Danny Jeffrey’s Jeremiah predictions rings true for Americans experiencing misery via the loss of the world’s greatest Constitution providing for a nation of laws rather than for a nation ruled by legal fiat. Then check this out:
211 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, John,[a] saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me,[b] “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
6 And He said to me, “It is done![c] I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes shall inherit all things,[d] and I will be his God and he shall be My son. 8 But the cowardly, unbelieving,[e] abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me[f] and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”[g]10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy[h] Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.
22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it,[a] for the glory[b] of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved[c] shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.[d]25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.[e]
22 1 And he showed me a pure[a] river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. 4 They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. 5 There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever. (Revelation 21: 1-11; 22-26; 22: 1-5 NKJV)
You need to know Jesus wins. God’s Will is no longer tedious to follow because the full Redemption of spirit, soul and body imprints God in our very nature. Soros loses. Obama loses. Islam loses. Now if you have not read “Spreading Terror Near and Far” yet, then you should! In the end God wins; however the Danny Jeffrey Jeremiad brings a little clarity that too many people have their head in the sand ignoring the seasons and the times.
Justin Smith utilizes Senator Rand Paul’s recent filibuster as the foundational starting point to write about the Obama Administration’s – with Attorney General Eric Holder as a reference – abuse of the U.S. Constitution.
In a fascinating and charismatic stand for Our U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and Liberty for all Americans, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) demanded on March 6, 2013 that Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder specifically give clarification regarding the Obama administration’s policy on using unmanned armed aircraft (drones) overseas and on American soil. When Holder gave several ambiguous statements and circled any honest answer pertaining to provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, enacted by Executive Order on 12-31-12, allowing the president to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely and to kill Americans who are deemed terrorists or “enemy combatants,” Senator Paul vowed to block the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA until he received some satisfactory answers (Presidents have long used the word “privelege” in Article I Sec 9 as a tool to ignore habeas corpus). And thus ensued an amazing lesson in government and the U.S. Constitution, as Senator Paul delivered a thirteen hour filibuster!
Twelve other Republicans and one Democrat, Ron Wyden (Oregon) supported Paul during his 13 hour soliloquy, but the bulk of the Republican Party was notably and unfortunately missing in action during this intense, momentous and historic moment, which prompted Senator Paul’s observation, “If there were an ounce of courage in this body I would be joined by other senators… saying they will not tolerate this.” So, in stark contrast Senator Rand Paul struck a blow for all Americans and Liberty, as Republican-in-name-only Senator Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) office would not divulge his whereabouts during the filibuster; and, RHINO Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who had dinner with Obama and eleven others during the filibuster, gushed like a teenage girl over the attention they received, as they were groomed to once more betray their constituency and the American people regarding upcoming financial matters.
Senators Graham (R-SC) and McCain (R-AZ) suggested that Senator Paul was doing “a disservice to Americans by making them think that somehow they’re in danger from their government.” As McCain added, “They’re not. But we are in danger from a dedicated longstanding, easily replaceable-leadership enemy that is hell bent on our destruction,” I thought that statement was fairly applicable to Obama and the Progressive Democrats as much as it was to Al Qaeda.
Remember that Holder has been undermining the U.S. legal system for a long time. The Holder Justice Department has prosecuted U.S. agents unfairly due to previously approved methods of interrogating terrorists, who have no standing under the U.S. Constitution (parallels “piracy”) or the Geneva Convention. Holder himself has represented Al Qaeda terrorists pro bono during his time with the law firm of Covington and Burling. He has unconstitutionally overseen the military trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Mohammed; now, he once again has conferred Constitutional rights on a terrorist/enemy combatant where none should exist and, in fact, do not exist in the case of Sulaiman Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and chief propagandist for Al Qaeda. And this is the man we are supposed to trust when he states that “no intention” exists to use drone strikes in America… the very same Eric Holder who ignored due process in the international child custody case of Elian Gonzalez.
Due process of the law has been integral to the American way since George Mason and others penned the Bill of Rights, and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) pointedly stated, “The question of whether the United States government can kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil when that individual does not pose an imminent threat or grievous bodily harm is a fundamental issue of Liberty. It is an issue of enforcing the explicit language of Our Constitution.” It is within this context that all Americans must take pause and object to Holder’s reluctance and hesitancy to offer an unequivocal and certain, “No…the president does not have the authority to kill a U.S. citizen on American soil who is not engaged in combat,” as he eventually did on March 7, after a month and a half of pressure from Congress!
This controversy largely arose over the Obama refusal to allow Congress to see the legal opinions that authorize drone strikes, although regular reports have been made to the House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Forces Committees. The critical question centers on Congressional oversight of a covert war against suspected terrorists, as Obama has grabbed too much power and violated the U.S. Constitution in his so-called “efforts to keep the nation safe.”
Virginia E. Sloan, the president of the Constitution Project (civil liberties group/DC), stated in February, “We have this drone war, and the American public has no idea what the rules are, and Congress doesn’t know much more… speeches are absolutely no substitute for the actual memos in hand.”
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said: “What Rand Paul had to say about drones absolutely fired up conspiracy theorists on the left as well as the right.” Setting aside conspiracies, a known fact represents reality; and, America’s reality is an Obama administration and Homeland Security who warned of the ranks of potential terrorists being filled by “right wing extremists” and “Christian conservatives.”
Attorney General Holder has not told us the criteria used to mark a person as an enemy combatant. He also did not back off his contention that the president has the authority to pursue military action inside the U.S. in extraordinary circumstances, which is currently and technically correct; however, this also requires numerous signatures from the other branches of government, and it still gives the impression of flying in the face of Posse Comitatus [NCCR Editor: Read HERE, HERE and HERE]. And it was this assertion that sparked Senator Paul’s filibuster, as he declared, “I have allowed the president to pick his appointees… But I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution.”
One should also note that the U.S. has developed miniature drone listening devices that go unnoticed as they hover over areas, like something out of Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’ or Orwell’s ‘1984’. That’s well and good if they’re hovering over a terrorist camp, but do we really want to use this in America? … Embrace Big Brother… And even if we do, shouldn’t we still demand the application of the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments?
Over the course of the filibuster several senators, such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, attempted to lessen the strain of the effort on Senator Paul by asking questions and speaking themselves. Cruz read passages from ‘Henry V’ and lines from the movie ‘Patton’. At one point, Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), who struggles with a cane due to a stroke, delivered hot tea and an apple to Paul’s desk, but a doorkeeper removed them; not to be outdone, House Republican Louie Gohmert from Texas stood off to the side of the Senate floor in a show of support.
One person can make a difference when they stand up for a righteous cause, and no one should take any U.S. President’s word, especially this one’s, that his administration’s policy in any area remains consistent with our laws and systems of checks and balances, regardless of claims of “transparency”. By offering his resolution stating that the use of unmanned, armed aircraft on U.S. soil against American citizens violates the Constitution and delivering 13 hours of explanation and education, Senator Paul opened the eyes of many Americans, who want a better balance between protecting our security and protecting our Liberty; even CodePink called and thanked him “for standing up against abuses of power.” So, the next time you hear Senator Rand Paul, or anyone, ask “are you so afraid that you are willing to trade your freedom for security,” reply “No!”…and stand up for Liberty!
Burr Deming is my Liberal friend (no I did not choke those words – Burr is a Christian man) in which obvious reigns true; i.e. we rarely agree on a point of view.
Burr is taking the view that Susan Rice can be excused for lying to the Senate oversight committees and the American Public about what the cause actually was for the Benghazigate murder and atrocities to a diplomatically protected Ambassador and three other Americans.
The liberal logic runs that Republicans are to blame because they voted to decrease Embassy security. Let’s never mind that Obama is slashing the military budget to unconscionable lows for the security of America. Never mind that regardless of Embassy security cuts it was probably a compromise to not cut the military budget even further. Never mind that a budget cut does not mean the Obama Administration through the State Department leaves an American Ambassador unprotected in a volatile nation that had glaring evidence of al Qaeda activity. Never mind that was security that was told to hold on help for Ambassador Stevens and a couple of ex-Navy SEALs dispatched themselves to aid Stevens after hearing no help was forth coming. Never mind that took the State Department spin about an insignificant anti-Muslim movie that was made on the scale of garage home videos and that only a trailer was posted on Youtube.
Yes, my fellow Conservatives it is smoke and mirrors to deflect the truth that Susan Rice was the mouthpiece for Obama/Clinton lies to Americans to exonerate their hind quarters for a dishonorable travesty that could have been prevented.
Senator John McCain the former GOP nominee for President and now more RINO than ever – is a hypocrite and ignorant when it comes to purist Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.
McCain’s ignorance and hypocrisy are illustrated in his condemnation of Rep Michele Bachmann and her five cohorts for promoting an investigation of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the upper echelons of the US government. In particular McCain is hell bent on looking the other way on Huma Abedin’s connections via family and associations to the Muslim Brotherhood while simultaneously being Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff.
I have posted on this before and even have linked to an Andrew McCarthy link exposing McCain. I should have posted the McCarthy thoughts and now I am taking that opportunity as it is cross posted on Stand Up America.
Editor’s Note – When our founding fathers were constructing our young nation, one of their greatest fears was allowing foreign influences into our leadership. They had learned valuable lessons from the failures of other nations and they realized that others would seek advantage in our infancy.
They knew all to well of the need to protect our new form of governance because it was the first of its kind, and as we know – it was, and is still, the best ever formed by man, despite its failings. Our sovereignty and liberty are rooted in unalienable rights, and to allow foreign influences, especially of a kind so diametrically opposed to our way of life is completely unacceptable.
Islam, in all its forms and manifestations is anathema to our very way of life. Its Shariya Laws are the tools of slavery, not freedom, and now their influence on us is creeping into all facets of our government and therefore, our way of life. To curry favor or act complicity with the Muslim Brotherhood, to allow their advice and counsel to sway our leadership is unjustifiable.
It is clear that our leadership, and a large majority of our nation just plain do not understand Islam. Those who have studied it deeply, who know its history and true nature have been sounding the alarm for a long time, yet we are largely met with politically correct, arrogant, ignorance. To not know your enemy is a recipe for disaster, and to countenance such activity is tantamount to treason.
At SUA – yes we do question Huma Abedin and those who defend her and the Muslim Brotherhood! Do not be fooled by the propaganda!
Questions about Huma Abedin
A State Department adviser has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Der Spiegel pointed out the obvious: “A certain role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the transition process [to ‘democracy’] in Egypt seems acceptable to the Obama White House.” It was early February 2011, the moment when the uprising that would oust Hosni Mubarak was bubbling over in Tahrir Square. The prominent German newsmagazine figured, who better to ask about the Muslim Brotherhood than the American political establishment’s resident foreign-policy genius, John McCain?
So, the reporter asked him, does Obama’s tolerance of the Muslim Brotherhood “concern you”?
Senator Maverick shot back without hesitation: “It concerns me so much that I am unalterably opposed to it. I think it would be a mistake of historic proportions.”
Senator McCain elaborated that he was “deeply, deeply concerned that this whole movement [toward democracy] could be hijacked by radical Islamic extremists.” And what, he was specifically asked, “is your assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood”? McCain pulled no punches:
I think they are a radical group that, first of all, supports sharia law; that in itself is anti-democratic — at least as far as women are concerned. They have been involved with other terrorist organizations and I believe that they should be specifically excluded from any transition government.
In fact, so apprehensive was he over the Brotherhood and its sharia agenda that McCain was quick to brand Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate, as a Brotherhood tool. Many of us watching developments at the time noted the apparent collusion between ElBaradei and the Brothers. McCain went farther: “Oh yeah, I think it’s very clear that the scenario is very likely he could be their front man.”
Senator Straight Talk reasoned that since ElBaradei appeared to be on the same page as the Brotherhood, and was being hailed as a potential Mubarak successor despite having “no following nor political influence in Egypt,” we should assume that he must be in cahoots with the Brotherhood. It did not matter that ElBaradei was a renowned international figure and an important leftist ally of President Obama’s. So pernicious was the threat posed by the Brotherhood that, in McCain’s considered opinion, you just had to assume the worst.
The Spiegel interview was classic McCain; the senator is never at a loss for bloviation. His professed anxiety, only a year ago, over the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as his blithe willingness to assume that ElBaradei must be an Islamist coconspirator, are worth remembering today. For the sage has suddenly decided that the Brothers — unapologetic Islamic supremacists who say outright that they are on a “grand jihad” to destroy America and the West — are a pretty swell lot, after all. Instead, McCain reserves his signature “shoot first, think later” ire for the target he has always preferred: conservatives.
The Arizonan took to the Senate floor this week to lambaste five conservative members of the House who, unlike McCain, are actually serious about addressing threats the Brotherhood poses to American interests. McCain’s bipartisan “Islamic democracy” promoters seem content to keep burning through taxpayer trillions until the Brotherhood is finally running every government in the Middle East. To the contrary, the House conservatives — Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Tom Rooney (Fla.), and Lynn Westmorland (Ga.) — have concluded that the Brotherhood needs to be regarded as the serious anti-American business that it is.
Toward that end, the quintet is justifiably concerned that the Brotherhood’s sharia agenda — the one to which McCain used to be “unalterably opposed” — is being abetted not just by some Nobel-toting Egyptian progressive, but by officials in highly sensitive positions inside the United States government.
One official about whom they raise questions is Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Abedin has been an aide since she interned at the White House in 1996 and was assigned to the then–first lady’s staff. The family tie for which she is best known is her husband, Anthony Weiner, the New York Democrat who resigned from Congress in disgrace last year. But it is Ms. Abedin’s parents and brother who have drawn the attention of the five House GOP members. They all have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood — the organization itself or prominent members thereof.
For pointing this out and merely asking the State Department’s inspector general to look into it and report back to Congress — which is part of the IG’s duties under the statute that created his position — McCain & Co. (i.e., his fans in the left-wing media and his admirers in the Republican establishment) are screaming “smear” and “McCarthyism.” McCain’s antipathy toward conservatives (except during election years) is an old story. And it is no secret that he has long been smitten by Mrs. Clinton, whose transnational-progressive leanings mirror his own.
The Maverick is also a man about town — towns like Tripoli. Back in 2009, you may recall, he was an honored guest in the compound of Libya’s dictator, Moammar Qaddafi — celebrating the former master terrorist as an important American ally against jihadist terror, helping to grease the wheels so the Obama administration could increase American aid that would bolster Qaddafi’s military. Yet in the blink of an eye, it seemed, McCain would later be railing that Qaddafi was a died-in-the-wool terrorist monster whose military had to be smashed by the United States — in an undeclared, unauthorized, unprovoked war, if necessary — so Libyans could be “free” to elect the Muslim Brotherhood and other assorted Islamic supremacists to their new Parliament.
But the point is that McCain gets around. And when he does, the State Department is often his escort. Between his globetrotting and his case of Hillary hauteur, the senator has gotten friendly over the years with Ms. Abedin, who is said to be smart, able, and quite charming. Ever the Maverick — chivalrous to a fault . . . at least when the damsel in distress is an exotic, progressive sharia-democracy devotee rather than a conservative national-security worrywart from Minnesota. McCain has leapt to Ms. Abedin’s defense against these vicious House troglodytes.
The senator’s tirade featured his trademark indignation, incoherence, and infatuation with immigrant success stories. (Ms. Abedin was born in Michigan, but no reason to let that get in the way of “what is best about America.”) McCain blasted Representative Bachmann and the others, falsely accusing them of doing to his friend Huma what he had actually done to ElBaradei, namely, implicating her as “part of a nefarious conspiracy.”
To the contrary, the House members have drawn no such conclusions. Instead, they have pointed out the State Department’s dramatic, Brotherhood-friendly policy shifts during Ms. Abedin’s tenure as a top adviser to the State Department’s boss. They have asked — completely consistent with national-security guidelines, to which I’ll come shortly — that an investigation into those policy shifts be undertaken.
That investigation would include an inquiry into whether Ms. Abedin’s family ties render her unsuitable for a position that involves access to classified information about the Brotherhood. The shrieks aside, this is not remotely unreasonable, nor is it an inquisition into Ms. Abedin’s decency and rectitude. When I was a prosecutor, the Justice Department would not have let me take a case that involved friends of my family. It’s not that they didn’t trust me; it’s that government is supposed to avoid the appearance of impropriety — legitimacy hinges on the public’s belief that actions are taken on merit, not burdened by palpable conflicts of interest.
Regarding Ms. Abedin’s family ties, McCain rebukes his House colleagues for alleging “that three members of Huma’s family are ‘connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.’” “These sinister accusations,” he insisted, “rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family.”
Now, I’m perfectly willing to believe that McCain may not know what the words “unspecified” and “unsubstantiated” mean. That, however, would not excuse his use of them in this context. The ties of Ms. Abedine’s father, mother, and brother to the Muslim Brotherhood are both specific and substantiated.
Ms. Abedin’s father, the late Syed Z. Abedin, was an Indian-born Islamic academic who founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in Saudi Arabia. That institute was backed by the Muslim World League. As the Hudson Institute’s Zeyno Baran relates, the MWL was started by the Saudi government in 1962 “with Brotherhood members in key leadership positions.” It has served as the principal vehicle for the propagation of Islamic supremacism by the Saudis and the Brotherhood. That ideology fuels the “Islamic extremism” that, only a year ago, had McCain so worried that he thought allowing the Brotherhood into the Egyptian-government mix “would be a mistake of historic proportions.”
McCain’s frivolous retort is that Professor Abedin died 20 years ago. That would be a great point if someone were accusing Ms. Abedin of being in her father’s institute or the MWL. It is irrelevant when the question is whether it is reasonable to infer Islamist sympathies from her parents’ allegiances — not to make conclusive judgments about her, mind you, but to draw an inference that would merit deeper inquiry. That is standard fare in government background checks. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s emir, has been out of the Brotherhood for more than 30 years. Does that mean the Brotherhood is now irrelevant to his ideological outlook, or to the sympathies of his close associates?
As it happens, the same MWL that supported Abedin père’s institute also helped the Brotherhood establish the Muslim Students Association. The MSA is the foundation of the Brotherhood’s American infrastructure, the gateway through which young Muslims join the Brotherhood after being steeped in the supremacist writings of Brotherhood theorists Hassan al-Banna (who founded the Brotherhood in the 1920s) and Sayyid Qutb (the animating influence of such jihadist eminences as Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden, and the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel Rahman).
Speaking of which, it was through the MSA that Egypt’s new president, Mohammed Morsi, joined the Muslim Brotherhood. He was studying engineering in California at the time, the early Eighties. By her own account, Morsi’s wife, Nagla Ali Mahmoud, also joined. She became a leading member of a cognate outfit known as “the Muslim Sisterhood.” And it is here that we get to Huma Abedin’s mother, the Pakistani-born academic Dr. Saleha Abedin.
Dr. Abedin, too, has been a member of the Muslim Sisterhood, “which is essentially nothing more than the female version of the Brotherhood,” according to Walid Shoebat, a former Brotherhood member who has renounced the organization. The Brotherhood is not only the font of Sunni supremacist ideology, it spearheads the international support network for Hamas, the terrorist organization that openly proclaims itself as the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch.
According to onereport, Dr. Abedin has on occasion represented herself as a delegate of the MWL. Moreover, as William Jacobson documents at Legal Insurrection, Dr. Abedin has led the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC), an Islamist organization that hews to the positions of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s leading sharia jurist. Like Brotherhood entities, the IICWC defends such practices as female genital mutilation and child marriage, which find support in Islamic law and scripture.
Sheikh Qaradawi, of course, is the Brotherhood eminence who promises that Islam “will conquer Europe, we will conquer America.” He is a vigorous supporter of Hamas, and his fatwas lionize suicide terrorism — including the killing of Americans in Iraq. It is Qaradawi who brings us to Huma Abedin’s brother, Dr. Hassan Abedin. He has been a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies in Great Britain. Contemporaneously, Sheikh Qaradawi was a member of the Oxford Center’s board of trustees. So was Omar Naseef, onetime secretary-general of the MWL as well as the founder of the Rabita Trust — an Islamic “charity” notorious for funding jihadists and for having an al-Qaeda founder (Wael Hamza Julaidan) as one of its chief executives.
These connections are not contrived or weightless — like when the Left wanted to keep Samuel Alito off the Supreme Court because, 40 years ago, he was a member of “Concerned Alumni of Princeton.” Of course, knowing members of an organization whose goals include conquest of the West and destruction of Israel is not a crime. Nor is it a crime to have close relatives who are either members of, or associated with members of, such an organization. Again, however, no one is accusing Huma Abedin of a crime.
The five House conservatives, instead, are asking questions that adults responsible for national security should feel obliged to ask: In light of Ms. Abedin’s family history, is she someone who ought to have a security clearance, particularly one that would give her access to top-secret information about the Brotherhood? Is she, furthermore, someone who may be sympathetic to aspects of the Brotherhood’s agenda, such that Americans ought to be concerned that she is helping shape American foreign policy?
Now, Senator McCain is no stranger to smear. No need to confirm that with Mr. ElBaradei; we’ve watched for years as he has slandered, for example, critics of his advocacy for illegal aliens as “nativists” seeking to reprise Jim Crow laws. Nevertheless, since McCain purports to be a tireless guardian of our security, one would think he’d appreciate the distinction between a smear, on the one hand, and a routine application of security-clearance standards, on the other.
The State Department is particularly wary when it comes to the category of “foreign influence” — yes, it is a significant enough concern to warrant its own extensive category in background investigations. No criminal behavior need be shown to deny a security clearance; access to classified information is not a right, and reasonable fear of “divided loyalties” is more than sufficient for a clearance to be denied.
The guidelines probe ties to foreign countries and organizations because hostile elements could “target United States citizens to obtain protected information” or could be “associated with a risk of terrorism” — note: The Brotherhood checks both these boxes. Thus, when someone is proposed for a sensitive position, it is necessary to consider “conditions that could raise a security concern and may be disqualifying.” These, the State Department tells us, include “contact with a foreign family member, business or professional associate, friend or other person who is a citizen or resident in a foreign country if that contact creates a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, pressure, or coercion.”
Furthermore, in light of the Brotherhood’s well-known abhorrence of the United States, it is also pertinent that State’s guidelines raise alarms if a person seeking access to classified information has an “association or sympathy” with people who seek to overthrow our government, or even with people who just seek to prevent Americans from exercising their constitutional rights. The Brotherhood does not just aim to upend our system; it would restrict our rights, such as free expression, to the extent they contradict sharia.
In his diatribe, McCain speciously asserted that the GOP conservatives had failed to cite “an action, a decision, or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department” that showed she was either “promoting anti-American activities within our government” or having a “direct impact” on harmful policies. Of course, to assess a person’s fitness for a sensitive position, background investigators are not restricted to asking whether someone has committed some transgression. Their main job is to find out whether there are circumstances and competing allegiances that could tempt someone to take positions or actions that could harm the United States. That is why, for example, we have hearings before we confirm federal judges — we don’t just hand them a gavel and hope for the best.
In addition, as McCain knows, Ms. Abedin is an adviser, not a policymaker. She gives advice to the secretary of state. Unless you were in the room with the two of them, you’d never be able to demonstrate what “direct impact” the adviser was having. Again, that’s why people are supposed to be vetted before they get these sensitive positions and before they get access to the nation’s secrets.
Since Mrs. Clinton has been secretary of state, with Ms. Abedin as one of her top advisers, the State Department has strongly supported abandoning the federal government’s prior policy against dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood. State, furthermore, has embraced a number of Muslim Brotherhood positions that undermine both American constitutional rights and our alliance with Israel. To name just a few manifestations of this policy sea change:
§The State Department has an emissary in Egypt who trains operatives of the Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations in democracy procedures.
§The State Department announced that the Obama administration would be “satisfied” with the election of a Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government in Egypt.
§Secretary Clinton personally intervened to reverse a Bush-administration ruling that barred Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder and son of one of its most influential early leaders, from entering the United States.
§The State Department has collaborated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of governments heavily influenced by the Brotherhood, in seeking to restrict American free-speech rights in deference to sharia proscriptions against negative criticism of Islam.
§The State Department has excluded Israel, the world’s leading target of terrorism, from its “Global Counterterrorism Forum,” a group that brings the United States together with several Islamist governments, prominently including its co-chair, Turkey — which now finances Hamas and avidly supports the flotillas that seek to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas. At the forum’s kickoff, Secretary Clinton decried various terrorist attacks and groups; but she did not mention Hamas or attacks against Israel — in transparent deference to the Islamist governments, which echo the Brotherhood’s position that Hamas is not a terrorist organization and that attacks against Israel are not terrorism.
§The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer $1.5 billion dollars in aid to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in the parliamentary elections.
§The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian territories notwithstanding that Gaza is ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch.
§The State Department and the administration recently hosted a contingent from Egypt’s newly elected parliament that included not only Muslim Brotherhood members but a member of the Islamic Group (Gama’at al Islamia), which is formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization — so that providing it with material support is a serious federal crime. The State Department has refusedto provide Americans with information about the process by which it issued a visa to a member of a designated terrorist organization, about how the members of the Egyptian delegation were selected, or about what security procedures were followed before the delegation was allowed to enter our country.
§On a just-completed trip to Egypt, Secretary Clinton pressured General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the military junta currently governing the country, to surrender power to the newly elected parliament, which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who is a top Brotherhood official. She also visited with Morsi; immediately after his victory, Morsi proclaimed that his top priorities included pressuring the United States to release the Blind Sheikh. Quite apart from the Brotherhood’s self-proclaimed “grand jihad” to destroy the United States, which the Justice Department proved in federal court during the 2007–8 Holy Land Foundation prosecution, the Brotherhood’s supreme guide, Mohammed Badie, publicly called for jihad against the United States in an October 2010 speech. After it became clear the Brotherhood would win the parliamentary election, Badie said the victory was a stepping stone to “the establishment of a just Islamic caliphate.”
This is not an exhaustive account of Obama-administration coziness with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is just some of the lowlights.
Senator McCain is an incorrigible vacillator. It is to be expected that he has “evolved” from last year’s claimed opposition to the Brotherhood to a new position, more aligned with that of his friend Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration. Some of us, however, really are “unalterably opposed” to the Muslim Brotherhood. The five House conservatives are asking questions to which the State Department’s own guidelines, to say nothing of common sense, demand answers. Answers not just about Huma Abedin but, far more significantly, about the government’s policy toward virulently anti-American Islamists. Americans deserve nothing less — even if the usual GOP spaghetti spines would prefer to give them nothing, period.
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Danny Jeffrey of Freedom Rings 1776 has uncovered a Western Media conspiracy to make Bashar al-Assad look like the only butcher in the Syrian civil war. The conspiracies involve utilizing photographs from other Muslim perpetrated atrocities and link it to the grisly massacre in Houla, Syria. Jeffrey has a point because in the process of looking for independent sources I found out that the BBC used a 2003 Iraq photo and implied this was a picture of the result of Assad’s forces slaughtering Syrians at Houla.
A few days have passed since the BBC irresponsibly passed off this 2003 picture of dead Iraqis as depicting dead Syrians in last week’s Houla massacre. The original photographer, who works for Getty Images, said “Someone is using someone else’s picture for propaganda on purpose.” The Telegraph:
Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.
The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.
It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”. (Read entire article:The BBC’s Photo Fib of a Syrian Massacre; by John Glaser, AntiWar.com, 5/29/12)
The photo Jeffrey uncovered was at Fox News(If Jeffrey’s uncovering gains traction, look to Fox News to remove photo at this story). Jeffrey goes through some very legitimate investigation which you can see by clicking HERE or going to the cross post below.
Jeffrey’s theme about the photo is that the Western Media is becoming a propaganda tool of the Western powers that are plugged into the United Nations’ concept of Responsibility to Protect:
The basic concept is that anytime a nation is being subjected to a forceful overthrow, the the UN affiliated members of the western powers are to intervene with a no fly zone over that nation. We did this in Libya along with providing arms to Al Qaeda in their effort to depose Qaddafi. The effort was perfect to enact R2P as Qaddafi was generally hated world wide so there was little outcry from the people of America. (From Jeffrey article cross posted at SlantRight 2.0 entitled “Israel’s Doomsday Scheme.”)
The R2P thinking in this light is a little practice of New World Order application under the auspices of the United Nations (think Agenda 21). Now I don’t know if Jeffrey thinks this is NWO stuff but I do. I do know that the R2P principle is a World Powers agenda to eliminate Israel (at least the EU and American Leftists) probably under the mistaken concept that no Israel means peace in the Middle East. After the Libyan R2P the Western powers then want to take down Assad.
The problem with taking down Assad is it is merely replacing a Jew-hating rogue Shia-Alawite regime with a Jew-hating Radical Islamic (al Qaeda influence) rogue Sunni regime. Israel – our chief ally in the Middle East – will not benefit in a regime change except perhaps Iran losing a chief ally in the Middle East.
Some short-sighted geopolitical thinking might see a National Security win for the USA with Iran losing its Syrian ally to a bunch Radical Islamic Sunnis. Historically there has been a bloody divide between Sunnis (90% of Islam) and Shias (10% of Islam). In Saudi Arabia the Wahhabi Clerics have often declared the Shias a bunch of infidels grouped with Christians, Jews and polytheists. On the other hand Iran has successfully crossed the Sunni-Shia divide by focusing on the modern enemy of Islam – Jewish Israel.
Hamas is a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood offshoot; however Iran has undoubtedly sent missiles to Hamas to use on Israel. Hamas has condemned the Assad regime for shooting Sunni Syrians; I believe that condemnation of Syria has more to do with traditional Sunni-Shia divide than insulting Assad-Hamas arms supporter Iran.
Jeffrey does not see the potential National Security benefit of screwing Iran by taking Assad out of Syria. Jeffrey sees only the R2P doctrine and Left Wing globalist conspirators like George Soros pulling the strings as part of an anti-Israel strategy. NOW I don’t discount Jeffrey’s thoughts about R2P, destroy Israel and globalism. It may very well be a part of multitudinous agendas that might have converged simultaneously in consensus to mess with Iran, but the agendas may part ways as far the end game of US Foreign Policy-Military Geopolitics. If I am correct on my convergence theory then Israel’s safety would depend largely who controls the White House after 2012. I am certain an Obama reelection will cement Jeffrey’s scenario!
Jeffrey starts his exposé on a false Houla photograph by throwing Senator McCain into complicity of knowingly supporting al Qaeda-like Sunni rebels as part of a greater R2P UN global strategy. Read the blog Friends of Syria which has a post specifically connecting Senator McCain, George Soros and the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
There is no doubt in my mind that McCain is a RINO; however I believe McCain was a brave American veteran who suffered in a North Viet POW camp. I also believe McCain is unduly influenced by his staff which ropes him into projects that he stubbornly protects because his name is attached to it. For instance I believe it was brilliant to choose Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. McCain’s mistake was not unleashing Palin to be the lightening rod on bringing Obama’s sketchy history into question. McCain instead listened to his advisors to pull the reins on Palin allowing the press to portray her as a buffoon. Instead of trying to shut Palin up, McCain should have unleashed her to attack Obama on some of the same issues of experience in a tit-for-tat that I doubt Obama could answer straight forwardly. I think McCain would have won in 2008 if that political strategy was followed. BUT again, McCain was a Republican establishment RINO. As a RINO I doubt he would have taken the Socialist path Obama has taken however I doubt he would have done anything to change big government or take steps to lower or eliminate the deficit. For that matter I am doubtful Romney will be the Tea Party Conservative our nation needs; however I am confident Romney will end Obama’s Socialist agenda to change America. We need to elect Romney to put a hiccup in the Obama-Dem-Socialist agenda currently in place for America’s future.
Let’s get back to the Houla Massacre.
The issue about Houla is: Was it perpetrated by FSA (SA Wikipedia) rebels or Assad’s Shabiha Militia (not Syrian regular army)?
The United Nations version gravitates toward the Assad regime as the culprit or at the very least Assad’s irregular Shabiha Militia. A Reuters article dated June 27, 2012 reports the UN view:
(Reuters) – Syrian government forces have committed human rights violations, including executions, across the country “on an alarming scale” during military operations in the past three months, United Nations investigators said on Wednesday.
Their report, presented by investigation head Paulo Pinheiro to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, also listed multiple killings and kidnappings by armed opposition groups trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
“In the increasingly militarized context, human rights violations are occurring across the country on an alarming scale during military operations against locations believed to be hosting defectors and/or those perceived as affiliated with anti-government armed groups, including the Free Syrian Army,” the 20-page report said. (Emphasis Mine)
Syria’s ambassador dismissed the accusations and walked out of the debate after threatening to end cooperation.
The investigation’s report also said it was unable to determine who carried out a massacre of more than 100 people in Houla in late May but that forces loyal to Assad may have carried out many of the killings. This was based on its preliminary analysis of satellite images, videos and interviews with witnesses conducted either by telephone or Skype.
…
The U.N. investigators voiced concern that rebels were using children as medical porters, messengers and cooks, exposing them to risk of death and injury. Some had been going back and forth across the border with Turkey, they said.
Pinheiro, who made a first visit to Damascus at the weekend for talks with senior Syrian officials, presented the report to the U.N. Human Rights Council that set up the international inquiry last September.
…
“The evidence is incontrovertible. The Assad regime is waging a brutal campaign against the Syrian people, characterized by aerial bombardment, mass killings, rape and other atrocities,” U.S. ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said in her speech.
The U.N. team, which conducted nearly 400 interviews, said it had collected photographs, videos, satellite imagery and other documentary evidence during its recent investigative missions in the region.
It was updating its confidential list of identified perpetrators for possible use in future criminal prosecutions for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“We provided a list of names and units of the military forces or security sections of the government of Syria that based on our evidence would be able to be investigated as being responsible for gross human rights violations and international crimes,” Pinheiro said. (Read Entirety:Syria government, rebels violate rights: U.N.; Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Toby Chopra; Reuters, June 27, 2012)
See also this NRO report John Rosenthal dated 6/9/12 stating “rebels” executed Christians and Shia Alawites and then proceeded to make it look like the Assad Regime were the culprits of mass murder.
Independent reports out of the influence of Western Media except a German periodical indicate that the FSA has been framed and that the Shabiha Militia (Assad supporters) executed the massacre in Houla:
However, an analysis of what happened in Houla on May 25, as well as reports by locals, show that the atrocity was carried out by rebel forces, just as claimed by official Syrian news information agency SANA.
Tuesday reputed German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes the fact that the larger part of victims of the massacre were members of the Alawi and Shia minorities in teh (sic) village strongly points to the massacre being committed by armed Sunni rebels.
According to eyewitness reports quoted by FAZ, the atrocity began after rebel forces attacked three army checkpoints near the village to protect local Alawi communities.
During the skirmish, the massacre itself began, in which armed Sunni rebels turned on Alawi and Shia families and slaughtered them.
Then they filmed and photographed the victims to present them as Sunni victims of the Assad regime.
… (Read Entirety:Houla Massacre Likely Committed by Rebels, Not Syrian Govt; novinite.com; 6/12/12)
A Chinese News agency known as The 4th Media runs a long detailed article absolving the Assad Regime and the Shabiha Militia of the Houla Massacre utilizing info from Western sources, but keep in mind China is supportive of the Assad Regime. I doubt The 4th Media would engage in reporting that made Assad as culpable as the FSM in any massacre in Syria.
The best dissection of what happened in Houla are the enumerated details from a Muslim journalist Siraj Datoo. He quotes the German Newspaper FAZ which claims that 90% of Houla’s population were Sunni Muslims yet the more than 100 dead were Shia Alawites.
Datoo describes Assad’s army shelling Datoo. Then he writes while the shelling was going on the Sunni FSA rebels sought out the Shia living in Houla by going house to house and executing families (men, women & children) by gunfire and knife stabs. The FSA then took pictures and disseminated them to the Western press along with the verified shelling of Houla by Assad forces with the implication that the Shabiha Militia entered Houla after the shelling to massacre the people. The obvious wonderment is: Why in the world would the Shabiha massacre Shias rather than Sunnis?
Now let’s be clear though, Assad is far from a sainted Shia hero defending the innocent lives of his own faith and tribal affiliations. Assad has gone after Sunni population centers and indiscriminately killing them. So what we are seeing in the Syrian civil war is how Muslims in the Middle East conduct war. The Sunni-Shia divide and the ensuing murders of civilian populations based on a religio-ethnic cleansing is the modus operandi of Muslim war. Just think what will happen in Israel if there ever is a successful military assault that breaks through the IDF lines will begin a slaughter of Jews that will make the Nazi Holocaust look like a humane ethnic cleansing.
This one is a few days old so you probably have already heard about. The info was at the top of the list of my Western Center for Journalism email: Barack Obama was caught cheating with votes in 2008 and “Russian money” was a part of Obama’s campaign financing in 2008.
It is beyond me for any reason this is not big news even for the MSM. I do recall this mentioned in passing on a FOX News channel show of which I can’t recall at this moment.
The story says that STRATFOR VP Fred Burton let then candidate for VP know of ballot box stuffing in the States of Ohio and Pennsylvania. These are two large States in the Electoral College.
McCain chose not to act on the information. My guess for the reason McCain did not act on the info is because Obama would still have won the election because 270 was the plateau for winning. If there was verified info the Ohio and Pennsylvania were stolen States, I believe that would have been a great pretext to examine vote tallies in other States. For example Florida was a close race and was worth 27 Electoral Votes.Indiana was a close race in which Obama won by a mere .9% over McCain with the Electoral Votes being 11. Obama won North Carolina by a mere .04% and that was 15 Electoral Votes. Obama won Virginia by a mere 6% and those Electoral Votes were 13. If there were Obama/Dem Party shenanigans in some of these even closer elections than Ohio and Pennsylvania it would have raised McCain 280 Electoral Votes and reducing Obama to 258 Electoral Votes.
In this case McCain wins the Electoral College in 2008 280 to 258.
In 2008 the candidates for the Office of President were Barack Hussein Obama (Democrat) and John McCain (Republican).
From the beginning of BHO’s campaign I perceived he was less than honest person that too many voters accepted the promise of Change as if that meant merely change from the GWOT-President policies of eight years. Voters ignored what was known of Obama’s past and didn’t care about the past that Obama has still successfully hidden from the public eye.
The Republicans needed a charismatic person to overcome voter weariness of President George W. Bush policies of his 8 year tenure. Frankly I don’t believe voters would have been so weary of President GW if the Left Slanted MSM had not hated him so much. You will never see the media vilify Obama the way it did Bush even though the deceptiveness of Obama is well worth the vilification.
The Republican elites therefore sought a nominee that could swing Center-Left on some issues and Center-Right on other issues. In the beginning that candidate appeared to be Mitt Romney. Then the cantankerousness of McCain and the Social Conservatism of Huckabee gave GOP voters an alternative to the former Governor of Massachusetts which is one of the most Liberal States in the U.S. Union. In the 2008 the Conservatives were still the nerve center of the Republican Party and Romney’s record did not jive with Conservative issues.
Eventually the GOP race in 2008 became a race between the self-described rogue in McCain and the Social Conservative (but not necessarily a full-fledged fiscal Conservative) in Huckabee.
I believed then as I do now that McCain was a RINO. He was the perfect GOP Elite choice to try distance from Bush as a Center-Right and the hope of retaining the White House with McCain’s Center-Left thinking. McCain overcame Huckabee. By this time the Democrats had sold the voters that Obama would be the chosen one to bring back bi-partisan, transparent politics and the hope of ending an already long war in 2008.
Obama’s promises and vision was a bill of bad goods that a majority of American voters bought into. Obama had the leg up before McCain could paint a picture of a Moderate Centrist to receive the baton from Bush. In fact I am of the opinion McCain would have been crushed political even in worse terms if had not the foresight to choose a Family Values-Fiscal Conservative as a running mate. Indeed Sarah Palin captured the hearts of the GOP so much that the Left Wing MSM went on the attack on Palin to the point of making stories up to castigate her to the voters.
I did not like McCain but I did like Palin. I voted for the McCain/Palin ticket despite McCain’s RINO credentials because I knew Obama backed by the Clintonista political machine would take America down a path of “Change” that voters did not comprehend in 2008. I am no political pundit genius however Obama has lived up to everything I thought he would do.
The Obama mantra of “Change” had less to do with repudiating President Bush and more to do with transforming America into the Socialist European style democracy. Socialism European style means the shredding of the U.S. Constitution. The Living Constitution crap of the Left is turning the Original Intent of the U.S. Constitution into a historical fable of days gone by.
It appears that 2012 is a path that is mirroring 2008. Only this time Mitt Romney has more money and better organization. Romney has become the slow and steady tortoise racking up delegates while GOP Conservatives have been messing themselves up by splitting Conservative voters into fractured camps as Romney keeps collecting delegates. Many people are doing the math and the general consensus is Mr. slow and steady will win the GOP nomination because of the failure of Conservatives to unite behind one candidate.
Part of the problem is that the GOP candidates still in the running for the nomination have a bit of baggage that Conservative true-hearts find objectionable. An honest look at the records of Santorum and Gingrich will demonstrate their Conservative legislative decisions outweigh their Center-Left decisions. Can Romney make the same claim?
Anyway, I am still in the anyone-but-Romney crowd as a GOP voter and in the anyone-but-Obama voters when it comes to the General Election in November 2012. An Obama reelection will validate the course he has chosen for America. This means the Obamunistic Radical Left will continue to Change-Transform America into a Leftist Utopia solidifying Moral Relativity over Biblical Morality, Government intrusion over Limited Government, the agenda to denigrate Christianity over America’s Christian heritage, Demand Divisive Diversity over E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, ONE) and so on with the picture of Leftist Change.
I am voting for whoever wins the GOP nomination even if they are a RINO – again. It would take super star Conservative leadership to reverse the Leftist curse of EIGHT years of Obama. If the Tea Party Movement remains strong there will be a counter-balance of preventing a RINO from going too far to the Left. AND I know a RINO will not endorse the utopian agenda dreams of Obamunism.
Still there are Conservative purists that would rather vote on principle rather than succumb to a GOP President that might have tendencies to make some Center-Left decisions. My son Adam is one of those kind of Conservative purists. Another person is a Facebook friend Danny Jeffrey. Here is Jeffrey’s reasoning on sticking to principle.
U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.
The Conservative-Patriot Christian Right 
