Blog

  • Harry Reid Calls the Kettle Black

    When asked Senator who he believes will be the likely 2016 GOP nominee, Senator Harry Reid didn’t say whether he meant the GOP’s candidates were unable to win, or if he meant his insult as a schoolyard diss.

    “I don’t really care,” Reid said in an interview with CNBC. “I think they’re all losers.”

    Reid said he would be comfortable with Hillary Clinton as the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and dismissed the notion the former secretary of state needs a strong candidate to run against her in the Democratic primary. He also really doesn’t want her to have any competition.

    “I am not a big fan of primaries,” Reid said. “I don’t think they help, especially when you’re someone as noted as Hillary.”

    He said he likes Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, adding that he spoke with Bill Clinton the other day and loves his sincerity.

    “I talked to her husband yesterday…I love the way he ends his conversations with me and they’re so sincere,” he said. “’Harry, I love you.’ That’s what he says every time.”

    Pressed on whether he would have Vice President Joe Biden sit out the race, Reid would only say that Biden would make that decision.

    “I love Joe Biden,” he said. “I could never say a bad word about him. He’s a wonderful human being. He’s been around a long time, he can make that decision on his own, without my advice.”

    The 75-year-old Reid said he isn’t sure what he’s going to do after he steps down from the Senate.

    “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m not going to lobby. I’m not going to practice law. But I’ll keep busy. I may want one of your jobs — to be an analyst on TV — and say all these good things that you always say about me.

    Reid predicted that Democrats would hold onto his seat in 2016, because of Democratic-leaning constituents such as Latinos. He also called his party’s chance of regaining control of the Senate overall “far better than 50-50.”

    Reid acknowledged that not everyone likes him: “I think a lot of people, as I read it, kind of don’t like me as a person. I think that’s unfortunate.”

    You ‘think,’ Harry?

  • Iran’s Long Road to Nuclear Power

    This is jus’ a thumbnail sketch of Iran about its convoluted history with the U.S., and is by no means a complete picture.

    The Treaty of Commerce and Navigations signed in 1856, was the first diplomatic interaction the U.S. and Persia (now known as Iran) had. The treaty lasted until 1928.

    During World War II, Iran’s leader Reza Shah appealed to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to halt both British and Soviet forces from invading the country. However, this plea failed to get a response from FDR as the U.S. had not yet entered the war.

    Reza Shah stepped down as the Soviets entered Tehran on September 17, 1941. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, replaced him two days later.

    In 1951, Mohammed Mosaddeq was appointed Prime Minister by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Due to internal conflicts Mosaddeq was removed and replace with Ahmad Qavam.

    After five days of protests, the Shah dismissed Qavam and re-appointed Mosaddegh, granting him the full control of the military. The Shah then went into exile.

    On August 16, 1953, with the aid of the British government and the U.S., a coup was mounted against Mosaddeq. The plan called for the Shah to appoint General Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister.

    The coup failed but after a second coup attempt, the Shah was again the leader of Iran. Zahedi’s role as Iran’s Prime Minister ended in 1955.

    The Shah declared and granted an amnesty to dissidents living abroad on October 2, 1978. This included Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

    Following the coup, Khomeini became the country’s Supreme Leader until his death in 1989. He had been exiled on November 4, 1964 for having denounced both the Shah and the U.S.

    The Shah of Iran abandoned the throne, fleeing on January 16, 1979. While in exile, President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah into the U.S. to undergo gall stone surgery.

    Because of this a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, on November 4, 1979, taking more than 60 Americans hostage. Fourteen hostages were released shortly after the takeover with the remaining hostages freed 444 days later.

    Their release was soon followed in 1980 by the Iran-Iraqi War in which the U.S. sold arms to Iraq in its fight against Iran. Three years later 17 Americans were killed at a U.S. Embassy by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

    On October 23, 1983 — 241 U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers died in a suicide bombing. Five-years later, the U.S. launched an attack against Iran in retaliation for the Iranian mining of areas in the Persian Gulf, as part of the Iran-Iraq war.

    By 1995, the U.S. had placed a trade embargo on Iran which restricted commercial relations with them. These sanctions were imposed by former President Bill Clinton and renewed by President George W. Bush.

    In 1996, Iran through Hezbollah bombed the Khobar Towers killing 19 U.S. servicemen and wounding 498 civilians. Then September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and White House happened.

    It was discovered that at least eight of the hijackers passed through Iran, aided by Iranian border guards, and Hezbollah. In January 2002, Bush gave his “Axis of evil” speech, calling Iran and two other countries, an axis of evil and warned that their long-range missiles constituted terrorism and threatened the U.S.

    Now, Iran is seeking reestablish the Caliphate. Recent evidence also supports that the Houthi rebels, who are trying to overthrow Yemen’s government, are Iranian-backed.

    The Obama Administration and Iran supposedly agreed to a “framework” on April 2, where sanctions on the militant country would be lifted, if it gives up the means to make nuclear weapons. Now officials are trying to work out the final details of a formal agreement, facing a deadline of June 30.

    There are also disputes about the reach of inspections of Iran’s nuclear program. That’s because they know they’ve violated all previous agreements for open inspections.

    Russia now plans to supply Iran with the Antey 2500 S-300 air defense missile system. Russian president Vladimir Putin gave the green-light after Tehran struck its interim deal with the Obama Administration.

    The S-300 is a surface-to-air missile system that can be used against multiple targets including jets, or to shoot down other missiles. It is not clear when the systems would be delivered.

    North Korea supplied several shipments of missile components to Iran during the nuclear talks and the transfers violate the United Nations sanctions on both countries. Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they moved from North Korea to Iran.

    Finally, the Senate Foreign Relations committee voted to give Congress the power to review any potential Iran nuclear deal in a compromise with the White House. It would give Congress at least 30 days to consider an agreement after it was signed and before Obama could suspend any congressionally mandated sanctions against Iran.

  • Obama Administration Aiding Terrorists Again

    A 2012 U.S. Department of State memo reported “the Government of Cuba continued to provide safe haven to approximately two dozen Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) members.” Furthermore it reads, “In past years, some members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were allowed safe haven in Cuba and safe passage through Cuba.”

    Now Agence France Presse is reporting that FARC guerrillas killed 10 soldiers and injured 20 others in a pre-dawn attack in western Colombia. This the day following President Obama’s announcement that the U.S. would be removing Cuba from its Sponsors of Terror list in order to normalize relations with the communist dictatorship.

    So far — our national media remains silent.

  • The Shocking Truth about Slager’s Taser

    As someone consciously weary of the national media, I’m always looking for ways to poke holes in their narrative about so-called ‘hot-button’ issues. And what I’m about to point out is going to piss a lot of people off.

    North Charleston, South Carolina Police Officer Michael Slager did lose control of his taser in a struggle with Walter Scott, and this led to Slager shooting Scott. The story of the shooting is full of intentionally missing elements meant to sell this narrative: ‘A White bigoted cop murders innocent, unarmed Black man.’

    This is by no means a defense for Slager’s actions, which includes his picking an item up (possibly the taser assembly) and dropping it next to Scott’s body. Rather, I’m attempting to do what the national media hasn’t the guts to try – make an honest examination of all the available information.

    Over and over I’ve studied that first ‘shocking’ video. The first time I saw it I could tell there was at least one wire that appeared attached to Slager as he raised his service weapon, aiming at Scott.

    It took enlarging it to see that one of the wires is attached to the officer’s upper torso while the second is stuck to his left leg. Furthermore, the wires are still attached to the cartridge, which is on the ground and being dragged behind Scott as he runs away.

    This is important to note as the wires have barbs that hold them in place when fired into a subject, in this case Slager. The cartridge on the other hand is usually connected to the taser assembly and in this case, became detached.

    Scott had the assembly, which includes the trigger and body of the taser in his hand at one point and this could have been mistaken by Slager as a handgun, who may not have known Scott had tossed the assembly behind the officer. But we don’t know this, as Slager’s statement hasn’t been release, despite it being a public record.

    It also appears as if the passenger from Scott’s car and the neighbor who allegedly sold the car to Scott are being kept from the public. And strangely, their statements are missing too.

    Furthermore, Scott fled after giving up his driver’s license, thereby easily identifying him. At issue for me, what was so risky to him that he would run?

    The Associated Press reported: “Court records show that Walter L. Scott was almost $7,500 behind in child support at the time he was shot and killed by a police officer, but no bench warrant had been issued for him.”

    And while it may seem petty, a co-worker of Scott’s said he had purchased the vehicle a week before his death and even put new tires on the vehicle. So in essence, Scott didn’t jus’ buy the car as he told Slager.

    Finally, there are the differing statements from Gwen Nichols who said of Slager and Scott, “It wasn’t on the ground rolling. It was like a tussle like…” when Feidin Santana, who filmed the incident with his cell phone, stated the two men were in a “struggle on the ground.” This is a major discrepancy that needs further explanation.

    Also bothersome is the fact that Slager was ‘thrown under the bus,’ by both North Charleston’s Mayor Keith Summey and Police Chief Eddie Driggers on the day of the shooting, claiming Slager had “made a bad decision,” then firing him. Couple this to the fact that the self-righteous ‘Reverend’ Al Sharpton has injected himself into the situation, proving the city is on track for a heavy dose of politically motivated race-baiting.

    We’re looking at another ‘Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman’ case where a man’s life is about to be tried in the court of public opinion through the national media and its subjective narrative. That’s because the Scott family has hired Ryan Julison, the man who invented the phrases “Skittles and Iced Tea,” and “White-Hispanic.”

  • Illegal Border Crossing’s Not Jus’ for Kids Anymore

    Our southern border’s being used not only by illegal aliens but by foreign operatives, too. Agent’s stopped 31-year-old Iraqi man while illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on February 12, 2015.

    Ahmed Adnan Taha Al Khafaji told authorities that he spoke fluent Russian, lived in Crimea before the Russian invasion and had a brother in New York City. He also said that a Ukrainian paid $4,000 for him to get to the U.S., however, he refused to identify the Ukrainian.

    A public statement provided by Border Patrol at the time of the man’s apprehension stated, “On Thursday, February 12, 2015, RGV (Rio Grande Valley) Border Patrol Agents encountered an adult Middle Eastern male south of Pharr, Texas. The subject was taken into custody and transported to the Border Patrol station for further processing. The subject was setup for Expedited Removal back to his country of origin and transferred to the custody of ICE/ERO.”

    The agent responsible for interviewing him expressed concerns that was a Russian operative. A spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley Sector responded, “All record checks were conducted, our federal partners did interview the subject with no derogatory information being found.”

    Worse yet, this isn’t the first time this has happened.

    Ten terror suspects with affiliations to ISIL, al-Shabab and Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya got caught in September 2014 crossing into Texas. The men flew from the Middle East to Mexico, where they paid a smuggler to take them across the border, then on to New York City when captured.

    The Department of Homeland Security released a statement denying they were terrorists:

    “The suggestion that individuals who have ties to ISIL have been apprehended at the Southwest border is categorically false, and not supported by any credible intelligence or the facts on the ground. DHS continues to have no credible intelligence to suggest terrorist organizations are actively plotting to cross the southwest border.”

    Note that jus’ because Border Patrol processes a person that doesn’t mean Immigration and Customs Enforcement actually deports them. Meanwhile, only four in ten people crossing the border illegally get caught, so there’s no telling how many foreign operatives and terrorists have found their way into the U.S.

  • Life Lesson #17

    Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself.
    Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason — to shift your path in a direction that’s meant for you.
    You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough.
    But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past.
    You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation.
    So smile!
    Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.

  • Celebrating Nevada’s Great Mugwump

    Wikipedia reads: “The Mugwumps were Republican political activists who bolted from the United States Republican Party by supporting Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the United States presidential election of 1884.”

    It’s fitting.

    The newest exhibit at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City explores the early years of Nevada’s longest-serving State Senator, William J. Raggio. He spent 38 years in the State Senate, 18 years in the District Attorney’s Office and supported Senator Harry Reid in 2010 before dying two-years later at the age of 85.

    There are hundreds of pieces that will eventually join the collection but the first part of the exhibit focuses on Raggio’s early life, especially his time as a Boy Scout. The museum is also in the process of cataloging the rest of his collection.

    Meanwhile, other pieces of Nevada’s history are falling into disrepair. Some of them are to be found within the Department of Transportation building, where the roof leaks, birds defecate and mice chewed on others, leaving their droppings and bodies in and around historical items.

    The state agency’s seen its budget cut nearly in half in recent years and a request for funding to find a permanent home for items not now on display was left out of the budget Governor Brian Sandoval presented to the legislature earlier this year. Sad to think that a horse-drawn buggy from the 1880’s that travelled Nevada’s old dirt tracks is less important than item’s displayed to deify a modern-day Progressive politician.

  • Harry Reid’s Monument to Political Patronage

    “Yucca Mountain is dead,” Senator Harry Reid said in a radio interview the day he announced his retirement.

    For more than a decade, Reid used his leadership position to block Yucca Mountain, which Congress designated as the nation’s permanent disposal site for high-level nuclear waste in 1987.  This despite more than 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel being stored near reactors in 33 states, an amount expected to double in 30 years.

    Since there is no permanent disposal facility, spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors, ‘enough to fill a football field 17 meters deep’ will double to 140,000 by 2055 when all the current operating reactors are to be ‘retired.’

    A National Law Journal reports adds that the Department of Energy (DOE) spent $929 million in 2014 that “to settle breach-of-contract claims involving the storage of spent nuclear fuel.”  The federal Judgment Fund, described as a “permanent, indefinite appropriation, exempt from annual congressional approval,” covers the cost of this litigation.

    All of this goes back to Reid, who ‘handpicked’ Gregory Jaczko to be the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009. Jaczko has done everything to block Yucca Mountain and as a result the federal government has continually been in breach of contract.

    The DOE paid more than $4 billion over the past four years for these contract breaches . And until recently has collected about $759 million a year from companies to fund the repository, until a federal appellate court halted the collections because there wasn’t a waste repository being built.

    Jaczko eventually resigned after withholding information to keep plans for Yucca Mountain from advancing.

    Reid also helped convince President Obama to drop the Bush administration’s defense of the application for Yucca, and create a policy that any nuclear waste site needs the consent of the local and state governments. This decision not only kept 72,000 tons of highly radioactive waste spread across the U.S. at a stand still, the closure of the site cost $12 billion by the time of its shutdown.

    The Reid-Obama deal forced nuclear power plants to build temporary (40 years) on-site spent-fuel storage structures to keep operating. These ‘temporary’ facilities cost ratepayers millions of dollars since they have to be guarded for as long as used nuclear fuel is present.

    In return, Reid blocked nearly all amendments to legislation to shield Obama from having to veto bills. Because of this, Reid also effectively nullified the Senate’s constitutional function.

  • Harry Reid’s gets a Brotherly Smackdown

    “The band broke, and it catapulted me backwards onto one side,” explained Senator Harry Reid. “I crashed into a series of cabinets we have and, fortunately, it missed my temple by just a little tiny bit and it hit me on my right eye and it broke a number of bones around my eye and broke four ribs.”

    But does anybody really believe the story about what happened between him and his exercise equipment? After all, Harry Reid is an admitted liar with no shame.

    That’s because Harry Reid’s bathroom in his Henderson home has glass shower panels from floor to ceiling and aren’t sturdy enough to be used as an anchor for an exercise band. Furthermore, the distance between the shower door and cabinets isn’t wide enough to do the kind of resistance band exercises Reid claims he was doing.

    There is, however another possibility and this one involves Harry’s younger brother Larry.

    Witnesses say Larry came to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting between 10:00 and 11:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2014) in Henderson, Nevada.  He had blood on his clothes, a swollen left hand and told fellow AA members that he’d been in a fight with a family member and was afraid the Secret Service was going to arrest him.

    Though Larry was later arrested by the Nevada Highway Patrol on February 4, 2015 for DUI, he’s has yet to be asked what happened between him and his older brother on New Years Eve.  Meanwhile, Harry insists his security detail was with him New Year’s Day at his home when he injured himself and they took him to St. Rose Dominican Hospital.

    However, his security detail has yet to verify the events, including the date and time of the incident and the date and time they took him to the hospital. More specifically, these three questions need to be answered:

    • Was Harry Reid assaulted?
    • Why isn’t the FBI investigating?
    • Who’s obstructing justice?

    Reid says he’s now permanently blind in his right eye. Meanwhile, his office continues to decline answering any further questions about the accident.

  • DHS Bows to Harry Reid’s Will

    A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General says the deputy secretary of the DHS pushed through visas for foreigners investing in Las Vegas’ SLS Hotel and Casino project (formerly known as the Sahara Casino) at the request of Senator Harry Reid, whose son Rory Reid was, at the time, a partner in Nevada’s largest law firm, Lawson, Sawyer, and Collins.

    The younger Reid represented Stockbridge/SBE Holdings as it readied to convert the old Sahara it purchased in 2007 into the new SLS Hotel and Casino. The timing of Rory’s legal representation in 2012 and into 2013 coincides with the dates of his father’s efforts to have DHS to speed up the EB-5 visas critical to SLS.

    Over a dozen people stepped forward to say Harry Reid pressured then-U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas in January 2013 into pushing through visas to for Stockbridge/SBE Holdings Chinese investors even though the department advised against it.

    Reid claimed it’s his job to press the federal government to speed up decisions on his constituents’ needs. However, an executive for one of the main companies involved in the hotel project donated more than $127,000 to Democratic political causes over the last three election cycles.

    Reid also brushed aside reports saying he exerted political influence to win visas for investors who would have otherwise been turned down.

    “The Homeland Security report came from a bunch of whiners at the Department of Homeland Security,” Reid told Nevada’s KNPR radio.

    Created by Congress in 1990, the EB-5 program’s designed to attract investors willing to risk capital in ventures to create jobs in the U.S. Would-be investors who have at least $500,000 bankrolled in a new U.S. business can apply.

    The USCIS is the agency within the DHS responsible for reviewing all EB-5 visa applications. The USCIS approves private companies, like American Dream Fund, hired by Stockbridge/SBE Holdings in 2007, to serve as Regional Centers, authorized to present EB-5 visa petition requests.

    American Dream Fund, which focuses on Chinese EB-5 investors, is an investment associate of The Harris Group, a unit of the Marcus & Millichap Real Estate company. Marcus & Millichap CEO George Marcus has contributed to Reid’s campaigns and is a major contributor to Reid’s Senate Majority PAC.

    Marcus contributed $5,000 to the Senate Majority PAC, according to FEC records on August 12, 2012. A month later, on September 11, 2012, Marcus contributed an additional $200,000.

    Then in late 2013 and early January 2014, Marcus contributed an additional $1,250,000 to the Senate Majority PAC and by February 2014, with all the EB-5 visas approved, the $115 million of low-cost junior debt raised, construction on the SLS Hotel and Casino began. The hotel and casino opened its doors seven months later in August 2014.

    On a related note, in August 2012, Reid arranged a meeting between then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez.  During that meeting, Menendez pleaded for leniency on behalf Dr. Salomon Melgen, whose accused of overbilling Medicare by nearly $9 million.

    Interestingly, Reid arranged the meeting right after Melgen donated $300,000 to Reid’s Senate Majority PAC. By the end of 2012, Melgen’s donations to the Senate Majority PAC totaled $700,000.

    Menendez has since been indicted on charges of accepting nearly a million dollars in gifts and campaign contributions from Melgen in exchange for political favors. The public interest group Cause of Action is now calling on the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation into Reid’s intervention in the DHS EB-5 visa program.

    Oddly enough, last year Menendez interceded for an Ecuadorian woman banned from traveling to the U.S. because of visa fraud.

    Estafania Isaias’ relatives gave $11,000 to Menendez’s campaign, more than $125,000 to the Obama Victory Fund and another $105,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Shortly afterwards, Menendez contacted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who recommended the DHS approve the visa waiver — which it did.