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Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018
All Gave Some~Some Gave All
Scenic Views: Waiting for the Thaw!
After the thaw...enjoy these from one of my granddaughters…
Yuck!!!
Coming soon (I hope)
The look of leadership...How the Clinton Foundation Got Rich off Poor Haitians
by DINESH D'SOUZA
by DINESH D'SOUZA
It filtered money through Haiti and back to itself. EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is excerpted from Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.
In January 2015 a group of Haitians surrounded the New York offices of the Clinton Foundation. They chanted slogans, accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of having robbed them of “billions of dollars.” Two months later, the Haitians were at it again, accusing the Clintons of duplicity, malfeasance, and theft. And in May 2015, they were back, this time outside New York’s Cipriani, where Bill Clinton received an award and collected a $500,000 check for his foundation. “Clinton, where’s the money?” the Haitian signs read. “In whose pockets?” Said Dhoud Andre of the Commission Against Dictatorship, “We are telling the world of the crimes that Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for in Haiti.”
Haitians like Andre may sound a bit strident, but he and the protesters had good reason to be disgruntled. They had suffered a heavy blow from Mother Nature, and now it appeared that they were being battered again — this time by the Clintons. Their story goes back to 2010, when a massive 7.0 earthquake devastated the island, killing more than 200,000 people, leveling 100,000 homes, and leaving 1.5 million people destitute.
The devastating effect of the earthquake on a very poor nation provoked worldwide concern and inspired an outpouring of aid money intended to rebuild Haiti. Countries around the world, as well as private and philanthropic groups such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, provided some $10.5 billion in aid, with $3.9 billion of it coming from the United States.
Haitians such as Andre, however, noticed that very little of this aid money actually got to poor people in Haiti. Some projects championed by the Clintons, such as the building of industrial parks and posh hotels, cost a great deal of money and offered scarce benefits to the truly needy. Port-au-Prince was supposed to be rebuilt; it was never rebuilt. Projects aimed at creating jobs proved to be bitter disappointments. Haitian unemployment remained high, largely undented by the funds that were supposed to pour into the country. Famine and illness continued to devastate the island nation.
The Haitians were initially sympathetic to the Clintons. One may say they believed in the message of “hope and change.” With his customary overstatement, Bill told the media, “Wouldn’t it be great if they become the first wireless nation in the world? They could, I’m telling you, they really could.”
I don’t blame the Haitians for falling for it; Bill is one of the world’s greatest story-tellers. He has fooled people far more sophisticated than the poor Haitians. Over time, however, the Haitians wised up. Whatever their initial expectations, many saw that much of the aid money seems never to have reached its destination; rather, it disappeared along the way.
Where did it go? It did not escape the attention of the Haitians that Bill Clinton was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti. Following the earthquake, Bill Clinton had with media fanfare established the Haiti Reconstruction Fund. Meanwhile, his wife Hillary was the United States secretary of state. She was in charge of U.S. aid allocated to Haiti. Together the Clintons were the two most powerful people who controlled the flow of funds to Haiti from around the world.
The Haitian protesters noticed an interesting pattern involving the Clintons and the designation of how aid funds were used. They observed that a number of companies that received contracts in Haiti happened to be entities that made large donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Haitian contracts appeared less tailored to the needs of Haiti than to the needs of the companies that were performing the services. In sum, Haitian deals appeared to be a quid pro quo for filling the coffers of the Clintons.
For example, the Clinton Foundation selected Clayton Homes, a construction company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to build temporary shelters in Haiti. Buffett is an active member of the Clinton Global Initiative who has donated generously to the Clintons as well as the Clinton Foundation. The contract was supposed to be given through the normal United Nations bidding process, with the deal going to the lowest bidder who met the project’s standards. UN officials said, however, that the contract was never competitively bid for.
Clayton offered to build “hurricane-proof trailers” but what they actually delivered turned out to be a disaster. The trailers were structurally unsafe, with high levels of formaldehyde and insulation coming out of the walls. There were problems with mold and fumes. The stifling heat inside made Haitians sick and many of them abandoned the trailers because they were ill-constructed and unusable.
The Clintons also funneled $10 million in federal loans to a firm called InnoVida, headed by Clinton donor Claudio Osorio. Osorio had loaded its board with Clinton cronies, including longtime Clinton ally General Wesley Clark; Hillary’s 2008 finance director Jonathan Mantz; and Democratic fundraiser Chris Korge who has helped raise millions for the Clintons.
Normally the loan approval process takes months or even years. But in this case, a government official wrote, “Former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the company to organize its logistical and support needs. And as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements.”
InnoVida had not even provided an independently audited financial report that is normally a requirement for such applications. This requirement, however, was waived. On the basis of the Clinton connection, InnoVida’s application was fast-tracked and approved in two weeks.
The company, however, defaulted on the loan and never built any houses. An investigation revealed that Osorio had diverted company funds to pay for his Miami Beach mansion, his Maserati, and his Colorado ski chalet. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in 2013, and is currently serving a twelve-year prison term on fraud charges related to the loan.
Haitians like Andre may sound a bit strident, but he and the protesters had good reason to be disgruntled. They had suffered a heavy blow from Mother Nature, and now it appeared that they were being battered again — this time by the Clintons. Their story goes back to 2010, when a massive 7.0 earthquake devastated the island, killing more than 200,000 people, leveling 100,000 homes, and leaving 1.5 million people destitute.
The devastating effect of the earthquake on a very poor nation provoked worldwide concern and inspired an outpouring of aid money intended to rebuild Haiti. Countries around the world, as well as private and philanthropic groups such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, provided some $10.5 billion in aid, with $3.9 billion of it coming from the United States.
Haitians such as Andre, however, noticed that very little of this aid money actually got to poor people in Haiti. Some projects championed by the Clintons, such as the building of industrial parks and posh hotels, cost a great deal of money and offered scarce benefits to the truly needy. Port-au-Prince was supposed to be rebuilt; it was never rebuilt. Projects aimed at creating jobs proved to be bitter disappointments. Haitian unemployment remained high, largely undented by the funds that were supposed to pour into the country. Famine and illness continued to devastate the island nation.
The Haitians were initially sympathetic to the Clintons. One may say they believed in the message of “hope and change.” With his customary overstatement, Bill told the media, “Wouldn’t it be great if they become the first wireless nation in the world? They could, I’m telling you, they really could.”
I don’t blame the Haitians for falling for it; Bill is one of the world’s greatest story-tellers. He has fooled people far more sophisticated than the poor Haitians. Over time, however, the Haitians wised up. Whatever their initial expectations, many saw that much of the aid money seems never to have reached its destination; rather, it disappeared along the way.
Where did it go? It did not escape the attention of the Haitians that Bill Clinton was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti. Following the earthquake, Bill Clinton had with media fanfare established the Haiti Reconstruction Fund. Meanwhile, his wife Hillary was the United States secretary of state. She was in charge of U.S. aid allocated to Haiti. Together the Clintons were the two most powerful people who controlled the flow of funds to Haiti from around the world.
The Haitian protesters noticed an interesting pattern involving the Clintons and the designation of how aid funds were used. They observed that a number of companies that received contracts in Haiti happened to be entities that made large donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Haitian contracts appeared less tailored to the needs of Haiti than to the needs of the companies that were performing the services. In sum, Haitian deals appeared to be a quid pro quo for filling the coffers of the Clintons.
For example, the Clinton Foundation selected Clayton Homes, a construction company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to build temporary shelters in Haiti. Buffett is an active member of the Clinton Global Initiative who has donated generously to the Clintons as well as the Clinton Foundation. The contract was supposed to be given through the normal United Nations bidding process, with the deal going to the lowest bidder who met the project’s standards. UN officials said, however, that the contract was never competitively bid for.
Clayton offered to build “hurricane-proof trailers” but what they actually delivered turned out to be a disaster. The trailers were structurally unsafe, with high levels of formaldehyde and insulation coming out of the walls. There were problems with mold and fumes. The stifling heat inside made Haitians sick and many of them abandoned the trailers because they were ill-constructed and unusable.
The Clintons also funneled $10 million in federal loans to a firm called InnoVida, headed by Clinton donor Claudio Osorio. Osorio had loaded its board with Clinton cronies, including longtime Clinton ally General Wesley Clark; Hillary’s 2008 finance director Jonathan Mantz; and Democratic fundraiser Chris Korge who has helped raise millions for the Clintons.
Normally the loan approval process takes months or even years. But in this case, a government official wrote, “Former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the company to organize its logistical and support needs. And as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements.”
InnoVida had not even provided an independently audited financial report that is normally a requirement for such applications. This requirement, however, was waived. On the basis of the Clinton connection, InnoVida’s application was fast-tracked and approved in two weeks.
The company, however, defaulted on the loan and never built any houses. An investigation revealed that Osorio had diverted company funds to pay for his Miami Beach mansion, his Maserati, and his Colorado ski chalet. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in 2013, and is currently serving a twelve-year prison term on fraud charges related to the loan.
Several Clinton cronies showed up with Bill to a 2011 Housing Expo that cost more than $2 million to stage. Bill Clinton said it would be a model for the construction of thousands of homes in Haiti. In reality, no homes have been built. A few dozen model units were constructed but even they have not been sold. Rather, they are now abandoned and have been taken over by squatters.
THE SCHOOLS THEY NEVER BUILT
USAID contracts to remove debris in Port-au-Prince went to a Washington-based company named CHF International. The company’s CEO David Weiss, a campaign contributor to Hillary in 2008, was deputy U.S. trade representative for North American Affairs during the Clinton administration. The corporate secretary of the board, Lauri Fitz-Pegado, served in a number of posts in the Clinton administration, including assistant secretary of commerce.The Clintons claim to have built schools in Haiti. But the New York Times discovered that when it comes to the Clintons, “built” is a term with a very loose interpretation. For example, the newspaper located a school featured in the Clinton Foundation annual report as “built through a Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action.” In reality, “The Clinton Foundation’s sole direct contribution to the school was a grant for an Earth Day celebration and tree-building activity.”
USAID contracts also went to consulting firms such as New York–based Dalberg Global Development Advisors, which received a $1.5 million contract to identify relocation sites for Haitians. This company is an active participant and financial supporter of the Clinton Global Initiative. A later review by USAID’s inspector general found that Dalberg did a terrible job, naming uninhabitable mountains with steep ravines as possible sites for Haitian rebuilding.
Foreign governments and foreign companies got Haitian deals in exchange for bankrolling the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation lists the Brazilian construction firm OAS and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) as donors that have given it between $1 billion and $5 billion.
The IDB receives funding from the State Department, and some of this funding was diverted to OAS for Haitian road-building contracts. Yet an IDB auditor, Mariela Antiga, complained that the contracts were padded with “excessive costs” to build roads “no one needed.” Antiga also alleged that IDB funds were going to a construction project on private land owned by former Haitian president Rene Preval — a Clinton buddy — and several of his cronies. For her efforts to expose corruption, Antiga was promptly instructed by the IDB to pack her bags and leave Haiti.
In 2011, the Clinton Foundation brokered a deal with Digicel, a cell-phone-service provider seeking to gain access to the Haitian market. The Clintons arranged to have Digicel receive millions in U.S. taxpayer money to provide mobile phones. The USAID Food for Peace program, which the State Department administered through Hillary aide Cheryl Mills, distributed Digicel phones free to Haitians.
Digicel didn’t just make money off the U.S. taxpayer; it also made money off the Haitians. When Haitians used the phones, either to make calls or transfer money, they paid Digicel for the service. Haitians using Digicel’s phones also became automatically enrolled in Digicel’s mobile program. By 2012, Digicel had taken over three-quarters of the cell-phone market in Haiti.
Digicel is owned by Denis O’Brien, a close friend of the Clintons. O’Brien secured three speaking engagements in his native Ireland that paid $200,000 apiece. These engagements occurred right at the time that Digicel was making its deal with the U.S. State Department. O’Brien has also donated lavishly to the Clinton Foundation, giving between $1 million and $5 million sometime in 2010–2011.
Coincidentally the United States government paid Digicel $45 million to open a hotel in Port-au-Prince. Now perhaps it could be argued that Haitians could use a high-priced hotel to attract foreign investors and provide jobs for locals. Thus far, however, this particular hotel seems to employ only a few dozen locals, which hardly justifies the sizable investment that went into building it. Moreover, there are virtually no foreign investors; the rooms are mostly unoccupied; the ones that are taken seem mainly for the benefit of Digicel’s visiting teams.
In addition, the Clintons got their cronies to build Caracol Industrial Park, a 600-acre garment factory that was supposed to make clothes for export to the United States and create — according to Bill Clinton — 100,000 new jobs in Haiti. The project was funded by the U.S. government and cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer money, the largest single allocation of U.S. relief aid.
Yet Caracol has proven a massive failure. First, the industrial park was built on farmland and the farmers had to be moved off their property. Many of them feel they were pushed out and inadequately compensated. Some of them lost their livelihoods. Second, Caracol was supposed to include 25,000 homes for Haitian employees; in the end, the Government Accountability Office reports that only around 6,000 homes were built. Third, Caracol has created 5,000 jobs, less than 10 percent of the jobs promised. Fourth, Caracol is exporting very few products and most of the facility is abandoned. People stand outside every day looking for work, but there is no work to be had, as Haiti’s unemployment rate hovers around 40 percent.
The Clintons say Caracol can still be salvaged. But former Haitian prime minister Jean Bellerive says, “I believe the momentum to attract people there in a massive way is past. Today, it has failed.” Still, Bellerive’s standard of success may not be the same one used by the Clintons. After all, the companies that built Caracol with U.S. taxpayer money have done fine — even if poor Haitians have seen few of the benefits.
Then there is the strange and somehow predictable involvement of Hillary Clinton’s brother Hugh Rodham. Rodham put in an application for $22 million from the Clinton Foundation to build homes on ten thousand acres of land that he said a “guy in Haiti” had “donated” to him.
“I deal through the Clinton Foundation,” Rodham told the New York Times. “I hound my brother-in-law because it’s his fund that we’re going to get our money from.” Rodham said he expected to net $1 million personally on the deal. Unfortunately, his application didn’t go through.
Rodham had better luck, however, on a second Haitian deal. He mysteriously found himself on the advisory board of a U.S. mining company called VCS. This by itself is odd because Rodham’s resume lists no mining experience; rather, Rodham is a former private detective and prison guard.
The mining company, however, seems to have recognized Rodham’s value. They brought him on board in October 2013 to help secure a valuable gold mining permit in Haiti. Rodham was promised a “finder’s fee” if he could land the contract. Sure enough, he did. For the first time in 50 years, Haiti awarded two new gold mining permits and one of them went to the company that had hired Hillary’s brother.
The deal provoked outrage in the Haitian Senate. “Neither Bill Clinton nor the brother of Hillary Clinton are individuals who share the interest of the Haitian people,” said Haitian mining representative Samuel Nesner. “They are part of the elite class who are operating to exploit the Haitian people.”
Is this too harsh a verdict? I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Clintons don’t care about Haiti. Yet it seems clear that Haitian welfare is not their priority. Their priority is, well, themselves. The Clintons seem to believe in Haitian reconstruction and Haitian investment as long as these projects match their own private economic interests. They have steered the rebuilding of Haiti in a way that provides maximum benefit to themselves.
No wonder the Clintons refused to meet with the Haitian protesters. Each time the protesters showed up, the Clintons were nowhere to be seen. They have never directly addressed the Haitians’ claims. Strangely enough, they have never been required to do so. The progressive media scarcely covered the Haitian protest. Somehow the idea of Haitian black people calling out the Clintons as aid money thieves did not appeal to the grand pooh-bahs at CBS News, the New York Times, and NPR.
For most Democrats, the topic is both touchy and distasteful. It’s one thing to rob from the rich but quite another to rob from the poorest of the poor. Some of the Democratic primary support for Bernie Sanders was undoubtedly due to Democrats’ distaste over the financial shenanigans of the Clintons. Probably these Democrats considered the Clintons to be unduly grasping and opportunistic, an embarrassment to the great traditions of the Democratic party.
USAID contracts also went to consulting firms such as New York–based Dalberg Global Development Advisors, which received a $1.5 million contract to identify relocation sites for Haitians. This company is an active participant and financial supporter of the Clinton Global Initiative. A later review by USAID’s inspector general found that Dalberg did a terrible job, naming uninhabitable mountains with steep ravines as possible sites for Haitian rebuilding.
Foreign governments and foreign companies got Haitian deals in exchange for bankrolling the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation lists the Brazilian construction firm OAS and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) as donors that have given it between $1 billion and $5 billion.
The IDB receives funding from the State Department, and some of this funding was diverted to OAS for Haitian road-building contracts. Yet an IDB auditor, Mariela Antiga, complained that the contracts were padded with “excessive costs” to build roads “no one needed.” Antiga also alleged that IDB funds were going to a construction project on private land owned by former Haitian president Rene Preval — a Clinton buddy — and several of his cronies. For her efforts to expose corruption, Antiga was promptly instructed by the IDB to pack her bags and leave Haiti.
In 2011, the Clinton Foundation brokered a deal with Digicel, a cell-phone-service provider seeking to gain access to the Haitian market. The Clintons arranged to have Digicel receive millions in U.S. taxpayer money to provide mobile phones. The USAID Food for Peace program, which the State Department administered through Hillary aide Cheryl Mills, distributed Digicel phones free to Haitians.
Digicel didn’t just make money off the U.S. taxpayer; it also made money off the Haitians. When Haitians used the phones, either to make calls or transfer money, they paid Digicel for the service. Haitians using Digicel’s phones also became automatically enrolled in Digicel’s mobile program. By 2012, Digicel had taken over three-quarters of the cell-phone market in Haiti.
Digicel is owned by Denis O’Brien, a close friend of the Clintons. O’Brien secured three speaking engagements in his native Ireland that paid $200,000 apiece. These engagements occurred right at the time that Digicel was making its deal with the U.S. State Department. O’Brien has also donated lavishly to the Clinton Foundation, giving between $1 million and $5 million sometime in 2010–2011.
Coincidentally the United States government paid Digicel $45 million to open a hotel in Port-au-Prince. Now perhaps it could be argued that Haitians could use a high-priced hotel to attract foreign investors and provide jobs for locals. Thus far, however, this particular hotel seems to employ only a few dozen locals, which hardly justifies the sizable investment that went into building it. Moreover, there are virtually no foreign investors; the rooms are mostly unoccupied; the ones that are taken seem mainly for the benefit of Digicel’s visiting teams.
In addition, the Clintons got their cronies to build Caracol Industrial Park, a 600-acre garment factory that was supposed to make clothes for export to the United States and create — according to Bill Clinton — 100,000 new jobs in Haiti. The project was funded by the U.S. government and cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer money, the largest single allocation of U.S. relief aid.
Yet Caracol has proven a massive failure. First, the industrial park was built on farmland and the farmers had to be moved off their property. Many of them feel they were pushed out and inadequately compensated. Some of them lost their livelihoods. Second, Caracol was supposed to include 25,000 homes for Haitian employees; in the end, the Government Accountability Office reports that only around 6,000 homes were built. Third, Caracol has created 5,000 jobs, less than 10 percent of the jobs promised. Fourth, Caracol is exporting very few products and most of the facility is abandoned. People stand outside every day looking for work, but there is no work to be had, as Haiti’s unemployment rate hovers around 40 percent.
The Clintons say Caracol can still be salvaged. But former Haitian prime minister Jean Bellerive says, “I believe the momentum to attract people there in a massive way is past. Today, it has failed.” Still, Bellerive’s standard of success may not be the same one used by the Clintons. After all, the companies that built Caracol with U.S. taxpayer money have done fine — even if poor Haitians have seen few of the benefits.
Then there is the strange and somehow predictable involvement of Hillary Clinton’s brother Hugh Rodham. Rodham put in an application for $22 million from the Clinton Foundation to build homes on ten thousand acres of land that he said a “guy in Haiti” had “donated” to him.
“I deal through the Clinton Foundation,” Rodham told the New York Times. “I hound my brother-in-law because it’s his fund that we’re going to get our money from.” Rodham said he expected to net $1 million personally on the deal. Unfortunately, his application didn’t go through.
Rodham had better luck, however, on a second Haitian deal. He mysteriously found himself on the advisory board of a U.S. mining company called VCS. This by itself is odd because Rodham’s resume lists no mining experience; rather, Rodham is a former private detective and prison guard.
The mining company, however, seems to have recognized Rodham’s value. They brought him on board in October 2013 to help secure a valuable gold mining permit in Haiti. Rodham was promised a “finder’s fee” if he could land the contract. Sure enough, he did. For the first time in 50 years, Haiti awarded two new gold mining permits and one of them went to the company that had hired Hillary’s brother.
The deal provoked outrage in the Haitian Senate. “Neither Bill Clinton nor the brother of Hillary Clinton are individuals who share the interest of the Haitian people,” said Haitian mining representative Samuel Nesner. “They are part of the elite class who are operating to exploit the Haitian people.”
Is this too harsh a verdict? I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Clintons don’t care about Haiti. Yet it seems clear that Haitian welfare is not their priority. Their priority is, well, themselves. The Clintons seem to believe in Haitian reconstruction and Haitian investment as long as these projects match their own private economic interests. They have steered the rebuilding of Haiti in a way that provides maximum benefit to themselves.
No wonder the Clintons refused to meet with the Haitian protesters. Each time the protesters showed up, the Clintons were nowhere to be seen. They have never directly addressed the Haitians’ claims. Strangely enough, they have never been required to do so. The progressive media scarcely covered the Haitian protest. Somehow the idea of Haitian black people calling out the Clintons as aid money thieves did not appeal to the grand pooh-bahs at CBS News, the New York Times, and NPR.
For most Democrats, the topic is both touchy and distasteful. It’s one thing to rob from the rich but quite another to rob from the poorest of the poor. Some of the Democratic primary support for Bernie Sanders was undoubtedly due to Democrats’ distaste over the financial shenanigans of the Clintons. Probably these Democrats considered the Clintons to be unduly grasping and opportunistic, an embarrassment to the great traditions of the Democratic party.
Celebrities React to Trump ‘Sh*thole’ Comment: ‘Can’t Wait Until We Get Rid of This Sh*thole President’
By DANIEL NUSSBAUM
Getty/Getty
Celebrities scrambled to social media Thursday to denounce President Donald Trump’s reported use of the word “sh*thole” to describe several countries during an immigration meeting.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump had used the swear word while discussing countries including Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries during an Oval Office meeting to discuss a potential bipartisan immigration deal.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” the Post quoted the president as saying.
Trump denied the statement in a post to his Twitter account Friday, saying the remark had been “made up” by Democrats to discredit him.
Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings - unfortunately, no trust!
Nevertheless, Hollywood stars and media personalities were quick to accuse the president of racism, including singer John Legend, who accused Trump of being a racist for his “entire public life.”
Oomgalagala at its best. Durbin: Term ‘Chain Migration’ Painful to African-Americans Because They Migrated to U.S. in Chains
by JEFF POOR
This is unreal…
Friday, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) backed up a Washington Post report claiming President Donald Trump referred to certain nations as “shithole countries” in a bipartisan meeting Trump held with members of Congress on immigration policy.
Durbin’s remarks were made to reporters and captured by MSNBC’s camera.
Durbin also criticized Trump for his use of the term “chain migration” because according to the Senate Minority Whip, it was offensive to African-Americans that “migrated” to the United States chains.
Partial transcript is as follows:
In the course of his comments of said things which were hate-filled, vile and racist — he used those words. I understand how powerful they are. But I cannot believe that in the history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday.
You’ve seen the comments in the press. I’ve not read one of them that’s inaccurate. To no surprise, the president started tweeting this morning, denying that he used those words. It is not true. He said these hate-filled things. And he said them repeatedly. When the question was raised about Haitians, for example, we have a group that have temporary protected status in the United States because they were the victims of crises and disasters and political upheaval. The largest group’s El Salvadorians. The second is Honduran and the third is Haitian.
When I mentioned that fact to him, he said, “Haitians, do we need more Haitians?” Then he went on and started to describe the immigration from Africa that was being protected in this bipartisan measure. That’s when he used these vile and vulgar comments, calling the nations they come from “shitholes,” The exact word used by the president — not just once but repeatedly.
That was the nature of this conversation. When it came to the issue of, quote, “chain migration,” I said to the president, do you realize how painful that term is to so many people? African-Americans believe they migrated to America in chains and when you talk about chain migration, it hurts them personally.
He said, “Oh, that’s a good line.” And then when I talked to him about the impact this has on family unification in a nation that values families with the flag as the most important symbols of our future, they scoffed at this notion. It was a heartbreaking moment. But I will tell you this, I’m not going to quit. I have a singular mission. And the mission is this: To give these DREAMers and as many members of their families as possible a chance to be part of America’s future in a legal status.
I am convinced that there’s a majority in both the House and the Senate of Democrats and Republicans who support that concept. I know there’s an overwhelming majority of Americans who support that concept.
So here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to prepare our bipartisan agreement for introduction into the Senate next week. If the Republican leadership has a better alternative, bring it forward. If they don’t, for goodness sakes, give us a vote. I’ll be on the phone today with my Republican colleagues and my Democratic colleagues begging them to support this measure.
Time is running out. We have to get this done. I thought we might get a bipartisan agreement approved by the White House, died yesterday. We have to do this and show leadership in Congress to solve this important challenge.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
Libs Meltdown Over Trump “S**thole” Comment, Forget What Kennedy Said 53 Yrs Ago
BY BENJAMIN ARIE
Another day, another faux moral outrage. This time, the media and the left have worked themselves into a tizzy because Donald Trump allegedly used the word “s**thole” to describe some of the poorest, most crime-ridden places on earth… and telling the blunt truth is now off limits.
While liberals yet again call the president a racist, they seem to be conveniently ignoring the other times lawmakers have spoken bluntly about troubled parts of the world — including one of the left’s larger than life “heroes,” Ted Kennedy.
During the debate over the 1965 Immigration Act, which paved the way for the mass migration and border issues we now face, the famous Kennedy brother didn’t exactly use the word “s**thole” to describe the same countries Trump was describing, but he got pretty close.
“First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same,” he pledged during an address. We’ll get back to how well that promise aged in a moment.
“Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia,” Ted Kennedy declared. Emphasis added.
Then and now, some 50 plus years later, the left had no problem with “the lion of the senate” calling Africa and Asian countries “deprived nations.” This may not be as blunt as President Trump’s supposed comment, but it means the same thing: Places like Africa, many parts of Asia, and Central America have serious problems.
Crime is off the charts. There are gang-controlled slums. They’re deprived. They’re — you might say — shi… er, you know the rest.
What about Ted Kennedy’s promise to the country, anyway? America wouldn’t be inundated with immigrants “from any one area,” he pledged, and “our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually.” Where would you get such a backwards idea?
Here we are in 2018: America takes in over one million legal immigrants… not in a decade, not since Kennedy made his promise, but every single year.
The U.S. has the most immigrants of any country on earth, with an estimated 47 million in 2015. That number is certainly dramatically higher when illegal aliensare included. The exact number is hard to estimated because, well, they’re undocumented.
“The Center’s preliminary estimate of the unauthorized immigrant population in 2016 is 11.3 million,” Pew Research Center reported.
Data also shows that in 2015, a full 50 percent of U.S. immigrants came from Mexico, directly disputing Kennedy’s promise when the current immigration law was being passed. Sixteen percent came from Central America, and 13 percent came from Asia.
Only 5 percent came from Europe or Canada.
And Trump’s controversial “s**thole” comment, if it was even actually said? The United Nations backs him up, although of course not using that word.
The UN’s own Human Development Report looks at factors like poverty, crime, and standard of living across the globe. “Norway cinches the spot as the overall best country to live in, in the world,” reported QZ.com.
Meanwhile, “Haiti remains the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world,” explained The World Bank.
“The level of crime in Haiti should be regarded as beyond horrific. There are no ‘safe’ areas,” admitted World Nomads, a travel information resource.
“[T]here is a very real danger of violent crime everywhere in Haiti, and this includes but is not limited to assault, armed robbery, murder, kidnapping, rape and any combination of the above,” continued the travel site.
In other words… it’s a s**thole!
We’ve reached a very strange place when being honest — even bluntly so — is now attacked and called “racist.”
When the truth becomes foreign and we’re expected to play along with politically-correct fantasies and false narratives, something has gone terribly wrong.
Report: DACA-age illegals far more likely to commit crimes, be in jail
by Paul Bedard
In this Sunday, April 2, 2017 photo, signs warning trespassers line a wooden bench surrounded by makeshift slip-ons known as "carpet shoes" on the porch of rancher Jim Chilton, in Arivaca, Ariz.. Hilton, who finds the slip-ons abandoned on his property, says they are worn by people illegally crossing the border as a way to keep authorities from finding their tracks. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A new report about crimes committed by illegals finds that younger undocumented immigrants who were eligible for former President Obama’s DACA amnesty program commit far more crimes than other immigrants or U.S. citizens.
In unearthing rare data that details the crimes and sentences of illegals in Arizona, the Crime Prevention Research Center reported that immigrants age 15-35, the general population of the 700,000 in Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, “commit crime at twice the rate of young U.S. citizens.”
John R. Lott Jr.,president of the center, said that if the Arizona data were averaged out nationally, the crime numbers would be stunning.
“If undocumented immigrants committed crime nationally as they do in Arizona, in 2016 they would have been responsible for over 1,000 more murders, 5,200 rapes, 8,900 robberies, 25,300 aggravated assaults, and 26,900 burglaries,” he wrote in the report.
Proponents of letting DACA recipients stay in the United States, the topic of debate in the White House and on Capitol Hill, have often portrayed the illegals as law abiding students and workers.
Those claims however has come under fire by groups armed with new statistics like Lott’s treasure trove.
“Undocumented immigrants are at least 142 percent more likely to be convicted of a crime than other Arizonans. They also tend to commit more serious crimes and serve 10.5 percent longer sentences, more likely to be classified as dangerous, and 45 percent more likely to be gang members than U.S. citizens,” he found.
And it’s worse for DACA-aged illegals.
For example, he wrote, “while undocumented immigrants from 15 to 35 years of age make up about 0.81 percent of the Arizona population, they make up almost 8 percent of the prison population.”
According to his estimates in Arizona:
-
DACA-age immigrants represent 71.2 percent of the undocumented immigrants in prison.
-
DACA-age eligible undocumented immigrants are 884 percent more likely to be convicted of crimes than their share of the population.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
Panicked Dems Use Private Meeting With POTUS TRUMP To Sabotage Border Protection Deal
DCWhispers
The language was direct – as it always is with Mr. Trump. Whether or not he actually used the word “sh*tholes” to describe certain 3rd world nations that, for some reason, so many Democrats are desperate to make open border/come on in deals with, isn’t the real issue. Mr. Trump was making significant inroads into accomplishing a border security/DACA deal that endangered the Democrats long-standing policy of allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants from particular nations in EVERY YEAR and then sprinkling those immigrants across such places as Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania as a means of turning red-leaning and/or toss-up states permanently blue to ensure no Republican is ever elected POTUS again. Trump is a direct threat to that goal, and so, faces attack and obstruction every…single…day of his presidency.
That is the true foundation of the Establishment’s immigration policy in the United States – to make this nation a one-party system which will then be absorbed by the globalist elite for good.
And so, a free-wheeling policy conversation in which a deal was to be forged was quickly turned into a means to crank up the anti-Trump media machine yet again to sabotage something getting done in D.C. The Establishment, still smarting from the Trump tax deal, would not allow Mr. Trump to so quickly declare yet another stunning victory regarding border security and immigration.
They now feign outrage over the alleged use of the term “sh*thole.” Really? Who are these people who sit in D.C. pretending to be leaders? Have they been to Haiti? To Ghana? To Syria? To El Salvador? THEY ARE SH*THOLE NATIONS drowning in abusive and corrupt governments – the very same kind of government it appears Mr. Trump’s enemies want so much to have here in the United States.
What a spineless, hysterical, fake-outrage nation we have become to make so much out of words that in the greater context, mean so very little.
POTUS Trump spoke the truth. The enemies of American cannot abide that and now work to convince enough Americans to believe the same.
Bombshell: Fusion GPS tried to kill FBI’s Clinton investigation
Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.comFusion GPS did more than provide opposition research for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. It apparently also attempted to interfere with the FBI criminal investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official State Department business.
Transcripts released from the August 2017 testimony of Fusion GPS president Glenn Simpson appears to confirm this.
Dossier given to FBI
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, released the Simpson transcripts to the public Tuesday. Simpson indicated that his firm hired former British MI6 officer Christopher Steele to prepare the unvetted and largely discredited Trump/Russian dossier, which Steele gave to the FBI with Simpson’s knowledge. Simpson testified:
I don’t remember the exact sequence of these events, but my recollection is I questioned how we would do that because I don’t know anyone there that I could report something like this to and be believed and I didn’t really think it was necessarily appropriate for me to do that.
In any event, he said don’t worry about that, I know the perfect person, I have a contact there, they’ll listen to me, they know who I am, I’ll take care of it. I said okay. You know, I agreed, it’s potentially a crime in progress. So, you know, if we can do that in the most appropriate way, I said it was okay for him to do that.
Contacting investigators
Simpson admitted that he reached out to the press investigating and reporting on the Clinton email probe. This came after then-FBI Director James Comey relaunched the agency’s criminal investigation.
He told Senate committee members:
There was some sort of interaction, I think it was probably telephonic that occurred after Director Comey sent his letter to Congress reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. That episode, you know, obviously created some concern that the FBI was intervening in a political campaign in contravention of long-standing Justice Department regulation.
Simpson admitted that even Fusion GPS viewed the FBI’s behavior as untoward:
So it made a lot of people, including us, concerned about what the heck was going on at the FBI. So, you know, we began getting questions from the press about, you know, whether they were also investigating Trump and, you know, we encouraged them to ask the FBI that question. You know, I think — I’m not sure we’ve covered this fully, but, you know, we just encouraged them to ask the FBI that question.
Contact severed
Simpson also testified that at some point Steele, who claimed to know the “perfect person” within the FBI, severed his ties with his agency contact, because neither man could work out what was going on there. He said:
Sometime thereafter the FBI — I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn’t know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn’t really understand what was going on. So he stopped dealing with them.
FBI contact leaks to Steele
Earlier in his testimony, Simpson revealed that Steele’s FBI contact released confidential information to him about its investigation into the Trump campaign. He testified:
Essentially what he told me was they had other intelligence about this matter from an internal Trump campaign source and that — that they — my understanding was that they believed Chris at this point — that they believed Chris’s information might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization.
Bad decision, bad cold
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, blasted Feinstein Tuesday for publishing the transcripts on her own, and called her decision “confounding.” He said he expected the transcript would be released “when we both agreed to release it.”
Feinstein, 84, apologized and said that a “bad cold” may have contributed to her decision.
“The one regret I have is that I should have spoke with Senator Grassley before,” she told NBC News. “And I don’t make an excuse but I’ve had a bad cold and maybe that slowed down my mental facilities [sic] a little bit.”
Although the waters remain muddy, it appears that there may be some questions the FBI needs to answer.
Tom Cotton, David Perdue: Durbin’s ‘Shithole’ Reaction Proof Dems Do Not Want Deal, Not Negotiating in Good Faith
by KRISTINA WONG
Democrats participating in discussions on immigration reform with Republicans and the White House are not participating in “good faith,” said two Republican senators on Friday.
“President Trump brought everyone to the table this week and listened to both sides. But regrettably, it seems that not everyone is committed to negotiating in good faith,” said Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), who have been heavily involved in the discussions.
They also disputed Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) accusation that President Trump questioned why the U.S. would accept immigrants from “shithole” countries like Haiti, El Salvador, and those in Africa instead of places like Norway.
Both Cotton and Perdue were in the Oval Office meeting in which Trump allegedly made those remarks, and Durbin said he heard them.
“In regards to Senator Durbin’s accusation, we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest,” they said in a statement.
The “shithole” remarks were first reported by the Washington Post on Thursday, and attributed to “several people briefed on the meeting” and “people familiar with the meeting.”
“In the course of [Trump’s] comments, he said things that were hate-filled, vile and racist,” he told reporters in Illinois, according to USA Today. “l use those words advisingly, I understand how powerful they are. I cannot believe that in the history of the White House and that Oval Office any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday.”
The president also denied Durbin’s accusation, tweeting on Friday that there was “unfortunately, no trust!”:
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrumpNever said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings - unfortunately, no trust!
8:48 AM - Jan 12, 2018
8:48 AM - Jan 12, 2018
“Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!”
Meanwhile, CNN played up the alleged “shithole” remark, running different banners all day with the word.
Tim Tebow on Confronting Abortion: Doctors Called Me a ‘Tumor’ Not a ‘Baby’
by WARNER TODD HUSTON
AP Photo/Chuck Burton
Minor League Baseball player and former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow revealed that he was almost a victim of abortion when doctors told his mother that he was a “tumor” and not a “baby.”
Speaking at the college student conference, 2018 Passion, Tebow told Pastor Louie Giglio that his mother was urged to abort him in 1987, NewsBusters reported.
“I was born in the Philippines to missionary parents, and I have a special birth story,” Tebow told the audience. “The doctors said that I wasn’t even a baby; they said I was a tumor.”
Tebow added that his siblings always joked that he was “Timmy the Tumor” when he was young.
But Tebow added that it was his mother’s faith that saved him.
“There was a lot of craziness with my entire – with my mom’s pregnancy with me,” Tebow said. “She decided to trust God and not what the doctors were saying.”
Tebow went on to note that his birth and gestation was troublesome, but that abortion would have simply killed him instead of serving as any sort of “cure” to his mother’s condition.
“And then I was born, and it was a miracle — the placenta wasn’t attached the entire pregnancy, but I was malnourished, but I made up for it pretty quickly,” he added.
Tebow has been an open and proud Christian and activist against abortion during his entire time in the public eye and even appeared in a pro-life Super Bowl ad in 2010.
The 30-year-old player stunned sports media by ending his pro baseball season hitting .226 in 126 minor league games last year.
“Overall, he finished the year with a .226 batting average, eight home runs, and 52 RBIs. He hit .220 with three home runs and 23 RBIs in 64 games for the Columbia Fireflies of the South Atlantic League before being promoted to the Florida State League in June. He hit five home runs and 29 RBIs for the St. Lucie Mets,” Sports Illustrated reported.
G’ day…Ciao…
Helen and Moe Lauzier
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