Americans Must Demand Justice in Obamagate
By Cliff Kincaid - May 24, 2020 As we remember those who served our country, fighting for the great American experiment in self-government and individual liberty, the fate of America’s constitutional republic hangs in the balance. This is not because of the threat posed by China but because of a seeming inability by our criminal justice system to hold lawbreakers and traitors accountable. “I have a chance to break the Deep State” said President Trump in his interview with Sharyl Attkisson (pictured above left) on Sunday. Yet, his Attorney General Bill Barr says he doesn’t see grounds for prosecuting Obama and/or his Vice President Joe Biden for a criminal conspiracy to destroy the Trump presidency. Attkisson, who was essentially forced out of CBS News for being too tough on the Obama administration, filed suit over illegal government surveillance of her activities. She had dared to report on Operation Fast and Furious, in which the Obama administration shipped guns to Mexico which were later used to kill U.S. border agent Brian Terry. Attkisson was willing to confront the Deep State before the same forces tried to take down Trump. “You happen to be a victim of the Deep State,” Trump told her during the interview. By contrast, Kimberley Strassel (pictured above right) of the Wall Street Journal wrote a May 18, 2017, column about the appointment of Russia-gate prosecutor Robert S. Mueller, saying the former FBI director was “as skilled and upright as they come” and insisted that “A Robert Mueller word-association game would go something like this: integrity, honor, respect, order, discipline, honesty, fairness.” She added that “…nobody doubts Mr. Mueller will lead as professional an investigation as he is capable of conducting.” I doubted it. I wrote extensively about the fact that Mueller’s FBI bungled the post-9/11 anthrax case and fingered several innocent people. He was sued by an agency whistleblower. He followed up by ordering FBI training materials to ignore the role of the Islamist ideology that inspired the enemy. Now, Strassel, a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, is defending Barr, saying in a column, “Biden Will Answer for FBI Abuse,” that it is sufficient to hold Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, accountable at the ballot box. The Strassel column is just another indication that, unless ordinary citizens rise up and demand justice, Obama and Biden will not be held accountable for Obamagate. Trying to explain Barr’s decision not to prosecute Obama/Biden, Strassel says that “While their actions may not rise to a ‘crime,’ both men [Biden and Obama] may be guilty of an outrageous abuse of power. Such abuses require political accountability, through elections.” But Obama is not running for anything. He may be pulling the strings behind the Biden for president campaign, but he is not technically on the ballot. This kind of “abuse of power” involves the attempted destruction of an elected government. In a previous column, “Republicans Don’t Dare Call It Treason,” I quoted various honest liberals and progressives as saying that Obamagate is a scandal that rises to the level of criminal conspiracy and even treason. Somehow, establishment conservative journalists like Strassel can’t see it that way. The Wall Street Journal is willing to let Biden escape justice because he is being propped up for a presidential run and his puppet masters operate behind-the-scenes. Her concluding paragraph is another excuse for doing nothing except wait for the elections. She says, “Americans can’t expect or want the Justice Department to settle political disputes through drummed-up criminal investigations. The country has a tried and true way of settling those fights: a vote.” It is not a “drummed-up criminal investigation” when the evidence shows that the Obama-Biden administration used American intelligence and law enforcement agencies to sabotage the incoming Trump Administration and destroy the career and life of Trump National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn. We have waited for over three years for the pieces of this puzzle to fall into place. Now that the evidence is emerging, Strassel wants America to wait for elections that the progressives intend to steal through mail-in ballots. When Strassel and other conservatives like Andrew C. McCarthy praised Mueller, the left-wing forces in this country knew they had a green light to wreck Trump’s presidency with almost two years of legal harassment that failed to turn up any evidence of so-called Russian collusion. Strassel changed her mind about Mueller over the course of his investigation, but I don’t remember a simple “I’m sorry” coming from her lips, in the form of a column or during her appearances on the Wall Street Journal show on Fox News. In addition to initially failing to tell the truth about Mueller, and now failing to hold Attorney General Barr accountable for letting Obama/Biden off the hook, Strassel failed to appreciate the nature of the forces trying to take down Trump. For example, in her column praising Mueller, she said, “In tapping Mr. Mueller as special counsel to look into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has certainly doused the political flames. Democrats were forced to tone down their chant for instant impeachment.” In fact, it just wetted the appetite of Trump’s enemies to accelerate their campaign to destroy his presidency. Nevertheless, she developed a reputation as a sophisticated critic of the political left. Her 2019 book, Resistance (At All Costs): How Trump Haters Are Breaking America, was described as an examination of how the left “has become dangerously reckless in its obstruction of President Trump.” For his part, looking for friends anywhere he can find them, President Trump has tweeted about Strassel or retweeted her commentaries about Russia-gate. On April 18, 2019, he tweeted: “Kimberley Strassel should get the Pulitzer. She is a treasure (and I don't know her) who correctly called the Russia Hoax right from the start!” Not really, Mr. President. She was wrong from the start about Mueller. She paved the way for Mueller’s legal malpractice. Attkisson is the one who deserves the Pulitzer. Now we learn that Mueller's former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann will headline a virtual fundraiser for the Biden campaign. Strassel wrote about him in her book on the Trump Haters, noting that he had attended Hillary Clinton’s election night party in 2016. But Strassel thinks the American criminal justice system ought to leave Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden alone. *Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org
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Biden accuser Tara Reade: “His hands were on me and underneath my clothes. And then he went down my skirt but then up inside it, and he penetrated me with his fingers. And he was kissing me at the same time.” Source From the Biden Foundation archives: Biden Foundation Announces Advisory Councils Focused on Ending Violence Against Women, Advancing LGBTQ Equality Excerpt: Members named to the Advisory Council for Ending Violence Against Women include:
From the White House archives: About Vice President Biden's Efforts to End Violence Against Women China, Not Fauci, Is the Enemy
By Cliff Kincaid – May 21, 2020 A “conservative” columnist recently called for Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx to be tried as criminals and imprisoned. This is crazy. American scientists and doctors are not the enemy. China is. And America can respond to this attack of the coronavirus by confiscating Chinese financial assets and property. Much of it is in California. It’s time for action. Looking back, President Trump followed the advice of Fauci and Birx about locking down the economy, although he left most of this task to the governors of the 50 states. So, logically speaking, the columnist angry with Fauci and Birx should be advocating the jailing of the Commander-in-Chief because he took their advice. Such a course is lunacy. Trump did what made sense at the time. Medical professionals can and should be second-guessed. There is also a need to investigate the collaboration of the Medical Deep State with China, including the millions of dollars that flowed to the Wuhan lab. But the finger-pointing ignores the ultimate source of the problem – Communist China. As Americans, we should be united in our hatred and disgust for the Communist Chinese rulers. We should want to make them pay. How? The answer is simple -- by seizing their property in the United States. Much of that is in California. To understand what we have to do, we have to remember how we got there. In a difficult situation, brought on by China’s release of the virus, Trump was advised on a course of action he was told was necessary to avoid more than two million deaths. When he was looking for how the federal government should respond, he turned to people wo have handled other infectious diseases in the past and were on the government payroll. He turned to the government “experts,” Fauci, Birx, and others, in order to delay and contain the spread of the coronavirus. He did what anyone in that position would do. He had very little time, as a result of Chinese lies and cover-ups, to respond. Fauci and Birx are not perfect, and there is legitimate criticism of the advice they gave to the president. In the past, for example, they both worked on an HIV/AIDS vaccine, a project 23 years in the making but is still a bust. Government decisions have been questionable, on such matters as to whether or not to wear a mask and how long the virus lives and spreads on surfaces or objects. One day, a careful review of their advice and whether it was correct will be done. But it’s silly to fault President Trump for turning to these people. These experts are being attacked and threatened with jail time by conservatives upset with the economic damage and dislocation caused by the government response to coronavirus. The critics of Trump, on both the right and left, are losing sight of the real villain – the Chinese authorities. Even now, despite the brouhaha over a vaccine, our “experts” do not yet completely understand the nature of this virus and its ability to spread and mutate, possibly making a vaccine unlikely or even impossible. Curiously, China destroyed early samples of the virus. We need Fauci and Birx, and many others, involved in finding a solution. Trump would be wise to expand his circle of authorities and go beyond the Medical Deep State. But that doesn’t mean the authorities he relied on initially should be banished to Siberia. In the meantime, our leaders need to quickly consider a necessary response to the Chinese regime. One approach to China is to sue the corrupt and evil rulers. When it comes to suing the Chinese government, one of the few lawyers I would trust to do so in an aggressive manner is Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch. Klayman isn’t content to file Freedom of Information requests; he goes for the jugular. His lawsuit against China demands $20 trillion in damages and he intends to make the Chinese Communists sweat blood in court. He would tie the communist lawyers into knots, which would be something to see. He would humiliate them. And the communists deserve to be humiliated in a public forum. John Yoo, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and his co-author, Robert J. Delahunty, argue for other measures, such as the imposition of economic sanctions on Chinese officials, general tariffs on Chinese imports, restrictions on Chinese investment in the U.S., and the expropriation of Chinese property in the United States. “Conceivably,” they argue, “Washington could even cancel Chinese-held treasury debt and using the proceeds to create a trust fund that would compensate Americans harmed by the pandemic.” Grzegorz Górny, a writer for the global publication Remix, did some digging into the controversy and points out that the U.S. Department of the Treasury clearly has the power to “confiscate Chinese assets in the U.S.” and “freeze all operations using American government obligations which were purchased by China…” The latter is estimated at $1.2 trillion. He concludes, “In one swift move, the U.S. may annul that debt and free itself from the Chinese loop.” In looking for Chinese investments to expropriate, the place to go is California. “California became the number one recipient of Chinese FDI [foreign direct investment] in recent years, with more than $16 billion in 2016 alone,” notes a report from the Asia Society and the Rhodium Group. “Much of the investment has gone into two important areas – real estate and technology.” Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, the China reporter for Axios, assembled the facts and figures about Chinese aid-and-trade with the United States, confirming that California is “hooked” on China. Of the top 10 states with the highest net trade with China. California is number one by far. Last September, Democratic Party Governor Gavin Newsom’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) announced the expansion of the China Trade & Investment Network (CTIN), in order to facilitate the state’s trade and investment efforts in China. “The trade relationship between California and China is one of the largest in the world, with two-way trade valued at $177 billion in 2018,” the release said. Just a few months later China unleashed the virus on the world. That was quite an import for California. Incredibly, Newsom made a nearly $1 billion deal to receive surgical masks from China to protect against the virus. They failed to arrive on time. *Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org . Republicans Don’t Dare Call It Treason
By Cliff Kincaid – May 19, 2020 As more evidence emerges of the role played by former President Barack Hussein Obama in directing Russia-gate, President Donald J. Trump’s “allies” are leaving the field of battle. They seem not to want to hold Barack Hussein Obama responsible for what President Trump calls the “biggest political crime in American history, by far!” First, Senator Lindsey Graham said he wouldn’t subpoena Obama to testify before his Judiciary Committee about Russia-gate. Then, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA,) stated that House Republicans have not made any criminal referrals for Obama or 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and Obama former Vice President Joe Biden relating to Russia-gate. Finally, Attorney General William Barr said he did not expect criminal probes of either Obama or Biden in the matter. This is all we need to know about whether top Republicans in the House and Senate, and an Attorney General nominated by Republican President Trump, are serious about getting to the bottom of Russia-gate. This is so despite the fact that progressive historian Eric Zuesse has written that Obama is in “severe legal jeopardy” because of his role in sabotaging the Trump Administration. He explains, “The biggest crime that a U.S. President can commit is to try to defeat American democracy (the Constitutional functioning of the U.S. Government) itself, either by working with foreign powers to take it over, or else by working internally within America to sabotage democracy for his or her own personal reasons.” In either case, he wrote, it’s treason. “What we are watching is turning out to be traces of a plot against a government elected by the American people,” said Michael Hudson and Paul Craig Roberts about the role of various Obama officials in sabotaging the Trump Administration. They added, in a story that was published back in 2017, that, “Law requires Trump to arrest those responsible and to put them on trial for treason and conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.” Here we are three years later and Graham, Nunes, and now Barr have not done anything to hold Obama personally responsible. They have failed to provide Trump with the legal basis on which to accuse Obama and others with treasonous conduct. Left-wingers not beholden to the Democratic Party are willing to admit the obvious. Author Branko Marcetic called the targeting of Trump National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn “a case of entrapment” and said the FBI “even used outright false claims to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page…” He concluded that the FBI and various US government agencies engaged in “prosecutorial overreach, entrapment, and the criminalization of foreign policy dissent” in the case of Russia-gate. Trying to appeal to traditional liberals, he notes, “…the fact that the FBI’s misconduct was aimed at a right-wing government this time should be no reason for Democrats to dismiss the magnitude of the scandal.” The magnitude of the scandal is what makes it treason. This was a direct assault on the American system of government that we now understand was based on a phony dossier, compiled by a former British spy, based on Russian disinformation. Nunes wrote a book back in 2010, Restoring the Republic, but he has not followed through in the matter of holding Obama accountable. Graham frequently appears on the Fox News Sean Hannity show, posturing as a conservative, but he won’t call Obama to testify at his upcoming Russia-gate hearings. After Barr said he didn’t anticipate criminal charges against Obama or Biden, the conservative legal analyst, Andrew C. McCarthy, agreed that what Obama and Biden did “simply may not be criminal,” even though the Democrats’ may have used counterintelligence powers “for partisan political purposes.” Why the eagerness to let Obama off the hook? These inside-the-beltway politicians and commentators are afraid to use the word “treason.” They are failing the American people and their president. In truth, Obama’s motives were two-fold. One, he wanted to disrupt the Trump Administration, making it impossible for Trump to govern and deal with real national security problems. Obama knew this would enable our enemies to gain an advantage over us. Second, he was afraid that the Trump Administration would use the resources of the government to investigate Obama’s own mysterious background and identity. As we argued in one of our Obama books, Comrade Obama Unmasked: Marxist Mole in the White House, “The smoking gun evidence of Barack Hussein Obama's deep personal relationship with suspected Soviet espionage agent and Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis is the real Russia-gate scandal.” At one of his press briefings, Trump was asked by the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker “What crime, exactly, are you accusing President Obama of committing and do you believe the Justice Department should prosecute him?” “You know what the crime is,” Trump replied. “The crime is very obvious to everybody.” He added, “All you have to do is read the newspapers -- except yours.” The answer to the question is treason. It’s obvious. But in this day and age, treason is not talked about. To cite another example, consider the actions of the Federal Reserve in hiring the notorious firm BlackRock to help purchase billions of dollars in bonds and securities. At a Tuesday hearing, Senator Martha McSally asked chairman Jerome Powell why a firm like BlackRock, which invests in Chinese companies, had been hired for this purpose. He replied, in part: “All large asset managers buy Chinese securities. These are global asset managers -- I’m not here to defend or criticize them for that, it’s just not really relevant to the work that we want them to do.” It’s “not relevant” when a firm does business with a country and regime that unleashed this virus on the world? Why didn’t the Fed require Blackrock to divest from China? That’s precisely what the National Legal and Policy Center has asked the firm to do. One of McSally’s concerns was whether the profits made by BlackRock would be used to buy more Chinese companies. “Communist China should not be profiting off of unleashing this calamity on the world and that is something that should unite all Americans, even if they work at BlackRock,” she said. Powell apparently didn’t think that was “relevant.” She noted that BlackRock’s website has a page titled “Five Myths and realities about investing in China,” and explained, “According to BlackRock, one of the biggest myths about China is that Chinese state-owned enterprises don’t control their economy, and BlackRock even tries to back that up with data -- I won’t go into all of it, but it’s ridiculous.” Speaking of the Chinese, in November of 2017, as Russia-gate was underway, Obama made a trip to Beijing, to have what was described as a “hush-hush” meeting with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. They were described as “veteran cadres,” a term generally applied to retired Chinese Communist Party officials. In the midst of all of this, a Fox News anchor, Neil Cavuto, is attacking President Trump for using a drug he promoted, hydroxychloroquine, in order to prevent coronavirus. His physician said the drug has potential and the risks are relatively low. Rather than attack the president, he should be commended for practicing what he preaches. But in this upside-down world, in which Obama is accused of treason, and the Federal Reserve uses a China-friendly company to conduct business, Trump is once again made into a villain – and on a so-called “conservative” news channel. *Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org Official release:
MAY 18, 2020 Chairman Graham Announces Committee to Consider Subpoena Authorization Related to Oversight of FISA Process, Crossfire Hurricane Investigation WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today announced that the Committee would debate and vote on a subpoena authorization related to the FISA abuse investigation and oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Graham’s subpoena authorization covers a number of documents, communications and testimony from witnesses, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan, Sally Yates, and others. The subpoena authorization will be first listed on the agenda for the Committee’s executive business meeting on May 21, 2020. The Committee is expected to vote on the subpoena authorization at its June 4, 2020 executive business meeting. Background on Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena authorizations:
Witnesses, documents and other materials covered by Graham’s subpoena authorization:
Trisha Anderson, Brian Auten, James Baker, William Barr, Dana Boente, Jennifer Boone, John Brennan, James Clapper, Kevin Clinesmith, James Comey, Patrick Conlon, Michael Dempsey, Stuart Evans, Tashina Gauhar, Carl Ghattas, Curtis Heide, Kathleen Kavalec, David Laufman, Stephen Laycock, Jacob Lew, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, Mary McCord, Denis McDonough, Arthur McGlynn, Jonathan Moffa, Sally Moyer, Mike Neufield, Sean Newell, Victoria Nuland, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Stephanie L. O’Sullivan, Lisa Page, Joseph Pientka, John Podesta, Samantha Power, E.W. “Bill” Priestap, Sarah Raskin, Steve Ricchetti, Susan Rice, Rod Rosenstein, Gabriel Sanz-Rexach, Nathan Sheets, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Glenn Simpson, Steve Somma, Peter Strzok, Michael Sussman, Adam Szubin, Jonathan Winer, Christopher Wray, and Sally Yates. Official release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, May 18, 2020Attorney General William P. Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray Announce Significant Developments in the Investigation of the Naval Air Station Pensacola ShootingToday, Attorney General William P. Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray announced significant developments in the FBI’s investigation of the December 6, 2019 shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola that killed three U.S. sailors and severely wounded eight other Americans. On January 13, 2020, Attorney General Barr announced that the shooting was an act of terrorism and publicly asked Apple to help the FBI access the locked contents of two iPhones belonging to the deceased terrorist Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. The company declined to do so. Attorney General Barr announced that the FBI recently succeeded in unlocking the phones of Alshamrani, who had attempted to destroy them while launching his attack. The phones contained important, previously-unknown information that definitively established Alshamrani’s significant ties to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), not only before the attack, but before he even arrived in the United States. The FBI now has a clearer understanding of Alshamrani’s associations and activities in the years, months, and days leading up to the attack. “Thanks to the great work of the FBI – and no thanks to Apple – we were able to unlock Alshamrani’s phones,” said Attorney General Barr. “The trove of information found on these phones has proven to be invaluable to this ongoing investigation and critical to the security of the American people. However, if not for our FBI’s ingenuity, some luck, and hours upon hours of time and resources, this information would have remained undiscovered. The bottom line: our national security cannot remain in the hands of big corporations who put dollars over lawful access and public safety. The time has come for a legislative solution.” “I could not be prouder of the relentless dedication of the men and women at the FBI who worked for months under difficult conditions to access these devices,” said Director Wray. “Their skill and persistence, and the sustained investigative efforts by FBI Jacksonville, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, and our many other federal, state, and local partners, have been nothing short of extraordinary in this case. As we continue to seek answers around the December 6th terrorist attack that killed three American service members and wounded others, I want their families, and all Americans, to know that protecting the United States from those who seek to do us harm remains the FBI’s foremost priority. Our work against the threat of terrorism never rests.” Investigators sought and received court authorization to search the contents of Alshamrani’s iPhones within one day of the December 6, 2019 terrorist attack. Unable to unlock the phones because of their security features, and having exhausted all readily available options, the FBI approached Apple for its assistance in early January 2020. The company declined to assist. FBI technical experts succeeded in accessing the phones’ contents over four months after the attack, revealing highly-significant evidence, including:
The evidence derived from Alshamrani’s unlocked phones has already proven useful in protecting the American people. In particular, a counterterrorism operation targeting AQAP operative Abdullah al-Maliki, one of Alshamrani’s overseas associates, was recently conducted in Yemen. Blood Brothers: Barack Obama, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain
By Cliff Kincaid – May 17, 2020 President Trump once said about Senator Lindsey Graham that he “would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years with thousands of soldiers and fighting other people’s wars.” This statement is critical to understanding why Senator Graham has announced that he won’t bring Barack Hussein Obama before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain his role in Russia-gate. Graham knows that Obama targeted Trump National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn because Flynn was opposed to the Obama policy of using the CIA to destabilize the Middle East and bring the Muslim Brotherhood and other Jihadist forces to power. But here’s the kicker: Graham and the late Senator John McCain were blood brothers with Obama in promoting the “Arab spring” uprisings in the Middle East that left 560,000 dead in Syria alone when a civil war ensued. To make matters worse, the Russians won anyway. This is a real scandal, in contrast to the phony allegations against Trump that Graham friend and collaborator John McCain gave to the FBI in the form of the Steele dossier. What’s more, it was Graham who actually encouraged McCain to go to the FBI with this bogus document, which was based on Russian disinformation. Any simple Google search discloses many stories about the “secret” operations ordered by Obama and carried out by John Brennan’s CIA that sent arms through Saudi Arabia and Qatar into the hands of “rebels” in the Middle East that turned out to include Jihadists. The New York Times estimated the cost of the CIA program at $1 billion. So-called “moderate” forces supported by the U.S. even admitted some of their weapons went to groups like al Qaeda and ISIS. Incredibly, Graham and McCain turned on Obama only when he failed to escalate the wars even further. They had sought 20,000 more U.S. ground troops in Syria and Iraq in 2015. These “dirty wars,” a major blot on America’s reputation and standing in the world, are critical to understanding Obama’s involvement in the plot to prevent Flynn from serving as Trump’s National Security Adviser. Remember that Obama had fired Flynn from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and then Flynn had campaigned for candidate Trump, who had promised an end to unwinnable foreign wars. This was a direct challenge to Obama’s legacy. Flynn had been appointed Trump’s National Security Adviser when an illegal leak to the Washington Post made a “scandal” of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian Ambassador. Flynn was forced out, framed by the FBI, and pleaded guilty under pressure to charges of lying. Belated recognition of the set-up has led the Justice Department to now drop the case against him (although a Clinton-appointed federal judge is trying to keep it alive). Flynn has been unable to explain his side of the story because of the legal assault against him. But according to his writings and previously known public statements, Flynn considered America’s intelligence on the rise of Sunni terrorist groups in the Middle East to be flawed. Citing intelligence from the DIA, the agency he ran, he saw the Obama policies as producing more instability and chaos, even leading to the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS. In short, Obama’s policy was producing more terrorists. When Trump ended this disastrous policy in mid-2017, the Washington Post reported the news in a story headlined, “Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria, a move sought by Moscow.” This was an attempt to keep Russia-gate, which was then underway, going full-speed ahead, by creating the impression that Trump was doing Moscow’s bidding. Echoing the Post, Lindsey Graham sent out a Tweet, saying that if the story were true and the CIA program was ending, “it would be a complete capitulation to Assad, Russia, and Iran.” In fact, using the CIA to destabilize the Assad regime in Syria had already backfired by provoking a Russian military response, in the form of intervention on behalf of Syria in 2015. Assad is still in power to this day, consolidating his victory, and so are the Iranian mullahs. Eventually, Trump made another smart move – withdrawing U.S. military support for the Kurds, a Marxist-led group seeking their own independent state in the region that claimed to be fighting ISIS. Wisely, Trump left this problem to the Turks, fellow members of NATO, who opposed U.S. support for the Kurds with good reason, since Kurdish groups have been waging war on Turkish civilians for decades. Trump understood that the Turks were the best defense against Syrian and Russian expansionist designs in the region. At the same news conference where he rejected Graham’s Middle East policies, Trump went on to say, “The people of South Carolina don't want us to get into a war with Turkey, a NATO member, or with Syria. Let them fight their own wars. They've been fighting for a thousand years. Let them fight their own wars.” Considering this tension between Trump and Graham (and Obama), Graham’s rejection of Trump’s request for Obama to testify at his upcoming Russia-gate hearings makes sense. He knows the truth would backfire on those who were co-conspirators in the Obama/CIA policy that led to so much death and destruction in the Middle East (and which Michael T. Flynn opposed). Clearly, Graham and McCain were on Obama’s side and bear some of the responsibility for the terrible loss of life in the region, not to mention the millions of refugees. In order to deflect attention away from those “dirty wars,” the Steele dossier was peddled not only by the Democrats but by McCain and Graham to frame Flynn, Trump, and other officials as Russian agents. No matter how pro-Trump Graham today sounds, in his multiple appearances on Sean Hannity’s Fox program, the cold hard facts tell a different story. Graham, who helped get Russia-gate started, is now going to hold hearings into how Russia-gate got started? That’s a joke. It’s even more laughable now that Graham says he won’t call Obama as a witness. Clearly, he wants to protect Obama. And by protecting Obama, he hides his bloody hands in Syria and his anti-Trump maneuvers that started Russia-gate in the first place. *Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org Official release:
The United States Protects National Security and Integrity of 5G Networks 05/15/2020 04:24 PM EDT Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State The U.S. government today took another step to protect U.S. national security and the integrity of 5G networks by expanding the Commerce Department’s foreign direct product rule to restrict Huawei from circumventing U.S. law. We will not tolerate efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to undermine the privacy of our citizens or the integrity of next-generation networks worldwide. Huawei is an untrustworthy vendor and a tool of the Chinese Communist Party, beholden to its orders. The Department of Justice has indicted Huawei for stealing U.S. technology and helping Iran evade sanctions, and the Department of Commerce placed Huawei on the Entity List in 2019. The Department of State has engaged for more than a year to share what we know about Huawei and other untrustworthy vendors with allies and partners around the world. Today’s expanded rule helps prevent Huawei from undermining U.S. export controls, closing a loophole that has allowed the company to exploit U.S. technology and threaten our national security. It also imposes U.S. export control restrictions on countries that use U.S. technology or software to design and produce semiconductors for Huawei. Companies wishing to sell certain items to Huawei produced with U.S. technology must now obtain a license from the United States. The United States will continue to restrict most U.S. exports to Huawei and its affiliates on the Entity List for activities that threaten U.S. national security and international stability. Offiical release:
Commerce Addresses Huawei’s Efforts to Undermine Entity List, Restricts Products Designed and Produced with U.S. Technologies Trade enforcement FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, May 15, 2020 Office of Public Affairs (202) 482-4883 [email protected] The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) today announced plans to protect U.S. national security by restricting Huawei’s ability to use U.S. technology and software to design and manufacture its semiconductors abroad. This announcement cuts off Huawei’s efforts to undermine U.S. export controls. BIS is amending its longstanding foreign-produced direct product rule and the Entity List to narrowly and strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology. Since 2019 when BIS added Huawei Technologies and 114 of its overseas-related affiliates to the Entity List, companies wishing to export U.S. items were required to obtain a license.[1] However, Huawei has continued to use U.S. software and technology to design semiconductors, undermining the national security and foreign policy purposes of the Entity List by commissioning their production in overseas foundries using U.S. equipment. “Despite the Entity List actions the Department took last year, Huawei and its foreign affiliates have stepped-up efforts to undermine these national security-based restrictions through an indigenization effort. However, that effort is still dependent on U.S. technologies,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “This is not how a responsible global corporate citizen behaves. We must amend our rules exploited by Huawei and HiSilicon and prevent U.S. technologies from enabling malign activities contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.” Specifically, this targeted rule change will make the following foreign-produced items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR): (i) Items, such as semiconductor designs, when produced by Huawei and its affiliates on the Entity List (e.g., HiSilicon), that are the direct product of certain U.S. Commerce Control List (CCL) software and technology; and (ii) Items, such as chipsets, when produced from the design specifications of Huawei or an affiliate on the Entity List (e.g., HiSilicon), that are the direct product of certain CCL semiconductor manufacturing equipment located outside the United States. Such foreign-produced items will only require a license when there is knowledge that they are destined for reexport, export from abroad, or transfer (in-country) to Huawei or any of its affiliates on the Entity List. To prevent immediate adverse economic impacts on foreign foundries utilizing U.S. semiconductor manufacturing equipment that have initiated any production step for items based on Huawei design specifications as of May 15, 2020, such foreign-produced items are not subject to these new licensing requirements so long as they are reexported, exported from abroad, or transferred (in-country) by 120 days from the effective date. Federal Register notice of the interim final rule is available here. [1] In May 2019, BIS added Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and certain non-U.S. affiliates to the Entity List (with additional affiliates added in August 2019) on the basis of information that provided a reasonable basis to conclude that Huawei is engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests. This information included the activities alleged in the Department of Justice’s public Superseding Indictment of Huawei, including alleged violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), conspiracy to violate IEEPA by providing prohibited financial services to Iran, and obstruction of justice in connection with the investigation of those alleged violations of U.S. sanctions. BUREAUS AND OFFICES Bureau of Industry and Security Donald J. Trump Tweet: When the so-called “rich guys” speak negatively about the market, you must always remember that some are betting big against it, and make a lot of money if it goes down. Then they go positive, get big publicity, and make it going up. They get you both ways. Barely legal? These are the short sellers. Updated from 2010: Watch Zubi Diamond, the author of Wizards of Wall Street, describe how George Soros and the hedge fund short sellers destroy the American system of free enterprise. Click here. Zubi Diamond, author of the powerful new book, Wizards of Wall Street, says the agenda of George Soros and other short sellers is clear. Their purpose, he says, is “to loot America and any foreign country which invested in America. Greece was one of them. Iceland was ravaged and annihilated.” The term “short selling” in this context refers to investors, speculators and currency manipulators who bet on the decline or collapse of a stock or currency through complex financial instruments handled mostly through secret off-shore accounts. For the hedge fund short sellers to make money, prices have to go down. Short sellers insist that they “provide liquidity and transparency to our capital markets” and that their operations “expose corporate fraud and mismanagement.” But Diamond strongly disagrees. He says the Managed Funds Association, the lobbying arm of the hedge fund short sellers, is crafty and deceitful. “When they tell you that short selling contributes liquidity to the market, that is a lie,” he says. “Short selling destroys capital and takes away liquidity from the market. When they tell you that they are taking steps to remove manipulation from the stock market, that is a lie. They are taking steps to introduce manipulation to the stock market, and prime the stock market for manipulation and looting. When they tell you that the uptick rule is outdated, because of decimalization, that is a lie. They lie to deceive, to bring forth a big payday from short selling, hence the looting of America and America’s wealthiest corporations and their shareholders, sanctioned by their Washington D.C. lapdogs.” “The most influential members of Managed Funds Association, the hedge fund short sellers, have an anti-capitalism agenda, an anti-industrialized nation agenda, and a far left liberal, Marxist radical agenda,” Diamond says.” Hedge Fund short sellers are not capitalist. They are anti-capitalist and they are not investors; they are anti-investors.” He says they “loot” companies and countries. Diamond, an African immigrant who came to America and became a successful businessman, concludes otherwise, saying that Soros and other short sellers who belong to the Managed Funds Association, the “voice of the global alternative investment community,” are corrupting influences that undermine nations, their economies and currencies, and the global financial system as a whole. Diamond, with 14 years of experience in the financial markets, calls his book a course in “Economic crisis 101” because of the need to inform ordinary Americans of what is happening right before their eyes. The book is easy to read, although it deals with complex financial regulations and operations, and is only 118 pages. The theme is that the economic crisis was deliberately engineered for profit and political gain and has already resulted in the “looting” of $11 trillion from the U.S. economy. We had warned about this potential problem in a January 16, 2008, column, “Soros Bets on U.S. Economic Collapse,” in which we noted hedge fund ties to the Democratic Party and a report that hedge fund managers, including Soros, stood to make billions of dollars from a U.S. housing market collapse. Regulation of the hedge fund industry and other recommendations are included in Diamond’s book, which carries the subtitle of “The scam that elected Barack Obama.” He accuses many of these same global players now under scrutiny for wreaking havoc in Europe of being behind the U.S. financial crisis that enabled Obama to win the presidency. “George Soros put the support of the organization [the MFA] behind Obama,” his book says. “Soros wanted somebody that hates the traditional America and its constitution, a left-wing radical like himself, so he chose Obama.” “Nothing will happen until the American people know what caused the economic crisis and the solution for fixing it,” he tells me. “Nothing will happen until the American people know about the Managed Funds Association and their role in engineering the economic collapse.” He calls the MFA “the cancer in our society that needs to be cut out, exterminated and abolished. America and capitalism will not survive unless the Managed Funds Association is eradicated, uprooted and destroyed.” The MFA, meanwhile, is undergoing what the Politico calls an “image makeover,” as more scrutiny is being applied to the operations of its members. MFA President and CEO Richard Baker tells the publication that “…we have an enormous job ahead of us in providing understanding about the industry that is based in the actual market role we play, as opposed to the perceptions that have been allowed to build.” He warns that any asset class that is traded in the NYSE, CME, or EUREX exchanges is susceptible to manipulation by the members of Managed Funds Association and their strategic partners. “They have primed the market for manipulation,” he says. Zubi Diamond says the most important measures which must be taken to reduce the damage they cause to our system include:
What is needed is for Congress and the President to act on these recommendations. It is that simple. |