02/21/20

FBI Arrests Hacker Linked to Katie Hill Campaign

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Federal agents have arrested Arthur Dam in connection with a hacking spree that disrupted the 2018 Democratic California primary that ultimately nominated Katie Hill, according to a new criminal complaint. A criminal complaint can be found here.

Image result for congresswoman katie hill

‘Throuple’ congresswoman Katie Hill says she made the right choice to resign.

Dam, in the criminal complaint, is linked directly to the Hill campaign. Hill won the general election in California’s 25th district, and then later resigned from Congress amid controversy.

“Dam was found to be connected to the cyber-attacks through subscriber information, IP addresses, geolocation history, and open sources, including through his employer and his wife, K.O., who worked for one of the Victim’s opponents,” the complaint reads.

Dam’s wife is Kelsey O’Hara, Hill’s fundraiser during the campaign and her district director after she won office. O’Hara was also the subject of a sexual joke made by Hill and caught on tape by Vice News in 2018. In Hill’s FEC records, she lists a $500 in-kind contribution from Dam on March 25, 2018, for “Graphic design and website security consultation.”

During the campaign, the websites of Hill’s opponents, Democrats Bryan Caforio and Jess Phoenix were both attacked, though Hill’s never was, raising suspicions at the time that Hill’s campaign was behind them. One major attack on Caforio’s campaign website came at a crucial moment, just an hour before the biggest debate of the primary, the complaint notes. Hill eventually won the California primary by fewer than 3,000 votes.

The FBI traced the hacking to an Amazon Web Services account tied to the email address [email protected], though the credit card used to pay for the service was listed under Dam. The Hotmail account had been created in 2002 using the subscriber name “Arthur Slam.” Dam also used the Hotmail account as the recovery email for his own Gmail account.

The FBI launched a probe that zeroed in on the Hill campaign in 2019, according to FBI correspondence reviewed by The Intercept. Hill did not immediately respond for comment.

Hill’s campaign was the subject of unusual national attention during her campaign, including a Vice News documentary and a Rolling Stone article. On March 3, the 25th Congressional District will hold a special election to replace Hill, who resigned in October 2019.

02/21/20

Justice Dept. Brands Huawei as a Criminal Enterprise

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Gotta hope that Europe takes note, especially Britain. Europe so far has approved Huawei as the vendor platform for 5G. Check your use of apps at the Google store and take a second look at your smart devices.

Image result for huawei

FDD: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies and its subsidiaries last week for alleged racketeering, theft of intellectual property, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, among other charges. The indictment portrays Huawei not merely as a company that has broken the law, but as a fundamentally criminal enterprise.

The new charges target Huawei, four of Huawei’s subsidiaries (Huawei Device Co. Ltd., Huawei Device USA Inc., Futurewei Technologies Inc., and Skycom Tech Co. Ltd.), and Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which Congress passed in 1970 to combat organized crime.

According to the DOJ, the Huawei business model entailed “the deliberate and repeated misappropriation of intellectual property of companies headquartered or with offices in the United States.” DOJ also highlighted other violations, including Huawei’s role in sanctions evasion and fraudulent activities.

Last week’s indictment marks the first time DOJ charged a company with suspect connections to a foreign government as a criminal enterprise. Although Huawei asserts it is not state-owned, the company has indirect ties to the Chinese government and has yet to publically disclose who exactly owns and controls the company. Huawei’s majority shareholder is the company’s labor union, which keeps the details of its membership and governance structure out of the public eye. Last year, Jiang Xisheng, a top executive, explained during a press conference that the labor union’s ownership is simply a matter of legal convenience; this only further obfuscated who is really in charge. Additionally, Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhangfei, served in the Chinese military and is a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

While the indictment does not say that Beijing directed Huawei to operate as a criminal enterprise, China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires Huawei and other private companies to provide the government with their data to “support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence according to the law.” In short, the law empowers Beijing to exploit Huawei as an intelligence asset whenever it sees fit.

In other high-profile cases, the Chinese government has stolen sensitive U.S. data to achieve a strategic advantage. U.S. officials have even deemed China’s espionage and intelligence activities as a “long-term existential threat to the security of our nation.” In 2012, the head of the U.S. National Security Agency estimated that China’s economic espionage cost U.S. companies $250 billion in annual losses. Additionally, the targeting of strategic industries has allowed Beijing to enhance its own military capabilities at America’s expense.

The exploitation of Huawei could clearly enhance Beijing’s intelligence collecting capabilities. Just last week, the U.S. government reported that for over ten years Huawei secretly maintained “back doors” on its mobile networks that allowed the company – and potentially the Chinese government – to have direct access to their users’ most sensitive data.

The indictment of Huawei as a criminal enterprise shows that the Trump administration was mistaken when it placated Beijing by softening previous penalties for Huawei’s misconduct. If the court finds Huawei guilty under RICO, the administration should ensure the full application of all penalties necessary to end its criminal pursuits.

02/21/20

It’s Spreading! Marxist Australian Greens Leader Adopts ‘Green New Deal’

By: Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times

New Greens Leader Adam Bandt speaks to media in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 4, 2020. Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

Adam Bandt, the newly elected Marxist leader of the Australian Greens, has committed his party to an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez style “Green New Deal.”

On Feb. 4 this year, Bandt, a long-time co-leader of the party, was elected unopposed to the party leadership. The same day, he used his very first press conference to advertise the Australian Greens brand new Green New Deal-themed website and commit the party to the new program.

The Green New Deal concept has been around in some form or another for many years, but the latest version is a very new creation.

The Green New Deal document was written over a single December 2018 weekend by the staff of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three far-left groups, described by the New Yorker as: “the Sunrise Movement, a grassroots climate organization; the Justice Democrats, which recruits and supports leftist candidates; and an upstart policy shop called the New Consensus.”

The Green New Deal wasn’t written on the back of a restaurant napkin—but it was almost as amateurish.

Just about everyone involved was new to lawmaking.

“We spent the weekend learning how to put laws together,” Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, told New Yorker journalist Benjamin Wallace-Wells. “We looked up how to write resolutions.”

The Green New Deal is basically a plan to completely centralize economic planning in the name of tackling “climate change.”

The draft text called for a congressional committee, which would be “fully funded and empowered to draft legislation … to map out a ‘detailed national, industrial, economic mobilization plan’ capable of making the U.S. economy ‘carbon neutral’ while promoting ‘economic and environmental justice and equality,’” according to The Intercept.

In other words, socialism.

Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the 55,000-member strong Marxist group Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). With strong backing from the DSA and the Communist Party USA, the Green New Deal soon became ubiquitous in the Democratic Party’s dominant left-wing and is now endorsed by nearly 100 U.S. congress members and several Democratic presidential candidates.

Bandt fully understands the origins and intent of the Green New Deal that he’s now promoting.

In an article in the DSA-aligned magazine Jacobin, published just days before assuming the Australian Greens leadership, Bandt laid out his vision for an Australian Green New Deal:

“We need government intervention on the scale of the Apollo program. We need a Green New Deal for Australia, a transformative plan to get us out of the overlapping crises of climate emergency and economic inequality.

“With a Green New Deal, we can break free from the false dichotomy that we must choose between tackling the climate crisis and delivering better outcomes for workers. …

“Taking the urgent action we need to transform our society is an opportunity for equality and justice. This is our chance to shift Australia to a clean, renewable economy while building a more caring and equal society.”

In March 2018, SEARCH Foundation hosted Bhaskar Sunkara, a DSA comrade, Green New Deal advocate, and Jacobin editor, at Sydney Trades Hall for a talk entitled “Corbyn, Sanders and the next left.” The Sydney-based SEARCH Foundation, which works closely with the Australian Greens, is the continuation of the now-defunct “moderate” wing of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA).

Former Australian Greens Sen. Lee Rhiannon, once a high-ranking pro-Soviet communist, is a close ally of Bandt and is also a SEARCH Foundation committee member.

Sunkara also addressed a major Marxism conference in Melbourne the same month.

Writing in the Guardian, Bandt made it clear that he sees the Green New Deal as a vehicle for putting his personal values into action:

“The two elements of a Green New Deal – government taking the lead to create new jobs and industries, and universal services to ensure no one is left behind – are the values I have been fighting for my whole adult life.”

And those values are undoubtedly socialist.

In 2010, Bandt became the first Australian Greens member to be elected to the Australian parliament—the House of Representatives—in a federal election.

Bandt had started out in politics as a teenage member of the Australian Labor Party but moved to the far-left while studying law at Perth’s Murdoch University in the early 1990s.

At Murdoch, Bandt was a leader of the Left Alliance. Active in several Australian universities for more than a decade, the Left Alliance was a coalition of the Socialist Youth League, the youth wing of the CPA, and Resistance, the youth wing of the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), a grouping with Trotskyist roots.

By the time Bandt became a leader of Left Alliance, Resistance had left the organization after a proposed CPA–DSP merger had foundered. In 1991, the CPA dissolved and re-formed as the short-lived New Left Party. In 1992, the Australian Greens were formed out of several smaller state-based Green parties.

In 1995, while he was a student, Bandt described the newly founded Greens as a “bourgeois” party, writing in a memo on a Marxist student website that “Communists can’t fetishize alternative political parties, but should always make some kind of materially based assessment about the effectiveness of any given strategy come election time,” according to The Australian.

In other words, the Greens could be a useful way to promote socialism.

In 2008, Bandt completed a Ph.D. at Monash University in Melbourne with his thesis titled “Work to Rule: Rethinking Marx, Pashukanis and Law.” His supervisor, Andrew Milner, was a former member of the British Socialist Workers Party turned Australian Greens supporter.

In December 2010, the first “Union and Community Summer School” was held in Melbourne.

Called “Winning Our Rights,” the school bought together “experienced labor activists from different generations and most left political traditions, to discuss the way forward for the union movement,” according to Green Left Weekly.

Union activists from the Australian Greens, the DSP-initiated Socialist Alliance, the re-founded CPA, the pro-China Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), and SEARCH Foundation took part.

A public meeting themed “Reviving the union movement under the Gillard government” opened the school. Speakers included brand new Australian Greens Member of Parliament Adam Bandt.

Discussion on the second day focused on “unions’ role in the climate action movement and building the union fightback.”

The Australian Greens are a minor political party, holding only a few seats in Australia’s two federal chambers of government. However, they sometimes hold the balance of power between the larger Labor and Liberal parties. This can give the tiny party a disproportionate influence on Australia’s political direction.

Under the much further left Bandt leadership, the Australian Greens will be much more aggressive in promoting their socialist agenda. We may hear much more about the Green New Deal from “downunda” in the next months and years.

Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. He is the author of a soon-to-be-published book “White House Red: Communist, Socialists, and Security Risks Running for U.S. President, 2020.”

02/21/20

Weekly Profile – Katjoesja Buissink

KeyWiki.org

Katjoesja Buissink

Katjoesja Buissink is a Wellington, New Zealand activist.

He is General Secretary at Aotearoa Community Union and Chair of New Communist Party of Aotearoa (NCPA)- New Zealand’s recently formed “mainstream” communist party.

November 21-22 2019, the NCPA held its inaugural congress. The congress marked the end of the “25-year absence of Marxism-Leninism in New Zealand”. Held in Wellington, the congress included representatives from the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), the Embassy of Cuba, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

In a speech to the conference, Buissink stressed the importance of party unity by welcoming “all Marxist-Leninists into the New Communist Party and said the new group would “seek to resolve all differences through internal, comradely debate. Small differences, particularly those centering on international issues, should not create splits, and we must always prioritize unity in the domestic situation.”

In July 2019 Katjoesja Buissink helped celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cuban communist Revolution at the Cuban embassy in Wellington.

Katjoesja Buissink center with Cuban and Australian delegates

Previously Buissink was active in another Marxist group Organise Aotearoa. In January that group got big press in Brazil when they occupied the Brazilian embassy in Wellington to protest the new anti-communist Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro.

Katjoesja Buissink was the Organise Aotearoa spokesman for the occupation.

In August 2018 hundreds rallied in Auckland against the proposed visit of Canadian speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux.

Ten Auckland-based activist groups banded together for the ‘Rally Against Racism’, which organizer and Auckland University student Katjoesja Buissink described as “the most organized protest I’ve ever seen”.

Buissink said he opposed the Canadian pair speaking in Auckland due to the way they have “spoken about minorities” in the past.

Katjoesja Buissink third from right

“I think the thing to remember is hate speech is not free speech and what they’re doing is hate speech.” The New Zealand government of socialist Prime Minister Jacinda Adern canceled the Canadian pair’s visas.

Katjoesja Buissink center

When UK politician Nigel Farage was due to speak in New Zealand in September 2018. Tamaki Anti-Fascist Action spokesperson Katjoesja Buissink said: “We are taking action because Farage’s anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and misogynist views are repugnant and indefensible. His scapegoating of vulnerable communities is reprehensible.

“The real problems rest with the vast and grotesque levels of global inequality caused by capitalist exploitation, ongoing colonialism and endless wars of aggression. He doesn’t want to do anything about those things, instead, he uses ‘divide and rule’ tactics to stir up hatred and fear among the white working and middle class.”

(See more|Katjoesja Buissink …)

02/21/20

US Unable to Trace $716 Million of Military Gear

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

It was and still is a nasty conflict in Syria, Iraq and even in Turkey. The Islamic State lost its control of landmass but the terror group(s) still operate in various locations.

The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General, which was released to the public on Tuesday, shows that most of the CTEF weaponry’s whereabouts cannot be verified. The reason, according to the audit, is that officials with the Special Operations Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, failed to maintain detailed lists of all military equipment given to Washington’s allies in Syria between 2017 and 2018. Officials did not have a centralized depository facility for dispensing the equipment, and no documentation was kept during the operation, according to the audit. Consequently, thousands of weapons, weapons parts, and other military hardware were exposed to “loss and theft”, says the Pentagon report.

US pulled multiple ways in Syria as Islamic State recedes ...

In December 2018, the DoD began planning for the safe, professional withdrawal of U.S. personnel from Syria while maintaining its efforts to defeat ISIS. For FY 2020, the DoD budget requested $300 million, including $173.2 million for weapons, ammunitions, vehicles, and other CTEF-S equipment, to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS. The FY 2020 DoD budget request states that equipping, sustaining, and enabling the VSO is critical to the DoD’s approach. The relationship between U.S. forces and the VSO relies heavily on the DoD’s ability to provide weapons, ammunitions, and equipment. Furthermore, the FY 2020 DoD budget request states that the VSO’s combat effectiveness, movement, and operational tempo are directly linked to U.S. support, including the provision of weapons, ammunition, and equipment.

The CTEF-S program provides equipment designated for Syria to support the VSO. From FY 2017 through FY 2018, Congress authorized a total of $930 million for the CTEF-S program to support the VSO. Of the $930 million, the DoD budget requested $715.8 million for weapons, ammunition, vehicles, or equipment for FYs 2017 and 2018.

Special Operations Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve (SOJTF-OIR), under Combined Joint Task Force–OIR (CJTF-OIR), is the primary accompany force in Syria that advises and assists the VSO. According to SOJTF-OIR personnel, SOJTF-OIR also manages the day-to-day operations of the CTEF-S program. Specifically, SOJTF-OIR personnel identify program requirements—including the VSO’s needs for CTEF-S equipment and weapons— coordinate with acquisition agencies, manage equipment distribution, and monitor divestment tracking and reporting for CTEF-S equipment, such as weapons, ammunition, or vehicles.

Personnel from 1st Theater Sustainment Command (1st TSC), under U.S. Army Central, told us that 1st TSC personnel account for and store CTEF-S equipment in Kuwait, accept the equipment once it arrives in Kuwait, then transport the equipment to the Building Partners Capacity (BPC) Kuwait warehouse. According to 1st TSC personnel, 1st TSC maintain a detailed inventory of all CTEF-S equipment at the BPC Kuwait warehouse and coordinate the movement of all CTEF-S equipment from the BPC Kuwait warehouse to storage sites closer to Syria. Personnel from 1st TSC indicated that CTEF-S equipment remains in U.S. Government possession while stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse and storage sites closer to Syria. According to SOJTF-OIR personnel, Coalition units located throughout Syria work closely with the VSO to identify their current and future operational needs, such as weapons and vehicles. The VSO consists of DoD-approved Syrian opposition personnel who are dedicated to fighting ISIS throughout Syria. SOJTF-OIR personnel stated that Coalition units select, investigate, train, and equip these local Syrian forces to defeat ISIS. In addition, SOJTF-OIR personnel stated that Coalition units receive the CTEF-S equipment from the BPC Kuwait warehouse and divest CTEF-S equipment to the VSO. Once divested, ownership and accountability of CTEF-S equipment is transferred from the DoD to the VSO.

Finding

SOJTF-OIR personnel did not account for the budgeted $715.8 million of CTEF-S equipment for FYs 2017 and 2018 from procurement through divestment in accordance with DoD Instruction 5000.64 and Army Regulation 735-5. For example, SOJTF-OIR personnel did not maintain comprehensive lists of all equipment purchased and received. This occurred because SOJTF-OIR personnel allowed multiple entities involved with CTEF-S equipment to store records in numerous locations instead of designating a central repository for all supporting accountability documentation.

1st TSC personnel did not properly store or secure CTEF-S equipment at the BPC Kuwait warehouse in accordance with DoD guidance, Army regulations, or SOJTF-OIR standard operating procedures. For example, 1st TSC personnel stored weapons outside in metal shipping containers, exposing the equipment to harsh environmental elements, such as heat and humidity. This occurred because SOJTF-OIR personnel did not divest or dispose of CTEF-S equipment, which led to overcrowding at the BPC Kuwait warehouse. In addition, according to 1st TSC’s inventory records, 1st TSC personnel stored 4,144 Category II weapons (sensitive weapons), such as machine guns and grenade launchers, outside in metal shipping containers and not in a facility that met the requirement for storing Category II weapons.

For FY 2020, the DoD budget requested $173.2 million for weapons, ammunitions, vehicles, and other CTEF-S equipment. Without accurate accountability records, such as inventory records and hand receipts, SOJTF-OIR personnel could order equipment that SOJTF-OIR already has in stock, risking unnecessary spending of CTEF-S funds and further overcrowding the BPC Kuwait warehouse resulting in equipment being stored outside.

Furthermore, SOJTF-OIR and 1st TSC personnel left thousands of CTEF-S weapons and sensitive equipment items vulnerable to loss or theft. Without conducting consistent inventories and ensuring proper security for CTEF-S equipment, 1st TSC could not determine whether items were lost or stolen which could delay the initiation of an investigation.

Recommendations

We recommend that the Commander of SOJTF-OIR develop a central repository system for all documentation required to support CTEF-S equipment requested on the memorandum of requirement through the entire divestment process.

We recommend that the Commander of SOJTF-OIR develop guidance for the proper disposal of CTEF-S equipment stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse that has been declared unserviceable.

Additionally, we recommend that the Commander of 1st TSC complete a physical security inspection periodically, but no less than every 18 months, and ensure corrective action is taken to fix new and existing security issues identified.

Management Comments and Our Response

During the audit, we advised SOJTF-OIR and 1st TSC of the deficiencies within the CTEF-S program for the accountability and security of CTEF-S equipment. SOJTF-OIR and 1st TSC personnel agreed with our findings and immediately initiated corrective actions. SOJTF-OIR personnel stated that SOJTF-OIR created a shared drive portal for all documentation for CTEF-S equipment from procurement through divestment, including memorandums of requirement, purchase orders, equipment received, inventories completed, hand receipts, transfers, and divestment packages. 1st TSC has already started providing its hand receipts and completed inventory documents to SOJTF-OIR for inclusion in the shared drive. As of January 2020, SOJTF-OIR is using this shared drive portal to store documentation for CTEF-S equipment, such as inventories, lateral transfers, and hand receipts. The actions taken addressed the specifics of Recommendation 1 to establish a central repository for all documentation required to support CTEF-S equipment requested on the memorandum of requirement through the entire divestment process; therefore, Recommendation 1 is closed.

On May 31, 2019, U.S. Central Command developed and began implementing a disposal plan for unserviceable equipment purchased for the VSO, including items stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse. CJTF-OIR personnel stated that this plan will reduce the amount of CTEF-S equipment currently stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse, and equipment will no longer need to be stored outside the warehouse exposed to the harsh elements. Furthermore, in November 2019, CJTF-OIR personnel confirmed that disposition guidance for unserviceable CTEF-S equipment was received from U.S. Central Command and that unserviceable CTEF-S equipment will be provided to the Defense Logistics Agency or disposed. The actions taken addressed the specifics of Recommendation 2 to develop guidance for the disposal of unserviceable equipment; therefore, Recommendation 2 is closed.

During our February 2019 followup site visit, the audit team verified that 1st TSC personnel had started taking corrective actions to address the security deficiencies on the issues the audit team identified during the initial site visit. The actions taken addressed the specifics of Recommendation 3 to complete a security inspection and address security issues; therefore, Recommendation 3 is closed.

This report is a result of Project No. D2019-D000RJ-0031.000

02/21/20

Rush Limbaugh, Trump and the Tea Party Family

By: Lloyd Marcus

It was an exciting time. In 2009, a grassroots movement of concerned Americans scheduled 800 Tea Party rallies nationwide on tax day, April 15^th. Forty percent of tea partiers voted for Obama, naively believing it would end our nation’s racial divide. They did not realize that Obama was a Trojan Horse with a progressive warrior hiding inside his black-skin exterior. Once Obama began implementing his undercover mission to transform America into a socialist/progressive country, Americans said, no. His sinister policies included persecuting Christians and opening borders to illegals. Obama betrayed Americans.

In 2009, I was among only a few blacks in the Tea Party movement. When Obama told Joe the Plumber that he intended to “spread the wealth around,” I knew he was talking socialism and was not the right man to lead my beloved country. Therefore, my brother Jerry and I were the only blacks in our circle of family and friends who did not vote for the first black president.

One day I was in Florida driving to Walmart when I wrote the “American Tea Party Anthem” in my car. A few days later, I was in a recording studio recording the song. A few days later, I was interviewed on Fox News about the song. A few days later, I was on a flight to Santa Barbara, California to perform the song at a Tea Party rally. I’ve performed at 500 tea party rallies on 14 Tea Party Express and other national bus tours.

Proven psychopathic liar Elizabeth Warren is all over TV telling the tale of receiving $3 for her presidential campaign from a college student who only had $6 in the bank.

Warren’s tale triggered my memory of the woman I fondly call my “Five Dollar Lady.” At a Tea Party rally in Texas, a humble white woman approached me with tears rolling down her cheeks. She thanked me and our team for touring the country pushing back against Obama’s over-reaching and job-killing regulations which cost her trucker husband his job. She grabbed my hand and placed a crumpled $5 bill in it towards gas for our tour bus. We were family.

The Tea Party truly felt like a huge family, united in our love for God, family, country, liberty, our military, and our flag. I believe Billy Graham said if you find a perfect church, don’t join it because you will screw it up. In other words, wherever there are humans, there will be some corruption. I watched some original Tea Party leaders abandon our principles. In their minds, the movement became solely about furthering their careers and financial gain. They betrayed the Tea Party.

Despite 1.7 million tea partiers showing up in Washington D.C. to protest ObamaCare, it was made law in the midnight hour against the will of a majority of Americans. Obama lied 29 times. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” Americans were betrayed.

The Tea Party transitioned from hosting rallies to creating activist organizations. We labored long and hard to elect conservatives who vowed to fight on our behalf in Washington D.C. Sadly, several became swamp dwellers. We were betrayed.

Republicans promised the Tea Party that if we helped them win the House, they would repeal ObamaCare. We did and they did not. We the People were betrayed again.

We held our noses to rally behind Mitt Romney for president. We were devastated when Mitt Romney wimped out, refusing to forcefully challenge Obama’s rhetoric during their second debate. In essence, Romney gifted Obama an undeserved second term. We felt betrayed.

Then, along came Donald Trump. Democrats, fake news media, Hollywood and deep state elites saw a clown. But to all of us who love our country, Trump’s America first agenda ignited a resurgence of the spirit of the Tea Party.

Unlike those who have abandoned Tea Party values, Rush Limbaugh has faithfully remained a constant peerless voice, boldly speaking the truth.

Millions are praying in response to Rush’s advanced cancer diagnosis. Trump awarding Rush the Presidential Medal of Freedom meant a lot to us all. People are actually calling Rush’s radio show offering him a lung. Wow!

It occurred to me that the outpouring of love for Rush has caused me to once again feel a part of a huge great American family, similar to the early days of the Tea Party. We are family folks. We are a family.

Neither Rush nor Trump has betrayed us. We must reelect Trump in November.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American
Help Lloyd Spread the Truth
https://www.trumptrainusa2020.com/
http://LloydMarcus.com

02/21/20

Trump Assembles Clemency Team

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

So much has been debated in recent years over prison sentencing and reform. Last year, a new law was passed by Congress and signed by President Trump that changed sentencing and release standards giving pathways for second chances.

The most recent signatures by President Trump on the 11 people giving them criminal relief are still in contention, especially with former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. As a sidebar, it is suggested that there is much more to the story regarding the case of Blago that the reader should consider why he was the single fall guy.

All presidents are presented with petitions and letters of cases for consideration of those serving excessive prison terms or those released having served their respective terms and seek pardons. President Trump indeed does support second chances and has assembled a team to review cases. This team of advisers is to recommend and vet candidates for pardons. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is the manager of the team.

Alice Johnson

Others on the team include Pam Bondi, Alice Johnson, Matthew G. Whitaker, Democratic commentator Van Jones and Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney in Utah.

Several officials familiar with the matter said the White House has been discussing ways to revamp the clemency process for months, amid growing consensus that the role of the Justice Department should be minimized. The White House has been disappointed with the Justice Department’s process, officials said. While the Justice Department has traditionally received clemency petitions, the new process involves direct submission of applicants to the White House Office of American Innovation, which is led by Kushner, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ja’Ron Smith, the deputy director of the Office of American Innovation, has also been involved in the pardon process, officials said.

Paul Larkin, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who has worked with the White House on criminal-justice issues, said Kushner and others in the administration have held discussions about changing the clemency process since 2018.

Larkin said the discussions he participated in, including one led by Kushner in 2018, included proposals for reducing or eliminating the role of the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney in the clemency process.

Marc Levin, who leads the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Right on Crime initiative, said changing the presidential pardon process has long been on the agenda of advocates on both sides of the aisle.

“In most states, as you know, the parole and clemency process is not vested with prosecutors,” he said, noting that Obama also tried to make changes, though those efforts still took place within the Justice Department. “Both sides recognize that the traditional process needs to be reformed.”

The foundation’s executive, Kevin Roberts, was listed by the White House as someone who advocated for the release of Hall, Munoz and Negron.

It’s not clear how the people in Trump’s informal network will select people to recommend for clemency, or whether any of the thousands of inmates with pending applications will be able to get the attention of Trump’s allies.

Larry Kupers, who led the pardon office during the first two years of the Trump administration, noted that a record-setting number of nearly 13,000 people are waiting for responses to their clemency requests. Many of them have no access to the president, and it’s not clear how they would fare under a new clemency process that cuts out the career officials at the Justice Department. More found here.