FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL ๐ซ๐๐บ๐ฝ️๐. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
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Showing posts with label U.S. State Department. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. State Department. Show all posts
ABC News: Senior U.S. Official: Intercepted Al Qaeda Communications Indicate Planned Attack ‘Big,’ ‘Strategically Significant’ By Martha Raddatz and Jonathan Karl August 4, 2013 9:00am http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/senior-u-s-official-intercepted-al-qaeda-communications-indicate-planned-attack-big-strategically-significant Meanwhile, that same day in South Florida, all Sunday afternoon, hours after the ABC News telecast above, the Miami Herald has had nothing VISIBLE on their homepage about the al-Qaeda security threat. Really. Not that this is surprising given how far they've fallen over past 15 years... Here's a screen capture of the homepage when I checked it for one of the last times late Sunday afternoon, little changed from what It'd been in the morning and after Noon. The proof is in the pudding, since more often than not over the past few years, the Miami Herald reads like the weekly community newspaper of a suburb of Tulsa or Des Moines. http://www.miamiherald.com/
Arirang News YouTube Channel video: Japanese Prime Minister Shenzo Abe statement inflames tensions between Korea and Japan ์๋ฒ ์ '๋ง์ธ'...ํ์ผ. Uploaded April 24, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRVleXJIvM
Steve Miller reports from South Korea on the latest Abe controversy that has the Koreans and Chinese so irate:
theqirangervlog YouTube Channel video: Shinzo Abe Denies Historical Colonization of Korea. Uploaded April 23, 2013. http://youtu.be/lLMGdNGdZ1g
WaPo's editorial is important because it matters and will be read in lots of important places: Washington Post Editorial Board mulls facts over and fillets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his well-known, self-destructive penchant for engaging in historical revisionism and nationalism: "Shinzo Abe’s inability to face history"
Get it, the Post's intentional or unintentional double-meaning of face?
Defenders of Abe and at least some of the Japanese Establishment will no doubt see this criticism of him as a result of China and South Korea teaming-up behind the scenes to... blah blah.
No, it's that Abe, far too often for comfort's sake, seems unable to help himself and keep his mouth shut and his head focused, a habit that is NOT a positive trait for anyone, least of all, Japan, China, South Korea or the U.S. and its military forces in the area to protect our allies, capisce?
But how do you convince the Chinese people or their government of this, or that this character fault of his can be overcome, since some of them at least, officially or not, STILL believe in ๅ ณ็ณป, guanxi and feel that in this equation, we, the U.S, are still NOT doing enough to make Abe stop indulging himself at their expense and humiliation?. Our dilemma is that we don't seem to always act like we know when Abe is playing to small elements within Japanese society that he feels he must sate, but with his fingers crossed, or when he's actually serious about what he's saying or doing.
But there's no real confusion of what it means to Koreans and Chinese when Abe goes to the Yasukuni Shrine.
Our perceived confusion on this part, whether real or feigned for public consumption in Asia, only is making things worse, and as most of you know, I'm not a fan of John Kerry's, so I don't see him bringing anything to the equation that's going to change the dynamic. And now the main course...
The Washington Post
Editorial Board
Shinzo Abe’s inability to face history
April 26, 2013
From the moment last fall when Shinzo Abe reclaimed the office of Japanese prime minister that he had bungled away five years earlier, one question has stood out: Would he restrain his nationalist impulses — and especially his historical revisionism — to make progress for Japan?
Until this week, the answer to that question was looking positive. Mr. Abe has taken brave steps toward reforming Japan’s moribund economy. He defied powerful interest groups within his party, such as rice farmers, to join free-trade talks with the United States and other Pacific nations that have the potential to spur growth in Japan. He spoke in measured terms of his justifiable desire to increase defense spending.
senatorcorker video: Appearing on Fox News Channel, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sounded-off on the lack of information and cooperation the Comm. is receiving re the Benghazi attacks on September 11th. Corker believes the Obama administration's response to Libya consulate attack is "Nothing Short... of Benghazigate." "Both Democrats and Republicans want answers to what happened." Uploaded September 27, 2012. http://youtu.be/wLk6o3N8cB8
More useful clarity on President Obama's Libyan Lies, Misrepresentations & Misadventures: Obscure film was NOT responsible for riot there, security was lax in Benghazi, U.S. Marines were NOT there during consulate attack, and FBI agents are still NOT there two weeks later, a fact that ABC News' Friday evening newscast continued to neglect to mention
And on Friday, sixteen days after the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christoprher Stevens, ABC News national newscast devoted ZERO time to Obama's serial lies about what happened in Libya, not mentioning Libya even once. No, instead, the lead story was on TSA agents pilfering airline passenger goods. Really? Yes, nothing at all about no FBI agents being in the country more than two weeks later to investigate. The Washington Post
In Libya, security was lax before attack that killed U.S. ambassador, officials say
By Ernesto Londoรฑo and Abigail Hauslohner
September 29, 2012 at 2:12 PM
On the eve of his death, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was ebullient as he returned for the first time in his new role to Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that embraced him as a savior during last year’s civil war. He moved around the coastal town in an armored vehicle and held a marathon of meetings, his handful of bodyguards trailing discreetly behind.
But as Stevens met with Benghazi civic leaders, U.S. officials appear to have underestimated the threat facing both the ambassador and other Americans. They had not reinforced the U.S. diplomatic outpost there to meet strict safety standards for government buildings overseas. Nor had they posted a U.S. Marine detachment, as at other diplomatic sites in high-threat regions.
After more than two weeks of obfuscation and misdirection from the Obama administration, the American public is coming to understand what the U.S. intelligence community learned in the 48 hours immediately following the September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Among the important new details:
By David D. Kirkpatrick, Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt
Posted online September 27, 2012
BENGHAZI, Libya — Sixteen days after the death of four Americans in an attack on a United States diplomatic mission here, fears about the near-total lack of security have kept F.B.I. agents from visiting the scene of the killings and forced them to try to piece together the complicated crime from Tripoli, more than 400 miles away.
Investigators are so worried about the tenuous security, people involved in the investigation say, that they have been unwilling to risk taking some potential Libyan witnesses into the American Embassy in Tripoli. Instead, the investigators have resorted to the awkward solution of questioning some witnesses in cars outside the embassy, which is operating under emergency staffing and was evacuated of even more diplomats on Thursday because of a heightened security alert.
Law Shrouds Details of Congressional Trips Abroad
by Justin Elliott, ProPublica
April 11, 2012, 10:24 a.m.
When members of Congress or their staffers travel on a private group's dime, they are subject to a long list of requirements and restrictions, thanks to the Jack Abramoff scandal and that infamous picture of the grinning super-lobbyist with a congressman at a famous Scottish golf course.
Reforms in 2007 include preapproval of trips by the House or Senate ethics committee, rules barring lobbyists' involvement, limits on the length of a trip, and mandatory, prompt public disclosure of the cost, itinerary, purpose and so on.
But under a little-known exception, if a trip abroad that originates in the U.S. is paid for by a foreign government, virtually none of those restrictions and disclosure requirements applies.
Last week, we wrote about the Democratic House member from American Samoa, Eni Faleomavaega; his unusual interest in defending Bahrain during the crackdown on protests there last year; and his friend's lobbying firm that promotes the Gulf nation. Faleomavaega was in Bahrain last week, his second such trip in the last year that Bahrain paid for. On the first trip, he was accompanied by the president of the Bahrain American Council, which operates out of the lobbying firm's Washington, D.C., offices.
The South Pacific island territory that Faleomavaega represents is nearly 10,000 miles from the Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, but Faleomavaega justifies his interest because Bahrain is a "key ally" to the U.S. in the Middle East.
His trips there are allowed under a half-century-old law called the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961. The post-Abramoff 2007 law that tightened congressional travel rules did not cover these MECEA trips.
The foreign emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution bars public officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments unless explicitly authorized by Congress. The 1961 MECEA law sought to promote "cultural exchange" by allowing the secretary of state to approve programs that pay for "visits and interchanges between the United States and other countries of leaders, experts in fields of specialized knowledge or skill, and other influential or distinguished persons."
There are currently 86 approved MECEA trip programs involving more than 50 foreign governments, according to the State Department. The full list of participating governments 2014 from Canada to Yemen 2014 is here. The House and Senate ethics committees maintain a master list of approved programs, but spokespeople for the committees declined to release the list.
The State Department also declined to release it. "The details on them are proprietary for each of the foreign governments," said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said the department does not maintain a list of trips taken every year under MECEA programs because members of Congress and staffers aren't required to report them. The ethics committees also don't keep lists. So it appears that no one is tracking how much money foreign governments spend on the trips, who goes and whether the trips actually meet the goals of the program.
The recent trips to Bahrain were taken under a new memorandum of understanding between the kingdom and the State Department to allow congressional travel there. The agreement was created amid a public-relations effort to protect the country's image in the United States as Bahrain cracked down on protests.
Typically, when a member of Congress takes a trip paid by a private group, he or she must get preapproval from the ethics committee and file a detailed public disclosure form shortly after the trip. The trip must be related to the member's official duties. If the sponsor employs a lobbyist, the trip must be limited to a single night's lodging. Members of Congress can accept longer foreign travel from groups that do not employ lobbyists, but it can last no longer than seven days.
None of those conditions applies to MECEA trips. Where members go, who accompanies them, whom they meet and how much is spent 2014 all of this is unreported. The sole requirement is that members must note any MECEA trips on their annual personal financial disclosures, but the only detail disclosed is which foreign government paid for the trip.
There is also a significant delay because personal financial disclosures are not due until May of the following year. And while senior House and Senate staffers 2014 those making about $120,000 or more 2014 must file financial disclosures. Junior staffers do not, however, so they don't have to report the trips.
"Official travel and travel sponsored by foreign governments, while not as troubling as lobbyist-sponsored travel, certainly should be subject to full transparency," says Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at the watchdog group Public Citizen who helped draft the 2007 law tightening privately funded travel rules.
Here is an example of a travel disclosure form for a typical, privately funded trip. It details a trip to Israel in August by Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga. The American Israel Education Fund, a charity group affiliated with the pro-Israel lobbying organization AIPAC, paid for the trip. On the form, which must be filed with the clerk of the House within 15 days of the end of the trip, Broun had to disclose that his wife also went, and had to provide the reason for the trip; the costs broken down by travel, lodging, meals and itemized other expenses; a seven-page itinerary; and a preapproval form that he had to file with the ethics committee before embarking. The preapproval form requires the member to certify that a group that employs lobbyists is not paying for the trip.
Here, in contrast, is an example of the disclosure of a MECEA trip that Rep. Health Shuler, D-N.C., took to Sri Lanka in 2009:
That trip later prompted a protest. Ethnic Tamils argued it was a propaganda trip after Shuler defended conditions in refugee camps run by Sri Lanka, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported in June 2009.
We know about Faleomavaega's trips to Bahrain only because the Humpty Dumpty Institute, a New York City group that worked with the Bahraini government to organize the travel, voluntarily posted a synopsis about last year's trip on the institute's website.
"It's a normal Bahraini MECEA trip that is intended obviously to give the Bahraini point of view," Humpty Dumpty Institute Executive Director Joseph Merante said last week. Faleomavaega attended along with Reps. Jim Himes, D-Conn.; Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio; and Dan Burton, R-Ind. Merante added that the institute seeks balance on its trips and went out of its way to add meetings with opposition groups to the itinerary.
A few other MECEA trips that have surfaced in news reports:
In March 2010, The Washington Post reported on an upcoming trip to Switzerland advertised to congressional staffers as featuring "culinary delights and Swiss hospitality" in a country that's "all about thriving cutting-edge technology in beautiful landscapes."
In October, three Republican congressmen, including two members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, toured the Alberta oil sands on a MECEA trip paid by the Canadian government. The energy committee last year was involved in pushing the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands oil to the U.S. The trip was first reported in the Canadian media.
Also last October, as part of a push to convince the Obama administration to sell an advanced model of the F-16 fighter jet to Taiwan, senator-turned-Taiwan-lobbyist Al D'Amato of New York wrote a letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., pitching her on travel to Taiwan. "Please know that no U.S. taxpayer funds would be used to pay for your trip, as Taiwan would cover your trip via the State Department's Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act," D'Amato wrote.
The Taiwan example shows how lobbyists can be involved in organizing MECEA trips 2014 participation that would not be allowed for other types of trips.
These few trips are known only because they happened to attract media attention. Because of the loophole in travel disclosure rules, it's difficult to immediately conclude much else about MECEA trips 2014 for instance, to identify trends or evaluate whether they live up to their stated purpose.
