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We Build The Wall President Brian Kolfage :: Corrupt International Organization Controls Southern Border, Not DHS Or Border Patrol
December 14, 2019
by Alicia Powe
Neither the Trump administration, Congress, US Customs & Border Protection or the Department of Homeland Security are currently in control of immigration along the southern border, triple amputee veteran and a founder of the nonprofit organization We Build The Wall Brian Kolfage warns in an exclusive interview with Gateway Pundit.
The governmental entity with the actual jurisdiction over the crime-ridden border is The U.S. Section of The International Boundary and Water Commission, a “United Nations-type” globalist agency, run by deep state hacks, that is deliberately allowing hordes of foreign nationals to illegally enter the United States, the decorated war hero explained.
“This organization basically controls our borders. Homeland Security doesn’t control them. Border Patrol doesn’t control them. This international organization, that’s half-owned by corrupt Mexico, controls our border,” Kolfage said. “These Mexican officials – a lot of them are corrupt and it’s proven that they’re corrupt – have say what goes on at our border on the United States side.”
The IBWC was created by the U.S. and Mexico in 1889 to administer rules for demarcating the location of the border between the two countries, which sits on banks of the meandering Rio Grande River. The international body has a U.S. section and a Mexican section, headquartered in the adjoining cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
We Build The Wall completed the assembly of a 30-foot high, three-quarter mile-long section of border wall on private property border El Paso, Texas and Sunland Park, in just four days in New Mexico over Memorial Day weekend.
Immediately after the wall was constructed, IBCW Commissioner Jayne Harkins immediately ordered the gate to be permanently padlocked open.
Surveillance footage from the site, which could be mistaken as a scene from The Walking Dead, shows hundreds of illegal immigrants rampaging into the United States just moments after IBWC staffers chained the gate open.
“The gate was something they asked for,” Kolfage told the Gateway Pundit. “But instead of doing the commonsense thing of shutting the gate and locking it, they leave it wide open, Monday through Friday all day long. Anyone can go to our website, we have live cameras watching the gate.”
Last week @harkjay350 of the IBWC left this gate open and 1000 migrants flooded it!!! RESIGN NOW! pic.twitter.com/03mKvxjX3V
— Brian Kolfage (@BrianKolfage) June 11, 2019
Meanwhile, federal immigration law enforcement leaders caution the overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants invading the county is at a “breaking point” and poses a massive “border security and humanitarian crisis.” The U.S. Customs and Border Protection highlights El Paso, where IBWC is headquartered, as the primary location from which criminal illegal aliens cross over.
The IBWC is a corrupt bureaucratic agency hellbent on keeping the border open to facilitate a gravy train of drugs, sex trafficking and human trafficking back and forth between the two countries, Kolfage surmised.
“Of course, they didn’t like our wall going up in Southern Park – it was an amazing smuggling route. They got a lot of push back from those cartels and people on that side who didn’t want that route shut down,” he said. “It just shows us how screwed up the whole system is, where we have an international group like the U.N. controlling our border, telling us what to do, telling our border patrol what to do.
“We are trying to turn this wall over to DHS and Border Patrol – give them full control. It’s their wall, we built it for them. The IBWC says they leave it open for [IBCW] workers, but there are no workers going through and people are seeing that live – that there’s no workers going through. There might be like one worker a week that will go through – that’s it and why can’t they just have a key.”
As We Build the Wall gears up to build a second 3.5-mile portion of the wall on private land in Mission, Texas, the IBWC is, again, ardently working to sabotage the project.
The Department of Justice on Dec. 5 filed a lawsuit on behalf of IBWC against Fisher Industries, the construction company contracted by We Build The Wall to assemble a physical barrier, to shut border wall construction along the Rio Grande.
IBWC claims the manufacturing of a wall in the location would violate the United States’ 1970 international water treaty with Mexico by causing floods that would alter the course of the international waterway by and destruct the shoreline.
U.S. District Judge Randy Crane subsequently issued a restraining order mandating We Build the Wall and Fisher Industries suspend construction and ordered the government to disclose the results of a hydrology study that would substantiate its unfounded charges.
Federal Judge Backs People-Powered We Build The Wall, Inc. – Shreds Federal Lawyers For IBWC
While illegal immigration jeopardizes U.S. national security, with illegal immigrants committing rape, drug sales, murder again, and again, and again, and again, environmentalists are more concerned about protecting the well being of insects than citizens.
Texas District Judge Keno Vasquez of Hidalgo County on Dec. 4 issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday, ordering We Build the Wall to stop construction on land near property owned by the National Butterfly Center, citing the project’s potential for “imminent and irreparable harm” to a border butterfly sanctuary.
“They’re called the Butterfly National Center – they are not a national anything. They are trying to sound like they’re some federal museum,” Kolfage said. “They named themselves the National Butterfly Center and its nothing more than a piece of land out in the middle of nowhere, right on the border, where illegal aliens are crossing every single day. Cartels are coming off their property and it should be called the National Cartel Center.
“This is what President Trump deals with every day. We are starting to see it now – just how much is against this wall. It’s basically the deep state we are dealing with all.”
Amid the legal hurdles leveled by IBWC and butterfly advocates, We Build The Wall received a ringing public endorsement from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
The influx of illegal traffic has shifted around the structure to a region where agents are equipped to respond more effectively after the nonprofit completed its first new barrier, El Paso Border Patrol sector chief Gloria Chavez told reporters in November.
“Everything changed for us, and we were able to manage the border enforcement actions there even better,” Chavez said.
According to the latest CBP data, the Trump administration has completed 83 miles of the 450 miles of border wall it has vowed to see built by the end of 2020.
With the help of the American people, We Build the Wall could construct a wall along the entire 2000-mile border, Kolfage said.
“Twenty-five million dollars won’t go that far. It’s only going to build a couple of miles. We are still raising money. We’ve just got to keep hammering at it, little chunks at a time,” he said. “If every Trump supporter donates $80, then the nonprofit could build a wall on the entire 2000-mile border. We’ve proven now that we can build wall. When we originally raised this money, it was on an idea that ‘hey we are going to go and try to build a wall.’ But now, we actually did it. DHS has endorsed us. Border Patrol has endorsed us.”
Source and (video)
No One Can Stop Her… And She Knows It: “This Election Won’t Be Fair”
In a fair election, my best estimate is that Donald Trump would win in a landslide.
But this election will not be fair. In fact, few of them are.
For Trump’s part, there is no doubt that he has been this year’s sensation. A newcomer to politics, he has thrown out all the conventional rules, played by his own, and found a captivated country hanging onto his every word. Love him, hate him, or somewhere in between… no one can look away from the spectacle.
After a war within the party and the convenient disposal of 16 conventional GOP contenders, Trump is now the official Republican candidate and he is in a strong position. Coming out of the relatively calm Republican National Convention and going into the tumultuous DNC, Trump has enjoyed soaring poll numbers while Hillary has been losing ground fast to the scandals and corruption revealed by Wikileaks and other related mouthpieces.
But the fat lady has not sung.
Hijacking the Party, Keeping Dissent Under Wraps
Hillary’s coronation last night as she formally accepted her party’s nomination could hardly have been more forced. The entire Democratic convention has been stage-managed to downplay the overwhelming noise from Bernie supporter who are outraged and feel betrayed by Hillary.
The entire convention has had a certain air to it, a quality that reveals the desperation for power, and the crisp sense of danger that brings with it.
Protesters Rage Against the DNC: “Hillary Didn’t Get the Nomination. The Nomination Was Stolen”
To a casual observer, things might look typical enough, with a few sore losers and pipe dreamers wishing for an ideal country run by decent and fair people that either don’t exist or haven’t figured out how to win an election. But things are not typical – the paradigm is shifting. Politics realigns every 30 years or so, or at least that is the maxim that has held in political science. Only, the last shift has been 30 or 40 years overdue.
There is a reason for that, and the establishment has been fighting to stop the change for the past generation. They have faked out the cycle and kept the population under their thumb (when was the last time you saw a “real” presidential election that wasn’t a means to keeping the status quo?)
But delaying the inevitable won’t hold.
Why Trump Should Win…
As Michael Moore argued, Trump has been preaching the gospel of restoring America’s manufacturing, and is working to woo and turn to “red” the “blue” Rust Belt states where Americans once had strong middle class jobs, especially in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. According to Moore’s numbers (which are cited to motivate support for Hillary and opposition to Trump), if Trump captures those key states in addition to the red states that Mitt Romney, a weak candidate, won in 2012, then Trump should win the electoral college:
I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest.
In fact, Moore is right. Nobody wants any more Flint, Michigans (where the water is contaminated and poverty seems to be airborne and contagious), least of all Michael Moore.
Trump’s appeal is much broader than just his sensational antics and controversial statements. He is resonating with America because he is speaking to the wounds of those struggling to cling to what’s left of the middle class American Dream.
And the strength of Trump’s position there is buttressed by the cold fact that the Clinton’s strong support for NAFTA played a major role in the downward spiral of the Rust Belt, and many other parts of the United States.
Trump’s appeal to bringing jobs back to America has to sound like not only a good campaign strategy, but an actual sound idea.
Things have reached a point where nearly every American – regardless of how little they pay attention to news and world affairs – is feeling the damage that has been done. NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and an entire shift into pseudo-governing structures of globalism that have eaten away at the sovereignty of the United States and devoured the prosperity of its people have taken a serious toll on our way of life. And we have all been programmed to take it lying down.
The steady flow of funny money, artificially pumped out by the Federal Reserve has kept many from noticing it, but the real world effects are still hitting people on the street. Not only does the dollar not go as far as it used to, but everything in life is increasing in cost, and getting watered down in value and substance. Society is acting out one big charade, and pretending not to notice the outrage, dissent and anger seeping through the cracks and edges.
Inevitable and determined to win at all costs
Rather than let that burst on her watch, and during the only opportunity she has left in this lifetime, Hillary Clinton and her minions have rearranged all the deck chairs in her favor to force a win. It certainly hasn’t come from the grassroots. Where necessary, the Democratic party has fudged primaries and stolen them outright. The mainstream media has been scripted around her as an anointed figure who is untouchable and beyond reproach. They have stifled exposure of Bernie and would have done so to any other rival… if only any others had dared to enter the race.
Instead, the campaign to elect Hillary became an unrelenting junta to force her into office in spite of the will of the people, the rules of the game or the ever-expanding negative image of the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State whose corruption and ties to bad deeds are both legendary and sufficiently documented to warrant life without parole.
There was a never a realistic chance that Hillary would be prosecuted or even reprimanded over her email scandals, because the fix was in a long time ago. Those who would theoretically hold her into account were appointed by her husband, or by President Obama, and their cooperation was assured in private.
Though many have argued that you can’t put lipstick on a pig, that is exactly what has taken place. 2016 is more of a farce than ever… and there is still another round to go.
Only One Persons Stands Between Her and the Presidency
Can anyone else see that the most rigged and stolen election of all time is shaping up? If the Democratic party doesn’t want Hillary, what makes anyone think the entire country wants anything to do with her?
Before you answer that openly, make a strong educated guess about who the next president is going to be… and how many bodies she will have to climb over to get there.
What Wikileaks exposed with Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC, and what the emails have revealed about Hillary and the Clinton Foundation are surely only the tip of the iceberg. The stories of the delegates who were silenced or kicked out of the convention, and many other deceitful acts to destroy dissent and keep up appearances suggest some of the rest of the story… and it is anything but democratic or “of the people” – though very likely the whole of it will never be known.
There is something very, very wrong going on and it is time that everyone – regardless of ideology, party affiliation or politics – needs to face up to. Preliminary evidence indicates strongly that there has been a very carefully orchestrated coup taking place… and if successful, it will have only one logical conclusion:
Total power, at any price, with a facade of support and momentum that just isn’t there from anyone other than a handful of elite billionaires, and a cadre of clients with addresses that are either foreign or based on Wall Street.
If you missed the convention coverage, then you have got to see Hillary playing with the balloons after her speech.
There really is no wondering who she is concerned about… herself, of course.
As I mentioned above, it is reminiscent – even spot on – of Charlie Chaplin’s amazing parody in The Great Dictator, where his version of a Hitler-esque autocrat toys with the world as his plaything.
We are in for a world of hurt if what I think is going to happen turns out. The entire democratic process is being pushed back under the water, and a crude, fake smile is broadcast for appearances, while holding it all down.
Barack Obama: Unfit to be president
November 17, 2013
It’s a fairly pleasant Sunday morning here in Ft. Worth. It rained a little last night and it’s about 60 degrees outside … pretty darn nice.
I read a piece this morning GOP: Obama lied about health insurance law and I can’t say I’m “stunned” at the content but the piece clearly demonstrates how willing people are to be deceived. It’s like being “blinded by the light”, despite the fact that Barack Obama’s “light” is brilliant only to himself. He is like unto a once great chandelier with a thousand, one hundred watt bulbs brightly lighting up the dance floor … now reduced to a single, seven watt night-light leaving people stumbling around, looking foolish still trying to dance to a worn out tune.
The writer of the article definitely is one of the folks stumbling around the dance floor. He points out in the article that Sen. Ron Johnson (R) of Wisconsin, whom the author referred to as the “designated attacker” for the GOP, as much as said Obama lied when he repeatedly assured the public, “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
“As much as said” …
Here is what the good Senator said: Here
It’s Not a “Fiscal Cliff” … It’s the Descent Into Lawlessness
The “fiscal cliff” is a myth.
Instead, what we are facing is a descent into lawlessness.
Wikipedia notes:
In many situations, austerity programs are imposed on countries that were previously under dictatorial regimes, leading to criticism that populations are forced to repay the debts of their oppressors.
Indeed, the IMF has already performed a complete audit of the whole US financial system, something which they have only previously done to broke third world nations.
Economist Marc Faber calls the U.S. a “failed state“. Indeed, we no longer have a free market economy … we have fascism, communist style socialism, kleptocracy, oligarchy or banana republic style corruption.
Let’s look at some specific examples of our descent into lawlessness.
Lawless Looting and Redistribution of Wealth
The central banks’ central bank – the Bank for International Settlements– warned in 2008 that bailouts of the big banks would create sovereign debt crises … which could bankrupt nations.
That is exactly what has happened.
The big banks went bust, and so did the debtors. But the government chose to save the big banks instead of the little guy, thus allowing the banks to continue to try to wring every penny of debt out of debtors.
Treasury Secretary Paulson shoved bailouts down Congress’ throat by threatening martial law if the bailouts weren’t passed. And the bailouts are now perpetual.
The bailout money is just going to line the pockets of the wealthy, instead of helping to stabilize the economy or even the companies receiving the bailouts:
- Bailout money is being used to subsidize companies run by horrible business men, allowing the bankers to receive fat bonuses, to redecorate their offices, and to buy gold toilets and prostitutes
- A lot of the bailout money is going to the failing companies’ shareholders
- Indeed, a leading progressive economist says that the true purpose of the bank rescue plans is “a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives”
- The Treasury Department encouraged banks to use the bailout money to buy their competitors, and pushed through an amendment to the tax laws which rewards mergers in the banking industry (this has caused a lot of companies to bite off more than they can chew, destabilizing the acquiring companies)
And as the New York Times notes, “Tens of billions of [bailout] dollars have merely passed through A.I.G. to its derivatives trading partners”.
***
In other words, through a little game-playing by the Fed, taxpayer money is going straight into the pockets of investors in AIG’s credit default swaps and is not even really stabilizing AIG.
Moreover, a large percentage of the bailouts went to foreign banks (and see this). And so did a huge portion of the money from quantitative easing. Indeed, the Fed bailed out Gaddafi’s Bank of Libya), hedge fund billionaires, and big companies, but turned its back on the little guy.
A study of 124 banking crises by the International Monetary Fund found that propping up banks which are only pretending to be solvent often leads to austerity:
Existing empirical research has shown that providing assistance to banks and their borrowers can be counterproductive, resulting in increased losses to banks, which often abuse forbearance to take unproductive risks at government expense. The typical result of forbearance is a deeper hole in the net worth of banks, crippling tax burdens to finance bank bailouts, and even more severe credit supply contraction and economic decline than would have occurred in the absence of forbearance.
Cross-country analysis to date also shows that accommodative policy measures (such as substantial liquidity support, explicit government guarantee on financial institutions’ liabilities and forbearance from prudential regulations) tend to be fiscally costly and that these particular policies do not necessarily accelerate the speed of economic recovery.
***
All too often, central banks privilege stability over cost in the heat of the containment phase: if so, they may too liberally extend loans to an illiquid bank which is almost certain to prove insolvent anyway. Also, closure of a nonviable bank is often delayed for too long, even when there are clear signs of insolvency (Lindgren, 2003). Since bank closures face many obstacles, there is a tendency to rely instead on blanket government guarantees which, if the government’s fiscal and political position makes them credible, can work albeit at the cost of placing the burden on the budget, typically squeezing future provision of needed public services.
In other words, the “stimulus” to the banks blows up the budget, “squeezing” public services through austerity.
Numerous top economists say that the bank bailouts are the largest robbery and redistribution of wealth in history.
Why was this illegal? Well, the top white collar fraud expert in the country says that the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by failing to break up insolvent banks … instead of propping them up by bailing them out.
And the Special Inspector General of the Tarp bailout program said that the Treasury Secretary lied to Congress regarding some fundamental aspects of Tarp – like pretending that the banks were healthy, when they were totally insolvent. The Secretary also falsely told Congress that the bailouts would be used to dispose of toxic assets … but then used the money for something else entirely. Making false statements to a federal official is illegal, pursuant to 18 United States Code Section 1001.
So breaking the rules to bail out the big, insolvent banks, is destroying our prosperity.
Lawless Justice System
A strong rule of law is essential for a prosperous and stable economy, yet the government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud, even though criminal fraud is the main business model adopted by the giant banks.
The perpetrators of the biggest financial crime in world history, the largest insider trading scandal of all time, illegal raiding of customer accounts and blatant financing of drug cartels and terrorists have all gotten away scot-free without any jail time.
There are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else.
While Iceland prosecuted its top criminal bankers, and thus quickly got through its financial problems and now has a vibrant economy, the American government has done everything it can to cover up fraud, and has been actively encouraging criminal fraud and attacking those trying to blow the whistle.
The rule of law is now as weak in the U.S. and UK as many countries which we would consider “rogue nations”. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
This is a sudden change. As famed Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto notes:
In a few short decades the West undercut 150 years of legal reforms that made the global economy possible.
Moreover, U.S. government personnel are on the take. They have become so corrupt that regulators are literally sleeping with industry prostitutes … while they pimp out the American people.
The corruption of government officials is staggering, and the system of government-sponsored rating agencies had at its core a model of bribery.
We’ve gone from a nation of laws to a nation of powerful men making one-sided laws to protect their own interests … in secret. Government folks are using laws to crush dissent. It’s gotten so bad that even U.S. Supreme Court justices are saying that we are descending into tyranny.
It’s not a “fiscal cliff” … it’s an attempt to rape America … just like Greece and Ireland have been plundered.
Economics professor Randall Wray writes:
Thieves … took over the whole economy and the political system lock, stock, and barrel. They didn’t just blow up finance, they oversaw the swiftest transfer of wealth to the very top the world has ever seen. They screwed workers out of their jobs, they screwed homeowners out of their houses, they screwed retirees out of their pensions, and they screwed municipalities out of their revenues and assets.
Financiers are forcing schools, parks, pools, fire departments, senior citizen centers, and libraries to shut down. They are forcing national governments to auction off their cultural heritage to the highest bidder. Everything must go in firesales at prices rigged by twenty-something traders at the biggest and most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.
Economics professor Michael Hudson agrees … saying that the banks are trying to roll back all modern laws and make us all serfs.
Professor Hudson explained in 2008:
You have to realize that what they’re trying to do is to roll back the Enlightenment, roll back the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They’re not trying to make the economy more equal, and they’re not trying to share power. Their greed is (as Aristotle noted) infinite. So what you find to be a violation of traditional values is a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards, it’s the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies, to create a new feudal-type elite.
Foreign Policy magazine ran an article entitled “The Next Big Thing: Neomedievalism“, arguing that the power of nations is declining, and being replaced by corporations, wealthy individuals, the sovereign wealth funds of monarchs, and city-regions.
Indeed, this isn’t the “Great Recession”, it’s the Great Bank Robbery. The big banks have pillaged and looted the rest of the world.
A lawless justice system is ruining the economy.
Lawless Central Bank
The non-partisan Government Accountability Office calls the Fed corrupt and riddled with conflicts of interest. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz agrees, saying that the World Bank would view any country which had a banking structure like the Fed as being corrupt and untrustworthy. The former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption. “Nontransparency in government programs is always associated with corruption in other countries, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be here,” he said.
Moreover, the Fed has broken the law by withholding information from Congress, letting unemployment rise in order to keep inflation low, and otherwise exceeding its authority under the Federal Reserve Act.
Acting in a lawless and unaccountable fashion is hurting the economy.
Lawless Attack on Democracy
The ability of the people to participate in their government’s decision-making is vital for a nation’s prosperity. But we no longer have democracy or a republican form of government in America.
The big banks own Washington D.C. politicians, lock stock and barrel. See this, this, this and this. Two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Moody’s chief economist and many others have all said that the United States is controlled by an “oligarchy” or “oligopoly”, and the big banks and giant financial institutions are key players in that oligarchy.
Laws are being passed in secret, and not even Congress knows what’s going on.
In other words, not only the justice system, but the entire system of American representation has been corrupted, thus harming the economy.
Lawless Infringement of Freedom
Personal freedom and liberty – and freedom from the arbitrary exercise of government power – are strongly correlated with a healthy economy, but America is descending into tyranny.
Authoritarian actions by the government interfere with the free market, and thus harm prosperity.
U.S. News and World Report notes:
The Fraser Institute’s latest Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report is out, and the news is not good for the United States. Ranked among the five freest countries in the world from 1975 through 2002, the United States has since dropped to 18th place.
The Cato institute notes:
The United States has plummeted to 18th place in the ranked list, trailing such countries as Estonia, Taiwan, and Qatar.
***
Actually, the decline began under President George W. Bush. For 20 years the U.S. had consistently ranked as one of the world’s three freest economies, along with Hong Kong and Singapore. By the end of the Bush presidency, we were barely in the top ten.
And, as with so many disastrous legacies of the Bush era, Barack Obama took a bad thing and made it worse.
But the American government has shredded the constitution, by subjecting us to indefinite detention, taking away our due process rights, deploying drones above our heads, spying on all Americans, and otherwise acting in attacking our freedoms.
Indeed, rights won in 1215 – in the Magna Carta – are being repealed.
Economic historian Niall Ferguson notes, draconian national security laws are one of the main things undermining the rule of law:
We must pose the familiar question about how far our civil liberties have been eroded by the national security state – a process that in fact dates back almost a hundred years to the outbreak of the First World War and the passage of the 1914 Defence of the Realm Act. Recent debates about the protracted detention of terrorist suspects are in no way new. Somehow it’s always a choice between habeas corpus and hundreds of corpses.
Of course, many of this decades’ national security measures have not been taken to keep us safe in the “post-9/11 world” … indeed, many of them started before 9/11.
And America has been in a continuous declared state of national emergency since 9/11, and we are in a literally never-ending state of perpetual war. See this, this, this and this.
In fact, government has blown terrorism fears way out of proportion for political purposes, and “national security” powers have been used in many ways to exempt big Wall Street players from the rule of law rather than to do anything to protect us.
So lawlessness infringement of our liberty is destroying our prosperity.
Lawless Initiation and Prosecution of War
It is well-documented that war destroys the economy.
Top U.S. government employees lied us into war, and used illegal torture, assassinations and other crimes of war in prosecuting the wars they unnecessarily started. They were – at a minimum – criminally negligent for failing to stop 9/11 (and see this).
In the name of fighting our enemies – the U.S. has directly been supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups for the last decade. See this, this, this, this and this.
Our use of torture has also created many more terrorists than it has prevented.
Security experts – including both conservatives and liberals – agree that waging war in the Middle East weakens national security and increases terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
Indefinite detention, drone-strikes on innocent civilians, occupation of foreign countries, and most of America’s other tactics in the “war on terror” increase terrorism.
Terrorism feeds the cycle of war … and is thus harming our economy. (and because terrorism spooks people, they spend less, which further harms the economy).
So lawlessness in starting and prosecuting war is destroying our prosperity.
Postscript: We’re not facing a “fiscal cliff”. We’re facing a descent into lawlessness. Stopping the fraudulent schemes, endless bailouts and imperial adventures is the place to start.
Related articles
- Descent Into Lawlessness (theburningplatform.com)
Steven Chu on Solyndra: Enough already !!!
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has just about had it with House Republican accusations about Solyndra and other clean-energy companies that won billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees.
“After hundreds of thousands of pages of documents sent over, there’s not any whiff that this was a politically influenced decision,” Chu told reporters Tuesday shortly after wrapping up House committee testimony on the controversial program. “That’s true of all the loans.”
Chu’s frustration was apparent after spending more than two hours before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee answering pointed GOP questions concerning his handling of more than $14.5 billion in stimulus-funded loan guarantees.
Earlier in the day, Rep. Darrell Issa’s panel released a blistering report claiming Chu had “turned a blind eye to the risks” associated with many of the companies applying for the loan guarantees, putting billions of dollars in taxpayer money in jeopardy.
During the hearing, House Republicans peppered Chu with questions about a “revolving green door” of current and former Obama administration officials and campaign fundraisers who have connections to the stimulus-funded loan guarantee winners.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Chu whether his decisions had been influenced by several specific people tied to the administration, including former National Economic Council Chairman Larry Summers, who before joining the White House worked as a part-time managing director at D.E. Shaw, a New York-based investment firm that has an ownership stake in the Kahuku Wind project.
Chu replied that Summers’s connections to the Hawaii wind farm had nothing to do with it securing a $117 million loan guarantee in July 2010.
The DOE chief also had similar replies when asked about Commerce Secretary John Bryson, who before joining the administration sat on the board of directors at BrightSource, which won a $1.6 billion loan guarantee in April 2011 to support the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System in California’s Mojave Desert; Nancy-Ann DeParle, a deputy White House chief of staff for policy who served on the board of directors at Noble Environmental Power, the owner of the Granite Reliable wind energy project that won a partial $168.9 million loan guarantee last September; and Michael Froman, a deputy assistant to Obama and deputy national security adviser who worked at Citigroup, a major investor in SolarReserve, winner last September of a $737 million loan guarantee.
“There seems to be a pattern,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). “There’s so many names on this list. I just want to know personally what are you doing to follow through on our concerns that these people are personally financially benefiting from the decisions that they’re in positions to influence people when they have major financial gain on the upside of these loans.”
Chu responded that all of the DOE loan guarantees got greenlights based on their merits and without White House involvement. The DOE chief also said he hadn’t referred any of the specifics to the department’s inspector general, though he said he’d ask the DOE general counsel to review whether any of the officials breached a “firewall” designed to stop such conflict of interest concerns.
“We will look into this,” Chu told reporters after the hearing. “But again it’s easy to raise something and say, ‘Oh, by the way, this person had a connection to that company.’ Then there’s a big leap to say we funded the company because of it.”
Chu noted prominent Republicans and GOP donors have ties to some of the stimulus winners. But he also noted, “It’s not relevant to what we funded and that’s the bottom line.”
This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 3:59 p.m. on March 20, 2012.
Steven Chu on Solyndra: Enough already – Darren Samuelsohn – POLITICO.com.
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Obama-appointed US trade adviser linked to illegal deal in Congolese gold
UN report says Kase Lawal knew he was dealing with the wanted warlord Bosco Ntaganda
Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda has been wanted by the international criminal court since 2006. Photograph: Reuters
A US trade adviser appointed by Barack Obama orchestrated a deal to buy gold worth millions of dollars from a wanted Congolese warlord, according to a UN report.
Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born US oil tycoon, transferred millions of dollars to the notorious rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda between December 2010 and February 2011 as part of the deal, the report by the UN’s Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) states.
If true, this would be a contravention of UN resolutions banning individuals or organisations from financing illegal armed groups in the wartorn eastern DRC.
The UN report says Lawal, the chairman and chief executive of the Houston-based oil firm Camac, was aware he was paying Ntaganda.
Obama put Lawal on the US advisory committee for trade and policy negotiations in September 2010, just months before the deal with Ntaganda.
All efforts to reach Lawal failed. Camac said it had no comment on the allegations, but said: “Camac is a law-abiding company and we disagree with the representations made in the report.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Ntaganda has been wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) since an arrest warrant was issued in 2006. He funds his exploits by smuggling natural resources in the mineral-rich country, and faces allegations of recruiting child soldiers and presiding over mass rapes and murder of civilians by his troops in the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).
The CNDP militia has since integrated into the Congolese national army but its soldiers continue to obey rebel command structures.
Ntaganda, like many rebel leaders in eastern DRC, funds his activities by smuggling natural resources.
The UN says “gold is among the sources of financing most readily available to armed groups”.
According to the report, while Lawal was initially under the impression that he was buying gold from an owner in Kenya, he did not abort the deal when he learned Ntaganda was the true owner.
Instead, the UN report says Lawal merely “appeared relieved to finally be engaging directly with the true owner of the gold”.
The report says Lawal financed the deal while Edward Carlos St Mary, a Houston businessman and friend of Lawal’s, carried out the transaction in DRC. The deal was proposed to the two men by Dikembe Mutombo, a Congolese former NBA player with the Houston Rockets, and three of his relatives.
Despite paying, Lawal never received the gold. St Mary flew to Goma in DRC to finish the deal in a Camac-leased jet, but the passengers were arrested by Congolese presidential security officers as they tried to take off with the gold in February 2011.
St Mary and two Camac employees were charged with money-laundering and illegal transport of a banned material, because at this time the Congolese government had banned mining of gold, tin and coltan in the provinces where the minerals trade was affected by illegal armed groups. The three men were released in late March after Camac’s Kinshasa representative paid $3m (£1.9m) in fines.
Substantial sums of money were involved from the start. The report says Lawal told St Mary he had lost “$30m as a result of the whole ordeal, including transport fees, fines, bribes” and the payments for the gold.
Jason Stearns, a former Group of Experts co-ordinator, said: “This is a fine example of the rank disregard of international law by major international companies and businessmen.
“Lawal knew Bosco Ntaganda was involved in the deal, so he was knowingly doing business with a man wanted by the ICC. On top of that, there was a Congolese mining ban in place at the time. And finally, he’s probably violating a UN arms embargo on the region.”
A source close to the UN who asked to remain anonymous said: “The whole thing was a scam. It’s likely the Congolese were always going to arrest [St Mary and the others] and keep the money and the gold. The charge of illegal transport of a banned material was a pretext for the arrests.
“In reality, the Congolese authorities and Ntaganda worked together to ensure full payment was made for the gold, that the gold never left the DRC, and that the arrested men would have to pay a series of heavy fines to secure their release.”
St Mary agrees. Speaking to the Guardian from Houston, he said that at one stage he nearly pulled out of the deal, only to be put on the phone to Zoé Kabila, the president’s brother, who reassured him the gold dealers were “legitimate”. That was before he knew Ntaganda was involved.
Later, in Goma, St Mary said Ntaganda was arguing with Joseph Kabila, DRC’s president, on the phone. “They were arguing over how to split the cash,” he said. “Even when I first met Ntaganda, he told me he’d just spoken to Kabila and that we’d be able to leave with the gold with no problem.”
When the story first broke in early 2011 Lawal tried to pin the blame on his friend St Mary. Since then, relations have soured between the two men, yet St Mary defends Lawal’s decision to push ahead with the deal. “Mickey [Lawal – Kase Lawal’s brother, also in Goma] and I told [Kase] Lawal that the owner of the gold was Bosco [Ntaganda].
“But by the time we found that out I think our lives were in jeopardy. To try to pull out then could have cost us our lives. In those circumstances, what else can you do? There was no out.
“There was only one way to go: try to do a deal and get the hell out of there. The problem was the authorities and Bosco were partners in this, and we didn’t know that until it was too late.”
Conflict persists in eastern DRC, despite a 2003 peace agreement to end a bloody war. Numerous rebel groups and militias operate in the region and there are regular attacks on civilians, including massacres and mass rapes.
Collaboration between Kabila and Ntaganda during the recent presidential and legislative elections lends weight to the accusations.
“Bosco and the CNDP have allegedly been involved in election fraud while campaigning for Kabila’s Majorité Présidentielle [coalition],” said Stearns. “Allegations include ballot-stuffing, stealing people’s identities and intimidation. It’s all been happening in CNDP-controlled areas.”
A Goma resident who wished to remain anonymous said: “Bosco and his men are a very visible presence … they put a lot of pressure on people to vote for their favourite candidates.”
Fraud was so rife that the Congolese electoral commission annulledelection results in some areas.
Related articles
- Former NBA All-Star Allegedly Part Of A $10 Million Gold Scam (businessinsider.com)
- UPDF army generals looting and involving themselves in illicit trade in Congo (ddungu.wordpress.com)
- The Congo and Conflict Minerals (mhairi.wordpress.com)
- Mutomobo reportedly tied to smuggling scheme (sbnation.com)
- President’s secret deals cost Congolese £3.5bn (independent.co.uk)
- U.S. Policy Toward Post-Election Democratic Republic of the Congo (appablog.wordpress.com)
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