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Sunday, September 28, 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014
HOW FORMER TREASURY OFFICIALS AND THE UAE ARE MANIPULATING AMERICAN JOURNALISTS
BY GLENN GREENWALD - @ggreenwald - TODAY AT 9:59 AM
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MANAGING A NIGHTMARE: THE CIA REVEALS HOW IT WATCHED OVER THE DESTRUCTION OF GARY WEBB 
HOW FORMER TREASURY OFFICIALS AND THE UAE ARE MANIPULATING AMERICAN JOURNALISTS 
SYRIA BECOMES THE 7TH PREDOMINANTLY MUSLIM COUNTRY BOMBED BY 2009 NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE 
AUSTRALIA’S PRIME MINISTER GIVES A MASTER CLASS IN EXPLOITING TERRORISM FEARS TO SEIZE NEW POWERS 
DEFENSE CONTRACTORS ARE MAKING A KILLING
The tiny and very rich Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar has become a hostile target for two nations with significant influence in the U.S.: Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is furious over Qatar’s support for Palestinians generally and (allegedly) Hamas specifically, while the UAE is upset that Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (UAE supports the leadersof the military coup) and that Qatar funds Islamist rebels in Libya (UAE supports forces aligned with Ghadaffi).
This animosity has resulted in a new campaign in the west to demonize the Qataris as the key supporter of terrorism. The Israelis have chosen the direct approach of publicly accusing their new enemy in Doha of being terrorist supporters, while the UAE has opted for a more covert strategy: paying millions of dollars to a U.S. lobbying firm – composed of former high-ranking Treasury officials from both parties – to plant anti-Qatar stories with American journalists. That more subtle tactic has been remarkably successful, and shines important light on how easily political narratives in U.S. media discourse can be literally purchased.
This murky anti-Qatar campaign was first referenced by a New York Timesarticle two weeks ago by David Kirkpatrick, which reported that “an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel” is seeking to depict Doha as “a godfather to terrorists everywhere” (Qatar vehemently denies the accusation). One critical component of that campaign was mentioned in passing:
The United Arab Emirates have retained an American consulting firm, Camstoll Group, staffed by several former United States Treasury Department officials. Its public disclosure forms, filed as a registered foreign agent, showed a pattern of conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of Qatar’s role in terrorist fund-raising.
How that process worked is fascinating, and its efficacy demonstrates how American public perceptions and media reports are manipulated with little difficulty.
The Camstoll Group was formed on November 26, 2012. Its key figures are all former senior Treasury Department officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations whose responsibilities included managing the U.S. government’s relationships with Persian Gulf regimes and Israel, as well as managing policies relating to funding of designated terrorist groups. Most have backgrounds as neoconservative activists. Two of the Camstoll principals, prior to their Treasury jobs, worked with one of the country’s most extremist neocon anti-Muslim activists, Steve Emerson.
Camstoll’s founder, CEO and sole owner, Matthew Epstein, was a Treasury Department official from 2003 through 2010, a run that included a position as the department’s Financial Attaché to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A 2007 diplomatic cable leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks details Epstein’s meetings with high-level Abu Dhabi representatives as they plotted to cut off Iran’s financial and banking transactions. Those cables reveal multiple high-level meetings between Epstein in his capacity as a Treasury official and high-level officials of the Emirates, officials who are now paying his company millions of dollars to act as its agent inside the U.S.
Prior to his Treasury appointment by the Bush administration, Epstein was a neoconservative activist, writing articles for National Review and working with Emerson’s aggressively anti-Muslim Investigative Project(Epstein’s published resume omits his work with Emerson). His pre-Treasury work for Emerson’s group, obsessed with The Muslim Threat Within, presaged Peter King’s 2011 anti-Muslim witch hunts.
In 2003, for instance, Epstein told the U.S. Senate that “large sections of the institutional Islamic leadership in America do not support U.S. counterterrorism policy” and that “the radicalization of the Islamic political leadership in the United States has developed parallel to the radicalization of the Islamic leadership worldwide, sharing a conspiratorial view that Muslims in the United States are being persecuted on the basis of their religion and an acceptance that violence in the name of Islam is justified.” He declared: “the rise of militant Islamic leadership in the United States requires particular attention if we are to succeed in the War on Terror.”
Camstoll’s Managing Director, Howard Mendelsohn, was Acting Assistant Secretary of Treasury, where he also had ample policy responsibilities involving the Emirates; a 2010 WikiLeaks cable details how he “met with senior officials from the UAE’s State Security Department (SSD) and Dubai’s General Department of State Security (GDSS)” to coordinate disruption of Taliban financing. Another Managing Director, Benjamin Schmidt, worked with Epstein at Emerson’s Investigative Project before his own appointment to Treasury; a 2009 diplomatic cable shows him working with Israel on controlling financing to Palestinians. A Camstoll director, Benjamin Davis, was the Treasury Department’s Financial Attaché in Jerusalem.
On December 2, 2012 – less than a week after Camstoll was incorporated – it entered into a lucrative, open-ended consulting contract with an entity wholly owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Outlook Energy Investments, LLC (its Emir, the President of UAE, is pictured above). A week later, Camstoll registered as a foreign agent working on behalf of the Emirate. The consultancy agreement calls for Camstoll to be paid a monthly fee of $400,000, wired each month into a Camstoll account. Two weeks after it was formed, Camstoll was paid by the Emirates entity a retainer fee of $4.3 million, and then another $3.2 million in 2013.
In other words, a senior Treasury official responsible for U.S. policy toward the Emirates leaves the U.S. government and forms a new lobbying company, which is then instantly paid millions of dollars by the very same country for which he was responsible, all to use his influence, access and contacts for its advantage. The UAE spends more than any other country in the world to influence U.S. policy and shape domestic debate, and it pays former high-level government officials who worked with it – such as Epstein and his company – to carry out its agenda within the U.S.
What did Camstoll do for these millions of dollars? They spent enormous of amounts of time cajoling friendly reporters to plant anti-Qatar stories, and they largely succeeded. Their strategy was clear: target neocon/pro-Israel writers such as the Daily Beast‘s Eli Lake, Free Beacon‘s Alana Goodman, Iran-contra convict Elliott Abrams, The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin, and American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin – all eager to promote the Qatar-funds-terrorists line being pushed by Israel. They also targeted establishment media figures such as CNN’s Erin Burnett, Reuters’ Mark Hosenball, and The Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick.
In the latter half of 2013, Camstoll reported 15 separate contacts with Lake, all on behalf of UAE’s agenda; in the month of December alone, there were 10 separate contacts with Goodman. They also spoke multiple times with Warrick. At the same time, they were speaking on behalf of their Emirates client with their former colleagues who were still working as high-level Treasury officials, including Kate Bauer, the Treasury Department’s Emirates-based Financial Attaché, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Danny McGlynn.
In the first half of 2014, as the Emirates attack on Qatar intensified, Camstoll spoke multiple times with Lake, Hosenball, and Erin Burnett’s CNN show “Out Front,” and had conversations with Goodman and the NYT‘s David Kirkpatrick. They continued to meet with high-level Treasury officials as well, including Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser (highlights added):
This work paid dividends for the UAE. In June, when the Obama administration announced a plan to release Guantanamo detainees to Qatar, Lake published a widely cited Daily Beast article depicting Qatar as friends of the terrorists; it quoted anonymous officials as claiming that “many wealthy individuals in Qatar are raising money for jihadists in Syria every day” and “we also know that we have sent detainees to them before, and their security services have magically lost track of them.” Lake himself pronounced that “Qatar’s track record is troubling” and that “the emirate is a good place to raise money for terrorist organizations.”
He then went on Fox News and said that “there still is a major issue with just terrorist financing in Qatar” and that in Doha there are “individuals who are roaming free who have raised a lot of money for al Qaeda, Hamas and other groups like that.”
Meanwhile, CNN sent Burnett to Doha where she broadcast a “special report” entitled: “Is Qatar a haven for terror funding”? CNN touted it as “an in-depth look into the people funding Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked groups, including ISIS.” She began her report by noting that “the terror group ISIS is committing atrocities in Iraq. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki blames Saudi Arabia and Qatar for providing ISIS militants with money and weapons.” She then put on a source, former Bush deputy national security adviser and Treasury official Juan Zarate, to say that “Qatar is at the center of this. Qatar has now taken its place in the lead of countries that are supporting al Qaeda and al Qaeda-related groups.”
On camera, Burnett asked her source: “So how high up in the government in Qatar does the support for Islamic extremism for these al Qaeda-linked groups go?” The answer: “Well, these are decisions made at the top. So Qatar operates as a monarchy. Its officials, its activities follow the orders of the government. And to the extent that there’s a policy of supporting extremists in the region, that’s a policy that comes from the top.” She then brought on the GOP Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, and asked whether he agrees that “money out of Qatar could end up being used to fuel the ambition, the dream, of attacks against the United States directly,” and he quickly said he did.
Camstoll’s work with the Post‘s Warrick also proved quite productive. Camstoll spoke with Warrick on December 17, 2013. The very next day, thePost reporter published an article stating that “private Qatar-based charities have taken a more prominent role in recent weeks in raising cash and supplies for Islamist extremists in Syria, according to current and former U.S. and Middle Eastern officials.”
Camstoll representatives spoke again with Warrick on December 20 and December 21. The day after, he published another more accusatory article citing “increasing U.S. concern about the role of Qatari individuals and charities in supporting extreme elements within Syria’s rebel alliance” and linking the Qatari royal family to a professor and U.S. foreign policy critic alleged by the U.S. government to be ”working secretly as a financier for al-Qaeda.”
As one of his sources, Warrick in the first of his articles cited “a former U.S. official who specialized in tracking Gulf-based jihadist movements and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of his work for the government was classified.” That perfectly describes several Camstoll Group members, though Warrick did not respond to questions from The Interceptabout whether this anonymous source was indeed a paid agent of the UAE working at Camstoll.
Also on Camstoll’s list of journalistic contacts was Kirkpatrick, who produced the article in the NYT two weeks ago headlined “Qatar’s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies Near and Far.” It noted that Qatar “has tacitly consented to open fund-raising” for Al Qaeda affiliates.
But unlike all the other reports helpfully produced by Camstoll’s journalistic allies, Kirkpatrick expressly described, and cast skeptical light on, the concerted campaign to focus on Qatar, not only mentioning Camstoll’s behind-the-scenes work but also reporting that “Qatar is finding itself under withering attack by an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, which have all sought to portray it as a godfather to terrorists everywhere.” Kirkpatrick also noted that “some in Washington have accused it of directly supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” a claim he called “implausible and unsubstantiated.”
In response to questions from The Intercept about Camstoll’s role in his reporting, Lake refused to answer any questions, stating: “I don’t talk about how I do my reporting. I meet with many representatives and officials of foreign governments in the course of my job.” (So many journalists pride themselves on demanding transparency and accountability from others while adopting a posture of absolute secrecy for their own work that would make even a Pentagon spokesperson blush: “I don’t talk about how I do my reporting”). Goodman similarly said: “as I’m sure you understand, I can’t discuss my private conversations with contacts.” Camstoll’s contacts with Goodman and Hosenball appear to have produced no identifiable reports. Camstoll, Warwick, and Hosenball all provided no response to questions from The Intercept.
The point here is not that Qatar is innocent of supporting extremists. Nor is it a reflection on any inappropriate conduct by the journalists, who are taking information from wherever they can get it (although one would certainly hope that, as Kirkpatrick did, they would make clear what the agenda and paid campaign behind this narrative is).
The point is that this coordinated media attack on Qatar – using highly paid former U.S. officials and their media allies – is simply a weapon used by the Emirates, Israel, the Saudis and others to advance their agendas. Kirkpatrick explained: ”propelling the barrage of accusations against Qatar is a regional contest for power in which competing Persian Gulf monarchies have backed opposing proxies in contested places like Gaza, Libya and especially Egypt.” As political science professor As’ad AbuKhalil wrote this week about conflicts in Syria and beyond, “the two Wahhabi regimes [Saudi Arabia and Qatar] are fighting over many issues but they both wish to speak on behalf of political Islam.”
What’s misleading isn’t the claim that Qatar funds extremists but that they do so more than other U.S. allies in the region (a narrative implanted at exactly the time Qatar has become a key target of Israel and the Emirates). Indeed, some of Qatar’s accusers here do the same to at least the same extent, and in the case of the Saudis, far more so. As Kirkpatrick noted: “Qatar is hardly the only gulf monarchy to allow open fund-raising by sheikhs that the United States government has linked to Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front: Sheikh Ajmi and most of the others are based in Kuwait and readily tap donors in Saudi Arabia, sometimes even making their pitches on Saudi- and Kuwaiti-owned television networks.”
One U.S. government cable from 2009, also published by WikiLeaks, identified Saudi Arabia, not Qatar, as the greatest danger in this regard:
Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.
The writer of that cable complained that “it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.”
Prior to his appointment as a Treasury official – and before he began working as a paid agent of the UAE to finger Qatar as the key threat – Camstoll’s founder and CEO, Epstein, himself fingered Saudis as the key financiers of Al Qaeda and anti-American terrorism. His 2003 Senate testimony included this statement: “the Saudi Wahhabists have bankrolled a series of Islamic institutions in the United States that actively seek to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy at home and abroad”; he added: “in the United States, the Saudi Wahhabis regularly subsidize the organizations and individuals adhering to the militant ideology espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and its murderous offshoots Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, all three of which are designated terrorist.”
While the 2009 cable claimed claimed that ”Qatar’s overall level of CT cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region,” it said this was “out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals.” But the cable also identified other U.S. allies in the region as key conduits for terrorist financing, stating, for instance, that “Al-Qa’ida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point.” It also heavily implicated the Emirates themselves: ”UAE-based donors have provided financial support to a variety of terrorist groups, including al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups, including Hamas.”
One of the most critical points illustrated by all of this tawdry influence-peddling is the alignment driving so much of US policy in that region. The key principals of Camstoll have hard-core neoconservative backgrounds. Here they are working hand in hand with neocon journalists to publicly trash a new enemy of Israel, in service of the agenda of Gulf dictators. This is the bizarre neocon/Israel/Gulf-dictator coalition now driving not only U.S. policy but, increasingly, U.S. discourse as well.
Margot Williams and Andrew Fishman contributed additional reporting
Photo: Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Turkish Presidency Press Office/AP)
Email the author: glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com
Announcement to vastly expand Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument lauded, while seismic blasts await marine life off U.S. East Coast
Published on Thursday, September 25, 2014
by Common Dreams Andrea Germanos, staff writer
Coral gardens at Palmyra Atoll. (Photo: Jim Maragos/USFWS)
President Barack Obama announced on Thursday the creation of the world's largest marine reserve.
The action expands the biodiversity-rich Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, which covers seven atolls and islands, from roughly 87,000 square miles to 490,000 square miles.
That expansion falls short of what Obama proposed in June, which would have created a 782,000 square mile-reserve.
The action bans commercial fishing and "any appropriation, injury, destruction, or removal of any object" from the reserve. The Marine Conservation Institute outlines some of what will be protected:
- 130 seamounts: undersea mountains which can provide essential rest-stops for tunas and sea turtles migrating across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean.
- Several million seabirds representing 19 species, many of which find the fish and squid they eat in the now-expanded marine monument waters.
- Habitat for whales and dolphins, including the newly discovered Palmyra beaked whale.
- Nearly-pristine coral reef ecosystems.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services states that the areas within the Monument "represent one of the last frontiers and havens for wildlife in the world, and comprise the most widespread collection of coral reef, seabird, and shorebird protected areas on the planet."
The Marine Conservation Institute joined a number of ocean conservation groups cheering the expansion.
"This unprecedented protection is an important step to rebuilding fishery abundance in the Pacific Ocean, which will in turn help to feed the world’s growing population," stated Jacqueline Savitz, vice president for U.S. oceans at Oceana.
Emily Woglom, vice president for Conservation and Policy at Ocean Conservancy, said that "we all win by the Obama Administration creating the world’s largest marine monument, because protecting our ocean now is the investment that will pay dividends for generations to come. Science shows that protected areas in the ocean help rebuild fish populations, which is good for fishermen, and provide habitat for many unique ocean animals, including whales, sharks, tuna and corals."
While the marine reserve is receiving accolades, the administration's decision to allowexploration activities for oil and gas, including the use of seismic cannons, off the East Coast has been denounced as a potential "death sentence" for marine mammals.
“I just can’t understand how anybody would propose something that’s going to be just a rape of the East Coast, endangering whales and dolphins and turtles and fish,” McClatchyquotes Nags Head Mayor Bob Edwards as saying.
Charleston Voice: FEMA Camp Locations in US - state-by-state List & Map - Expel the FedGov from State Lands
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Posted by Charleston Voice
Location of FEMA Camps & MapSee related sites also:
How Much of your State Land has already been Stolen by the Fed?
How to Expel FEMA from your State...Lawfully
Presumed state list of the 800 FEMA camps (PDF)Originally posted on May 28, 2012
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Chuck Norris: Barack Obama Has "Crippled" America by Intentionally Dividing It
August 11, 2014
We recently shared with you a column written by Chuck Norris stating that President Obama doesn’t have what it takes to leadthe nation.
Of course he is right, as Obama has demonstrated that he is themost inept and incompetent leader our country has ever seen, and he has proven to not only all of America, but the entire world, that his fiery rhetoric is really little more than empty words that mean nothing.
Chuck Norris has continued with his column, releasing a second part, again looking into the psychology and personality traits of Obama, and how those have led him to be the “leader” that he is.
He pulls no punches as he describes the heady days in the beginning of Obama’s Presidency, when everyone thought that Obama would unify the country, ease the plight of the oppressed, and restore America’s standing in the eyes of the world.
Unfortunately, the exact opposite of that has happened. Because of Obama’s “leadership”, America is now more divided than ever before, the oppressed are even more downtrodden than before, and America has sunk to new lows on the world stage, with our rivals emboldened and our allies left questioning our commitment.
Norris points out that the one thing missing from Obama’s Presidency is culpability. This is so true, as nothing is ever the fault of Obama. Everything that has gone wrong over the past six years is either the fault of Bush, House Republicans, the Tea Party, or someone or something else. But it is never Obama’s fault.
Norris looks at all of the various international crises occurring around the world, like the resurgence of hostility in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Russia, China, and the Israel/Hamas conflict. He asks if Obama has done anything to make any of these situations better.
He also points to the endless litany of domestic scandals, including all of the alphabet agencies, the economy, Wall Street, the border crisis, and again asks, what has Obama done to fix any of this?
The key component linking nearly every thing that has failed for Obama, both domestically and internationally, is how Obama constantly shifts blame away from his own self, and is always searching for a scapegoat. The constant blame game, false accusations of racism, and perpetual mischaracterization of his opposition has created a level of divisiveness that is tearing America apart.
Norris says, “Leading by unilateral decisions and swaying to political expediency are not the leadership qualities America needs now or ever. They demonstrate his character flaws that have come full circle to haunt him and – most tragically – us. To add insult to injury, we’ll never know the exact prices we’ve paid because we will never know the good that the right leader in the White House could have done over the last seven years in stabilizing our country and world.”
He closes with, “I’ll say again what I wrote in Part 1, Obama’s glaring and greatest weakness – namely, his inability to make hard decisions in crisis and especially lead opposing forces through or out of them – has cost America on every front. It has further divided Washington and our nation, and it has jeopardized our standing with the entire global community and even our allies, leaving us in a much more unstable place in our world.”
Hopefully, America will have learned from our eight-year mistake, and not elect someone similar to Obama in 2016.
Please share this on Facebook and Twitter if you agree that Obama’s divisiveness has “cripple” America.
Possible Rules Change Could Punish Boehner Dissidents - NationalJournal.com
Possible Rules Change Could Punish Boehner Dissidents - NationalJournal.com
Plan floated to strip committee slots from members who rebel during floor vote for speaker.
BY TIM ALBERTA AND DANIEL NEWHAUSER
Allies of John Boehner want to avoid a repeat of the 2013 floor vote for House speaker.(Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
September 19, 2014 House Republicans are quietly discussing a proposal that could fundamentally alter the way future speakers of the House are chosen, according to multiple GOP sources, with the objective of avoiding a repeat of John Boehner's embarrassing reelection vote in 2013.
The rule tweak began as an informal discussion but has morphed into a concrete proposal that is beginning to circulate in the House. According to people briefed on it, any Republican who votes on the House floor in January against the conference's nominee for House speaker—that is, the candidate chosen by a majority of the House GOP during its closed-door leadership elections in November—would be severely punished. Specifically, sources say, any dissenters would be stripped of all committee assignments for that Congress.
"There's a real concern that there's between 30 and 40 people that would vote against the speaker on the House floor, so they're trying to change the conference rules to make sure that doesn't happen," said a GOP member familiar with the proposal.
At the same, time, according to sources, conservative lawmakers are discussing something of a counter-proposal. Under their plan, the November leadership elections would be pushed back until after the lame-duck session of Congress ends in December. This idea was described by one House conservative as a preemptive strike to warn leadership not to consider any significant legislation during the 15-day "lame-duck" period between November's midterm elections and the start of the new Congress.
This proposal, in light of the proposed pelaties for voting against the speaker in January, could also be aimed at giving a challenger additional time to organize supporters for the conference elections.
Even if the first proposal is adopted, Republicans would still be allowed to vote for anyone in those closed-door internal elections, during which members choose their leadership officials for the next Congress. But once a majority of the conference has voted for their candidate as speaker, that decision will be final. When the House holds its chamber-wide vote for speaker on the first day of the new Congress, all Republicans will be expected to support the party's nominee. Next year, barring any surprise development, Boehner will be that nominee.
It's unclear the degree to which leadership is involved with pushing the proposal. According to Republicans close to the situation, the plan was not authored by or circulated within Boehner's team. Instead, they say, the speaker's allies in the rank-and-file are promoting the idea as a way to avoid another awkward display of intra-party rivalry at the start of the 114th Congress. Still, it's difficult to imagine Boehner's friends moving forward with such a drastic plan without his approval, if not support.
"There are members frustrated with other members about what happened last time," said a senior Republican.
Twelve House Republicans refused to vote for Boehner's reelection in January 2013 at the outset of the 113th Congress. This level of dissent was insufficient to oust Boehner from the speakership, but served to embarrass the speaker and publicly air the party's dirty laundry. The incident infuriated Boehner's allies, who claimed no opposition was voiced privately during the conference elections—an affront to the traditional process of keeping internal campaigns private.
Still, even with plenty of members still upset over that 2013 incident, adopting this proposal won't be easy. A majority of House Republicans must vote for any change to the conference rules, and some lawmakers would certainly oppose the change. Such sweeping punitive measures would be difficult to keep under wraps, such as Boehner and the Steering Committee did in late 2012 when three outspoken conservatives were kicked off committees for failing to support party initiatives.
"The speaker at any one point in time has probably 90 to 100 votes, for sure. So it's just a matter of making the case to a mere 20 folks or so and get the rule changed. But I think there would be a lot of people who would still vote for the speaker, but would have a real hard time with that kind of rule change," said the first Republican member.
The timing of this proposed rule tweak is especially interesting. Nobody is expected to compete with Boehner for the speakership next Congress, much less beat him. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, has quietly considered a campaign against Boehner. But Hensarling's allies argue that Eric Cantor's resignation this summer, which triggered a leadership shake-up and fortified Boehner's position atop the conference, make it highly unlikely Hensarling will seek the speakership.
"I don't think you'll see that kind of drama," Rep. Paul Ryan, a close friend of Hensarling, told National Journal earlier this month. "I think Jeb would look at it if there were an open seat. But I don't think an open seat is going to occur."
It seems, then, the proposal is aimed more broadly at preventing another contentious leadership election that feeds the narrative about divisions within the GOP. And it may be aimed particularly at freshmen entering the House next year, some of whom have said on the campaign trail that they would refuse to vote for Boehner. Tea-party-aligned candidates in Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina have already said they will not support the speaker.
It also comes as members close to the speaker have been circling the wagons over the last few months. Reps. Devin Nunes, Pat Tiberi, and Tom Cole, some of Boehner's inner circle, have been trying to force members to pay their dues to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and if they don't they don't get to sit on A-level committees, such as Ways and Means.
On that topic, Capitol Hill has also been abuzz in recent days about the other potential procedural changes -- pushing back the conference leadership elections.
Conservatives could make the case that members won't have sufficient evidence by which to judge the new leadership team that took over in late June. And, indeed, some already have hinted that Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise -- the new majority leader and majority whip, respectively -- should be evaluated primarily by their decision-making during the lame-duck period.
Still, it's difficult to imagine a majority of the conference supporting such a proposal. From a logistical standpoint, rescheduling the conference elections—which traditionally overlap with freshmen orientation, so that incoming members may participate—could prove impossible at this late stage.
More importantly, most Republicans are calling for unity heading into the next session of Congress, and several leading conservatives acknowledged Thursday that there likely won't be a contested leadership race anyway.
"I don't see anybody right now going forward and mounting a challenge to the speaker," said Rep. Raul Labrador, who lost his bid this summer for majority leader.
The rule tweak began as an informal discussion but has morphed into a concrete proposal that is beginning to circulate in the House. According to people briefed on it, any Republican who votes on the House floor in January against the conference's nominee for House speaker—that is, the candidate chosen by a majority of the House GOP during its closed-door leadership elections in November—would be severely punished. Specifically, sources say, any dissenters would be stripped of all committee assignments for that Congress.
"There's a real concern that there's between 30 and 40 people that would vote against the speaker on the House floor, so they're trying to change the conference rules to make sure that doesn't happen," said a GOP member familiar with the proposal.
At the same, time, according to sources, conservative lawmakers are discussing something of a counter-proposal. Under their plan, the November leadership elections would be pushed back until after the lame-duck session of Congress ends in December. This idea was described by one House conservative as a preemptive strike to warn leadership not to consider any significant legislation during the 15-day period between November's midterm elections and the start of the new Congress in January.
This idea, in light of the proposed pelaties for voting against the speaker in January, could also be aimed at giving potential challengers additional time to organize support for the conference elections. Because it would need to be assented to by the current leadership, it stands almost no chance of being implemented.
Even if the first proposal is adopted, Republicans would still be allowed to vote for anyone in those closed-door internal elections, during which members choose their leadership officials for the next Congress. But once a majority of the conference has voted for their candidate as speaker, that decision will be final. When the House holds its chamber-wide vote for speaker on the first day of the new Congress, all Republicans will be expected to support the party's nominee. Next year, barring any surprise development, Boehner will be that nominee.
It's unclear the degree to which leadership is involved with pushing the proposal. According to Republicans close to the situation, the plan was not authored by or circulated within Boehner's team. Instead, they say, the speaker's allies in the rank-and-file are promoting the idea as a way to avoid another awkward display of intra-party rivalry at the start of the 114th Congress. Still, it's difficult to imagine Boehner's friends moving forward with such a drastic plan without his approval, if not support.
"There are members frustrated with other members about what happened last time," said a senior Republican.
Twelve House Republicans refused to vote for Boehner's reelection in January 2013 at the outset of the 113th Congress. This level of dissent was insufficient to oust Boehner from the speakership, but served to embarrass the speaker and publicly air the party's dirty laundry. The incident infuriated Boehner's allies, who claimed no opposition was voiced privately during the conference elections—an affront to the traditional process of keeping internal campaigns private.
Still, even with plenty of members still upset over that 2013 incident, adopting this proposal won't be easy. A majority of House Republicans must vote for any change to the conference rules, and some lawmakers would certainly oppose the change. Such sweeping punitive measures would be difficult to keep under wraps, such as Boehner and the Steering Committee did in late 2012 when three outspoken conservatives were kicked off committees for failing to support party initiatives.
"The speaker at any one point in time has probably 90 to 100 votes, for sure. So it's just a matter of making the case to a mere 20 folks or so and get the rule changed. But I think there would be a lot of people who would still vote for the speaker, but would have a real hard time with that kind of rule change," said the first Republican member.
Rep. Raul Labrador, one of the 12 who refused to vote for Boehner's reelection last year, called the idea "terribly misguided."
“The day's action in one quick read."
Stacy, Director of Communications
"It would create more division and actually encourage people to vote against Boehner on the floor," said Labrador, who earlier this year failed to win Cantor's leadership post in a special election.
The timing of this proposed rule tweak is especially interesting. Nobody is expected to compete with Boehner for the speakership next Congress, much less beat him. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, has quietly considered a campaign against Boehner. But Hensarling's allies argue that Eric Cantor's resignation this summer, which triggered a leadership shake-up and fortified Boehner's position atop the conference, make it highly unlikely Hensarling will seek the speakership.
"I don't think you'll see that kind of drama," Rep. Paul Ryan, a close friend of Hensarling, toldNational Journal earlier this month. "I think Jeb would look at it if there were an open seat. But I don't think an open seat is going to occur."
It seems, then, the proposal is meant more broadly to prevent another contentious leadership election that feeds the narrative about divisions within the GOP. And it may be aimed particularly at freshmen entering the House next year, some of whom have said on the campaign trail that they would refuse to vote for Boehner. Tea-party-aligned candidates in Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina have already said they will not support the speaker.
It also comes as members close to the speaker have been circling the wagons over the last few months. Reps. Devin Nunes, Pat Tiberi, and Tom Cole, some of Boehner's inner circle, have been trying to force members to pay their dues to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and if they don't they don't get to sit on A-level committees, such as Ways and Means.
Capitol Hill has also been abuzz in recent days about the other potential procedural change being discussed -- pushing back the conference leadership elections.
Conservatives could make the case that members won't have sufficient evidence by which to judge the new leadership team that took over in late June. And, indeed, some already have hinted that Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise -- the new majority leader and majority whip, respectively -- should be evaluated primarily by their decision-making during the lame-duck period.
Still, it's difficult to imagine a majority of the conference supporting such a proposal. From a logistical standpoint, rescheduling the conference elections—which traditionally overlap with freshmen orientation, so that incoming members may participate—could prove impossible at this late stage.
More importantly, most Republicans are calling for unity heading into the next session of Congress, and several leading conservatives acknowledged Thursday that there likely won't be a contested leadership race anyway.
"I don't see anybody right now going forward and mounting a challenge to the speaker," Labrador said.
Reporters claim the White House changes reports before they are released
The current White House administration has been lauded as the “most transparent administration in history,” but a number of journalists are coming out, saying they have been intimidated or coerced into altering their stories for the sake of making the White House look good.
Brain Carovillano is the managing editor for US news with the AP, and spoke during a panel discussion recently on the White House’s transparency claim. “The White House push to limit access and reduce transparency has essentially served as the secrecy road map for all kinds of organizations — from local and state governments to universities and even sporting events,” said Carovillano.
Sally Buzbee, the AP’s Washington chief of bureau, has said the administration has extended its control of information to other government agencies in an indirect manner. Buzbee has said sources from these other agencies which might be willing to share information, have been warned they could be fired for simply talking to a reporter.
Many people have also asked Buzbee to compare the level of transparency present within the Obama administration and the level present during the Bush administration. “Bush was not fantastic… The (Obama) administration is significantly worse than previous administrations,” she said.
A recent Washington Post article has also said press-pool reports have been tampered with as White House aides have “demanded- and received- changes in press-pool reports before the reports have been disseminated to other journalists.”
It is important to note, press-pool reports are written by reporters for other reporters, and they are used by news outlets every day to aid in the coverage of the White House and the president.
The article from the Post does say most of the demands for changes in these press-pool reports have involved trivial matters, but what is disturbing is these demanded changes are happening in the first place. Instead of allowing journalists to report on matters from the White House with as unbiased of an opinion as they can muster, the White House has deemed it appropriate to filter and make changes to reports which concern the administration.
White House reporter Tom DeFrank said, according to the Daily Signal, “My view is the White House has no right to touch a pool report… If they want to challenge something by putting out a statement of their own, that’s their right… But they have no right to alter a pool report unilaterally.”
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Zach McAuliffe
Zach McAuliffe is a University of Dayton alumni with degrees in journalism and English. He wants to present people with all the facts they need to make informed decisions on the world around them. He also enjoys Shakespeare and long walks on the beach with his puppy Lily.
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Reporters claim the White House changes reports before they are released
Zach McAuliffe
Fri, 26 Sep 2014 00:26:23 GMT
The Khorasans: As Fake As the Kardashians Washington's Blog
Posted on September 25, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog
New Boogeyman Has Already Been Debunked
Obama is now – after the fact – scrambling to justify bombing the sovereign nation of Syria without the permission of either the Syrian government or even the United States Congress by saying that we were going after the super-evil Khorasans, who were about to attack us.
My God! That sounds terrifying … like a cross between Genghis Khan, Klingons and the Kardashians!
The U.S. is saying that they’re even more dangerous than ISIS.
There’s just one wee little problem … the Khorasan threat is as as fake as the Kardashians’ physiques. (Admittedly, it’s confusing, given that the Kardashians have also inserted themselves right in the middleof the Syrian conflict.)
Agence France-Presse reports:
The US says it has hit a little-known group called “Khorasan” in Syria, but experts and activists argue it actually struck Al-Qaeda’s affiliate Al-Nusra Front, which fights alongside Syrian rebels.
In announcing its raids in the northern province of Aleppo on Tuesday, Washington described the group it targeted as Khorasan, a cell of Al-Qaeda veterans planning attacks against the West.
But experts and activists cast doubt on the distinction between Khorasan and Al-Nusra Front, which is Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.
“In Syria, no one had ever heard talk of Khorasan until the US media brought it up,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“Rebels, activists and the whole world knows that these positions (hit Tuesday) were Al-Nusra positions, and the fighters killed were Al-Nusra fighters,” added Abdel Rahman, who has tracked the Syrian conflict since it erupted in 2011.
Experts were similarly dubious about the distinction.
“The name refers to Al-Qaeda fighters previously based in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran who have travelled to Syria to fight with… Al-Nusra,” said Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.
“They… should not be considered a new or distinct group as such.”
Aron Lund, editor of the Syria in Crisis website run by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, raised similar doubts.
“The fact that news about this Al-Qaeda-run, anti-Western cell linked to Al-Nusra emerged just over a week ago, through US intelligence leaks — well, it’s certainly an interesting coincidence,” he told AFP.
***
Claims of a distinction are lost of many of Syria’s rebels, who have also often rejected the world community’s designation of Al-Nusra as a “terrorist” group.
When Washington added Al-Nusra to its list of “terrorist” organisations, even the internationally-backed Syrian opposition National Coalition criticised the decision.
***
On the ground, almost all rebel groups have been willing to cooperate with Al-Nusra, seeing them as distinct from the Islamic State group (IS), which espouses transnational goals and includes many non-Syrians among its ranks.
***
[The] history of cooperation [between the various crazies in Syria] has left some rebels and activists on the ground suspicious and even angry about the strikes on Al-Qaeda.
***
Some key members are believed to maintain channels of communication with Al-Nusra, including Qatar, which has helped negotiate the release of prisoners held by the group.
McClatchy adds:
Raad Alawi, the commander of a smaller group of fighters, the Squadrons of Al Haq, told McClatchy he was very angry.
“Starting the war with the bombing of Nusra is an indication that this is a war against the revolution and not [ISIS] … “Maybe next they will bomb the bases of the Free Syrian Army.”
Well, okay … experts and Syrian Islamic jihadis think there’s no distinction between the Khorasans and plain vanilla Al Nusra/Al Qaeda/Free Syrian Army fighters.
But surely America and our allies treat the moderate Syrian rebels … I mean Al Nusra … er, I mean theKhorasans … with a consistent iron fist?
Well, no … we’ve been – directly or indirectly – backing them. And – as we’ve been warning for some time – the boys we’re arming are threatening to attack us.
So – while I’d like to believe that I’m being shown the real deal as a justification for long-term, direct involvement – I’m just not buying it …
