Monthly Archives: April 2018

Ignoring The Obvious

Posted on by

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about some of the irregularities surrounding the hiring and work of the Pakistani Information Technology aids who worked for forty-four House Democrats.

The article reports:

Every one of the 44 House Democrats who hired Pakistan-born IT aides who later allegedly made “unauthorized access” to congressional data appears to have chosen to exempt them from background checks, according to congressional documents.

All of them appear to have waived background checks on Imran Awan and his family members, even though the family of server administrators could collectively read all the emails and files of 1 in 5 House Democrats, and despite background checks being recommended for such positions, according to an inspector general’s report. The House security policy requires offices to fill out a form attesting that they’ve initiated background checks, but it also includes a loophole allowing them to simply say that another member vouched for them.

This is amazing to me–these IT aides were not even American-born, yet members of Congress chose not to investigate them for security clearances.

The article explains why background checks would have avoided what happened later:

Among the red flags in Abid’s background were a $1.1 million bankruptcy; six lawsuits against him or a company he owned; and at least three misdemeanor convictions including for DUI and driving on a suspended license, according to Virginia court records. Public court records show that Imran and Abid operated a car dealership referred to as CIA that took $100,000 from an Iraqi government official who is a fugitive from U.S. authorities. Numerous members of the family were tied to cryptic LLCs such as New Dawn 2001, operated out of Imran’s residence, Virginia corporation records show. Imran was the subject of repeated calls to police by multiple women and had multiple misdemeanor convictions for driving offenses, according to court records.

If a screening had caught those, what officials say happened next might have been averted. The House inspector general reported on Sept. 20, 2016, that shortly before the election members of the group were logging into servers of members they didn’t work for, logging in using congressmen’s personal usernames, uploading data off the House network, and behaving in ways that suggested “nefarious purposes” and that “steps are being taken to conceal their activity.”

One of the ironies mentioned in the article:

Among the 44 employers, the primary advocate for the suspects has been Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who introduced a bill Monday that would require background checks on Americans purchasing ammunition. “Without bullets a gun is just a hunk of useless metal,” she said, calling ammunition the “loophole” in gun control policy.

Okay. Background checks for American citizens purchasing ammunition, but no background checks for foreigners having access to sensitive Congressional information. Makes perfect sense!

The article includes information on some of the strange happenings during the investigation of this matter and lists sources for further details of the story. I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire article. There was a serious security breach here, and somehow the mainstream media has chosen to ignore it.

Arriving Soon

Posted on by

Yesterday The Washington Post posted a story about a caravan of more than 1,000 Central Americans, primarily from Honduras, trekking up through Mexico to the U.S. border on a nearly month-long trip that began March 25. These migrants are looking to seek asylum from criminal elements back home or slip into the United States undetected.

The article explains why they are traveling in a group:

Marching in a large group is expected to blunt the efforts of criminal gangs and cartels known to isolate and later rob immigrants, many of whom bring large sums of money to make the long journey north through Mexico. The caravan organizers, Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, appeared to have concluded that it is safer for these people to travel together.

The article cites President Trump’s claim that Mexico is doing nothing to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and offers the following reply:

Mexico is doing something — with the help of the United States. Hundreds of millions of dollars in aid flow to Mexico every year, including funds for strengthening its border with Guatemala, where migrants generally cross.

One wonders how those funds are actually being spent.

On March 30 (updated March 31), Buzzfeed reported:

For five days now hundreds of Central Americans — children, women, and men, most of them from Honduras — have boldly crossed immigration checkpoints, military bases, and police in a desperate, sometimes chaotic march toward the United States. Despite their being in Mexico without authorization, no one has made any effort to stop them.

Organized by a group of volunteers called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, the caravan is intended to help migrants safely reach the United States, bypassing not only authorities who would seek to deport them, but gangs and cartels who are known to assault vulnerable migrants.

Organizers like Rodrigo Abeja hope that the sheer size of the crowd will give immigration authorities and criminals pause before trying to stop them.

“If we all protect each other we’ll get through this together,” Abeja yelled through a loudspeaker on the morning they left Tapachula, on Mexico’s border with Guatemala, for the nearly monthlong trek.

When they get to the US, they hope American authorities will grant them asylum or, for some, be absent when they attempt to cross the border illegally. More likely is that it will set up an enormous challenge to the Trump administration’s immigration policies and its ability to deal with an organized group of migrants numbering in the hundreds.

If America is such a horrible country (as stated by college professors at our top colleges every day) why are so many people trying to come here? Also, what can these people do to improve conditions in their own countries? We cannot take in the entire world and continue to support our own population.

Leaping To Conclusions To Make A Non-Existent Case

Posted on by

Russia, Russia, Russia has begun to sound like Marsha, Marsha, Marsha from the Brady Bunch. Even when there is nothing there, the mainstream media reports on what they think might be there. It has gotten very old. It has also gotten very expensive for the taxpayers to pay for an investigation that has lasted for more than a year and found nothing related to the campaign. They did find international businessmen who were not playing by the correct rules, and they did find someone who misremembered something, but campaign collusion with Russia? Not on the Republican side.

Yesterday Byron York posted an interesting story at The Washington Examiner that perfectly illustrates how insane the campaign to undo the 2016 election has become. The headline of the story is, “So why was Trump aide talking to a Russian spy?” Wow. It sounds like we have finally caught the Republicans (and Trump) red-handed. Well, not so fast.

The article tells us that Rick Gates is the Trump aide who spoke to the Russian spy.

The article points out:

“CNN has learned why special counsel Robert Mueller wants the cooperation of former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates,” anchor Alisyn Camerota said Friday. “Court documents indicate that Gates could be critical to nabbing even bigger fish in a collusion case involving the Kremlin.”

Reporter Shimon Prokupecz said the Mueller team “has been primarily using Rick Gates for information about what they call the central mission of the investigation, which has been Russian interference and collusion in the 2016 campaign.” Gates pleaded guilty in February to charges unrelated to collusion and is now cooperating with Mueller.

 Prokupecz said he had learned Mueller did not need Gates’ cooperation in the tax evasion and fraud case against former employer (and short-lived Trump campaign chairman) Paul Manafort. “Instead, [Mueller] wanted to hear about what he knew about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians.” A “hint” about Mueller’s intentions, Prokupecz said, was contained in a new court filing that “shows Gates was communicating with a Russian intelligence official who was also a close associate of Paul Manafort, and the court document said that Gates knew of this connection while he was working for the Trump campaign.”

One wonders how “CNN has learned.” That’s my first question. The second question is the method used to get Gates’ cooperation–“Gates pleaded guilty in February to charges unrelated to collusion and is now cooperating with Mueller. Why was Mueller even investigating charges unrelated to collusion? The third question is how much information was left out of the CNN story–that’s where things get interesting.

The article concludes:

So putting it all together, yes, Gates was “in contact with a Russian intelligence officer.” And who knows? Perhaps they were plotting to fix the U.S. presidential election for President Trump. But the evidence that Mueller has revealed, and the statements he has made, suggest something more prosaic. Manafort, Gates, and Kilimnik were engaged in all sorts of shady and possibly illegal conduct in Ukraine. They were not interested in the world knowing about it. In addition, Manafort and Gates were strapped for cash and thought some Ukrainians owed them millions of dollars. Which means there were plenty of reasons for Gates and Kilimnik to be in contact in 2016, none of which they would want prosecutors to know about.

Ron Brownstein was right when he advised caution in drawing conclusions about the Mueller investigation. There is still too much that is hidden. But it is reasonable to assess what we know so far. And for the moment at least, the bread crumbs do not add up to a hoagie.

If jumping to conclusions counted as exercise, the mainstream media would put Richard Simmons to shame!

 

 

 

Unintended Or Intended Consequences?

Posted on by

On Friday, Christian Adams posted an article at PJ Media about the proposed change to the census questions. The proposal is to add a question to the U.S. Census asking the person filling out the census about their citizenship status.

An article posted at The Washington Examiner on March 28 details some of the history of the question.

The article reports:

When the census switched to sending out two different census forms, the short form and the long form, the long form (which went to one out of every six households) contained a citizenship question as demonstrated by the 2000 form.

The long form was discontinued after the 2000 census and replaced with the American Community Survey. The U.S. Census Bureau sends out the ACS “on a rotating basis through the decade,” but it goes to only one in 38 households, according to the Census Bureau, which uses it to provide only “estimates of demographic” characteristics. It contains a citizenship question — which neither Holder nor Becerra has ever complained about. Holder certainly did not act to stop its use when he was the attorney general. But using the very limited ACS data is problematical because it is “extrapolated based on sample surveys,” according to Kelley.

The Commerce Department consulted with so-called “stakeholders” who opposed adding the citizenship question before it made its decision. As Kelly pointed out, however, many of the opponents did not know “that the question had been asked in some form or another for nearly 200 years.” They were also apparently not aware of the accuracy problems with the very limited ACS survey.

So what is the impact of asking the question? PJ Media notes:

In many urban areas, blacks compete with Hispanics for local office, particularly in Democratic Party primaries. Miami, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Chicago are places where local Democratic Party politics have deep African-American and Hispanic constituencies. In November, they are rock-solid Democrat voters to defeat Republicans. But in primaries, they often compete.

More importantly, the two groups also compete in line-drawing exercises, where districts are created for school board, county council, statehouse, and Congress. Racial line-drawing — an exercise compelled by the Voting Rights Act whether you like it or not — is reality. Racial line-drawing relies on census data, and each district must have essentially equal population under existing law.

This line drawing counts non-citizen Hispanics to generate Hispanic-majority districts with the minimum total population (citizen and non-citizen combined). But blacks have to ride in the back of the redistricting bus, because they are almost all citizens.

So in essence, the citizenship question on the census restores representation to the black community in places where there are large numbers of non-citizens. That alone is a really good reason to return the question to the census.