Seth Rich

Exploration of Conspiracy Theories from Perspective of Esoteric Traditions

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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Tue Sep 25, 2018 5:19 am

"It's actually 5 women, including both of his own (simultaneous) wives.

One said she was kept "like a slave." Police found her bloodied. After police call, gunmen shot into her home.

Stepmom also said she was "kept in captivity"

https://twitter.com/lukerosiak/status/1 ... 6840561664


Soon After Imran Awan’s Other Wife Called Police On Him, Gunmen Shot At Her
9:14 PM 06/07/2018
Luke Rosiak and Wajid Ali Syed | Contributor


dailycaller.com
5 mins read

Former Democratic IT aide Imran Awan is simultaneously married to two women
Gunmen shot at one’s family home soon after she told police Imran kept her “like a slave”
She obtained restraining orders soon after
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ indicted former IT aide, Imran Awan, was married to two Virginia women simultaneously, and 15 days after one of them told police that Imran kept her “like a slave,” gunmen shot into her family home, according to police reports filed in Pakistan.
The shooting at Sumaira Siddique allegedly occurred in Pakistan in August 2016 — days after the House Inspector General informed the Committee on House Administration that Imran allegedly committed cybersecurity violations. In a report filed with the local police, Siddique’s father, who owns the home, said he believed Siddique had been targeted.
The shooting was unsolved, though in a separate case, Imran’s stepmother, Samina Gilani, alleged in court papers filed in April 2017 that Imran said he would “do harm to me and my family members back in Pakistan and one of my cousins here in Baltimore.” He also “threatened that he has the power to kidnap my family members back in Pakistan.”
Imran and his family also had access to all the emails and files of 1 in 5 House Democrats. The IG found the IT aide made “unauthorized access” to House data during the 2016 election at the same time Wasserman Schultz was dealing with the hack of the Democratic National Committee.



Fairfax County, Virginia police responded to disputes between Imran and Siddique in October 2015, November 2015 and July 2016, police records show. In one case, the police report said Siddique had “cut[s] on [her] stomach and arm.”
She also told police that Imran treated “her bad,” kept her “like a slave,” and that she “wanted info on how to obtain a restraining order against him,” according to a July 18, 2016 report.
Siddique then went back to her father’s home in Pakistan where, two weeks after the “slave” police report, assailants shot bullets at the house, a Pakistani police report and a local newspaper article.
“[A]round 2 AM, between August 1st and August 2nd, unknown gunmen shot multiple fires at my house and fled,” according to a police report filed on Aug. 3, 2016 by Siddique’s father, who noted his daughter was at his home at the time.

Authorities appeared reluctant to find the perpetrators, according to an Aug. 8 report in a local newspaper.
“A week after a Pakistani American female lawyer’s home in Pakistan was attacked by unknown gunmen, the police has still not taken action,” the Daily Ausaf article said. “They managed to register the case with the police station Shahkot, after an intervention by the US embassy but police has not taken any further action to find the perpetrators.”
Siddique’s father, Haji Rana Muhammad Ikram, also “said that the police has been unable to resolve the mysterious firing case,” the article continued. “He also said that his daughter has no animosity with anyone, neither she received any threatening calls during her stay in Pakistan.”
Imran has political connections in Pakistan stemming from his position working for the U.S. Congress, according to a 2009 article by the Pakistani paper Dawn. The paper reported his connections allowed him to get criminal charges against his father dropped in Pakistan.
In contrast to Wasserman Schultz’s outspokenness about Russian hackers, she told Florida media that Imran and his family “were being persecuted” and faced “racial, ethnic and religious profiling.” Her spokesman, David Damron, did not respond to questions about the Muslim women who expressed fears about Imran.
Imran’s other wife, Hina Alvi — who Wasserman Schultz also employed and who sources familiar with the couple said was Imran’s first cousin — said in court documents filed in Pakistan in September 2017 that Imran threatened violence against her in order to control her. Alvi also said Imran committed fraud and polygamy.
Imran retained a former aide to Hillary Clinton, Chris Gowen, as his lawyer in the congressional case. Gowen said in an interview with Sharyl Attkisson that Imran had no second wife and the threat accusations were a lie made up by “fake reporters.” He also said the cybersecurity and theft allegations in the IG report are false.
The Daily Caller News Foundation traveled to Pakistan and obtained the Pakistani marriage license between Imran and Siddique and the Pakistani police report and news article about a shooting. TheDCNF also obtained multiple Virginia restraining orders that said she and Imran had “cohabitated previously within 12 months” and ordering him to stay away from her, as well as three Virginia police records involving altercations between the pair.
The restraining orders say “either the Petitioner is in immediate and present danger of family abuse or there is sufficient evidence to establish probable cause that family abuse has recently occurred.” They add that “‘family abuse’ means any act involving violence, force or threat that results in bodily injury or places one in reasonable apprehension of death, sexual assault [or] bodily injury.”
Gowen previously lashed out at Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, saying, “The outrageous conspiracy theorists driving a false narrative through the press should be reminded that Imran Awan is a husband and a father, not a political pawn.”
Siddique obtained the first restraining order against Imran on Jan. 26, 2017 — a few months after the shooting and after she returned to the U.S. At that time, the Capitol Police were monitoring him for suspicious activity, eight days after he wired $300,000 to Pakistan and a week before he was banned from the House computer network.
The Capitol Police began monitoring him in October 2016, but did not arrest him until July 2017, and he has not been charged with the alleged misconduct the IG identified. He was charged with bank fraud and his next court date is July 3.
No one answered the door at the address listed as Siddique’s in the police reports. But neighbors and associates said it was well-known in their Pakistani-American circles that Imran had taken two wives under Islamic law and that both wives lived in Virginia.
Timeline:
10/16/2015 Siddique calls police to her apartment in Virginia; they observe “cut on stomach and arm”
11/16/2015 Fairfax, Virginia police report on telephone threats involving Imran and Siddique
4/2016 Inspector General investigation into Imran’s finances begins
7/18/2016 Siddique calls police to her apartment and tells them Imran “treat her bad and keep her there like a slave“
7/24/2016 Inspector General alerts Congress to cybersecurity issues related to Imran
8/2/2016 Siddique goes to Pakistan and an unknown gunman fires into Siddique’s home in Pakistan
10/2016 Capitol Police and FBI begin monitoring Imran
11/18/2016 Siddique’s landlord files a claim against Imran for ceasing to pay her rent
1/26/2017 Virginia judge grants protective order barring Imran from contact with Siddique
2/2/2017 House authorities ban Imran from the congressional network
2/10/2017 Restraining order extended
4/24/2017 Restraining order extended again and new hearing set for July 20, 2017
7/24/2017 Imran arrested at airport for bank fraud
8/22/2017 Wasserman Schultz says Imran is being “persecuted” and invokes his children
9/8/2017 Imran’s lawyer says, “The outrageous conspiracy theorists driving a false narrative through the press should be reminded that Imran Awan is a husband and a father, not a political pawn.”
9/13/2017 Imran’s other wife and fellow congressional aide, Hina Alvi, files papers in Pakistan saying Imran threatened violence and committed fraud and polygamy


Wajid Ali Syed reported from Faisalabad, Pakistan.
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kinderdigi
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Fri Sep 28, 2018 3:15 am

Stories involving/about Richard Blum are vanishing from the web.

Chinagate's smoking gun

By Charles Smith

http://www.wnd.com

On Feb. 6, 1996, Bill Clinton met in the White House with the CEO of a major gun manufacturing company. The same gun maker flooded the U.S. market with over 400,000 assault rifles in 1994. Only a few months after the meeting with Clinton in 1996, the same gun dealers tried to smuggle over 2,000 machine guns to U.S. drug gangs.


No Democrat will talk about this particular gun company on the floor of Congress, nor will the Democratic National Committee answer questions in front of the press. Even the first lady, Hillary Clinton, carefully avoids any references to her involvement with the very same gun manufacturer.
The reason for the silence from the DNC is simple. Bill Clinton’s close relationship with Poly Technologies Corp., an arms company wholly owned by Chinese generals, brought great profits to the People’s Liberation Army and large contributions into Democrat coffers.
Poly Tech also exports the most popular gun in the world; it manufactures and sells the infamous AK-47. The AK-47, and its familiar banana-shaped magazine of bullets, has adorned the shoulders of terrorists who hijack planes and graced the flags of radical nations. Many an American has died from the AK-47s 7.62 x 39mm bullet.
According to documents forced from the U.S. Department of Commerce by a federal lawsuit, Poly Tech made great profits in America thanks to Bill Clinton. “Poly Tech,” states the 1997 report, “sold hundreds of millions of dollars of largely surplus arms around the world, exporting to customers in Thailand, Burma, Iran, Pakistan, and the United States…. These sales peaked in
1987, when Poly sold more than US$500 million in weapons.”

Poly Tech’s prime U.S. subsidiary, PTK International of Atlanta, Ga., was run by Chinese princeling, Baoping “Robert” Ma. Robert Ma’s family business included “importation and distribution of semi-automatic rifles for the U.S. domestic market…. Between 1987 and 1993 PTK sold more than US$200 million worth of these guns in the United States.”
According to the report, Poly Tech took advantage of Clinton’s 1994 executive order banning assault weapons, including a ban on gun imports from the Chinese army.
“Loopholes allowed importers to bend the rules,” states the report. “Specifically, Congress exempted weapons in transit post hoc. The U.S. Treasury initially estimated this exemption would cover 12,000 weapons, but importers actually brought in 440,000.”

In 1994, President Clinton and the Democrat-controlled Congress gave the PLA their greatest gun sales spree in America with a “loophole.” Poly Tech officials crammed Chinese flag carrier (COSCO) ships bound for America with every weapon they could scrape from their massive inventory, selling them at inflated prices brought by Clinton’s ban. In a single stroke of Clinton’s pen, the PLA made over $100 million in windfall profits.
On Feb. 6, 1996, Poly Tech Chairman Wang Jun met with Ron Brown, and later that night, the Chinese arms dealer attended one of the infamous White House “coffee” sessions. Wang was invited to the coffee at the White House at the behest of convicted felon Charlie Trie. In 1998, Wang refused to be interviewed by House Investigators looking into the Chinagate scandal.
Poly Tech was founded in 1985 as a subsidiary of China’s powerful central bank, CITIC (China International Trust and Investment Corporation). In 1996, the Chinese headquarters of Poly Tech was run by Wang Jun and his “princeling” friend, the powerful He Ping, son-in-law of Deng Xiaoping. Wang was not only Poly Tech CEO but also a director of CITIC. Thus, the PLA “commercial” arms outlet, Poly Tech, also provided CITIC credit to customers.
The curious mix of communism, capitalism and corruption ended in August 1996, when Poly Tech’s U.S. operations were closed by a U.S. Customs sting operation. Allegedly, Poly Tech’s man in America, Robert Ma, conspired with China North Industries (NORINCO) representative, Richard Chen, to import 2,000 fully automatic AK-47s into the United States to Customs agents posing as Miami drug smugglers.
However, according to the 100-page federal indictment from one of the key undercover agents, Chen and Ma had to call back to PLA headquarters in Beijing to obtain the 2,000 machine guns. According to the Customs agent’s deposition, Chen and Ma had difficulty in getting the “barrels” because they required “higher-level permission.”
Yet, Poly Tech Executive Director Xie Datong stated on the record that the machine gun transfer did not require permission from the Chinese general staff. Xie Datong, also a corporate officer of Poly’s American subsidiary PTK, claimed the weapons were transferred from stockpiles from the general logistics division of the PLA.
Whether Chinese generals attempted to smuggle machine guns into America may never be answered. Ma and company fled the country. Gunrunner Robert Ma and all of the Chinese executives that served Poly Tech, escaped the grasp of the inept Janet Reno and Louis Freeh. Ma was reportedly one step ahead of FBI agents who had a warrant for his arrest.
Clearly, the Chinese generals made a profit from illegal gun smuggling. President Jiang Zemin certainly has no incentive to return Robert Ma into the hands of U.S. justice, nor has Bill Clinton made any attempt to ask his “strategic” partners in Beijing.
However, the Poly Tech story goes deeper than just a few Chinese generals and a princeling or two. According to another document obtained from the Commerce Department, the 2,000 machine guns were to be transferred to the Long Beach port in California onboard the COSCO ship, the Princess Bride. However, “a leak from the State Dept alerted the company, which then canceled the delivery.”
“COSCO,” according to Defense Department intelligence officials, “operates a fleet of ELINT (electronic intelligence) trawlers for the PRC government. … When China delivers missiles or chemical agents to the Middle East, specially outfitted COSCO ships deliver them.”
The close relationship between the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DNC also appears in the halls of the Senate. On March 7, 1997, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the press that she and five other lawmakers had been targeted by the Chinese government. In response, Feinstein returned $12,000 she had obtained from John Huang and other donors linked to the Lippo Group.
Sen. Feinstein is well known as an ardent fan of the reds in Beijing.
She has opposed a U.S. anti-missile defense, supported China’s MFN status, supported the COSCO purchase of Long Beach port and is a well-known opponent of linking human rights with trade. However, Feinstein’s financial ties to the communist Chinese and COSCO include her husband, Richard Blum.

Blum is reported to be heavily tied to the PRC through his Far East investment firm, Newbridge Capitol Corp. Blum’s partner at Newbridge, Peter Kwok, also served as a consultant to COSCO, and COSCO Hong Kong Holdings, a company owned by Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing. In 1989, Kwok helped CITIC and Li Ka-Shing raise $120 million to buy a Hughes-built communications satellite for a company also part owned by Chinese generals.
Senator Feinstein is far closer to Red China than just a few business ties to her husband would suggest. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1997 that Blum and Feinstein have visited with communist Chinese officials three times. Blum reportedly accompanied the senator at his own expense and met with President Jiang Zemin and other top communist party officials. In January 1996, Feinstein and Blum were honored as the first foreigners to stay at Mao Tse-tung’s former residence.
One Feinstein document that screams out for further investigation is a letter dated Nov. 1, 1994, from a million-dollar Democratic donor to President Clinton. Investment banker and Democratic fund-raiser, Sanford R. Robertson, wrote a “thank you” note to Clinton for a Ron Brown trade mission to China.
Robertson complimented Brown’s “diplomatic skills” in a meeting with Chinese dictator Li Peng. Robertson wrote that Secretary Brown “deftly navigated the human-rights issues by obtaining an agreement on further talks and then moved directly into the economic issues at hand: helping Chrysler, Sprint and others with their ‘joint ventures.'”
The Robertson letter closes with a smoking-gun postscript: “[Treasury
Secretary] Bob Rubin came to our home on Thursday for a Dianne Feinstein
dinner, which raised over $100,000 for her campaign. Bob, of course, turned out the financial community and Silicon Valley.”
The honorable Senator Feinstein was never asked by her colleagues on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigating the China connection about Robertson, her husband or the returned $12,000. There has never been any investigation of COSCO or Poly Tech. Bill Clinton has never answered detailed questions on Ron Brown, Wang Jun, Charlie Trie and John Huang.
Perhaps the real truth lies in the fact that many of the U.S. companies linked to the China-Gate scandal also gave to both political parties. Hughes and Motorola, for example, are both major RNC donors. Robertson and his company gave to Republican Sen. Alfonse D’Amato of New York and contributed $100,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee.
Despite the propaganda, Bill Clinton clearly considers money from the Chinese Army as far more important than machine guns in the hands of criminals. Bill Clinton placed political ambition above human rights, criminal justice and U.S. national security. The unbreakable bond between the PLA gun makers and Bill Clinton was built on the strongest of political foundations, a large checkbook and no questions asked.

Related items:
Source documents

https://www.wnd.com/1999/05/7050/
kinderdigi
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Tue Oct 02, 2018 6:59 pm

As this stuff is scrubbed from the web, it's difficult to find much of their past dealings.

Feinstein's Husband Qualifies His Tie to Chinese Businessman
Marc Sandalow, Chronicle Washington Bureau Published 4:00 am PST, Thursday, March 27, 1997


1997-03-27 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The husband of California Senator Dianne Feinstein acknowledged yesterday his relationship with a businessman remotely linked to the Chinese government shipping company that recently won approval to lease a port in Long Beach.


But Richard Blum, who has been married to Feinstein since 1980, characterized the connection as trivial and flatly denied that he sought to influence the decision to grant the company a lease.
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"To say that somehow that I had knowledge or was involved in any way with Long Beach is a stretch, to say the least," Blum said in a written statement. "In fact, I had never even heard of the (Long Beach) project until I read about it in the newspaper recently."
The China Ocean Shipping Co., known as Cosco, recently offered to pay $14.5 million in annual rent and spend $200 million to renovate a portion of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which was closed by the U.S. military nearly three years ago.


Feinstein maintains that she had nothing to do with the plan, which was approved Monday by the Long Beach Harbor Commission. In fact, the Defense Department and the National Security Agency are now reviewing the arrangement at the request of Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, California's other senator.
Blum's connection to Cosco, reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, appears tenuous.
Among Blum's financial interests is an entity called Newbridge Capital, which has raised more than $100 million to invest in China. The managing director of Newbridge Capital is Peter Kwok. Kwok also serves as a consultant to a Hong Kong subsidiary of Cosco, known as Cosco Hong Kong Holdings, Ltd, an arrangement that predated his position at Newbridge.

Blum said the Cosco subsidiary "has nothing to do" with Newbridge. Kwok advises the subsidiary on equity and bond sales, and was quoted by the Journal as saying "Dick Blum doesn't know the Cosco people at all."
The revelation does not mark the first time Blum's business dealings with China have been questioned in light of his marriage to Feinstein, who has been among the Senate's strongest advocates of open trade between the United States and China.
It was widely reported several years ago that Blum's San Francisco-based investment firm stood to benefit from the United State's decision to extend "most favored nation" trading status to China, which his wife actively supported.

The couple insist they have a "fire wall" between them on the matter of Blum's China dealings.
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Feinstein said there is absolutely no connection between Blum's distant business connection and the senator's position on China or Cosco.
"Senator Feinstein has no knowledge of Mr. Kwok's business relations. Any relationship that Mr. Kwok has, or had, with Cosco is of no relation to her," said Feinstein press secretary Susan Kennedy. "The Senator has a system in place in her office to review any potential conflict of interest. Nothing has been brought to our attention that comes close to a conflict."
Despite the recent furor over the Long Beach lease, Cosco has long been viewed as a valuable customer at ports up and down the West Coast, including San Francisco and Oakland. However the lease was questioned after it was reported that the FBI was investigating allegations that the Chinese had tried to influence U.S. elections. Cosco has also been viewed with suspicion since one of its ships was seized in Oakland last year with 2,000 contraband assault weapons allegedly headed for Los Angeles gangs.

More
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Fein...848871.php
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Thu Oct 04, 2018 11:27 am

Russia Says Space Station Hole Was Deliberate Sabotage After Formal Investigation

www.zerohedge.com
2 mins read
After a thorough investigation which included consultation with NASA, Russia is now pointing the finger to deliberate sabotage as causing a hole that created a dangerous oxygen leak on the International Space Station (ISS).
Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian space agency Roskosmos, said on Monday that an official investigative report had confirmed their prior theory: "It concluded that a manufacturing defect had been ruled out which is important to establish the truth," he said.

Damage to the craft first uncovered in late August while it was anchored to the International Space Station (ISS) alarmed engineers and raised suspicion of foul play — a possibility at first thought remote — but an air leak was initially thought to be the result of a micrometeorite colliding with the vessel.
Concerning the drill hole, the Russian space agency chief continued, "Where it was made will be established by a second commission, which is at work now." The agency is now actively seeking the person or persons responsible for drilling the hole.
A report of the new findings in Yahoo news summarizes of prior suggestions that it was a mere accident or assembly defect:
Now it appears that isn’t the case, and that the hole was created specifically to cause problems for the crew. Who created it remains to be seen, but the Russian space agency is clearly taking this all incredibly seriously and whoever was responsible will likely face some incredibly stiff punishment.
An initial inquiry from early September, related in Russian media, had described the possibility of a "reckless assembly worker" reported to have made a manufacturing error that had possibly opened up further once in space. However, the latest formal investigation reveals the Russians believe the damage is far beyond a mere manufacturing error, and have thus dismissed the idea that it was accidental or an assembly error.
Previously a Russian space program source described to TASS news agency that “There are drilling traces not only inside the living module [of the ISS], but also on anti-meteorite plates.”
These plates have been described in media reports as "mounted outside of the station’s hermetic hull". “The one who made the hole in the hull passed straight through it and the drill head hit external non-hermetic protection,” the TASS source explained. "The top of the drill came through the pressure hull and hit the non-gas-tight outer shell."

Officials now hope that a secondary investigation will locate a suspect or suspects responsible. The investigation will continue even as Russian media in some instances has speculated on sensational claims that American astronauts secretly sabotaged the Russian vessel docked at the space station; however, such an act could have potentially caused danger to the entire ISS including the American sectors as well.
A prior statement between the Russian space chief and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine had attempted to calm widespread speculation and accusations of foul play: "The Administrator and the General Director noted speculations circulating in the media regarding the possible cause of the incident and agreed on deferring any preliminary conclusions and providing any explanations until the final investigation has been completed," the statement read.
And further, the NASA statement said of Russia-NASA cooperation: "They affirmed the necessity of further close interaction between NASA and Roscosmos technical teams in identifying and eliminating the cause of the leak, as well as continuation of normal ISS operations and NASA’s ongoing support of the Roscosmos-led Soyuz investigation."
NASA has denied the possibility that Americans could have had anything to do with it. However, this latest turn certainly adds suspense to an already very bizarre saga playing out dangerously in space.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10- ... estigation
kinderdigi
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Fri Oct 05, 2018 10:01 pm

On a Tiny Norwegian Island, America Keeps an Eye on Russia

www.nytimes.com
8 mins read

Europe
By ANDREW HIGGINSJUNE 13, 2017
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Photo

The Arctic island of Vardo, Norway, about 40 miles from the Kola Peninsula, a Russian territory with high-security naval bases and restricted military zones. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
VARDO, Norway — The population of the Arctic island of Vardo has shrunk to half of what it was 20 years ago, and the fishing industry that sustained its residents for generations has mostly collapsed.
But the local power company, citing a mysterious surge in electricity demand, began work last month to increase energy supplies, laying a thick new cable in a tunnel under the icy waters that separate the island from the Norwegian mainland.
The new electricity cable, along with the recent appearance of earth-moving equipment atop a rocky plateau overlooking Russia across the sea, points to one business that is flourishing in this part of the Arctic: snooping on Russia’s expanding fleet of nuclear submarines armed with ballistic missiles in the Barents Sea.
The extra electricity is needed to power an American-funded radar system under construction on an island in sight of the Kola Peninsula, a frigid Russian territory studded with high-security naval bases and restricted military zones.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made strengthening his country’s military and economic role in the Arctic a priority. He has vowed to make Russia the dominant player in the high north as climate change opens up new shipping routes from Asia to Europe, new gas and oil prospects and a new arena for great power rivalry.
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Photo

The population of Vardo has shrunk to half of what it was 20 years ago. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
The bedrock of Russia’s Arctic ambitions, said Katarzyna Zysk, an associate professor at the Norwegian Institute of Defense Studies, is the role of the region in Russia’s nuclear deterrence and naval strategies. At the center of these is the Borei submarine, a new generation of strategic weaponry that can carry at least 12 ballistic missiles, each armed with multiple nuclear warheads.
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The first of at least eight Borei class submarines that Russia plans to build, the Yuriy Dolgorukiy, is now part of Russia’s Northern Fleet. Russia operates scores of submarines, including six Delta IVs armed with multiple ballistic missiles, from a string of bases on the Kola Peninsula, which is just 40 miles across the churning sea from Vardo.
“This place is very, very important for America and for the Western world so that they can keep an eye on what the Russians are doing,” said Lasse Haughom, a former mayor of Vardo and a veteran of Norway’s military intelligence service.
“Russia wants to look into our secrets, and the United States and Norway want to look into their business,” Mr. Haughom added. “That is the way the game is played.”
The game began in Vardo in the early stages of the Cold War with the construction of a primitive early warning radar. But instead of calming with the end of the Soviet Union more than a quarter-century ago, this perilous contest has now entered a new and, for Russia, alarming stage with the start of work in Vardo on a sophisticated new radar system known as Globus 3.
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Photo

Vardo’s mayor, Robert Jensen, supports the new radar project because of the jobs it will generate. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
The joint American-Norwegian radar project, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and consume substantial amounts of electricity, has infuriated Moscow, which sees it as part of a Pentagon drive to encircle and contain Mr. Putin’s resurgent Russia. The Russian ambassador in Oslo, Norway’s capital, recently warned Norway that it should “not be naïve” about Russia’s readiness to respond.
“Norway has to understand that after becoming an outpost of NATO, it will have to face head-on Russia and Russian military might,” the ambassador, Teimuraz Ramishvili, told Norway’s state broadcaster, NRK. “Therefore, there will be no peaceful Arctic anymore.”
The new radar system at Vardo will merely upgrade an earlier American-built radar system and continue its mission, Morten Haga Lunde, the chief of Norway’s military intelligence agency, said in a cryptic statement last year. That mission, he added, is to track space debris like defunct satellites and to “monitor our national area of interest in the North.”
But Russia’s generals and many Norwegians have dismissed the space-trash story. They say they believe that the new Globus 3 radar is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to develop a global missile-defense system, making it a prime target for attack in the event of a conflict.
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Photo

A woman walking her dog near the radar station above the town of Vardo. The construction of a sophisticated new American-Norwegian radar project has infuriated Moscow. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
“Russia views Vardo as a high-value target,” said Lt. Col. Tormod Heier, faculty adviser at the Norwegian Defense University College in Oslo. “In a crisis it will be one of the first places to be blown up.”
What most alarms Russia, he added, is that a role for Vardo in missile defense would severely undermine Moscow’s last indisputable claim to great power status — its nuclear arsenal and the ability to launch a retaliatory second strike from its submarine fleet in the Arctic.
Mr. Putin has put missile defense at the top of a long list of grievances against the United States, telling reporters in St. Petersburg on June 1 that the American program “destroys the strategic balance in the world.”
Vardo’s mayor, Robert Jensen, said he saw no reason for alarm and supported the new radar project because of the jobs it would generate. “I never thought that Russia will start World War III here,” he said.
Residents, he added, are far more bothered by the closing of fish processing factories than by the arrival of yet another American radar.
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Photo

Aksel Robertsen in the now-abandoned fish processing plant where he used to work. “We want to live off fishing, not secret radars,” he said. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Dan Tore Jorgensen, a reporter with Vardo’s local newspaper, Osthavet, said that was true up to a point. But he said open discussion had been hindered by a “vow of silence” about what was really going on up on the plateau, which is sealed off by security fences and dotted with “keep out” signs declaring in English, Norwegian and Russian that the area is a forbidden military zone.
Though the current radar system is operated by Norwegians, he said that Vardo’s main hotel is often filled with American technicians and spies masquerading as bird watchers.
Aksel Robertsen, a 34-year-old fisherman, said Vardo badly needed jobs to keep the population of about 2,100 from further shrinking and was grateful to the military intelligence operation for providing work.
But walking through the crumbling, waterlogged ruins of the fish processing plant where he worked as a young man, Mr. Robertsen cursed the authorities for treating Vardo “like the Belgian Congo,” a dependent territory that provides labor but has no real say in, or even knowledge of, its fate. “We want to live off fishing, not secret radars,” he said.
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Photo

A rock concert in a pub in Vardo. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
The secrecy surrounding the radar systems has spawned fears that officials are covering up health hazards and other possible dangers.
The electromagnetic pulses emitted by the current radar system interfere with television and radio reception and have been blamed by some residents for a rash of miscarriages and cancer cases in a civilian district next to the fenced-in security zone.
Mr. Haughom, 72, the former mayor and intelligence veteran, dismissed the health worries. “I worked on the site for nearly 30 years, even inside the domes when the transmitter was on and, well, I’m still alive,” he said.
May-Sissel Dorme, one of three women on a single street near the radar system who suffered miscarriages in 2000, said she was not sure whether radar radiation played a role but was certain about one thing: “If war breaks out we will be the first place the Russians bomb,” she said.
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Photo

May-Sissel Dorme, one of three women on a street near the radars to suffer miscarriages in 2000. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
The United States insists that its plans for missile defense aim only to counter the missiles of “rogue” states like Iran and North Korea.
All the same, Russia, which is far weaker than the United States in conventional military forces, views American efforts to develop a missile shield as a direct threat to the one area in which it can still compete — nuclear deterrence.
“There is a new Cold War but it is more threatening than the old one because Russia is so much weaker, and because of that much more dangerous and unpredictable,” Colonel Heier said in an interview in Oslo. “The risk of nuclear war is much higher now than in the old Cold War when the Soviet Union had a whole range of different weapons.”
Theodore Postol, a radar expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said putting a high-powered radar like Globus 3 in Vardo “makes no sense if the main goal is tracking space junk.” He said that a far more likely role was monitoring Russian missiles.
Mr. Postol said he doubted a missile-defense system would ever really work, but added that Russia had good reason to be anxious, despite Pentagon assurances that the United States was not trying to weaken Moscow’s nuclear deterrent.
“If you have a neighbor walking up and down the fence line with a shotgun, he can tell you it’s not loaded but it raises all kinds of questions about his intentions,” Mr. Postol said. “It creates the appearance that the United States is doing everything it can to gain intelligence about new Russian missiles and figure out all the measures it can to counter them.”
Continue reading the main story

Photo

Houses in the snow near Vardo. “This place is very, very important for America and for the Western world so that they can keep an eye on what the Russians are doing,” said a former mayor of the town. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
But Ms. Zysk of the Norwegian Institute of Defense Studies said that “compared to the scope, and pace, of the Russian military buildup in the Arctic, the strengthening of the Norwegian intelligence gathering capability is a rather modest move.”
Suspicions that the radar systems in Vardo have little to do with monitoring space junk have been heightened by a series of statements over the years by American officials that seemed to contradict the official line.
In an account posted — and then deleted — from its website, Raytheon, the manufacturer of the previous Globus 2 radar system in Vardo, said it “was originally designed to collect intelligence data against ballistic missiles.”
Bard Wormdal, a journalist with Norway’s national broadcaster who lives near Vardo, has written a book, “The Satellite War,” charting gaps in the official story. In an interview, Mr. Wormdal said he understood that “intelligence is difficult to discuss in public” but worried that the extreme secrecy and obfuscation surrounding the radar systems were creating a “separate state within the state.”
Correction: June 14, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated how many submarines the Russian Navy has in service. It is believed to have about 65 in all, not more than 200.
Henrik Pryser-Libell contributed reporting from Oslo.
A version of this article appears in print on June 14, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: On a Tiny Norwegian Island, America Keeps an Eye on Russia. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Continue reading the main story

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/worl ... radar.html
kinderdigi
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Sat Oct 06, 2018 6:42 am

Interpol director missing, France launches an investigation
Published time: 5 Oct, 2018 10:16
Edited time: 5 Oct, 2018 13:56
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Meng Hongwei in Lyon, France. July 13, 2017 © Zhang Xuefei/Global Look Press
1671
Meng Hongwei, the director of Interpol, is reportedly missing. His wife last had contact with him before he went to China about a week ago.
Interpol, an organization that is supposed to be capable of locating anyone anywhere in the world, is missing its own director. Chinese politician Meng Hongwei, head of Interpol since 2016, fell off the radar in late September, and the French police have reportedly started looking for him.
Read more
‘World knows who truly violates sovereignties’: Beijing blasts Pence speech on ‘Chinese meddling’
Meng and his family reside in Lyon, France, the seat of Interpol headquarters. His wife reported him missing after he took a trip to China on September 29, and hasn't been heard from since.
Interpol itself has been vague about the search for its director. Meng's whereabouts is "a matter for the relevant authorities in both France and China," its press office said in a statement. Meng is, apparently, not essential for Interpol's day-to-day operations, which are handled by its secretary general Jurgen Stock.
Neither Paris nor Beijing, where Meng holds the post of deputy public security minister, have made any official public statement yet.
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the world's top international policeman provides fertile ground for speculation. A report in South China Morning Post, citing an unspecified source, claims Meng is under investigation in China, "taken away" for questioning as soon as his plane landed. There's no information on why Meng might be investigated.
The version that Meng's own government got to him for getting cozy with foreign officials was among the first to spring up online, as a "pure guess" by an editor of Foreign Policy magazine.
https://www.rt.com/news/440400-interpol ... ing-china/




Europe
Missing Interpol president deeply rooted in China’s security

FILE - In this July 4, 2017 file photo, Interpol President, Meng Hongwei, delivers his opening address at the Interpol World congress in Singapore. A French judicial official says Friday Oct.5, 2018 the president of Interpol has been reported missing after traveling to China. (Wong Maye-E, File/Associated Press)
By Associated Press
October 5 at 9:45 AM
BEIJING — The missing president of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, has deep ties to China’s sprawling domestic security sector, including a lengthy term as vice minister of public security.
Here are some facts about Meng that might have a bearing on his disappearance during a trip to China.
___
WHAT’S HIS BACKGROUND?
Meng’s official biography says he was born in 1953 in the northeastern city of Harbin and graduated with a degree in law from prestigious Peking University. He appears to have moved swiftly into the central government in Beijing, acting as an assistant to the public security minister — China’s top cop — as well as head of the transportation department. By 2004, he was a vice minister of public security and that same year became head of Interpol’s China branch. He was head or deputy head of branches of the coast guard, and in 2016, he was elected Interpol’s president.
Content from Red Hat
Their idea could change medicine. But they had to wait for technology to catch up.
___
WHAT ARE HIS DUTIES?
Meng’s position as Interpol’s president is less hands-on than the organization’s secretary general, but he works out of its headquarters in Lyon, France, and has made frequent appearances at crime prevention gatherings. According to Interpol’s website, in May he delivered a speech in Ireland in which he discussed the changing face of global crime and the need for Interpol to remain above political considerations. “First, it is obvious that globalization, virtualization and high-tech are the new features of crime. Second, crime has become a global security issue. This was not the case in the past,” Meng said. He also referred to the global governance structure as “entering a period of change,” saying that, “Under such circumstances, I hope that we will adhere to our neutral and apolitical positions on major issues.” Despite such statements, rights groups expressed concern that Meng would help further China’s agenda of attacking the government’s political foes while neutralizing criticism.

___
WHY DID HE DISAPPEAR?
Meng’s various jobs put him in close contact with Chinese leaders in the security establishment, a sector long synonymous with corruption, opacity and human rights abuses. While there are no public allegations against him, Meng, a member of the ruling Communist Party, likely worked closely with former security chief and Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, who is now serving a life sentence for corruption. Zhou was one of the highest-profile figures caught up in President Xi Jinping’s sprawling campaign against graft at all levels of government, military and state industry. Officials under suspicion often disappear into the party’s investigatory body, which can hold them for months without releasing information or providing them with legal counsel.
___
WERE THERE ANY INDICATIONS SOMETHING WOULD HAPPEN?

Xi has been seeking the return of officials and businesspeople accused of fraud and corruption from abroad, sometimes with the help of Interpol in an arrangement human rights advocates say is prone to abuse. Since Meng continued to hold positions in the security establishment concurrently with his role as Interpol president, that may have placed him under additional pressure. Reports from April said Meng had been relieved of his position as a member of the party committee at the Ministry of Public Security, with no explanation given. That could have been a sign of his declining political fortunes, or simply a prelude to his impending retirement, given that, at 64, he was approaching the age when officials generally begin stepping down from their positions.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/eu ... d54be7fd95
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:43 am

The Democrats' IT Scandal

"Some of the I.T. administrators who've taken over the congressional offices Imran Awan did I.T. for told me the iPhones officially assigned to House staffers had Imran Awan's email address listed as the phones' Apple IDs," a current House I.T. aide told me. "The only reason I can think of for why he would do that is this would have given him the ability to see everything these staffers were doing."


http://www.americanthinker.com

Archives Home →
Articles
October 17, 2018
By Frank Miniter
After spending a year digging into the Democrats' covered up I.T. scandal in Congress, I happen to know there is a lot here that Americans aren't being allowed to know. If all this group of I.T. administrators from Pakistan did in Congress doesn't get out, then much of our freedom, which is wrapped up in this story, will be impacted.
The cover-up has been so effective that this isn't happening. Imran Awan, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)'s I.T. aide, got off without jail time or restitution on only bank fraud charges. Congress got off without paying the price for possible corruption and for allowing a spy ring to run free in Congress. We can't even be sure that Congress has made the necessary reforms to stop another spy ring from infiltrating and spying on Congress and thereby using stolen data to blackmail a congressman, influence a vote, or just know where members of Congress stand on various pieces of legislation, all of which can impact us.

Emails and other data also could be used by a foreign intelligence service, such as Pakistan's ISI, to see where our representatives stand on funding being allocated to a given country or on other issues – and, according to sources, that is exactly what likely occurred in this case.
Some sources, most notably current I.T. aides who work for congressmen, have told me that security protocols have been tightened and that they don't think other I.T. aides will be able to get in the door again without first passing background checks. Nevertheless, Capitol Police won't confirm this or even answer if the laptop they'd found and held as evidence – the one Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of Capitol Police with "consequences" over if it wasn't returned promptly – has now been given back to Wasserman Schultz.
The government has conveniently managed this cover-up to protect itself.
Just imagine what might come out if the 44 House members who'd employed Imran Awan or one of his associates had to testify in public hearings – something Republican House leadership opted not to have.
What might come out if a real investigation took place and if charges were filed for the computer equipment missing from congressional offices – some of which was found in at least one home Awan rented? What if an ethics investigation did take place to find out why Wasserman Schultz kept paying Awan even after he'd been booted off the House network for giving false data (an image of a fake server) to Capitol Police?
Might we find out if some of these members of Congress used the slush fund to pay off staffers who'd accused them of sexual harassment? Might we find even worse things?
To keep all they're hiding from coming out, the investigations done by the FBI, Capitol Police, and the House inspector general were largely smothered and then covered up with a sweetheart plea deal agreement that very provably is based on misinformation.
Anyone who reads the FBI affidavit used to indict Imran Awan can plainly see that even a prosecutor working on his first case wouldn't have had any trouble getting a conviction for the bank fraud charges. Yet the Department of Justice opted to plead the crimes down to one count of making one false statement on a home equity loan application.
The plea deal agreement even stipulated that Awan "will not be charged" for any other nonviolent crime he had already disclosed to the DoJ – just what he disclosed, the DoJ won't say.
Just like that, the DoJ tried to make this case go away.
Oddly, this plea deal agreement says "the Government has found no evidence that your client [Imran Awan] illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information."
There is a lot of evidence showing otherwise. Some of the missing House devices were found in a garage by a tenant of Imran's (Andre Taggart). Also, $120,000's worth of equipment had been written off from Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.)'s office. Even a House I.G. report shows that the Awans were copying and illegally accessing data from the congressmen they worked for.
When this plea deal agreement was explained in court, I sat flabbergasted.
When I asked DoJ prosecutor J.P. Cooney why the government made this odd deal when it clearly had Imran cold on the bank fraud charge, especially given that it didn't get anything in return, he just smiled and waved me away, as if it was all a big joke.
The court scene didn't just smell like a cover-up by the establishment; it reeked of corruption in Congress and the DoJ. This is clearly a political deal arranged to protect the establishment from further embarrassment and reform.
Real court scenes (when he pleaded guilty, Imran Awan waived his right to a trial by jury), possible depositions of House staffers and members of Congress, and the investigations that would take place if the DoJ did pursue additional charges would have necessarily dug into a lot of things the Washington establishment would rather not deal with publicly. It also would have forced investigators to follow the trail to Pakistan – something the U.S. intelligence community would rather avoid.
The deal also gave the many mainstream media members who had downplayed and ignored this case (a few sources told me they'd brought detailed information to the Washington Post but that the Post ignored the information) cover and a reason to thumb their noses at the few media members who'd done serious work on this case.
It is unclear how this deal was struck inside the DoJ. Cooney, who managed the plea deal hearing, had just been put on this case a few days before. The previous DoJ attorney, Michael Marando, wasn't even in the courtroom.
If President Trump really does want to drain the swamp – and he has tweeted about this case many times and even called Imran Awan the "Pakistani mystery man" – then his administration should demand an investigation by the Office of Inspector General into how this plea deal was made. The I.G. should also look into what actually happened in Congress.
After all, former CIA analysts, including Clare Lopez, who is now vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy, told me this has all the signs of a spy ring backed by Pakistan's ISI.
Awan certainly did behave as a spy.
"Some of the I.T. administrators who've taken over the congressional offices Imran Awan did I.T. for told me the iPhones officially assigned to House staffers had Imran Awan's email address listed as the phones' Apple IDs," a current House I.T. aide told me. "The only reason I can think of for why he would do that is this would have given him the ability to see everything these staffers were doing."
This isn't how House I.T. administrators – or even those who work for private companies – behave. This is how a spy behaves.
After the Awans were booted off the House computer network, an I.T. aide said, "The offices the Awans worked in were trashed. There were no records of the member's computer equipment – this is against House rules – and many of the security protocols weren't up to date. New I.T. administrators had to start from scratch."
This is only a taste of all that was allowed to happen in Congress and how it can affect, and possibly already has affected, our freedom and the democratic process.
The only way to really fix the problems that allowed this spy ring to operate in the halls of Congress is to demand a nonpartisan investigation.
Frank Miniter is the author of Spies in Congress: Inside the Democrats' cover-up cyber scandal.
After spending a year digging into the Democrats' covered up I.T. scandal in Congress, I happen to know there is a lot here that Americans aren't being allowed to know. If all this group of I.T. administrators from Pakistan did in Congress doesn't get out, then much of our freedom, which is wrapped up in this story, will be impacted.
The cover-up has been so effective that this isn't happening. Imran Awan, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)'s I.T. aide, got off without jail time or restitution on only bank fraud charges. Congress got off without paying the price for possible corruption and for allowing a spy ring to run free in Congress. We can't even be sure that Congress has made the necessary reforms to stop another spy ring from infiltrating and spying on Congress and thereby using stolen data to blackmail a congressman, influence a vote, or just know where members of Congress stand on various pieces of legislation, all of which can impact us.
Emails and other data also could be used by a foreign intelligence service, such as Pakistan's ISI, to see where our representatives stand on funding being allocated to a given country or on other issues – and, according to sources, that is exactly what likely occurred in this case.
Some sources, most notably current I.T. aides who work for congressmen, have told me that security protocols have been tightened and that they don't think other I.T. aides will be able to get in the door again without first passing background checks. Nevertheless, Capitol Police won't confirm this or even answer if the laptop they'd found and held as evidence – the one Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of Capitol Police with "consequences" over if it wasn't returned promptly – has now been given back to Wasserman Schultz.
The government has conveniently managed this cover-up to protect itself.

Just imagine what might come out if the 44 House members who'd employed Imran Awan or one of his associates had to testify in public hearings – something Republican House leadership opted not to have.
What might come out if a real investigation took place and if charges were filed for the computer equipment missing from congressional offices – some of which was found in at least one home Awan rented? What if an ethics investigation did take place to find out why Wasserman Schultz kept paying Awan even after he'd been booted off the House network for giving false data (an image of a fake server) to Capitol Police?
Might we find out if some of these members of Congress used the slush fund to pay off staffers who'd accused them of sexual harassment? Might we find even worse things?
To keep all they're hiding from coming out, the investigations done by the FBI, Capitol Police, and the House inspector general were largely smothered and then covered up with a sweetheart plea deal agreement that very provably is based on misinformation.
Anyone who reads the FBI affidavit used to indict Imran Awan can plainly see that even a prosecutor working on his first case wouldn't have had any trouble getting a conviction for the bank fraud charges. Yet the Department of Justice opted to plead the crimes down to one count of making one false statement on a home equity loan application.
The plea deal agreement even stipulated that Awan "will not be charged" for any other nonviolent crime he had already disclosed to the DoJ – just what he disclosed, the DoJ won't say.
Just like that, the DoJ tried to make this case go away.
Oddly, this plea deal agreement says "the Government has found no evidence that your client [Imran Awan] illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information."
There is a lot of evidence showing otherwise. Some of the missing House devices were found in a garage by a tenant of Imran's (Andre Taggart). Also, $120,000's worth of equipment had been written off from Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.)'s office. Even a House I.G. report shows that the Awans were copying and illegally accessing data from the congressmen they worked for.
When this plea deal agreement was explained in court, I sat flabbergasted.
When I asked DoJ prosecutor J.P. Cooney why the government made this odd deal when it clearly had Imran cold on the bank fraud charge, especially given that it didn't get anything in return, he just smiled and waved me away, as if it was all a big joke.
The court scene didn't just smell like a cover-up by the establishment; it reeked of corruption in Congress and the DoJ. This is clearly a political deal arranged to protect the establishment from further embarrassment and reform.
Real court scenes (when he pleaded guilty, Imran Awan waived his right to a trial by jury), possible depositions of House staffers and members of Congress, and the investigations that would take place if the DoJ did pursue additional charges would have necessarily dug into a lot of things the Washington establishment would rather not deal with publicly. It also would have forced investigators to follow the trail to Pakistan – something the U.S. intelligence community would rather avoid.
The deal also gave the many mainstream media members who had downplayed and ignored this case (a few sources told me they'd brought detailed information to the Washington Post but that the Post ignored the information) cover and a reason to thumb their noses at the few media members who'd done serious work on this case.
It is unclear how this deal was struck inside the DoJ. Cooney, who managed the plea deal hearing, had just been put on this case a few days before. The previous DoJ attorney, Michael Marando, wasn't even in the courtroom.
If President Trump really does want to drain the swamp – and he has tweeted about this case many times and even called Imran Awan the "Pakistani mystery man" – then his administration should demand an investigation by the Office of Inspector General into how this plea deal was made. The I.G. should also look into what actually happened in Congress.
After all, former CIA analysts, including Clare Lopez, who is now vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy, told me this has all the signs of a spy ring backed by Pakistan's ISI.
Awan certainly did behave as a spy.
"Some of the I.T. administrators who've taken over the congressional offices Imran Awan did I.T. for told me the iPhones officially assigned to House staffers had Imran Awan's email address listed as the phones' Apple IDs," a current House I.T. aide told me. "The only reason I can think of for why he would do that is this would have given him the ability to see everything these staffers were doing."
This isn't how House I.T. administrators – or even those who work for private companies – behave. This is how a spy behaves.
After the Awans were booted off the House computer network, an I.T. aide said, "The offices the Awans worked in were trashed. There were no records of the member's computer equipment – this is against House rules – and many of the security protocols weren't up to date. New I.T. administrators had to start from scratch."
This is only a taste of all that was allowed to happen in Congress and how it can affect, and possibly already has affected, our freedom and the democratic process.
The only way to really fix the problems that allowed this spy ring to operate in the halls of Congress is to demand a nonpartisan investigation.
Frank Miniter is the author of Spies in Congress: Inside the Democrats' cover-up cyber scandal.
Liked this article?
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https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... andal.html
kinderdigi
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:44 pm

X-37B Military Space Plane Wings Past 400 Days on Latest Mystery Mission

http://www.space.com


Artist's illustration of the U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane carrying out its mysterious duties in Earth orbit.
Credit: Boeing
The latest mystery mission of the U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane has now passed the 400-day mark .
This mission — known as Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5) — was rocketed into Earth orbit on Sept. 7, 2017, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The uncrewed space plane is carrying out secretive duties during the X-37B program's fifth flight. [The X-37B Space Plane: 6 Surprising Facts]
Flight duration
Each X-37B/OTV mission has set a new flight-duration record for the program:
OTV-1 began April 22, 2010, and concluded on Dec. 3, 2010, after 224 days in orbit.
OTV-2 began March 5, 2011, and concluded on June 16, 2012, after 468 days on orbit.
OTV-3 chalked up nearly 675 days in orbit before finally coming down on Oct. 17, 2014.
OTV-4 conducted on-orbit experiments for 718 days during its mission, extending the total number of days spent in space for the OTV program at that point to 2,085 days.
What's up?
Most X-37B payloads and activities are classified. The only OTV-5 payload revealed to date by Air Force officials is the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader, or ASETS-II.
Developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), this cargo is testing experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes for long-duration stints in the space environment. According to AFRL, the three primary science objectives are to measure the initial on-orbit thermal performance, to gauge long-duration thermal performance and to assess any lifetime degradation.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane on Sept. 7, 2017.
Credit: SpaceX
Landing site
When the space plane will land is unknown. The last X-37B mission, OTV-4, touched down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 7, 2017 — a first for the program. All prior missions had ended with a tarmac touchdown at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The next X-37B mission,B OTV-6, may lift off in 2019 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V (501) rocket. Launch would be from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex-41.
Reusable vehicles
The Air Force's X-37B "fleet" consists of two known reusable vehicles, both of which were built by Boeing at several locations in Southern California, including Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and El Segundo.
The program transitioned to the U.S. Air Force in 2004 after earlier funded research efforts by Boeing, NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Looking like a miniature version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle orbiter, the military space plane is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.6 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.6 m). The X-37B space plane has a payload bay measuring 7 feet by 4 feet (2.1 by 1.2 m), which can be outfitted with a robotic arm. The X-37B has a launch weight of 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms) and is powered on orbit by gallium-arsenide solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.
On-orbit duties
The missions of the X-37B space planes are carried out under the auspices of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, and mission control for OTV flights is handled by the 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. This squadron oversees operations of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle.
This Schriever Air Force Base unit is billed as the Air Force Space Command's premier organization for space-based demonstrations, pathfinders and experiment testing. It gathers information on objects high above Earth and carries out other intelligence-gathering duties.
And that may be a signal as to what the robotic craft is doing — both looking down at Earth and upward.

Repeating ground tracks
Ted Molczan, a Toronto-based satellite analyst, told Inside Outer Space that OTV-5's orbit at the start of August was about 197 miles (317 kilometers) high, inclined 54.5 degrees to the equator. Its ground track repeated nearly every five days, after 78 revolutions.
"Maneuvers on August 18 and 21 raised its orbit by 45 miles (74 kilometers) which caused its ground track to exactly repeat every three days, after 46 revolutions. It was still in that orbit when last observed, on September 8, by Alberto Rango, from Rome, Italy," Molczan said.
"Repeating ground tracks are very common," he added, "especially for spacecraft that observe the Earth. I do not know why OTV has repeating ground tracks."
Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.

https://www.space.com/42175-x-37b-space ... orbit.html
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Sun Oct 21, 2018 2:44 am

Video emerges of Seth Rich questioning ballot integrity

canadafreepress.com

A video has surfaced of murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich questioning ballot integrity during the Election Data Summit in 2015.


“Seth Rich, with the DNC,” he introduces himself, after clearing his throat. “I think some of you had spoken about provisional ballots and rejected ballots — I guess we have looked at, as an outside practitioner with a vested interest in training our voters, how do we get better access to data that tells us why ballots are rejected — why ballots are cast as provisional — so we can analyze that and develop better training guides?”
Rich had valid concerns. During the Democratic primaries the following year, New York voters reported two voter purges that barred 120,000 people from being able to vote. The scandal, months before Rich’s death, had lead to massive outcry from supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who believed that the DNC was engaging in election fraud to nominate Hillary Clinton.
The late Seth Rich during the Election Data Summit in 2015. (grab from YouTube)

https://canadafreepress.com/article/vid ... -integrity
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Sun Oct 21, 2018 5:41 pm

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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Mon Oct 22, 2018 10:25 pm

Navy Wants New 'Seawolf-Like' Attack Submarines To Challenge Russian And Chinese Threats
The boats would be a key part of the service's plans to revitalize its anti-submarine capabilities, but at a price of more than $5 billion each.
By Joseph TrevithickOctober 22, 2018
The War Zone



Navy Wants New 'Seawolf-Like' Attack Submarines To Challenge Russian And Chinese Threats

www.thedrive.com



USN

The U.S. Navy appears to be leaning toward developing a new, advanced fast attack submarine that focuses more on hunting maritime threats above and below the waves than on stand-off strikes against targets ashore. The decision would reflect growing concerns about Russian and Chinese submarine activity, but could come at a steep price of more than $5 billion per sub.
USNI News was one of the first to spot that the Congressional Budget Office explored the Navy’s shifting priorities in its analysis of the service’s latest shipbuilding plan for the 2019 through 2048 Fiscal Years, which it released on Oct. 18, 2018. Purchases of the Virginia-class attack submarine are supposed to end in 2033, after which the Navy expects to begin buying new boats to succeed that design at a rate of two every year through 2048. This would result in a fleet of 30 of the new subs, presently referred to simply as SSN(X).

Why The Navy's Top Spy Submarine Flew A Pirate Flag While Pulling Into PortBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
The Scope, Not The Scale of Russian And Chinese Naval Ops In The Atlantic Is WorrisomeBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Navy Trims New Missile Sub Cost to $7.2B, But Struggles to Keep Existing Subs OperationalBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Famous Nuclear Submarine That Starred In "Hunt For Red October" Has Been RetiredBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Navy's Old Harpoon Anti-Ship Missile To Get New Tricks After Scoring Six For Six At RIMPACBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
“Specifically, the Navy indicates that the next-generation attack submarine should be faster, stealthier, and able to carry more torpedoes than the Virginia class – similar to the Seawolf class submarine,” CBO’s analysts wrote in their review. “CBO therefore assumed that the SSN(X) would be a Seawolf-sized SSN, which displaces about 9,100 tons when submerged, and would have an all-new design in keeping with the Navy’s description of it as a ‘fast, lethal, next-generation attack submarine.’”


USN
The Seawolf-class submarine USS Connecticut.
In 1983, General Dynamics Electric Boat began designing the Seawolf-class for the Navy as a successor to the Los Angeles-class attack submarine. Significantly more advanced, the Seawolfs were also much costlier to build. Their unit cost of more than $3 billion – closer to $5 billion in 2018 dollars – made them the most expensive attack submarine ever designed and the second most expensive submarine of any kind, ever, at the time.
With the apparent need for the boats gone after the end of the Cold War, the United States canceled the program in 1995 and ultimately purchased just three of the 29 examples it had originally planned to buy. The Seawolf-class submarines have since been assigned a number of secretive special duties that make good use of their enhanced performance and deep-diving capabilities, which make them particularly well suited to operations under the ice in the increasingly strategic Arctic region. The last example, the USS Jimmy Carter, also received significant modifications to operate as a spy submarine.

CBO
A graph showing the planned shift in the Navy's attack submarine fleets between 2018 and 2048, which also shows the older Los Angeles-class boats out of service by around 2033 and the Seawolfs heading into retirement by 2038.
The Navy subsequently moved on to the Virginia-class, a smaller, less expensive, multi-mission design with 12 vertical launch system cells for firing Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and features allowing them to more readily work in littoral environments to collect intelligence and insert and extract special operations forces. Starting with the Block V Virginias, the submarines will also gain the Virginia Payload Module (VPM), which adds four large diameter tubes for additional Tomahawks, other long-range weapons, or unmanned undersea vehicles.
The Navy had originally described SSN(X) as an evolution of the late model Virginia-class boats with the VPM. Now, the plan appears to be to return to a design better suited for conducting missions against enemy surface ships and submarines that has the capacity to carry more torpedoes, according to CBO.

USN
A 2013 briefing slide explaining the VPM modifications to the Block V Virginia-class submarines.
Based on information the office received from the Navy and its own analysis, the new submarines will have space for 25 additional weapons in the torpedo room compared to the existing Virginia-class, for a total of 62 weapons, and could leave out the VPM entirely. CBO's review noted that this could allow for additional torpedoes or Tomahawks, but it could also allow the submarines to carry torpedo tube-launched anti-ship missiles.
This is a long-dormant capability the Navy recently demonstrated for the first time in years during the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise off Hawaii. The SSN(X) will almost certainly have other improvements in terms of its ability to avoid detection and perform important secondary missions, such as intelligence collection and network connectivity, and still have the ability to conduct strikes against surface and land targets using some form of VLS array, such as the ones found on Block III and IV Virginia-class boats. There is a possibility any remaining VLS cells could launch supersonic or hypersonic weapons in the future, which could be important as improving defenses on opposing ships will only make it harder for submarines to get close enough to engage a ship with a torpedo as time goes on.


A submarine with a revised bow design able to hold more torpedoes could also point to a design with more torpedo tubes in total. The Virginias only have four torpedo tubes, while the Seawolfs have eight.
Concerns about increased Russian and Chinese submarine activity seem to be the primary drivers behind the Navy’s renewed desire for a Seawolf-like boat and raises the question of whether it has turned out to be a short-sighted decision to cancel that program in the first place. President Donald Trump and his administration have focused heavily on “great power competition” and the potential for large-scale conflicts against near-peer adversaries in the latest official National Security and Defense Strategies.
“I think Russian submarines today are perhaps some of the most silent and lethal in the world, with the exception of our own – I think we still in the United States Navy hold the edge,” U.S. Navy Admiral James Foggo, who presently serves as the head of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, said in an official podcast on Sept. 30, 2018. “We know that Russian submarines are in the Atlantic, testing our defenses, confirming our command of the seas and preparing a very complex underwater battlespace to try to give them an edge in any future conflict. And we need to deny them that edge.”
There have been reports that Russian submarine activity in the Atlantic has increased to levels not seen since the end of the Cold War. Foggo himself has described this new reality as the “Fourth Battle of the Atlantic,” a reference to anti-submarine campaigns, or preparedness for those types of operations, during the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War.

Russian MoD
Russia's Yasen-class nuclear-powered attack submarine Severodvinsk.
We at The War Zone, among others, have called into question just how large Russia’s increase in submarine operations is overall and whether this has come at the expense of its ability to operate elsewhere. However, the Kremlin maintains and is expanding its array of novel undersea capabilities, including deep sea-capable special mission submarines able to interfere with information-carrying cables along the seabed, emplacing sensors of its own at the bottom of the ocean, or otherwise collecting intelligence.
Even a limited number of Russian submarines could lay mines, hold targets ashore at risk, or otherwise present a threat in strategic bottlenecks, such as the Baltic Sea or the Black Sea, or in important maritime shipping lanes in the Atlantic during an actual crisis. Russia also claims to be working on nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed long-range torpedoes and unmanned undersea vehicles. By their nature, subs can be difficult to track and monitor, allowing for individual boats to have an outsized impact on an opponent’s operations and potentially drawing valuable resources away from other missions in order to conduct sub-hunting activities.


China, eager to move beyond being a regional power, is also stepping up its submarine activity. Though Chinese submarine activity in the Atlantic may be limited, that they're operating there at all reflects a significant shift in how the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) operates and a new challenge to America’s long-standing naval supremacy along its eastern seaboard. Regardless, China's submarine fleets are growing and will continue to present a significantly more pronounced threat throughout the Pacific, and potentially elsewhere, as the PLAN continues to transition into a force with global reach.
A new advanced American attack submarine could definitely help in countering these challenges, but it's also unlikely to come cheap. By the Navy’s own estimates, the SSN(X) unit cost will be approximately $3.1 billion, which would be cheaper than the price point for the Seawolfs when adjusted for inflation.
However, CBO is warning that this cost estimate may no longer be valid, since the Navy based it on the premise of buying a submarine design derived largely from the existing Virginia-class. If the service’s requirements demand more extensive modifications or a clean-sheet design, this could significantly raise the cost of the program, with the average cost per sub possibly coming out to around $5.5 billion – closer to what a new Seawolf would cost today. It could also increase the strain on already over-worked shipyards to actually build the boats.
“The large difference between the Navy’s and CBO’s estimates under the 2019 plan suggests widely different assumptions about the submarine’s size, capabilities, and design,” the CBO noted in its review. “As a result, its final capabilities and costs are highly uncertain.”

Qiao Tianfu/Color China Photo/AP
A Chinese Type 091 nuclear-powered attack submarine.
Even if the shipbuilding plan proceeds without any problems, the Navy's goal of a 66-submarine fleet, with a mix of high and very high-end designs that will be expensive to operate and maintain, may not necessarily be able to provide the coverage necessary to respond to potential threats, especially from China. The PLAN has nearly 80 submarines, including a variety of smaller diesel-electric types.
These include a growing number of boats with advanced air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology that can give them performance closer to nuclear-powered submarines both in terms of quiet operation and the ability to remain underwater for extended periods of time. The United States may eventually have to consider buying new, lower-cost diesel-electric types itself for more regional missions in order to free up larger nuclear-powered boats for longer-range patrols.
SSN(X) is only one part of the Navy’s growing plans to revitalize its anti-submarine warfare capabilities. This push also includes unmanned surface and undersea vessels, surface ships and maritime patrol aircraft with new weapons and sensors, and improved communications systems and data links to quickly share this information between assets at sea and in the air. There are also plans for increased cooperation with NATO allies and other U.S. partners on anti-submarine warfare capabilities will be able to work together more seamlessly in a multi-national setting.
“We have to continue to put a capital effort into the development of our technologies and antisubmarine warfare,” Admiral Foggo told reporters on Oct. 5, 2018 briefing. “This is not just submarines, it's maritime patrol aircraft, it's sensors of all types, and it's the surface Navy with their multifunction towed arrays, and the training and the professionalism that goes along with it, for us to have the knowledge and the awareness of where the adversaries operate.”
But while they’re just one part of this equation, a new attack submarine more focused on traditional underwater missions definitely seems to be a core part of the Navy’s present plans to counter increasing Russian and Chinese undersea activities.
Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24 ... se-threats
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Mon Oct 29, 2018 1:42 am

NSA Has Top Secret Documents on Seth Rich

www.cryptogon.com



October 26th, 2018

I contacted @Ty_Clevenger to confirm that he made a FOIA request to NSA, as described in the piece below. He did:

Via: Sic Semper Tyrannis:
But now there is new information that may corroborate what the human sources quoted in the Fox article claimed about Seth’s role in getting the DNC documents to Wikileaks. Borne from a FOIA request filed in November 2017 by attorney Ty Clevenger, who requested any information regarding Seth Rich and and Julian Assange. The NSA informed Clevenger in a letter dated 4 October 2018 that:
Your request has been processed under the provisions of the FOIA. Fifteen documents (32 pages) responsive to your request have been reviewed by this Agency as required by the FOIA and have found to be currently and properly classified in accordance with Executive Order 13526. These documents meet the criteria for classification as set forth in Subparagraph (c) of Section 1.4 and remains classified TOP SECRET and SECRET.

https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=53681
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:48 am

Antarctica scientist stabbed colleague for spoiling book endings

nypost.com
1 min read
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Russia's Bellingshausen Station on Antarctica's King George Island. AFP/Getty Images
This is the coldest case ever.
In the first attempted murder ever on the frozen continent of Antarctica, a Russian scientist reportedly snapped and allegedly tried to stab a colleague to death because the victim kept giving away the endings of books.
Sergey Savitsky had been trying to use literature to pass the lonesome months at Bellingshausen Station on King George Island, but his colleague Oleg Beloguzov was making it impossible to enjoy his hobby.
“[He] kept telling [him] the endings of books before he read them,” The Sun reported, citing an unnamed source.
So on Oct. 9, the 55-year-old Savitsky finally had enough and allegedly plunged a kitchen knife into the chest of his 52-year-old tormenter. Part of Beloguzov’s heart was wounded, Russian authorities said.
Beloguzov, a welder, was flown to the nearest hospital, in Chile, where he is expected to survive.
The men previously had spent four frigid years working together at the facility. Officials said that while the reading dispute was the final straw, the close confinement in the camp on remote Antarctica played a role in fueling the attack.
“They are both professional scientists who have been working in our expeditions, spending year-long seasons at the station,” deputy director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute Alexander Klepikov told the Russian news outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“It is down to investigators to figure out what sparked the conflict, but both men are members of our team,” he said.
Savitsky was deported to St. Petersburg, Russia, and charged with attempted murder on Oct. 22, according to Pravda.
Savitsky admitted to the stabbing but claimed he didn’t mean to kill him, the Russian news outlet Nevskie Novosti reported, citing law-enforcement sources.
The station, which was set up by the Soviets in 1968, is located in one of Antarctica’s few mild regions — where winter temperatures hover around a balmy 15 degrees.
Workers can spend time flipping between two Russian TV channels, exercising at a gym — or reading in the research library.

https://nypost.com/2018/10/30/antarctic ... gs-report/
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby Ramius_Typhoon » Thu Nov 08, 2018 6:11 pm

Eh, regarding the fraud in the DNC election in favor of Hillary Clinton, it's pretty much a proven fact by now... But now, I'm beginning to believe more and more in the theories of Russian backing for Trump; I thought these were BS that sore losers came up with, but I've read this article for professionnal reasons, according to which Trump's administration created the fiscal and legal base for the USA to become a tax heaven for Russian investors, who can now buy real estate and register companies there and pay minimal taxes.
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Tue Nov 13, 2018 2:24 am

9-11 hijackers
Nicholas Cruz
Cesar Sayoc
Scott Israel
David Hogg
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Brenda Snipes

Who did I forget ?

All from Boward County FL

Stoneman Douglas High School shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_ ... l_shooting
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