01/4/10

Could an Important Ambassadorial Appointment Be Based on D.C. Political Games?

By: Carolyn Cooke
Family Security Matters

In March, 2009, El Salvadoran elections led to a major sea change in the political landscape of the country when a member of the Communist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FLMN) Party, Mauricio Funes, was swept into the presidency. His win marked the end of control by the Party closely allied with the United States since the end of the El Salvadoran Civil War in 1992. El Salvador was America’s closest ally in Latin America.

El Salvador is a country on the edge, suffering from tough economic times with soaring poverty and the emergence of influential drug cartels that threaten the security and the stability of the nation and region. This no doubt contributed to the rise of Funes, a popular young politician who was once a commentator for CNN International. Though having run on a platform of moderating his former militant stance, it is an open question whether President Funes will stay true to his campaign’s move to the middle.

Will El Salvador continue to be allied with the United States or will Funes return to his radical leftist insurgent roots? Funes may choose to form a partnership with the America-hating Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. Chávez is the FLMN Party’s more natural ally ideologically. The FLMN has increased its ties to Chavez over the past several years. Chávez has been known to be courting the new president.

In light of the ascendency of the Communist Party in El Salvador, one might expect one of the best and most experienced career diplomats to be nominated to become ambassador. After all, the current government has the potential to change from an ally to a threat to the security of the United States and an additional unsettling presence in an increasingly left-leaning region.

However, on December 9, 2009, attorney Mari Carmen Aponte was appointed to represent the United States as an ambassador to El Salvador. Aponte is a political appointee with no diplomatic experience, a tainted past and questionable ideology.

Swirling tales of espionage.

In 1998, Aponte was nominated by then President Bill Clinton to be the ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Aponte was a friend of Hillary Clinton and a big donor to the Democrat Party and causes. In 1993, intelligence gathering found that Aponte, then a member of the Clinton transition team, may have been recruited as a spy for the Cuban government.

When President Clinton announced Aponte’s appointment to the ambassadorship, the late Sen. Jesse Helms, then Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, announced he had a confidential intelligence memo regarding Aponte and her possible connections to Communist Cuba’s Intelligence Agency, Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI).

A series of articles was done by Insight on the News magazine on Ms. Aponte. They obtained a copy of the Helms’ memo.

An excerpt from “Who’s Guarding the Chicken Coop,” by Jamie Dettmer & Timothy W. Maier:

The memo – written by an intelligence expert working overseas – questioned the lack of a thorough security check into Aponte’s background. The memo also alleged that Aponte was recruited as a “DGI asset.” According to the memo, “When the FBI eventually questioned her about her involvement with Cuban intelligence, she reportedly refused to cooperate, saying that since she was not seeking a permanent White House position she was not subject to a background check.”

Nonetheless, Aponte subsequently was provided a top-secret clearance at the State Department despite serious objections from career officials.

Rumors of Ms. Aponte’s Cuban connections were circulating around Washington, D.C.

From Insight’s “Russian Spies Are Alive, Well”, by J. Michael Waller:

…the FBI learned that Carmen Mari Aponte, an attorney and friend of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, was living with a man believed to be a Cuban agent who introduced her to Cuban intelligence officers at the interests section. He allegedly gave her a “loan” believed to have come from the Cuban secret service – a loan Aponte never repaid. When questioned by the FBI in 1994, Aponte refused to take a polygraph test.

Dettmer and Maier reported:

Despite the apparent security lapse, the CIA did not object to Aponte’s association with Tamayo because Langley believed it could monitor her, the memo notes. However, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had some tough questions for Aponte. Shortly after it became clear the panel wasn’t going to back off, she withdrew her name, citing personal reasons.

Though eventually given clearance by the FBI, Aponte was never again nominated or appointed to a position in the federal government. The issue of whether there was an attempt to recruit Aponte to spy for Cuban leader Fidel Castro was never resolved.

Ambassadorships for sale?

Prior to President Clinton’s nomination of Aponte to the United States’ ambassadorship to the Dominican Republic, Insight on the News reported on her generous contributions to Democrat Party campaign coffers – $21,400. Aponte also raised money from the Latin community for Democrats.

Theodore Kettle at Newsmax further reports on Mari Carmen Aponte’s gifts, totaling “thousands of dollars” to the Democrat Party and Democrat causes over the years following the Clinton nomination, under such various names as “Maria,” “Marie,” “Mary,”and “Maricarmen,” according to filings with the Federal Elections Commission.

Is the Aponte nomination is another gift to the White House’s radical Hispanic supporters?

Mari Carmen Aponte is a former board member of the radical Hispanic group, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), translated, “The National Council of the Race.” She also served on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund or PRLDEF. The “nonpartisan” NCLR endorsed Obama for president. The administration supports their goal of amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal aliens living in the United States.

The NCLR lauded the appointment of Aponte stating “…I cannot imagine a more qualified person to serve as our country’s ambassador to El Salvador.” What exactly are those qualifications? “She is both a highly accomplished lawyer and a wonderfully compassionate human being,” the press release continued.

The National Council of “the Race” opposes any crack down on illegal aliens in the United States, such as voter identification laws, state and local enforcement legislation and English only measures. They are pro-amnesty for illegal aliens, supporting such amnesty measures as Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the Dream Act and AgJobs. In 2008, they began a campaign to demonize as “racist” leaders in the pro-American sovereignty arena such as Roy Beck of NumbersUSA and Mark Krikorian, the Director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Taxpayer dollars through federal grants are used to support La Raza lobbying efforts to dismantle American sovereignty and should require La Raza to actually be “nonpartisan.” The activities of La Raza are too long chronicle completely in this article.

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund is a group that has a stated goal of providing legal aide to the Latino community. According to a report done by Judicial Watch, “the organization’s activities reflect a commitment to the worst aspects of liberal judicial activism: identity politics, race baiting, and ethnic favoritism.”

The administration’s payback to these radical anti-American groups is a continuation of a pattern. The first appointee to the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs was Cecilia Munoz, a former vice-president of La Raza. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was a member of La Raza and “a top policy maker” on the Board of Directors of PRLDEF for 12 years.

Will Mari Carmen Aponte be awarded the job of representing the interests of American citizens in El Salvador through her Department of State position? Her friendship with Secretary of State Clinton and her generous support of Democrat causes make her a popular choice in this world of Obama liberalism and corruption.

Aponte’s appointment will have to be confirmed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

If you would like to contact the senators who will be confirming her appointment, see the information below.

Click here for United States Senate contact information.

Chairman: John F. Kerry (MA)
Minority Chairman: Richard Lugar (ID)

Majority Membership:
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Russell Feingold (WI)
Barbara Boxer (CA)
Robert Menendez (NJ)
Benjamin Cardin (MD)
Robert Casey (PA)
Jim Webb (VA)
Jeanne Shaheen (NH)
Edward Kaufman (DE)
Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)
Minority Membership:
Bob Corker (TN)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
James Risch (ID)
Jim Demint (SC)
John Barrasso (WY)
Roger Wicker (MS)
James Inhofe (OK)

Carolyn Cooke is an American citizen activist committed to the preservation of a sovereign United States. She also posts at Family Security Matters.

01/4/10

The Inlander also caves to ‘Spokane nice’ in covering up a homicide [Spokane, WA]

By: RBT
Friends of Mark Fuhrman

I just sent this email to Ted McGregor the publisher of The Inlander regarding the rather rosy eyed piece by Inlander reporters Smith and Deshais on the last decade in Spokane. The problem is a woman died in the RPS Parking Garage that was the direct result of a $100M bond fraud that was consummated by the Cowles Media Empire. This is a real page turning homicide mystery that no one wants to report. Why? And more interestingly this is a true story and not fiction!

*****

Dear Mr. McGregor,

I generally don’t expect much from The Inlander but do appreciate the stories that you break from time to time that the Cowles’ media won’t report in our little berg. The Inlander did do some heavy hitting reporting on the RPS scandal at the time but abruptly stopped for some reason. As I wrote you sometime ago I have a source who heard Cris Peck allegedly threatened you and The Inlander that if you didn’t stop with your reporting, the Cowles would pull their ad revenue and by inference the other advertisers in their sphere of influence. They have done this before with other alternative papers by undercutting their ad rates and forced them to go out of business. You have never responded to my request to confirm or deny this. At the time I mentioned I have hard evidence that the Cowles did just this to KXLY while Tom Grant was doing his reporting there. Herling confirmed they were losing $100K in ad revenue.

Sticks and Stones

From: Chris Muir and Day by Day Cartoon

01/4/10

Nevada News & Views – January 4, 2010

By: Chuck Muth
Nevada News and Views

TODAY’S NN&V HEADLINES

Yucca Energy Park: The Other Side of Yucca Mountain (Randi Thompson) – We can no longer depend on tourists and gaming to fund our state. If we do not find new revenue sources, many of us fear the legislature will continue to increase taxes and look at creating new taxes like Gross Receipts. The Yucca Energy Park is a start.
Educrat Calls Oath Keepers “Lunatic Fringe” (Chuck Muth) – Gene Paslov, former Nevada superintendent of Nevada’s failed public schools and liberal lion of Carson City, wrote a column for the Nevada Appeal this weekend which began thusly: “The Congressional Republicans are getting ugly. They refuse to do what they were elected to do – negotiate, compromise and implement legislation.”
The Debt We Owe (Mark Noonan) – 2009 certainly turned out to be a year to forget about. Economic collapse, mis-managed war in Afghanistan, continual corruption in government, purblind liberals pushing policies which will wreck the country. Our great State of Nevada has actually been so badly governed that we lost population. There was just so much wrong last year that its hard to decide what to dislike the most.
The Great Zadrowski Announces Run for JP 14 (NN&V Staff) – Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Bernie Zadrowski announced today that he is seeking the judgeship of Las Vegas Justice Court, Department 14.
Tatner to Tilt at Berkley Windmill (Joseph Tatner) – After a year of speaking out for Conservative principles around Las Vegas, including as President of the Voice of the People PAC, I am stepping forward to take on Shelley Berkley in Nevada’s Congressional District 1.

Click here to read these stories at the Nevada News & Views site!

Continue reading →

01/4/10

Another Liberal Humiliation

Hat Tip: Carolyn Cooke

From – Glenn Beck

01/4/10

O Beautiful

From: Stoplight (Hat Tip: ThirdWaveDave)

01/4/10

Chuck Muth’s News & Views – January 4, 2010

By: Chuck Muth
Citizens Outreach

“HIT MAN” MAKES HISTORIC RETURN TONIGHT

Following controversy and a subsequent 12-year absence from WWE, Bret “Hit Man” Hart makes an unexpected homecoming appearance as arguably the most distinguished guest host ever. Be part of this monumental episode of Monday Night Raw and witness the long-awaited return of The Excellence of Execution, Bret Hart. Tune in tonight at 9/8 CT on USA Network.

NAPPY’S PREPOSTEROUS PRONOUNCEMENT

“Janet Napolitano was interviewed on CNN’s Sunday show ‘State of the Nation,’ following the failure of the Tightey-Whitey-Bomber to bring down a flight just outside of Detroit on Christmas Day and said: ‘One thing I want to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action.’

“Of course that is preposterous. The system pretty obviously did not work because if the system had worked ‘the passengers and crew of the flight’ would not have had to take any ‘appropriate action’ other than whining about the agents taking too long to bring the jet bridge up to the plane.”

– Rich Galen of Mullings.com

TSA SPRINGS INTO ACTION!

“On Christmas Day, a gentleman from Nigeria succeeded (effortlessly) in boarding a flight to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear. Pretty funny, huh? But the Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. The real laugh was the United States government. The global hyperpower spent the next week making itself a laughingstock to the entire planet.

“First, the bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions. Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed a slew of constraints against you.

“At Heathrow last week, they were permitting only one item of carry-on on U.S. flights. In Toronto, no large purses. Um, the Pantybomber didn’t have a purse. He brought the bomb on board under his private parts, and his private parts weren’t part of his carry-on (although, if reports of injuries sustained in his failed mission are correct, they may well have been part of his carry-off).

“But no matter. If in doubt, blame the victim. The TSA announced that for the last hour of the flight no passenger can use the toilets or have anything on his lap – not a laptop, not a blanket, not a stewardess, not even a paperback book. I can’t wait for the first lawsuit after an infidel flight attendant confiscates a litigious imam’s Koran as they’re coming into LAX.”

– Columnist Mark Steyn

THIS AIN’T YOUR DADDY’S MOB

“We were spared the horrible consequences of our incompetence, only because of Umar Farouk Abdulmullatab’s incompetence. The episode raises questions not only about airline security, but about how we are fighting the real war we are in. Defeating al-Qaida calls for ways and means different from dealing with domestic crime families like the Gottis or Gambinos.”

– Columnist Patrick Buchanan

MAYBE IT’S JUST A COINCIDENCE

“Since Muslims took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, every attack on a commercial airliner has been committed by foreign-born Muslim men with the same hair color, eye color and skin color. Half of them have been named Mohammed.”

– Columnist Ann Coulter

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

“In response to a Nigerian Muslim trying to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, the government will now prohibit international travelers from going to the bathroom in the last hour before the plane lands. Terrorists who plan to bomb planes during the first seven hours of the eight-hour flight, however, should face no difficulties, provided they wait until after the complimentary beverage service has been concluded.”

– Columnist Ann Coulter

WHO WOULD HAVE EVER SUSPECTED?

“(D)espite 5 trillion Americans opening laptops, surrendering lip gloss and drinking breast milk in airports day after day for the past eight years, the government still couldn’t stop a Nigerian Muslim from nearly blowing up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day. The ‘warning signs’ exhibited by this particular passenger included the following:

His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
He’s Nigerian.
He’s a Muslim.
His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
He boarded a plane in Lagos, Nigeria.
He paid nearly $3,000 in cash for his ticket.
He had no luggage.
His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Two months ago, his father warned the U.S. that he was a radical Muslim and possibly dangerous.

“….The warning from Abdulmutallab’s father put his son on some list, but not the ‘no fly’ list. Apparently, it’s tougher to get on the ‘no fly’ list than it was to get into Studio 54 in the ’70s. Currently, the only people on the ‘no fly’ list are the Blind Sheik and Sean Penn.”

– Columnist Ann Coulter

OBAMA’S GOOSE COOKIE DEFENSE

“One of the defenses people speaking on behalf of the Administration have thrown up is the one about Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) having put a hold on Obama’s choice to head up the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). . . . According to DeMint, he has not put a hold on Erroll Southers, but he objected to a request to have Southers confirmed by unanimous consent – that is, without a roll call vote.

“. . . The point the Administration spokespeople have been making is that absent DeMint, Southers would have been busily working out the details of how best to stop terrorists from getting on airplanes in Amsterdam had not this unionization thing been going on for months and months. Goose Cookies.

“According to the Congressional Record, the President sent Southers’ nomination to the Senate on September 17, 2009. Not January 21 nor February 15. Not March 4 nor April 25. He sent it on September 17. According to my new Microsoft Excel 2010 that means 240 days elapsed between the day Obama was inaugurated and the day he got around to officially nominating a TSA chief.

“The Democratic-controlled Senate received the nomination and sent it to two committees which acted on Southers sequentially, rather than at the same time. It was not until November 19, 2009 – 63 days later – that they got around to actually trying to vote on him.

“Total time elapsed between Obama’s inaugural and Senate floor action? 303 days. No holds. No filibusters. Just showing how important Obama and the Senate Dems felt this whole thing was, prior to Christmas day.”

– Rich Galen of Mullings.com

ADDITIONAL READING

Your future under ObamaCare is here, as the Mayo Clinic shockingly announces it will “stop treating Medicare patients because of low reimbursement rates as Democrats move to cut $500 billion from Medicare.” Read all about it HERE

The Wall Street Journal editorializes on “Treasury’s Christmas Eve taxpayer massacre lifting the $400 billion cap on potential losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the limits on what the failed companies can borrow.” Read it and weep HERE

SURVEY SAYS!

Does the Tea Party movement need an experienced, politically-savvy national leader?

To cast your vote in today’s online survey, click here!

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”

– James Madison

01/4/10

Personal Accusations About A Private Citizen

By: Carolyn Cooke

Many apologies to Representative Bob Nonini for any mischaracterization of his stand on illegal immigration. I expected him to clarify his position with the reporter at the Spokesman-Review. An article dated December 7, 2009, on the Raul Labrador rally, stated, “supporters included Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, who was part of a gathering of about 20 backers at the Coeur d’Alene resort”. When a retraction never came, I felt justified in clarifying for his constituents what his support of Representative Raul Labrador might mean for Idaho.

After Nonini’s zealous defense of his immigration position, I am excited to know that citizens can count on him in our battle to have meaningful Idaho immigration legislation enacted. Indeed, I welcome Bob Nonini to support Senator Michael Jorgenson’s bulletproof legislation that will secure Idaho jobs for Idaho workers in the worst recession since the Great Depression and save taxpayers some $200,000,000 million per year. Jorgenson’s legislation is written by the leading expert on immigration legislation in the United States, Constitutional Attorney and University of Kansas Law Professor, Kris Kobach.

I invite Representative Nonini to have the courage of his convictions and to stand against those in the state legislature who will knowingly introduce alternative bills that will not stand up in the federal courts–bills that are not worth the paper upon which they are printed.

I encourage Representative Nonini, to forcefully denounce the special interests of the Idaho dairy and agricultural industries that benefit from the taxpayer support of all of the social costs of their illegal immigrant labor.

I have sent Representative Nonini a study of Department of Labor Statistics that proves there are no jobs American citizens will not do for living wages. I would like him to insist on job training for Idaho citizens at community colleges for Ag and Dairy jobs so unemployed Idahoans may support their families.

I am a citizen activist. I belong to no ‘groups’ of citizens in Idaho. I take no responsibility for any emails sent to Bob Nonini by any other disgruntled citizens.

As far as the statement that Senator Jorgenson’s bill failed in the legislature due to ‘sensationalism’ by the good Senator and me, this could not be further from the truth. Senator Jorgenson’s bill was printed by the Senate State Affairs Committee only to be ‘put in the drawer’ by the Chairman of the committee. Draw your own conclusions.

I am a private citizen, not a politician. I believe I represent the majority view of Idahoans on the issue of illegal immigration. I did not attack Bob Nonini personally as he did me. I am suspicious that one of the main purposes of Nonini’s “My Turn” rebuttal was an attempt to discredit me because of my outspokenness on illegal immigration in the state–a void left by the silence of Idaho State elected officials.

I believe Bob Nonini broke new ground as an elected official with his very public and personal accusations about a private citizen.

I do not want this attempt at discrediting or silencing a private citizen to make any patriot less vocal. I most certainly will not be intimidated nor quieted. Look for more such attacks against me or any others with the courage to stand against the special interests and their stronghold on many in the Idaho State legislature.

Carolyn Cooke