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Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018
All Gave Some~Some Gave All
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President Trump to meet Kim Jong Un soon…
Pew: U.S. Catholics Show ‘Signs of Disenchantment’ With Pope Francis
by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D
Getty
At the five-year mark in the Francis pontificate, “signs of growing discontent” with the pontiff are emerging among American Catholics, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.
While the vast majority of U.S. Catholics continue to view the Argentinian pope favorably, the trend is toward greater diffidence toward Francis with increasing numbers saying they view Francis unfavorably, because he is “too liberal and naïve,” Pew revealed.
The percentage of Catholics who say they disapprove of the pope has more than doubled in the last four years, from 4 percent in 2014 to 9 percent in 2018.
Meanwhile, the percentage of U.S. Catholics who say they have a “favorable” view of Pope Francis has dropped by only one percentage point in the same period, falling from 85 percent in 2014 to 84 percent today.
The number of American Catholics who believe that Pope Francis represents a significant positive change for the Roman Catholic Church after his predecessors Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II has fallen by eleven percentage points in the 3-year period from 2015 to 2018, Pew found. In 2015, a substantial majority of Catholics (69 percent) said that the Francis pontificate represents a “major change for the better” while in 2018 the number expressing this opinion has dropped to just over half (58 percent).
During these three years, the number of U.S. Catholics who express the contrary view — that Francis has represented a “major change for the worse” — has more than doubled, from just 3 percent in 2015 to 7 percent at present.
In describing Pope Francis, the share of U.S. Catholics who consider the pontiff “too liberal” has shot up from 19 percent in 2015 to 34 percent in 2018, while the number who consider him to be “naïve” has risen from 15 percent to 24 percent in the same period.
In rating the job the pope has been doing, U.S. Catholics give him worse marks across the board than they did earlier in his pontificate.
Regarding whether he has been effective in spreading the Catholic faith, for instance, those who say the pontiff has done an “excellent” or “good” job has dropped from 84 percent in 2015 to 70 percent today. The number of those giving the pope a job rating of “fair” or “poor” in this area has grown from 10 to 25 percent during the same period.
Something similar can be seen concerning people’s opinions of the pope’s job standing up for traditional morals, with the number of those rating his work excellent or good falling by ten percentage points, from 80 percent to 70 percent, and those rating him fair to poor doubling in number, from 13 to 26 percent in the past three years.
When separating U.S. Catholics by political affiliation, these differences become even more marked, with Catholic Republicans much more than Democrats viewing the pope in an increasingly negative light.
A majority (55 percent) of U.S. Catholic Republicans, for example, today see the pope as “too liberal,” whereas the percentage saying this just three years ago was less than half that big, at only 23 percent. Among the same demographic, the number of those who consider Francis to be “naïve” has also doubled, from 16 percent in 2015 to 32 percent in the present.
Even among Catholic Democrats, however, the trend expresses a certain degree of disenchantment with the pope. Those who see Francis as “too liberal” has risen from 16 to 19 percent since 2015, and the share who see him as “naïve” has also grown, from 14 to 18 percent in the same period.
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U.S. Civil Rights Commissioners: Obama-Era School Leniency Policy Brings ‘Fear’ and ‘Danger’
by DR. SUSAN BERRY
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
Two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights say the Obama-era school leniency policy that discourages reports of threatening behavior by minority students to law enforcement is dangerous.
“Many schools that have adopted lenient disciplinary policies – i.e., defining offenses down so that blacks and Hispanics aren’t suspended or expelled at significantly higher rates than whites and Asians—have seen marked increases in the number and severity of offenses,” attorney Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, tells Breitbart News. “St. Paul is just one example, but numerous districts across the country have reported spikes in violence against teachers and students, as well as other forms of disruptive behavior.”
“Students (and teachers) have reported being fearful of going to school,” adds Kirsanow, who also chairs the board of directors of the Center for New Black Leadership. “One school principal stated unequivocally that the people that are most harmed are the good students who want to learn but are harmed by the chaotic environment.”
Similarly, in a paper released in January, U.S. Civil Rights commissioner Gail Heriot, an Independent and a professor of law at the University of San Diego, writes with her colleague, Alison Somin, of the dangers of the Obama-era policy:
The danger should have been obvious. What if an important reason more African-American students were being disciplined than white or Asian students is that more African-American students were misbehaving? And what if the cost of failing to discipline those students primarily falls on their fellow African-American students who are trying to learn amid classroom disorder? Would unleashing OCR and its army of lawyers cause those schools to act carefully and precisely to eliminate only that portion of the discipline gap that was the result of race discrimination? Or—more likely—would schools react heavy-handedly by tolerating more classroom disorder, thus making it more difficult for students who share the classroom with unruly students to learn?
“The Department of Education’s disparate impact policy is encouraging discrimination rather than preventing it,” the authors further assert:
When it comes to school discipline policy, the federal government has an unimpressive track record. In the past, it has pressed local schools to adopt tough “zero-tolerance” rules for guns (including things that appear to be guns), resulting in children being suspended for “guns” made out of a nibbled Pop Tart or a stick. Similarly, on too many occasions, its get- tough, policies on sexual harassment have led to disciplinary actions against kindergarteners and first-graders—children generally too young to spell “sexual harassment,” much less engage in it.
More recently, we’ve been seeing an overcorrection. The federal government’s policy developed during the Obama Administration has been to press schools to lighten up on school discipline, specifically to benefit African Americans and other racial minorities. But both efforts to dictate broad discipline policy, while well-meaning, are wrongheaded. It’s time for the federal government to get out of the business of dictating broad discipline policy.
The debate over the Obama administration’s policy comes as Nikolas Cruz is charged Wednesday with 17 counts of premeditated murder following his shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida.
Despite many warnings of Cruz’s propensity for violence and aggression while he was a student at the school, he was never arrested — and was ultimately able to purchase a firearm.
Broward County Public Schools adopted its PROMISE disparate impact policy after current superintendent Robert Runcie left Chicago – where he once worked for Obama education secretary Arne Duncan – and assumed his post as head of the school district.
Runcie and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel signed onto the PROMISE program. In Israel’s campaign video in 2012, the Democrat praised the ideology behind the lax school policy:
I am the sheriff who will measure the success of the agency by the young people we’re able to keep out of jail and not put in jail, while keeping our neighborhoods secure and making sure that we’re doing things the right way. We’ll end racial profiling, not curtail it, but end racial profiling. We’ll diversify the county, we’ll look differently than each other, we’ll think differently than each other, we’ll have hybrid ideas, and most importantly we’ll bring a cultural change to an agency that’s in dire need of one.
Within a year of Runcie’s arrival in the school district, school arrests dropped dramatically by 66 percent. Seeking to implement a similar nationwide policy, the Obama administration brought the Broward County officials to Washington to propose their plan as a possible model for school districts across the country.
In 2014, the Obama administration issued a Dear Colleague letter that mapped out recommendations for national public school disciplinary policies that would purportedly put an end to the “school-to-prison-pipeline” for minority students. The policy threatened schools with risk of federal investigation if they showed higher numbers of referrals to law enforcement for minority students than for other students – even if the behaviors in question were unacceptable.
With the Obama-era policies in place now in more than 50 school districts throughout the country, students whose behavior would have previously drawn an arrest or a suspension have been instead referred to “teen courts” or “restorative talking circles.”
Kirsanow reports that the literature on racial disparities in disciplinary rates often omits key data.
“Much of the literature that focuses on racial disparities in disciplinary rates recites statistics showing that black and Hispanic students are 3—4 times more likely to be suspended than white and Asian students,” he explains. “But the same literature often leaves out data showing that black and Hispanic students are far more likely than white and Asian students to commit the types of offenses resulting in suspension.”
“There is some evidence that black students are more likely to be suspended than white students for some of the same infractions,” he adds. “But a closer look at the data shows that’s not necessarily due to discrimination, but rather, the disciplinary policies of specific schools or school administrators. Some black school administrators at majority-black schools punish black students more harshly than white school administrators punish white (or black) students at majority white schools.”
In March 2016, Katherine Kersten wrote at the Star Tribune about the increasing number of student assaults against St. Paul, Minnesota teachers, as well as student riots requiring police intervention since the adoption of the lax disciplinary practices.
Kersten noted a comment from one teacher: “We have a segment of kids who consider themselves untouchable.”
“Most parents will tell you that if you eliminate consequences for kids’ bad behavior, you can expect a lot more of it,” Kersten observed. “It’s common sense.”
“But we’re not talking about common sense here,” she added. “We’re talking about a powerful ideology that has gripped the imagination of Twin Cities school officials — and far beyond. That’s the notion of ‘equity’ — a buzzword that is rapidly becoming the all-purpose justification for dubious policies not only in education but in many public arenas.”
“The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held a hearing just a few months ago on the “School-to-Prison Pipeline,” Kirsanow tells Breitbart News. “Many progressives start with the assumption that the profound disparities in disciplinary rates between the races must be caused, at least in substantial part, by racial discrimination. Maybe that is a cause of the disparities, but we’ve adduced no evidence of such alleged discrimination, other than the numerical disparities themselves.”
Kirsanow states some school officials may have adopted the Obama-era policies for the purpose of boosting graduation rates and reducing incarceration rates for black and Hispanic students.
“But others have done so because they don’t want to be subjected to the heavy hand of the federal government,” he says. “They just ‘get their numbers right’ by keeping dangerous and disruptive students in class rather than suspending or expelling them, or reporting them to law enforcement.”
“The goal should be issue nondiscriminatory discipline appropriate to the offense, not to lower disciplinary standards so racial disparities aren’t as great,” Kirsanow asserts. “We’re sacrificing good students (and teachers) on the altars of political correctness, racial bean counting, and misguided theories of social justice. This is both boneheaded and tragic. The guidance needs to be rescinded.”
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is composed of eight commissioners. Four are appointed by the president and four by Congress. The commissioners serve six-year terms and are not confirmed by the Senate.
Currently, four members of the commission are Democrats, three are independents, and one is a Republican. The four presidential appointees were all selected by former President Barack Obama.
Red Wave: Poll Shows Five Senate Democrats In Serious Trouble
by JOHN NOLTE
AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Polls done in 10 states show very bad news for at least five Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2018, according to Axios.
In November, a total of 33 Senators are up for re-election. The good news for Republicans, is that 23 of those are Democrats. The better news for Republicans is that 10 of those 23 Democrats hail from states won by President Trump in 2016.
Axios and Survey Monkey polled all ten of those states and found that at least five Democrats are in real trouble.
Montana: Sen. Jon Tester loses to his unnamed Republican challenger 42 percent to 55 percent.
West Virginia: Sen. Joe Manchin loses to his unnamed Republican challenger 43 percent to 52 percent.
West Virginia: Sen. Joe Manchin loses to his unnamed Republican challenger 43 percent to 52 percent.
Missouri: Sen. Claire McCaskill loses to Republican challenger Josh Hawley 44 percent to 52 percent.
Indiana: Sen. Joe Donnelly loses to his unnamed Republican challenger 45 percent to 51 percent.
North Dakota: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp loses to her unnamed Republican challenger 47 percent to 49 percent.
Moreover, in all five of those states, President Trump’s job approval rating is in better shape than the Democrat’s: MT: 58 percent; WV: 65 percent; MO: 55 percent; IN: 53 percent; ND: 60 percent.
In Wisconsin and Michigan, both incumbent Democrat Senators (Tammy Baldwin and Debbie Stabenow) are below 50 percent — both at 49 percent, and just barely ahead of Trump’s job approval, which sits at 48 percent and 47 percent, respectively.
While Trump’s job approval in Ohio is at a very healthy 54 percent, incumbent Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown is polling ahead of his Republican challenger (Jim Renacci) 50 percent to 45 percent.
In Pennsylvania and Florida, both Democrat Senators enjoy leads of nine and ten percent, respectively; while Trump’s job approval holds at 46 percent.
Currently, Republicans hold a narrow majority of 51 Senators in the upper chamber and only have one or two incumbent Senators in any real danger of losing re-election.
With nearly eight months and a million more news cycles between now and Election Day, a lot can happen, but as of now that Big Blue Wave is not aimed at the U.S. Senate.
Is Abortion actually just Modern Child Sacrifice?
Recently a crisis pregnancy center was visited by a church-going girl who was disappointed to find out she was pregnant. The center tried to help the girl, who was set to have twins—offering free medical care and services for her and her babies’ needs—so that she would choose life for her babies. But the problem was her due date. Rather than miss a cruise for which she had booked tickets, she chose to abort.
Not only are church-going women aborting their babies, there are abortionists today who call themselves “Christians.” How can that be? Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League is mobilizing prayer warriors to pray for three abortionists who claim to be Christians. One of those just spoke at Mississippi State University on March 1 in a speech called, “Abortion and the Christian Case for Choice.” (afanews.com, 3/2/18).
Anyone can claim to be a Christian, but that doesn’t make them so.
The thing about abortion is this: the ancient practice of child sacrifice has resumed in earnest with abortion on demand—only now it’s all hidden from our eyes. The babies are no longer sacrificed on the altars of the ancient gods Moloch and Baal. Instead, they are sacrificed on the altars of convenience or material benefits.
God said through Moses, “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”
In the ancient world, child sacrifice was common. For example, in what used to be Carthage (today’s Tunisia), in ancient cemeteries near pagan temples, archaeologists have unearthed bones of babies that were sacrificed. Before the Jewish conquest of the Promised Land, child sacrifice among the Canaanites was commonplace. The Halley Bible Handbook notes “Prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth were official murderers of little children.”
Perhaps the most notorious ancient god of the Ammonites was Moloch. The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary says of Moloch that he was worshiped by means of child sacrifice in “gruesome orgies”: “At least in some places an image of the god was heated, and the bodies of the slain were placed in its arms.”
Moses specifically warned the Israelites against worshiping this demon: “Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Moloch, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.”
But as the Old Testament records, the ancient Hebrews were often rebellious against God and His commands. We read in Psalm 106: “They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. They defiled themselves by what they did.”
One of the worst kings of Judah was Manasseh. In 2 Chronicles 6 we read, “He sacrificed his children in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced divination and witchcraft, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.”
There’s a link to these child sacrifices and hell. How so? Quoting again from The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary says of the worship of Moloch: “its principal place of worship in and after Manasseh’s time was the valley of the son of Hinnom . . . a place of such ill repute that ‘Gehenna,’ i.e., ‘the valley of Hinnom’ became a type of hell.” When Jesus spoke of hell, the Greek word is Gehenna—as in the valley of Hinnom—the place of child sacrifice.
Children are a gift from the Lord. But some people would sacrifice their own children for their personal gods.
When I asked Eric Scheidler on my radio show about the parallel between ancient child sacrifice and modern abortion, he answered: “I think it’s extremely pleasing to the devil when an abortion takes place . . . This wickedness happens in the dark. The womb is an invisible place. We don’t see the abortion happening. Even those photographs we have [of aborted babies] are very rare. They are hard to come by. This is a hidden evil. It’s one that digs its roots so deeply in our society because it happens in secret, and so many people are complicit in it, and it gradually wears away people’s sensitivity.”
Thankfully, Christ offers His forgiveness—even for abortion. Many women who have aborted, many men who have forced their wives or daughters to abort, and many abortionists have repented and come to the Lord and have found forgiveness.
Meanwhile, let’s not kid ourselves that one can participate in performing abortions and at the same time walk in good faith with Jesus Christ, the Lord of life. Abortion is the American version of the ancient practice of child sacrifice. Moloch would be pleased.
Obama State Dept Official Who Aided Dossier Author Was Key Player in Dubai Ports Scandal
ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP/Getty Images
NEW YORK — Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with the author of the largely discredited 35-page anti-Trump dossier, headed a firm that helped the company owned by the United Arab Emirates government in its controversial failed bid to take over some terminal operations at major American ports.
The events known as the Dubai Ports World controversy saw DP World, the holding company owned by the United Arab Emirates, face backlash when their attempted ports takeover prompted an American national security debate in 2006. DP World hired Winer’s company to help them purchase Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation, which had the contract to operate some of America’s biggest ports.
Involvement in the deal represents another possible link between Winer and the Clintons. Breitbart News first reported that Winer served as senior vice president of another firm that did extensive pro bono work for the Clinton Global Initiative. Breitbart News also first reported that the firm where Winer worked in a senior capacity lobbied for the U.S. subsidiary of a Russian state company that purchased a controlling stake in Uranium One, the Canadian uranium mining company with operations in the U.S. The purchase was approved by the Obama administration in a decision that is currently being probed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
In the Dubai ports scandal, Hillary Clinton, then a New York senator, vigorously attacked then-President George W. Bush for supporting the ports deal. This while her husband Bill Clinton was reportedly strategizing with Dubai on how to save the deal and temper domestic opposition. Clinton also reportedly attempted to broker a gig for his former White House press secretary, Joe Lockhart, to serve as spokesperson for DP World at the height of the scandal.
The Clintons have deep financial ties to the UAE. Bill Clinton gave speeches in Dubai in 2002 and 2005, reportedly for $300,000 each. Some reports said Clinton earned $1,175,000 for speeches in the UAE. The UAE contributed to the Clinton Presidential Library, and is listed as a donor to the Clinton Foundation in the $1 million to $5 million range. Separately, the UAE is listed as having pledged funds for a $50 million Clinton Foundation “commitment to action” plan to “establish a new biomedical center” called Abu Dhabi Bio City.
Winer, Sidney Blumenthal and the dossier
After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with dossier author and former British spy Christopher Steele.
Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an “old friend.” Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.
Steele was commissioned to produce the dossier by the Fusion GPS opposition research firm, which was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
The Steele dossier was reportedly utilized by the FBI in part to conduct its probe into Trump over unsubstantiated claims of collusion with Russia. According to House Intelligence Committee documents, the questionable dossier was also used by Obama administration officials to obtain a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, who briefly served as a volunteer foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign. The political origins of the dossier and issues relating to Steele’s credibility as a source were kept from the FISA court, a House Republican memo documents.
Winer and the Dubai ports deal
The Bush administration initially approved the deal, which would have seen the Dubai-owned DP World lease the management of port operations in some of America’s busiest sea terminals, including in New York, Newark, Baltimore and Miami. This after DP World outbid other firms to purchase British-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation, or P&O, which already had the contracts to manage those ports. The issue exploded into domestic controversy due to national security concerns regarding the prospects of a foreign-owned company overseeing ports where a large volume of cargo enters the United States, with many of incoming containers not subject to inspection.
President Bush defended the deal and even threatened to veto any legislation attempting to block the transaction, pitting the White House against some Republicans and Democrats who opposed the port operations lease. “It would send a terrible signal to friends and allies not to let this transaction go through,” Bush said at the time.
Winer at the time was a partner at the law firm of Alston & Bird, which was hired in 2005 by DP World to help it purchase P&O.
Winer’s name and signature were on Alston & Bird’s application for two of its employees to register as lobbyists on behalf of DP World.
Hillary Clinton took a lead role in publicly opposing the deal. “In a post-9/11 world, we cannot afford to surrender our port operations to foreign governments,” Clinton said. “Port security is national security and national security is port security.”
At the same time, Bill Clinton was reportedly huddling with Dubai to help them save the deal. The Financial Times broke the story on Clinton’s behind-the-scenes efforts, getting a comment from his spokesperson admitting that he advised Dubai’s leaders to, as the newspaper characterized it, “propose a 45-day delay to allow for an intensive investigation of the acquisition.” The delay was meant to soothe opposition to the deal. The suggestion came in a phone conversation with Dubai officials.
Hillary Clinton supported the 45-day delay to allow time for an investigation. She deniedtalking with her husband about his conversation with UAE officials where he reportedly proposed the delay.
Robert D. Novak, writing in the Washington Post, reported that while Hillary Clinton was opposing the deal, Bill Clinton was not only busy advising Dubai on the transaction, but also was “pushing for one of his favorite White House aides to be hired to defend the deal.”
The former president proposed to the United Arab Emirates his onetime press secretary Joe Lockhart, as Washington spokesman for the UAE-owned company, Dubai Ports World.
…
According to well-placed UAE sources, the former president made the suggestion at the very highest level of the oil-rich state. His relationship with the UAE is far from casual. The sheikdom has contributed to the Clinton presidential library and brought Clinton to Dubai in 2002 and 2005 for highly paid speeches (reportedly $300,000 each). He was there in 2003 to announce a scholarship program for American students traveling to Dubai.
…
Lockhart did not flatly deny to me that Clinton had made a pitch for him; instead he said he did not know whether the former president was involved. Lockhart said he was recommended by another Clintonite: Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency chief who is now a principal in the Albright Group lobbying firm. The company, headed by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, is representing DP World. Lockhart told me “money was not the problem” as he turned down the offer.
Eventually, the deal fell apart and DP World announced it was withdrawing and instead transferring the port leases to an American company.
Winer was exec at lobbying firm for Russians who bought Uranium One
The failed Dubai ports deal is not Winer’s only tie to controversial deals that have U.S. national security considerations. He also served as senior vice president of a firm that did lobbying work for Tenex, the U.S. subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that purchased a controlling stake in Uranium One.
In a statement to Breitbart News, APCO Worldwide, where Winer served as senior vice president from 2008 to 2013, denied that the firm’s work for Rosatom’s subsidiary Tenex was related to the purchase of Uranium One or to the acquisition of uranium in general. Instead, APCO said its work for Tenex, which took place in 2010 and 2011, focused on sales of fuel to the U.S. energy market. APCO also denied that Winer did any work related to Tenex.
A contract previously obtained by Circa shows that from 2010 to 2011, APCO was paid roughly $3 million by Tenex, the U.S. subsidiary of Rosatom.
Circa reported that it saw the contract between Tenex and APCO, which agreed that the “total fee is comprised of the fixed quarterly fee which shall be $750,000 per each of the four three-month periods of rendering Services here under during the validity period of this contract, including the 18 percent Russian VAT payable in the territory of the Russian Federation.”
Asked to clarify its work for Tenex, APCO last month sent Breitbart News a statement that “as clearly reported in APCO’s public filings from 2010 and 2011, available to anyone online, APCO’s work for Tenex focused entirely on the company’s interest in continuing sales of fuel to the U.S. energy market.”
“At the time, Tenex provided half of the fuel used by U.S. nuclear energy producers under a Bush administration program,” the APCO statement continued. “Any claim that APCO was involved in the Uranium One transaction or any related CIFIUS matter is completely false.”
As Breitbart News reported, in addition to its work for Tenex, APCO did extensive pro bono work for the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) from 2007 until 2016.
APCO Worldwide recently faced controversy when The Hill reported that paid FBI informant Douglas Campbell, who infiltrated the Russian nuclear business world, claimed to three separate congressional committees in a written statement that Russia hired APCO to influence the Obama administration, singling out Hillary Clinton.
Campbell claimed he was told by Russian nuclear executives that there was a connection between APCO’s CGI volunteer efforts and work that APCO did for Tenex.
In a statement to Breitbart News, APCO Worldwide strongly denied that its work for CGI was in any way related to work the firm did for Tenex. The statement added that “Winer had no involvement on any matters related to Tenex or the Clinton Global Initiative. In fact, the four senior staff on the Tenex project included two former Bush administration officials and a former staff member for a Republican member of the Senate.”
“APCO’s pro bono work for the Clinton Global Initiative is a matter of public record as part of our giving commitment reported to the UN Global Compact,” the statement added. “This volunteer work began in 2007, three years before any discussion with Tenex, and continued until 2016, five years after the Tenex engagement ended. These engagements were unrelated and any suggestion that they were connected is a deliberate falsehood. APCO’s work on each of these projects was transparent, publicly documented and entirely proper.”
Campbell, the FBI informant, however, claimed that Russian nuclear officials “told me at various times that they expected APCO to apply a portion of the $3 million annual lobbying fee it was receiving from the Russians to provide in-kind support for the Clintons’ Global Initiative.
“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement.”
In a separate statement on the matter to Circa last October, APCO Worldwide Inc. stated, “APCO was not involved in any aspect of Uranium One.”
‘Creepy Clinton Confidante’
Winer, meanwhile, served under Bill Clinton’s administration as the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement. He wrote in his recent Washington Post oped that he rejoined the State Department in 2013 at the insistence of John Kerry. “In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served as Senate counsel,” he wrote.
In the Post piece, Winer related that while he was at the State Department, he repeatedly passed documents from Steele related to Russia to State officials, including to Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who worked under the Clintons and served as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs under Kerry. “Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele’s reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful,” he wrote.
Winer wrote that in the summer of 2016, Steele “told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials.”
Winer says that he met with Steele in September 2016 to discuss details that would later become known as the anti-Trump dossier. Winer wrote that he prepared a two-page summary of Steele’s information and “shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.”
Besides bringing Steele’s dossier information to the State Department, Winer conceded that he also passed information from Blumenthal to Steele, specifically charges about Trump that originated with Shearer.
Winer described what he claimed was the evolution of his contacts with Blumenthal regarding Shearer’s information:
In late September, I spoke with an old friend, Sidney Blumenthal, whom I met 30 years ago when I was investigating the Iran-Contra affair for then-Sen. Kerry and Blumenthal was a reporter at the Post. At the time, Russian hacking was at the front and center in the 2016 presidential campaign. The emails of Blumenthal, who had a long association with Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been hacked in 2013 through a Russian server.
While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele’s reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature.
What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources.
Shearer has numerous close personal and family connections to the Clintons and has reportedly been involved in numerous antics tied to them. National Review previously dubbed Shearer a “Creepy Clinton Confidante” and “The Strangest Character in Hillary’s Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.”
In his Washington Post oped, Winer does not say whether he knew at the time he interfaced with Steele that the ex-British spy was working for Fusion GPS, or that Fusion was being paid by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign via the Perkins Coie law firm.
In the Post piece, Winer also failed to mention his work for APCO as well as the firm’s ties to the Clinton Global Initiative and to the company whose parent purchased Uranium One.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
Arizona Senate Candidate Kelli Ward Tours Porous U.S.-Mexico Border with Rancher: ‘We’ve Got to Have the Wall’
by PENNY STARR
It takes more than 90 minutes to travel the 20 miles from Jim Chilton’s house on his sprawling Arizona cattle ranch to the border between the United States and Mexico. But the multi-generational rancher is willing to take guests along for the ride to show them why a wall is needed to secure the homeland.
It takes more than 90 minutes on rough roads and creeks to travel the 20 miles from Jim Chilton’s ranch house to the border. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)On this tour, Kelli Ward, Republican U.S. Senate candidate who hopes to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), is in his heavy-duty pickup truck traversing rocky roads and deep creeks to reach the location where Chilton points to the four-strand barbed wire fence that stands between his ranch and Mexico.
To make his point, Chilton, 79, slides under the fence and stands up on Mexican soil:
Republican U.S. Senate Candidate for Arizona Kelli Ward stands by the small barbed wire fence that serves as the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Rancher Jim Chilton crawled under it and stood on Mexican soil. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)
“If I can do it, anyone can do it,” Chilton said.
Ward, who has visited border areas in the state before, said she is even more convinced of the need for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico after this visit.
“We’ve got to have the wall,” Ward told Breitbart News after the tour.
On this sunny, spring day, the only sign of life is the occasional Roadrunner or heifers resting under still-bare Mesquite trees.
Chilton said he rarely sees U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents along this stretch of his 50,000-acre property that includes leased federal land where hundreds of his cattle graze.
The exception happened on this tour when two vehicles filled with agents stopped to talk to Chilton. The agents told him someone had walked along the border for several miles before being picked up by fellow agents.
Chilton, who has owned the ranch for 30 years, said it was the first time he had run into any agents walking the border.
When Breitbart News asked the agents about the four-strand fence, one of the agents responded,
“If you go farther down, there’s nothing”:
Republican U.S. Senate Candidate for Arizona Kelli Ward and Arizona rancher Jim Chilton talk to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who said they had been patrolling the border on foot. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)There is an operational tower in the area with cameras and motion detecting technology, but Chilton said rain and wind can hamper the technology.
And Chilton’s frustration is not with the agents who risk their lives along the crime-infested border every day, but with the federal government that doesn’t have a strategy in place to help them actually secure it.
After returning to Chilton’s home, which includes a stuffed mountain lion he hunted down after it had taken several calves, the rancher told Breitbart News that the main problem is the border patrol is not actually on the border:
Arizona rancher Jim Chilton shows Kelli Ward, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in that state, a map that shows how his 50,000-acre ranch stretches along the U.S. border with Mexico. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)Breitbart News asked Chilton about the 25 miles of unsecured border, a stretch of which was witnessed on the tour.
“Twenty-five miles of four-strand barbed wire fence,” Chilton said. “And it’s outrageous because the Border Patrol is 80 miles from the international boundary”:
The fence that serves as the “barrier” along the U.S. Mexico border is not even easy to see unless someone guided you to it. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)“So the Border Patrol only comes halfway out and tries to patrol this area where we are at the north end of the ranch,” Chilton said. “But 20 miles to the south of the ranch, it’s a four-strand barbed wire fence.”
Breitbart News asked him what should be done to secure that part of the border.
“When Trump announced that he was going to build a wall, I mean, I was so excited, my socks were rolling up and down,” Chilton said. “I was so enthused, and so I voted for Trump, and I hope he builds the wall.”
“We need it desperately, and we need to move the Border Patrol out of Tucson out to the international border,” Chilton said. “And they have 27 agents per mile they could secure the border — a wall, a road, and a forward operations base.”
“It’s that simple,” Chilton said.
Breitbart News asked Ward what she had learned on the tour.
“It was really truly an amazing experience today — to be able to see the trials and tribulations that he and other ranchers face on a day-to-day basis,” Ward said. “A lot of times, people talk about these as just poor illegal immigrants who want to come to our country for a better life.”
What they do not talk about is drug trafficking run by cartels that Chilton said control much of the area, including having scouts on hilltops monitoring any Border Patrol activity.
“That’s got to stop,” Ward said. “So we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“I think the plan that Jim talks about is very thoughtful and actually could be achieved,” said Ward, who is a physician and has served as an Arizona state senator. “Of course, you know, I’m a fan of ‘build the wall.’”
“We have got to have a physical barrier that is not only a symbol of a right and wrong way to come into our country and also a significant barrier to the things that are coming across the border illegally whether it’s drugs or weapons or human trafficking and even money that’s coming across the border illegally,” Ward said.
“And I think that moving the Border Patrol to the border is imperative,” Ward said. “And make sure we have people in this fighting force who are willing to stand up and protect the border.”
“Their job is to keep people from coming into this country illegally in the first place, and I think with the plan that … we’ve talked about, a lot today can be achieved,” Ward said.
One of the first things visitors see when they arrive at Chilton’s ranch house are more than 100 pairs of what he calls “carpet shoes.” They are made of varying material and designed to slip over shoes. The soles are covered with carpet:
Arizona rancher Jim Chilton stands on the front porch of his home with dozens of ‘carpet shoes’ worn by illegal aliens entering the United States. Chilton said the carpet on the bottom of the shoes makes it harder for the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents to track people. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)
“And since there’s carpet on the bottom, they don’t leave tracks,” Chilton said. “The Border Patrol used to pride themselves as the best trackers in the world.”
“Now, they don’t even bother to track,” Chilton said:
Arizona rancher Jim Chilton holds up a pair of shoe covers that have carpet on the bottom of them to make it harder to track people coming into the United States at the border with Mexico. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)
Ward said the shoes are a troubling reality.
“The thing that we should be worried about is probably every one of these shoes represents a hundred or a thousand people who came into this country the wrong way,” Ward said, “many of them to do us harm.”
G’ day…Ciao…Helen and Moe Lauzier
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