Tag: corruption

Government Shutdown Not Stopping Democrats From Planning Retreat at Luxury Resort in California Wine Country

Democrats are currently losing their minds over the looming government shutdown. They’re afraid they are going to be blamed, and they will be.

That has not stopped them from planning a retreat at a luxury resort in California wine country, however. The retreat is being organized by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and the DSCC, the campaign arm of the Senate Democrats.

If the government shutdown is such an emergency situation, why haven’t the Democrats postponed or even cancelled their trip? We all know why.

FOX News reports:

Democrats plan luxury Napa retreat as government shutdown threat looms over Congress

Democrats have come under fire for planning a luxury jaunt to California’s wine country while Washington heads toward a possible government shutdown.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), chaired by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, allegedly invited lawmakers to an expensive two-day Napa Retreat from Oct. 13–14 at Hotel Yountville, a five-star resort with hot tubs and vineyard views, according to an invitation obtained by Politico Playbook.

If Congress fails to pass funding legislation before the end of September, the government may still be shut down when some Democrats gather for wine tours and dinners, the outlet reported Saturday.

The retreat, was also said to include dinner at the expensive Staglin Family Vineyards, an organic estate known to be one of Napa’s premier winemakers.

Attendees will include Gillibrand, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and other Democrats. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich, is also expected to attend, a Democrat briefed on the plans told Politico.

Keep reading

New York issued driver’s license to migrant — but didn’t require first name

New York issued a driver’s license to a migrant — but didn’t require a first name.

The revelation came as Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said a man caught up in a raid that ensnared 125 illegal immigrants in his state had a New York commercial driver’s license with “No Name Given” in the place of his first and middle monikers.

“If New York wants to hand out CDLs to illegal immigrants with ‘No Name Given,’ that’s on them. The moment they cross into Oklahoma, they answer to our laws,” the Republican wrote in a social media post Monday, along with a picture of the license.

The New York Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed to The Post that the license, issued on April 14 and set to expire May 26, 2028, was real.

“This commercial driver’s license was issued in accordance with all proper procedures, including verification of the individual’s identity through federally issued documentation,” DMV spokesman Walter McLure said in a statement.

The spokesman said the individual in question had “lawful status” to be in the US “through a federal employment authorization and was issued a license consistent with federal guidelines.”

He did not specify which program and what “federal issued documentation” was provided to the DMV to verify the man’s identity.

“It is not uncommon for individuals from other countries to have only one name,” the statement added.

It wasn’t immediately known how many similar licenses have been issued.

Keep reading

Obama Library Funds Are Secretly Flowing To Dark Money Networks

Barack Obama’s long-promised presidential library is shaping up to be just as corrupt as his administration. You probably haven’t heard much about this in the media, but recent tax filings reveal that money donated to the Obama Foundation—supposedly earmarked for his sprawling “presidential center” in Chicago—is quietly being redirected to one of the left’s most notorious dark money groups: the Tides Foundation.

The numbers tell the story. In 2022 and 2023, the Obama Foundation handed over $2 million to Tides, a group best known for serving as a clearinghouse for radical left-wing causes and for shielding donor identities. It should come as no surprise that George Soros heavily backs Tides, and Tides is directly tied to groups organizing anti-Israel protests. That includes demonstrations against the Jewish state in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities. In other words, donations made in the name of funding a presidential library are now helping bankroll organizations promoting antisemitic activism under the guise of social justice.

That’s pretty on-brand for Barack Obama.

“The Tides Center played an administrative role in the program by processing grants while Cities United [a nonprofit] managed the application process,” the spokeswoman said in an email. Grants ranged from $15,000 to $30,000 each over the two summers.

Tides has also handled donations for Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which sued the group in California Superior Court last year. It alleged “egregious mismanagement” of more than $33 million in its funds, according to court documents. That lawsuit is ongoing.

In addition to sending donations to Tides, the Obama Foundation has sent more than $3 million in 2022 and 2023 in grants to Gofundme.org for undisclosed “grassroots leaders to empower girls through education,” according to the group’s filings.

Meanwhile, the foundation admitted it has so far spent more than $615 million building the Obama Presidential Center, which is scheduled to open in spring 2026, according to its website.

The group, which received just $129,320 in donations in 2022, spent more than $27 million on salaries.

While community members struggle, insiders at the Obama Foundation are doing just fine. The foundation’s CEO, Emeka Jarrett, earned over $750,000 last year. The executive vice president, Rob Cohen, pocketed nearly $650,000, and also maintains ties to the Pritzker Realty Group. His connection to Penny Pritzker—sister to Governor J.B. Pritzker—only highlights the tangled web of Democratic powerbrokers who are thriving while the project supposedly dedicated to “the people” spirals out of control.

Keep reading

The Curious Tale Of Columbia Professor Daniel Richman

Just The News is reporting that “Person 3” in the Comey indictment is not former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe but rather Columbia Professor Daniel Richman. According to the outlet, Richman is the former FBI employee in the indictment who allegedly leaked information about “Person 1,” who is believed to be Hillary Clinton. The report continues the long uncertainty over Richman’s role in these controversies. Richman has described himself as a friend, an FBI special employee, and the lawyer representing Comey at different times. He has also been a columnist and commentator, including for the site Lawfare run by Comey’s friend Ben Wittes. What Richman was doing at any given time remains strikingly uncertain. Professor Richman is not himself charged with any crime.

Richman’s fluid and changing roles are reminiscent of the debate over the role of Hunter Biden’s friend/lawyer/patron Kevin Morris. There was an evolution in the roles that Richman played over the years that left some of us confused as to his specific status at certain times.

At various points in the investigation, Richman alludes to being Comey’s lawyer, as well as a former aide and a friend. Comey used Richman as a conduit to the press and admitted that he was the means by which Comey leaked the contents of a memo that Comey improperly removed from the FBI after being fired.

The respected veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge reported on a June 2017 memorandum that documented a phone call with Richman and the so-called “Comey memos,” which detailed his conversations with President Trump.

According to sources, five days earlier, on June 8, 2017, Comey “asked Professor Richman to disclose the content of at least one of those memoranda to the press…”

In interviews,  sources said that Richman was dismissive over the violation of federal rules stating  “something to the effect of, ‘You do things by your rules’ and ‘I do things by my rules.’” Richman seemed to claim that he was serving as counsel and allegedly insisted that “there is a substantial extent to which I would raise attorney-client issues.” The suggestion was that, after leaving his position as a Justice Department adviser to Comey, he may have assumed the role as private counsel to Comey.

Richman admitted to media contacts but reportedly said that he did not think that he confirmed classified material from Comey to New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt.

Comey designated Richman as a Special Government Employee (SGE) at the FBI and subsequently utilized him as a conduit to the media. He gave him access to top-secret information, and Richman seems to have floated between Comey and other offices, such as the FBI’s General Counsel’s office.

The FBI said that “Comey instructed the FBI to hire Richman as a Special Government Employee” in 2015 and “to grant him a Top Secret clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information.” It also said its investigation “revealed Comey also hired Richman, so Comey could discuss sensitive matters, including classified information, with someone outside of the FBI’s regular leadership. Comey also used Richman as a liaison to the media.”

Keep reading

Comey Faces Indictment, but His Real Crimes Remain Untouched

We have no idea whether the current DOJ indictments will lead to a conviction of James Comey, namely that he authorized FBI subordinates to leak to the media and then lied about it, obstructing Congress in the process.

It may come down to the word of Comey, a known fabricator, against the testimony of his former subordinate, Andrew McCabe, an admitted liar. Take your pick.

We know, however, that Comey is not facing a Trumpian $500 million in potential fines, nor 93 indictments, nor the scrutiny of five different local, state, and federal prosecutors. Nor, like some of the J6 arrested, will he be sent to solitary confinement to await a trial in a year or two or be charged with “illegal parading.”

We also know of the crimes or unethical conduct for which James Comey is not currently being indicted or investigated.

He is not being charged with pleading amnesia or ignorance in 2018—e.g., “I didn’t know,” “I couldn’t recall,” “I didn’t remember”—a reported 245 times while under oath to House investigators and misleading them.

He is not being charged with leaking in 2017 a confidential FBI memo of a conversation with then President Trump—which he improperly stored in his personal safe, in violation of FBI protocols—to the New York Times via a third-party Columbia professor.

He is not being charged for falsely assuring the President of the United States in 2017 that he was not the object of the current Crossfire Hurricane “Russian collusion” investigation—when, in fact, Trump, as the Mueller investigation revealed, was the real target of almost that entire ruse.

He is not being charged for deliberately leaking an FBI memo of a conversation with President Trump for the purpose of injuring him by prompting the appointment of his friend and predecessor, Robert Mueller, as a special counsel to investigate the supposed crimes of Donald Trump. Comey’s gambit resulted in a 22-month and $30 million administration hiatus, only to find no actionable wrongdoing by Trump.

He is not being investigated for usurping the role of the DOJ in 2016 when, as an FBI investigator, he served simultaneously as investigator and prosecutor, creating a conflict of interest.

He was tasked with both finding evidence of Hillary Clinton’s alleged wrongdoing and also making the federal prosecutorial decision whether to indict her for transmitting classified material over an unsecured email server. And after finding evidence of her culpability, he chose not to indict her on the grounds that her candidacy at the time meant no reasonable prosecutor (of which he was then not supposed to be one) would bring such a case against her.

He is not being investigated for improperly disclosing his newly reopened investigative case against Hillary Clinton on the eve of the 2016 election. Nor is he being investigated for predetermining that Hillary Clinton was innocent of the charges of unlawfully transmitting confidential material before his own FBI investigation was complete—and before Comey’s FBI had even interviewed her.

He is not being investigated for tasking Peter Strzok to alter his own original condemnation of Clinton’s conduct by replacing the initial and correct term “gross negligence,” a phrase that denotes a federal crime, with “extreme carelessness,” which involves no criminal liability.

He is not being investigated for, nor charged with, birthing the entire governmental role in the Russian collusion hoax that warped the 2016 presidential election and transition by his use of the discredited Christopher Steele as an FBI confidant/source.

He is not being investigated for using the fraudulent Steele dossier as a “central and essential” document to obtain a FISA court writ to improperly surveil Carter Page—an act that even he later admitted was wrong.

He is not being investigated for stumbling upon a rock mosaic on a beach arranged to read “8647” (“get rid of/remove Trump”) and then on social media nonchalantly posting that clear threat to injure/remove/eject the current president.

Keep reading

Catherine Herridge reveals what fake news media won’t admit about Comey’s indictment…

The propaganda press is already hard at work trying to save James Comey. CIA-friendly “reporters” like Ken Dilanian from MSNBC are twisting themselves into pretzels to paint the charges against him as flimsy, political, or just plain ol’ “Trump’s revenge.”

Here’s how the fake news media is trying to downplay what’s happening. Ken Dilanian suggests the indictment is built on words Comey never actually said… spoiler alert: he said them.

This is the same tired routine we see time and time again. Run cover for the Deep State, smear Trump, and pretend the walls aren’t closing in. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But as you can imagine, the truth is much different than the fairytales the regime media is pumping out.

The real story is coming from journalists who don’t carry water for our crooked intelligence agencies. Catherine Herridge just dropped the receipts that show what the media won’t dare tell you… this indictment wasn’t shaky, it was locked, loaded, and ready to go.

Keep reading

Look At NYT Coverage Of Comey, Trump Indictments To See How The Propaganda Machine Operates

On Thursday, disgraced former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by a grand jury on two counts: false statements within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. In other words, Comey allegedly broke the law — and the evidence appears to support the charges. But you wouldn’t necessarily glean that if you read The New York Times’ editorial board meltdown about the indictment.

“The Comey Indictment Plunges the Country Into a Grave New Period,” the piece is headlined. The esteemed “opinion journalists” at The Times warn that Trump “is undermining a core promise of the American justice system: the fair and equal enforcement of the law.”

It matters naught to the board that Comey allegedly provided false testimony to Congress in September of 2020 about his handling of the Russia collusion hoax. Comey previously testified in 2017 that “he did not authorize leaking information regarding the FBI’s investigations into President Donald Trump or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” as described by NBC News. Comey later told Sen. Ted Cruz he stood by the testimony.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said Comey was made aware of the leak of information to the press and essentially gave it the stamp of approval after the fact, a 2018 Justice Department inspector general’s report found.

But no, according to The Times, Trump is apparently a “despot” who is “persecuting people he considers his enemies, with little justification other than raw political power.”

Although, however, the board even highlights that the grand jury that indicted Comey declined to bring a third false statement count.

“Grand juries typically file the indictments that federal prosecutors ask for,” the board writes, unwittingly undercutting its own hysteria. You see, by conceding that the grand jury — not Trump — declined to pursue the third charge (which according to The Times is atypical) it must mean the grand jury found credible evidence to indict Comey on the other two charges, but used their discretion and declined to bring the third charge. In other words, the charges stand on merits, not Trump’s alleged desire for retribution.

Nonetheless, according to the board, the “biggest law enforcement scandal of the past 50 years” is that Trump (according to the “experts”) ran on “promising to prosecute his enemies.” (Notably, the editorial board must have forgotten about New York Attorney General Letitia James’ campaign promise to nail Trump).

And yet here I was thinking the “biggest law enforcement scandal of the past 50 years” was the last administration trying to throw a former president in jail. But The Times disagrees with me there, you see.

In fact, the editorial board was quick to declare that “Donald Trump Is Not Above the Law,” in a 2022 piece that claimed the criminal investigation into the then-former president was “required.”

“Mr. Trump’s unprecedented assault on the integrity of American democracy requires a criminal investigation. The disturbing details of his postelection misfeasance, meticulously assembled by the Jan. 6 committee, leave little doubt that Mr. Trump sought to subvert the Constitution and overturn the will of the American people,” the board wrote.

Keep reading

Why it was easy for an illegal immigrant to land top job in Des Moines’ public schools

The arrest of an illegal immigrant serving as the Des Moines, Iowa, superintendent of schools has exposed a broader problem in America’s public education system: Few of them are using E-Verify, the federal government’s tool to weed out people not authorized to work.

Iowa has revoked the education license of Ian Andre Roberts, the Guyanese immigrant who was helming the state’s largest school system despite his defiance of a deportation order issued more than a year ago.

Late Monday, the school board voted to put him on unpaid leave, and said unless he proves his work status by Tuesday, he’ll be fired.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mr. Roberts on Friday, moving to enforce a final deportation order an immigration judge issued last year. Authorities said Mr. Roberts fled in his Des Moines-issued vehicle, then abandoned it and ran before being tracked down.

When officers later searched his vehicle, they found a handgun, which illegal immigrants cannot possess under the law.

ICE said the case should be a “wake-up call” to communities to better check their hires.

“How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district,” said Sam Olson, director of the ICE deportation field office that covers Des Moines.

Jackie Norris, chair of the school board, said Mr. Roberts claimed to be a citizen.

She said he presented a driver’s license and Social Security card and filled out Homeland Security’s I-9 form, the paper-based process for verifying someone is eligible to work. She said the school system had no reason to doubt his claims until last week.

But experts said if the school system had used E-Verify, it could have blocked him and avoided the embarrassing black eye.

“Every school district in the United States should be using E-Verify, if simply to protect the children they are responsible for,” said Rosemary Jenks, policy director at the Immigration Accountability Project.

E-Verify is voluntary at the federal level, though some states make it mandatory for employers within their borders. A bill to add Iowa to that list cleared the state Senate last year but did not make it through final passage.

Of the more than 10,000 school districts in the U.S., only a few hundred are listed as users of E-Verify in the program’s database, run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

A few of those districts are in Iowa, including Storm Lake and the Ballard Community school districts. Des Moines is not among them.

Keep reading

States forgave billions in fraudulent pandemic benefits

It was bad enough that fraudsters stole tens of billions of dollars in bogus pandemic-era unemployment benefits — now it turns out states forgave much of that money without even trying to claw it back.

The exact amount won’t ever be known, though it could stretch into billions. The Labor Department’s inspector general blamed poor decision-making and antiquated systems in the states, which administer the unemployment program with federal backstop funds during the pandemic.

Investigators did a deep dive into Michigan and Massachusetts, which they identified as particular offenders, and found the states forgave people who were using clearly stolen Social Security numbers or suspicious emails or physical addresses that kept popping up in other fraud cases.

Among the claims paid out by Michigan — and later forgiven — was one where the person used an out-of-state Social Security number, gave an address in Alabama, and hadn’t reported any earnings before the pandemic. The state had confirmed that it was a fraudulent application, yet still forgave the money, meaning the fraudster wasn’t asked to pay it back.

In another case, Michigan determined a claim was the result of identity theft. A year later, it still forgave that money.

The inspector general said Michigan waived recovery for nearly 18,000 cases of confirmed fraud.

Massachusetts, meanwhile, set up an “honor system” for some people to ask to be excused from sending back overpayments in pandemic unemployment benefits.

It turned out to be a mistake, the new audit said Monday.

Investigators sampled 121 claims that used the state’s “one-click” waiver request program and found none of them had any documentation to prove they met the hardship standards for keeping taxpayers’ money.

What documentation existed in the files showed the people were “at fault” and shouldn’t have qualified anyway. That included some people who voluntarily quit, some who actually had jobs even as they were collecting unemployment and others who were fired for deliberate misconduct.

Like Michigan, Massachusetts also paid out money — and then waived repayment requirements — to applications that reeked of fraud.

That included one claim, paid $6,804, that used a Social Security number and physical address that were also used in three other states. One of those was Michigan.

“Massachusetts waived the recovery of overpayments that had a high probability of fraud,” the inspector general concluded.

Investigators took a sample of 14 probably fraudulent claims and ran them by Massachusetts authorities. The state said it hadn’t flagged any of them for fraud, though it had determined they were ineligible — after first paying out weeks’ worth of benefits.

Five of them were actually on a list the feds provided to Massachusetts in 2022 as potentially fraudulent. Massachusetts said it didn’t follow up because it had already ended the claims and listed them as overpayments.

It forgave the money.

Keep reading

Strategic Treason: The Empire Fetes Man Who Killed US Troops

On Monday, Sept. 22, the current president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, joined the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, on stage for a discussion at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City. The summit is one of the most prestigious global affairs forums in the world and by its own account “convenes the world’s most prominent business, government, and nonprofit leaders to foster dialogue and enable effective partnerships for positive social impact.”

It was a surreal moment because 20 years ago, during Iraq War II, these men were enemies. Once upon a time, al-Sharaa was known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a foot soldier in Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and Petraeus was known as US Army General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. In fact, it was a moment that revealed the extent to which the US Empire has become an inherently treasonous project.

It was Al Qaeda that knocked down the World Trade Center towers and hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. And it was Al Qaeda that formed the radical edge of the Sunni-based insurgency during Iraq War II that killed approximately 4,000 of the 4,500 US troops who died in that war. Al-Jolani fought in Iraq from 2003 until he was captured and imprisoned by US forces in 2006. He was released from prison in 2011 for reasons still classified. Then, in 2012, he went to Syria to form and lead al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, the al-Nusra Front.

Meanwhile, Petraeus was promoted to a Four-Star General, directed the 2007 “Surge” in Iraq, served as commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan from 2010–2011, and then became director of the CIA in 2011. The CIA runs the Counterterrorism Mission Center, which officially exists to prevent groups like Al Qaeda from knocking down our towers. Of course, the CIA also runs the Special Activities Division, which does special things like Operation “Timber Sycamore,” which funneled billions of dollars in weapons and support to the insurgency waged against the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad. The al-Nusra Front was on the front in that fight.

So, Americans watching al-Sharaa and Petraeus share the stage might feel like the downtrodden animals in the final moment of George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

In similar fashion, an American beholding the Concordia sit down might ponder, who’s the terrorist and who’s the counterterrorist?

Keep reading