Government Corruption

Analysis: Al-Qaeda Group Funded by Obama Admin Supported Bin Laden, Hamas, Afghan Terrorists

The bombshell revelation on Wednesday that the Obama administration funded an al-Qaeda group in Sudan ten years after it was designated a foreign terrorist organization merely scratched the surface of what the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) stands accused of. For a full account of the group that received $325,000 in U.S. taxpayer money in 2014 and 2015, we must turn to the U.S. Treasury Department documents Team Obama apparently did not bother to read. The ISRA was designated a financial supporter of terrorism by the Treasury Department in October 2004, under the authority of an executive order issued by President George W. Bush shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. President Bush declared a national emergency to deal with the “unusual and extraordinary threat” of terrorism, with special attention paid to the networks that funneled money to operations such as Osama bin Laden’s murderous al-Qaeda crew. Attacking terrorist financial networks was a key element of U.S. strategy after the atrocity of September 11. The ISRA was part of bin Laden’s financial network, as the Treasury Department made clear ten years before the Obama administration decided to provide the group with U.S. taxpayer money: Information available to the U.S. indicates that international offices of IARA provided direct financial support for UBL. IARA, MK and UBL commingled funds and cooperated closely in the raising and expenditure of funds. IARA engaged in a joint program with an institute controlled by UBL that was involved in providing assistance to Taliban fighters. In 2000, one of IARA’s Afghanistan leaders accompanied the Afghanistan MK leader on a fundraising trip to Sudan and other locations in the Middle East during which $5 million was raised for MK activities.

Holy crap!!  For more on this shocking story, click on the text above.  Unreal…

Opinion: America avoided a disaster — Look at the Clintons and their pal Harvey Weinstein

A year and a half after the fact, we are seeing photographs of Hillary and Bill Clinton at a cozy dinner just weeks after her failed presidential campaign, with accused serial rapist Harvey Weinstein. Having powerful friends like the Clintons is a reminder of not only how someone as disgusting as Mr. Weinstein remained in power, but why people were afraid to act against him. At the Clinton table at the very popular Rao’s restaurant in New York in early December 2016 were Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, his wife fashion designer Georgina Chapman, and Weinstein lawyer David Boies. The New York Times reported last year that the pals were discussing making a documentary about her loss to Donald Trump. The Daily Mail reported it received exclusive access to the never-before-seen photos of the Clintons with Mr. Weinstein. This reminds people of the sort of individuals she has chosen to surround herself with. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 loss, one would guess she’d have her closest friends with her, the people she could trust. And in early December, that apparently was Mr. Weinstein, with whom the Clintons had been friends for decades. According to the New York Police Department, Mr. Weinstein is charged with rape, a criminal sex act, sexual abuse and sexual misconduct involving two women. More charges could follow. It was less than a year after his best friend’s failure to gain the presidency and a mere 10 more months after that dinner at Rao’s, for the boom to be brought down on Mr. Weinstein. Mrs. Clinton still insists she had no idea about Mr. Weinstein’s alleged actions, so her friends and supporters have two options when it comes to her decades-long friendship with the accused rapist: Either she was the only Friend of Harvey in both Hollywood and politics who didn’t know, which makes her unqualified to hold any public office; or she did know and didn’t care. Either way, this is a woman whose judgment was and remains compromised. Some did try to warn her about the association. In one instance, the Daily Mail noted The New York Times had revealed “… Clinton’s campaign had been warned about the rumors swirling around about Weinstein. Actress Lena Dunham — one of Hillary’s biggest celebrity endorsers — emailed her campaign’s deputy communications director in 2016. The email stated: ‘I just want you to let you know that Harvey’s a rapist and this is going to come out at some point. I think it’s a really bad idea for him to host fund-raisers and be involved because it’s an open secret in Hollywood that he has a problem with sexual assault.’ “ Thus, the dinner photographs are a reminder about just how big a disaster America averted in 2016. If Mrs. Clinton had prevailed in 2016, consider the individuals who would now have more power than they ever did before. Then contemplate the sort of Cabinet a President Hillary Clinton would have assembled. Eric Schneiderman, the disgraced former New York attorney general who resigned after the Ronan Farrow/New Yorker expose on multiple women accusing him of abuse, very easily would have expected to become U.S. attorney general. And what could BFF Harvey Weinstein have expected? Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, of course. Mrs. Clinton’s election would likely mean the #MeToo movement never would have materialized. His close relationship with the Clintons would continue, and he would be a frequent visitor to the White House. Who could have stopped him then? Certainly then-FBI Director James B. Comey would have to be rewarded. Director of National Intelligence? After all, even with his renewing the investigation into her email server, he declared she would not be prosecuted, taking Attorney General Loretta Lynch out of the picture, clearing the whole thing up. Mrs. Clinton was president and Mr. Comey’s action probably saved the election. That’s likely what they thought, and would tell themselves if she succeeded. Now, let’s see … How does FBI Director Peter Strzok sound to you? Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page would have plum jobs reporting to their new boss at the bureau, no doubt. John Brennan would love being the National Security Adviser. James Clapper, head of Homeland Security? Of course. Not to mention Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS and source of the phony Russian dossier, as the White House director of communications? And then there’s the Supreme Court of the United States. So many to choose from: Barack Obama. Eric Holder. Former Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. Everyone had the next eight years planned, imagining the Hillary Clinton presidency as their final act prior to amazing retirements and gigantic pensions, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. Until Donald J. Trump. As you observe the continuing “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” know that it is from those who took too much for granted and held you in so much contempt. Like Hillary Clinton, those still trying to undermine the president simply refuse to take responsibility for their own failure, and be grateful every day that the American voter decided enough was enough.

No kidding!!  Thank God!  And, thanks to NY Times best-selling author, and radio personality Tammy Bruce for reminding us why we’re so grateful Hillary lost.  Excellent!!   🙂

Socialist Darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Called For Tax Cuts When She Was Running A Business, Now Wants To Raise Taxes To Fund Her Radical Agenda

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the upstart Democratic Socialist who shocked the political world in the June primary when she defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York, once advocated for tax cuts when she was running a business of her own, uncovered news reports from 2012 reveal. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, is a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization that calls for the abolishment of capitalism and argues that “private corporate property is not only wrong, but also nonsensical.” Her campaign platform calls for instituting a single-payer health care system, a federal jobs guarantee and housing as a human right, radical and expensive policies she says will be funded through raising taxes on corporations and high-income Americans. But Ocasio-Cortez appeared to have a different outlook on capitalism and taxes in 2012 when she was running a business of her own, Brook Avenue Press, an incorporated publishing firm for children’s books set in the Bronx. As a business owner, she came out in support of a bill that would provide tax deductions for business start-up costs, arguing that taxes directly impacted her business profits. “You don’t really make a profit in your first year,” Ocasio-Cortez told the now-defunct DNAinfo when she was 22. “To get taxed on top of that is a real whammy.” Ocasio-Cortez was then a member of the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator, a city-sponsored business hub that attracted dozens of entrepreneurs trying to get their businesses off the ground. “You see a huge return on your investment here,” Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Daily News of her involvement with the Business Incubator. “People pay $500 an hour for consulting that we get for free by the water cooler.” During her time in the business world, the self-proclaimed socialist tweeted out multiple articles by Paul Graham, an English-born entrepreneur and venture capitalist. She even gave entrepreneurial talks at Boston University, her alma mater, where she touted her partnership with the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator designing “entrepreneurial curricula for those interested in launching their own enterprises.” Her primary interests were in “entrepreneurship and developing innovated, healthy, enterprising communities for generations to come,” according to her speaker page on Boston University’s website. Ocasio-Cortez’s talk of the values of entrepreneurship, profits and lower taxes in 2012 are antithetical to the values she now espouses as a member of the DSA, an organization that marches the streets calling for the abolishment of profit. Ocasio-Cortez now rails against laws that cut taxes for businesses, such as the tax reform bill signed into law in December, which has been widely praised by small businesses. She claims the tax savings produced by the bill could have paid for health care and free public college for every American. The enterprising capitalist-turned-socialist is now being touted by high-ranking Democrats as the future of the party.

Just think about it..  Alexandria, who is now outted as a total hypocrite and fraud, is the “future of the Democratic Party” according to the DNC Chairman, Tom Perez.  That means, the Dems are openly against abolishing borders, abolishing profit, and abolishing jails, among other things.  Stop, and actually think about that.  Wow..   If there was ever a reason to vote Republican, its the thought that an open socialist like Alexandria will probably be in Congress in 2019.

For second year, Sanders earns more than $1M

For the second year in a row, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ income topped seven figures. A recent financial disclosure report shows the junior Vermont senator made nearly $1.06 million in 2017. Most of his income — $885,767 — came from advances and royalties, according to the report filed in May. Sanders earned $174,000 for his service in the Senate. The senator hit the $1 million mark for the first time in 2016. Most of his income came from a book deal “Our Revolution,” which came out after his failed bid for the Democratic nomination for president. Sanders, an independent, historically has been among the least wealthy members of Congress. In 2014, for example, he earned little more than his congressional salary and had $330,000 in assets. The 2016 presidential bid catapulted him to national prominence and paved the way for lucrative public speaking and publishing opportunities. Throughout his political career and during his presidential run, Sanders has railed against “millionaires and billionaires” who don’t pay enough in taxes. Jeff Weaver, the senator’s senior political adviser, said in an interview with VTDigger that questions about whether Sanders’ newfound wealth undermines his message about wealth inequality were “ridiculous.” “That was a pretty funny question, Anne,” Weaver said. “Bernie Sanders continues to fight for working class people across this country so I think it’s a pretty ridiculous question.” Weaver did not know whether the senator is donating money to charity. In 2014, Sanders gave 4 percent of his income to nonprofits. It is not clear if Sanders will contribute to two nonprofit organizations he founded in 2016 after his presidential bid — Our Revolution, a 501(c)4 political organization, and The Sanders Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit think tank co-founded by his wife and stepson. Sanders formed his own “dark money” group at the same time he railed against 501(c)4s, which are not required to publicly disclose financial information, and have been effectively used by conservatives to influence elections and policymaking. The 2017 disclosure form shows that the bulk of Sanders’ earnings came in the form of a $505,000 advance against royalties from publisher Macmillan – St. Martin’s Press. The New York-based publishing house is slated to put out a new book by the senator later this year. An additional $306,000 in royalties came from the same publisher, according to the form, which also published his bestseller “Our Revolution” in 2016. Sanders disclosed six royalty agreements, which involved book projects dating back to 1990 and a spoken-word folk music album he recorded in 1987. He also brought in money from a pension from the city of Burlington, where he was mayor for eight years in the 1980s. The senator owns three homes, including a retreat in the Lake Champlain islands. Sanders and his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, purchased the North Hero summer home for $575,000 in 2016. He is identified as a co-trustee on the “Islands Family Trust.” His disclosure lists two mortgages, one on a property between $100,001 and $250,000 in value, the other between $250,001 and $500,000.

Next time you hear cranky, socialist, ol’ Bernie go after “millionaires and billionaires,”  keep this in mind.  He’s one himself and a spectacular hypocrite.  This, of course, doesn’t even touch his perks as a U.S. Senator.  Yeah, he gets his $174K/year salary.  But, he gets all sorts of travel, franking (free postage), and other freebies that we-the-taxpayers pay for.  He’s a self-righteous, entitlement-minded, big-government, hypocrite in the extreme who, yes, owns 3 houses.  What a tool..

Editorial: Yes, There Was FBI Bias

There is much to admire in Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s highly anticipated report on the FBI’s Clinton-emails investigation. Horowitz’s 568-page analysis is comprehensive, fact-intensive, and cautious to a fault. It is also, nonetheless, an incomplete exercise — it omits half the story, the Russia investigation — and it flinches from following the facts to their logical conclusion. The media and the Left are spinning the report as a vindication of the FBI from the charge of bias, when the opposite is the truth. The IG extensively takes on numerous issues related to the decision not to charge former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for, primarily, causing the retention and transmission of classified information on the non-secure “homebrew” server system through which she improperly and systematically conducted government business. If there is a single theme that ties the sprawling report together, however, it is bias. Or, as the report put it, “the question of bias.” It should not really be a question, because the evidence of anti-Trump bias on the part of the agents who steered the Clinton probe — which was run out of headquarters, highly unusual for a criminal investigation — is immense. In fact, the most hair-raising section of the report, an entire chapter, is devoted to communications among several FBI officials (not just the infamous duo of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page), which overflow with abhorrence for Trump (“loathsome,” “an idiot,” “awful,” “an enormous d**che,” “f**k Trump”) and his core supporters (“retarded,” “the crazies,” one could “smell” them). More alarmingly, the agents express a determination to stop Trump from becoming president (e.g., Strzok, on being asked if Trump would become president, says “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it”; and on being assured that his election is highly unlikely, opines that “we can’t take that risk” and that the bureau needs “an insurance policy” against him). Yet despite marshaling this damning proof of bias, Horowitz spends much of his report discounting it with respect to individual investigative decisions. His approach obscures more than it illuminates. The IG says it is not his burden to second-guess “discretionary” investigative decisions unless they were irrational. Thus, even if agents exhibited bias, he presumes that such decisions as granting immunity, declining to seek relevant evidence, or forgoing subpoenas are defensible as long as some government policy arguably supports them — even if other, better options were available. FBI director Christopher Wray has pounced on this, disingenuously arguing that the IG “did not find any evidence of political bias or improper considerations impacting the investigation.” It is a misleading comment: The IG found overwhelming evidence of bias and merely withheld judgment on whether it affected the investigation at key points. Of course, what principally drove decisions in the Clinton-emails investigation (or “matter,” as Obama attorney general Loretta Lynch, like the Clinton campaign, insisted it be called) was the certainty that President Obama and his Justice Department were never going to permit Secretary Clinton to be charged with a crime, notwithstanding the abundant evidence. (Without a hint of irony, the report’s executive summary speaks of the supposed difficulty of proving Clinton’s knowledge of the hundreds of classified emails inevitably on her system, and then explains that the FBI abjured use of the grand jury because it would have required exposing prodigious amounts of classified information.) That is, regardless of whether individual decisions were driven by pro-Clinton bias, the predetermined outcome surely was. That’s why then-director James Comey was drafting his exoneration remarks months before critical evidence was obtained, and before Clinton and other key witnesses were interviewed. A comparison between the handling of the Clinton emails and that of the Trump-Russia probes would almost certainly illustrate the influence of this bias, but that is exactly what the IG report lacks. The report’s fans will say this is strictly a matter of timing: The IG’s Clinton-emails report has been 18 months in the making; it may take the IG even longer to complete the Trump-Russia review, and it would be unreasonable to delay any reckoning that long. But the fact that the IG’s inquiries into the two probes are on different tracks does not alter the more essential fact that the two are inextricably linked. They were conducted at the same time, by the same sets of top FBI agents and Justice Department officials, in the operating environment of the same event — the 2016 election. They were, moreover, perceived as interrelated by the agents themselves. Strzok’s first reaction, upon hearing that Ted Cruz had withdrawn from the GOP race, leaving Trump as the de facto nominee, was that this meant the Clinton-emails probe had to be wrapped up (i.e., formally closed without charges). When the Trump-Russia investigation got rolling, Strzok commented that, compared to the Clinton-emails probe, this was the investigation that really “MATTERS” (emphasis in original). And here is Strzok the day after Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel, on the opportunity to join his investigation of now-president Trump: ” For me, and this case, I personally have a sense of unfinished business. I unleashed it with MYE [Mid Year Exam — the FBI’s codeword for the Clinton Emails investigation]. Now I need to fix it and finish it.” Later in the same exchange he adds that this is a choice of whether he wants to be just another FBI assistant director or participate in an “investigation leading to impeachment.” It’s only Horowitz’s extremely forgiving standard for judging investigative decisions that allows him to say that the impact of bias on the Clinton investigation is inconclusive. This is not to dismiss the usefulness of the IG’s report. It reaffirms that the president had ample legitimate grounds to dismiss Director Comey, who is shown to be insubordinate and deceptive, a self-absorbed law unto himself. Furthermore, the IG’s equivocation about the role of bias does not detract from his powerful condemnation of the disrepute rogue agents have brought on the bureau. Still, there is important work left to be done in fully accounting for the decisions of an FBI whose reputation won’t soon recover from its performance in 2016.

Indeed..  Thanks to the editors of National Review for this excellent analysis.  It’s important to note that National Review is NOT part of the “Trump Train.”  In fact, they are just the opposite and even went so far as to put out a special edition critical of the very idea of a Trump presidency after the election had already been decided, but before he took office.  So, what you just read was from a bunch of inside-the-beltway, swamp, “never Trumpers.”

Report: Rank-and-File FBI Agents Eager to Blow Whistle on Comey, Holder, Lynch

A new report claims that a significant number of rank-and-file FBI agents are chomping at the bit to expose Obama-era leaders, alleging corruption and even criminal violations of the law. These agents are signaling that the only way they can safely and legally blow the whistle is if Congress subpoenas them individually to provide information about their former bosses. “There are agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by [James] Comey’s behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs like [John] Brennan–who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of political intelligence by the Obama administration thugs,” Joe DiGenova, a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, told the Daily Caller. “They are just waiting for a chance to come forward and testify.” In a statement to the Daily Caller, an unnamed FBI agent claimed, “Every special agent I have spoken to in the Washington Field Office wants to see McCabe prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They feel the same way about Comey.” “All Congress needs to do is subpoena involved personnel and they will tell you what they know. These are honest people. Leadership cannot stop anyone from responding to a subpoena. Those subpoenaed also get legal counsel provided by the government to represent them,” the agent added. Former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom made similar statements when asked last December about morale at the bureau. “Well, I think there’s a lot of patriots that have had it up to here with what’s going on, and they’re going to step forward and tell people what the shenanigans have been,” Kallstrom told Fox News’ Stuart Varney. “How they shut down the Clinton Foundation investigation, how other things were done that are so anti-what the FBI and the United States and this country is about.” Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations reported last Thursday that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has “found ‘reasonable grounds’ for believing there has been a violation of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ’s handling of the Clinton investigation/s,” adding that the top watchdog official has “referred his findings of potential criminal misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution.”

Mueller’s investigation of Trump ‘needs to conclude,’ Sessions says

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that an ongoing probe into President Trump “needs to conclude” in order to let him focus on North Korea, the U.S.-Mexico border and other world negotiations. Mr. Sessions also said he expects the Justice Department inspector general to finish his investigation into the department’s and FBI’s handling of investigations into Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election in a “few weeks,” saying that will provide more information for decisions on whether there was wrongdoing. Testifying to the House on Thursday, Mr. Sessions was pressed by a lawmaker who said he saw a “double standard” in comparing the ongoing special counsel probe into Mr. Trump, while Mr. Sessions has declined to name a second special counsel to review the way the department and the FBI handled Mrs. Clinton. “At the very root of this, I think my constituents are frustrated, are angry, they see a double standard historically. They want justice,” said Rep. Evan Jenkins, West Virginia Republican, ticking off a number of red flags he said deserved the heightened powers a special counsel should look at. Mr. Sessions said he didn’t want to appoint special counsels “willy-nilly” but said his department is taking deliberate steps. He’s named a U.S. attorney to oversee an investigation and coordinate with the inspector general whose probe has been ongoing for months. He also said they’re sharing an unprecedented amount of information with GOP-led congressional committees who are probing the same matters. “If there’s wrongdoing we’re going to take action about it,” he said. He said he knows the president is “concerned” about the ongoing special counsel investigation into figures surrounding Mr. Trump, and Mr. Sessions said it needs to end so the president can deal with the job of running the executive branch. “He’s dealing with France and North Korea and Syria and taxes and regulations and border and crime every day,” Mr. Sessions said. “This thing needs to conclude. So I understand his frustrations and I understand the American people’s frustrations.”