Friday, March 14, 2014

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2013

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2013


Thanks, Drake. 
From the Judicial Watch pressroom.  Maybe this is Drake’s housekeeping list…  ~ BP
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released its 2013 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list,in alphabetical order, includes:
Dishonorable Mentions for 2013 include:
House Speaker John Boehner has apparently become a master at what Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer calls the “Tollbooth Strategy.” As Schweizer explains in his new book,Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets:“You pay money at a tollbooth in order to use a road or bridge. The methodology in Washington is similar: if someone wants a bill passed, charge them money to allow the bill to move down the legislative highway.”  According to Schweizer, Boehner apparently used the Tollbooth Strategy to collect more than $200,000 in political donations from executives just days before holding votes on bills critically important to their industries.
The first bill was the Wireless Tax Fairness Act. Strongly supported by big phone companies like AT&T and Verizon, it sailed through the House Judiciary Committee, and was expected to immediately come to the floor for a full House vote. Instead of scheduling the bill for a vote, however, Boehner allowed it to languish on the calendar for the next three months. What finally prompted Boehner to bring the bill to a vote? As Schweizer explains it: “The day before the vote, Boehner’s campaign collected the toll: thirty-three checks from wireless industry executives, totaling almost $40,000.”
According to Schweizer, two more bills on which Boehner employed the Tollbooth Strategy were the Access to Capital for Job Creators Act and the Small Company Capital Formation Act. Brokers and venture capitalists and investment firms strongly supported the proposed law. Explains Schweizer inExtortion: “The Speaker of the House took in $91,000 in the forty-eight hours of October 30 and 31 from investment banks and private equity firms, two days before the vote.  During the same time period, he took in $46,500 from self-described ‘investors’ and another $32,450 from bank holding companies. With the tolls paid, the votes took place on the full House floor. Both passed easily.”
CIA Director John Brennan:
In mid-December 2013, Judicial Watch obtained and released the full transcript of a May 7, 2012, teleconference between then-White House top counterterror adviser (now CIA Director) John Brennan and various TV terrorism consultants in which Brennen revealed that the U.S. and its allies had “inside control over any plot” in its efforts to thwart a May 2012 terrorism bomb plot, thus blowing the cover on undercover agents within al Qaeda.
The Brennan revelation of “inside control” – an intelligence community euphemism for spies within an enemy operation – reportedly helped lead to the disclosure of a previously well-kept secret at the heart of a joint U.S.-British-Saudi undercover terrorism operation inside Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). According to a Reuters May 18, 2012, report:
The next day’s headlines were filled with news of a U.S. spy planted inside Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who had acquired the latest, non-metallic model of the underwear bomb and handed it over to U.S. authorities.
At stake was an operation that could not have been more sensitive — the successful penetration by Western spies of AQAP, al Qaeda’s most creative and lethal affiliate. As a result of leaks, the undercover operation had to be shut down.
In the transcript obtained by Judicial Watch, Brennan led the teleconference where he addressed the top terror consultants for ABC, NBC, CNN, and CBS including Caitlin Hayden, Frances Townsend, Richard Clarke, Roger Cressey, and Juan Zarate. In an apparent attempt to soft-peddle the thwarted terrorist attack, Brennan twice exposed the covert operation; first at the outset of the call, then as the conference drew to a close:
BRENNAN: The device itself, as I think the FBI statement said quite clearly, never posed a threat to the American public or the public … Well, as we, well know, Al Qaeda has tried to carry out simultaneous types of attacks, and so we were confident that we had inside control over the – any plot that might have been associated with this device.
CLARKE: If it gets asked. There was no active threat because we had insider control …
BRENNAN: I would not disagree with the way you put that, at all.
It should also be noted that records obtained by Judicial Watch in May 2012, through a Freedom of Information lawsuit, indicate that Brennan helped orchestrate the administration’s attempt to influence the storyline of the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” A transcript of a July 14, 2011, meeting between Defense Department officials, including Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers, and filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal reveals that Boal met directly with White House officials on at least two occasions regarding the film: “I took your guidance and spoke to the WH and had a good meeting with Brennan and McDonough and I plan to follow up with them; and they were forward leaning and interested in sharing their point of view; command and control; so that was great, thank you,” Boal said according to the transcript. During Brennan’s February 2013 CIA confirmation hearings, he confirmed he had met with Boal “on how White House officials viewed the opportunities and risks associated with a film about the raid that killed bin Laden.”
Brennan, of course, was not the only Obama administration official who attempted to curry favor with “Zero Dark Thirty” filmmakers. In early December Judicial Watch released more than 200 pages of documentsfrom the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including a previously unreleased CIA internal report, confirming that former CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed classified information at a June 24, 2011, bin Laden assault awards ceremony attended by filmmaker Mark Boal. Significantly, the entire transcript of the Panetta speech provided to Judicial Watch by the CIA was classified “Top Secret.”  More than 90 lines are redacted for security reasons, further confirming that significant portions of the speech should not have been made in front of the filmmaker who lacked top security clearance.
This goes on, and on, so please see the remainder at the press room.

Lynda

8:25 AM (8 minutes ago)
to me
 

Obama’s Cabinet Got a Good Cleaning & Luxembourg—All Gone! & Janet Napolitano Resigns from DHS

Check out the list here on who’s staying with Obama and who’s going:
There’s some major housecleaning going on in Luxembourg, as well—the entire government! And you’ll never guess why…
(thanks Patrick)   What a colourful time to be alive!

Entire Government of Luxembourg Resigns after Spying and Corruption Scandal Forces its Prime Minister to Quit

 Jean-Claude Juncker was Europe’s longest-serving leader, with 18 years as Prime Minister
He was secretly record by his own spy chief, Marco Mille

The Luxembourg government today resigned, brought down by a spying and corruption scandal that shook the tiny country better known for wealthy bankers than political intrigue.
Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister since 1995 and the European Union’s longest serving government chief, tendered his resignation to Grand Duke Henri, the royal head of state who himself has been implicated in media reports of espionage.
The government was forced to resign after junior coalition partners withdrew their support in protest at Juncker’s apparent failure to rein in a secret service spiralling out of control. Juncker has proposed holding a general election in October, seven months ahead of schedule.
Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg
Jean-Claude Juncker
Accused: Grand Duke Henri (left) was implicated in espionage reports that led to the downfall of Juncker (right)
The catalyst for the resignation was a parliamentary inquiry published last week that said Luxembourg’s security agency illegally bugged politicians and members of the public, purchased cars for private use and took payments and favours in exchange for access to influential officials.
In a scene reminiscent of a spy novel, former security chief Marco Mille recorded a conversation with Juncker in 2008 using a microphone in his watch.
Mille told Juncker he had reliable reports that Grand Duke Henri was in constant contact with Britain’s secret services, according to one newspaper. The Grand Duke’s office has denied the allegation.
The government was already under pressure due to renewed interest in a mysterious series of sabotage bomb attacks in the 1980s, known as the Bommeleeer affair, whose targets included electricity pylons and an airport radar system as well as a newspaper office.
Two former members of a special police force went on trial for the attacks at the start of this year.
Last month, the government and Finance Minister Luc Frieden survived twin votes of no-confidence in parliament over accusations that the minister had put pressure on investigators to close their inquiry into the bombings.
Juncker, for almost two decades the personification of Luxembourg on the international stage, chairing “Eurogroup” meetings of euro zone finance ministers from 2005 to 2013, may well return to lead the Grand Duchy after the snap election.
He remains a popular figure and has no obvious successor in his centre-right CSV party, particularly as the former finance minister has been tarnished, according to Philippe Poirier, politics lecturer at the University of Luxembourg.
Frieden, once touted as a possible future prime minister, has also come under fire over the re-purchase of a stake in Cargolux from Qatar Airways in January and European Union pressure to end Luxembourg’s system of bank secrecy.
“The CSV crown prince for many years, Luc Frieden, is himself involved in the telephone tapping and Bommeleeer affairs,” Poirier said.
“Jean Claude Juncker is the electoral locomotive of his party. It’s not the CSV, it’s the Juncker party.”
Source
susanne_posel_news_ la-me-ln-uc-president-20130712-001_0As for Janet Napolitano…  we don’t know if the details around the shufflings above and below are the true reasons or not. We’ll have to see. Some of these folks are going to be arrested, if they haven’t already been thrown in the slammer. They’re keeping some things under wraps until “The Event” and they can tell the truth about everything.
Maybe UC wants someone who will put metal detectors and body scanners at the University.
DHS Chief Janet Napolitano Resigns
“…the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has resigned her post. Napolitano entered the office at the beginning of President Obama’s first term, and she was only the third person to hold the position since it was created in response to the September 11th attacks. In a statement, she said the Department of Homeland Security “has improved the safety of travelers; implemented smart steps that make our immigration system more fair and focused while deploying record resources to protect our nation’s borders; worked with states to build resiliency and make our nation’s emergency and disaster response capabilities more robust; and partnered with the private sector to improve our cybersecurity.” Napolitano will be taking over the presidency of the University of California’s 10-campus education system. “UC officials believe that her Cabinet experiences –- which include helping to lead responses to hurricanes and tornadoes and overseeing some anti-terrorism measures — will help UC administer its federal energy and nuclear weapons labs and aid its federally funded research in medicine and other areas.”
And here’s a comment following the above… (definitely some “awake” people out there.) 
In this case, UC is currently paying their president $600K and will probably pay her. Which is odd, because last I heard, the UC system was still cutting scholarships, teachers, and classes due to budget problems.
But I’m sure that money is well spent: I mean, if Napolitano can bring the same magic to the UC system that she did to DHS, then maybe the UC system will be safe from imaginary threats from Al Quaeda. And isn’t that more important than students getting an education? We decided it was more important than the constitution, so yes, the answer is yes whether you like it or not.
This is idiotic. Why is a taxpayer supported institution wasting money like she’s a CEO?

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