Israel and the American Elections

Rabbi’s Followers Cast Doubts on Congressman’s Fund-Raising

New York Times

By Alison Leigh Cowan and William K. Rashbaum

Representative Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican,
at a town-hall-style meeting last April.

Soon after he began running for Congress in 2009, Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, needed to convince party leaders in Washington that he could raise enough money to become a viable candidate. Seeking help, he turned to an unlikely source: followers of an Orthodox rabbi and mystic from Israel. 

Mr. Grimm, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Roman Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass, traveled around the New York region with one of the rabbi’s top aides, Ofer Biton, to raise campaign money from the rabbi’s followers. In all, the Grimm campaign collected more than $500,000 from the followers, according to numerous interviews and an analysis of Mr. Grimm’s campaign records.

Ofer Biton, a former aide to
Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto,
is said to have helped raise
money for Mr. Grimm's
2010 House campaign.

That money — more than half of the total that Mr. Grimm raised from individuals — proved instrumental in his upset of the Democratic incumbent in November 2010. Since then, Mr. Grimm has established a profile as a rising Republican star. 

But now, Mr. Biton, an Israeli citizen, is being investigated by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn over accusations that he embezzled millions of dollars from the rabbi’s congregation. And an examination by The New York Times has highlighted Mr. Biton’s unusual role in the Grimm campaign — as well as questionable donations that the rabbi’s followers said Mr. Grimm had accepted. 

The examination of Mr. Grimm’s fund-raising was based on more than 15 interviews with followers and associates of the rabbi, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, who divides his time between Israel and Manhattan, where he has a large congregation. 

Mr. Grimm would not respond to questions about Mr. Biton and his campaign finances beyond issuing a general statement. 

“Any suggestion that I was involved in any activities that may run afoul of the campaign finance laws is categorically false and belied by my life of public service protecting and enforcing the laws of this country,” Mr. Grimm said in the statement on Friday. 

In interviews, followers of the rabbi spoke repeatedly about the close ties between Mr. Grimm and Mr. Biton. 

“Grimm and Biton were together all the time during the campaign,” said one of the followers, Yossi Zaga, a real estate investor who donated $4,800, the legal limit, to Mr. Grimm at Mr. Biton’s urging. “They would drive around together to the homes and offices and ask for contributions.” 

Three of the rabbi’s followers said in separate interviews that Mr. Grimm or Mr. Biton told them that the campaign would find a way to accept donations that were over the legal limit, were given in cash or were given by foreigners without green cards. 

Congressional campaigns are not allowed to accept cash donations of more than $100. Foreigners without green cards are barred by law from giving to political campaigns. They are also not allowed to solicit contributions for campaigns. 

One follower of the rabbi said in an interview that Mr. Grimm pressed him for $20,000. The follower said Mr. Grimm instructed him to meet him “near the F.B.I. building,” in Lower Manhattan, in summer 2010 to give the money. The follower said he handed over $5,000 in cash in an envelope to Mr. Grimm in Mr. Grimm’s car. 

5.6 Million Americans Have Switched Their Banks In The Last 90 Days

Think Progress
Pat Garafalo

Back in November, the Occupy Wall Street movement inspired “Bank Transfer Day,” a day for Americans fed up with the actions of the nation’s biggest banks to move their money to a different institution. Initial estimates of the impact of Bank Transfer Day placed the number of accounts moved at around 600,000, but later estimates revised that downward to around 200,000

However, new estimates from Javelin Strategy and Research, a research and consulting firm, show that the original numbers were closer to the truth. Javelin found that 5.6 million people have moved their bank accounts in the last 90 days, with 610,000 citing Bank Transfer Day as their reason:

Bank Transfer Day and the Occupy Movement have received tremendous attention, and for the first time we have market research data to measure the impact on the financial services industry. Javelin’s research estimates that 5.6 million U.S. adults with a banking relationship changed providers in the past 90 days. Of those switchers, 610,000 US adults (or 11% of the 5.6 million) cited Bank Transfer Day as their reason and actually moved their accounts from a large to a small institution.

Javelin noted that this pace of account closing is three times the normal rate. While 11 percent of people moving their accounts cited Bank Transfer Day, one quarter said they moved their money because their old institution charged too many fees. Account closures at Bank of America, the nation’s second largest bank, actually jumped 20 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, potentially driven by the bank’s ill-fated decision to implement a $5 monthly fee for its debt cards.
According to the consulting firm cg42, the nation’s 10 biggest banks could lose as much as $185 billion in deposits this year due to customer defections. Of those banks, “Bank of America is the most vulnerable and could lose up to 10% of its customers and $42 billion in consumer deposits.” (HT: Business Insider)

Iowa GOP chairman resigns following bungled caucus vote count

12160



Iowa GOP chairman resigns following bungled caucus vote count By Jonathan Easley - 01/31/12 11:13 AM ET Matt Strawn, the chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, announced in a video message on Tuesday that he will step down on Feb. 11. Strawn has been the GOP chairman for over three years and oversaw Republican gains in the House and Senate. But some were unhappy with his handling of the Iowa caucus vote count. Following the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus on Jan. 3, it appeared that Mitt Romney had edged Rick Santorum by eight votes.

Mossad Chief Secretly Met With Top U.S. Officials Including Sitting Senators

IntelHub

A clandestine Washington visit by Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, in which he privately met with multiple Senators and other top officials, was revealed in testimony  during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence attended by CIA director David Petraeus and Intel Chief James Clapper.

Apparently Pardo and the Senators who secretly met with him believe it imperative to met in secret to discuss Americas backing of an Israeli strike on Iran regardless of the opinion of the American people.
Israeli mainstream media giant Haaretz recently reported on these startling revelations:

Mossad chief Tamir Pardo held secret talks with top U.S. officials in recent days, cursory comments made during a public Senate hearing indicated on Tuesday.


The clandestine Washington visit was exposed during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was participated by CIA Director David Petraeus, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate panel.


During the meeting, Feinstein asked Clapper whether or not Israel intended to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the top U.S. intelligence official answering that he would rather discuss the issue behind closed doors.


Feinstein then indicated that she had met Mossad chief Pardo earlier in the week in Washington, with Petraeus adding that he too met Pardo and cited what he called Israel’s growing concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

During the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, US Intel Chief James Clapper also attempted to change the terrorism narrative, shifting the blame from al Qaeda to Iran.

In an article published by Kurt Nimmo for Infowars.com, this fact was outlined in detail as well as completely debunked:

“We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas. Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime,” Clapper testified.


Other alleged terrorist threats were sidelined during the hearing, including discussion of al-Qaeda, which officials claim “has been badly degraded.”

It is clear that the war drums have intensified and the probability of an attack on Iran by US and Israeli forces has increased exponentially.

Consider this – Right now a nuclear submarine is heading to the Persian Gulf and at least 100,000 US troops are ready to take part in a ground attack on Iran at any moment.

The Girl Killed by Obama: She "never saw it coming"

GRTV

Barack Obama says the drone attacks he authorises are targetted only at named people on a list of active terrorists who are a direct threat to America. The facts tell a different story.

Arizona Election Fraud: Pima County Continues to Delay Forensic Exam of RTA Ballots

Editor's Note:  This crucial court case is currently experiencing a media blackout among local Tucson press.  This includes the Arizona Daily Star and the Tucson Weekly.  This case is a textbook example of a battle waged by the growth lobby against the will of the population.   The reason why the county is using such extreme measures to stop this trial is that the plaintiff, the Libertarian Party, may conduct discovery which includes a forensic exam of the RTA ballots to demonstrate to the courts that the 2006 RTA election calling for a two billion dollar twenty-year sales tax hike was rigged.   This is the prerequisite for the courts to grant prospective relief for rigged elections.

If they felt they would be exonerated, Pima County would welcome the scrutiny.  Instead, it appears that Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry is pushing his attorneys to use all conceivable tactics to delay and obstruct the procedure, which would ultimately benefit the nation as a precedent-setting court case aimed at improving election integrity.

John Brakey
AUDITAZ

Video of Court Hearing:   http://youtu.be/yGALqZGvaRs

THE INITIAL DISCLOSURE STATEMENT FILED BY PLAINTIFF ON 1/12/12 IS A GREAT COMPREHENSIVE STATEMENT OF FACTS: http://tinyurl.com/LPFiling

PROTECTING THE PURITY OF ELECTIONS
 
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
THE STATE OF ARIZONA IN AND FOR
THE COUNTY OF PIMA
CASE NO. C20085016
HEARING ON JAN 30, 2012  2:30 PM
COURT ROOM OF THE HON. KYLE BRYSON
RAW FOOTAGE RUNS 37 MIN

Defendant Pima County's Attorney Ronna Fickbohm, files and gets "emergency hearing" based on false certification to request the court to stop deposition of Pima Co’s Election Director Brad Nelson. UPDATE: DEPOSITIONS GET GREEN LIGHT FROM JUDGE TO GO FORWARD. 

Plaintiff's attorneys, Bill Risner and Ralph E. Ellinwood file Motion to Strike and Sanction Pima County for misleading the Court, filed:1.27.12:   http://tinyurl.com/7krbr4c  

Plaintiff also filed a motion in response to Defendant Motion for Protective Order filed 1.30.12:  http://tinyurl.com/83qk3mq

Pima County is doing everything possible to stop this case from going forward including filing motion based on deception.  http://tinyurl.com/7krbr4c  

The case is as fundamental as it gets. What we're seeking "prospective relief" so they cannot cheat in the future. ANDREA WITTE "THE CONNECT THE DOTS LADY" has connected the dots into a 10-Point Quick Summary of The Fact pattern in this gripping saga of power and deceit. And we propose a remedy that is easy, inexpensive and doable. Link to Flyer: http://tinyurl.com/7amy6ff

Since our saga began over five years ago, more and more people across America are becoming aware of the serious security flaws in computerized voting systems. They are systems designed to cheat, and they are everywhere. As the political scene heats up with the Presidential election, all eyes will be on Tucson as ground zero for exposing these flaws in open court and proposing reasonable checks and balances in the system. We must protect the purity of elections and public confidence in election results — a cornerstone of our democracy. That's what this case is ultimately about.  http://fatallyflawedelections.blogspot.com/ 

BACKGROUND: AUDIT-AZ, the Pima County Libertarian Party and other interested citizens of multiple parties for years have been investigating election processes in Pima County. In previous actions, the Democratic Party took the lead in winning public records lawsuits and revealing the extent of the problems, including poor security practices on "designed to cheat" systems, election results that consistently did not add up, missing or falsified paper, and election officials and staff who continuously flout the law.

AUDIT-AZ will be running the pool camera and if you can't make it to court you can watch the proceeding on our AUDITAZ's Channel on YouTube the next day: http://www.youtube.com/user/AUDITAZ/featured

Obama Denies ‘Huge Number of Civilian Casualties’ in Drone War

AntiWar
John Glaser

President Barack Obama readily confirmed the drone war in northwest Pakistan in an interview Monday, breaking with the protocol which normally demands U.S. officials not speak publicly about the classified program.
“I want to make sure people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” President Obama said in an hour long interview hosted by Google. “For the most part, they’ve been very precise, precision strikes against against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.”

The claim mirrors previous attempts to downplay the civilian casualties of the drone war. John Brennan, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, told the public back in June that zero civilian casualties have occurred as a result of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan.

This was an obvious lie, but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism helped prove it so in August by cataloguing their lengthy findings on civilian casualties in the drone war, counting hundreds of civilians by name who were killed in drone strikes, including at least 168 children. Investigative reporter Noor Behram, who had been on the ground in Pakistan tallying the dead, estimated that “for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant.”

A Washington Post article last month explained that, although the government has dismissed “reports of collateral damage and the alleged killing of innocents” by claiming that drones “result in far fewer mistakes than less sophisticated weapons,” they have yet to provide any details to support those claims.

The Post report said that the drone war in Pakistan has resulted “in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths.” But the public simply doesn’t have a good idea of how many have been killed, because “the identities…remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself.”

In the same Google interview, President Obama also down-played the role of U.S. drones in Iraq, saying that “the truth is we’re not engaging in a bunch of drone attacks inside Iraq. There’s some surveillance to make sure that our embassy compound is protected.”
Both Pakistan and Iraq have publicly objected to America’s use of drones flying over their skies, saying it amounts to a violation of their sovereignty.

IRAN: DRUMS OF WAR BEATING LOUDER: U.S. Mounts Further Military Build-Up in Persian Gulf

Global Research
Ben Schreiner

With the drums of war beating ever louder against Iran, the U.S. military has quickly moved to reestablish a war footing in the Persian Gulf.  The preparations for a looming military confrontation thus continue apace.

According to the Washington Post (1/27), “The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East.”  As the paper reports, the USS Ponce, a 40-year old amphibious transport dock previously set for decommission, will now be converted into a special ops hub, and then likely sent to the Persian Gulf.

The Pentagon, the Post reports, is seeking to retrofit the USS Ponce on an accelerated timeline. In fact, the military has gone ahead and waived “normal procurement rules because any delay presented a ‘national security risk.’”

At the same time, the Wall Street Journal reports (1/28) the Pentagon has notified Congress that it will divert an additional $82 million to refine the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP).  (The MOP is a 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bomb “specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs.”)

The decision to seek an upgrade in the MOP reportedly comes after a series of tests revealed that the ordinance remains incapable of destroying certain Iranian nuclear facilities, such as the enrichment site at Fordow, located near the holy city of Qom.  (Fordow is buried deep within the mountainside, below 260 feet of rock and soil).

The Journal also reports that, "The decision to ask now for more money to develop the weapon was directly related to efforts by the U.S. military's Central Command to prepare military options against Iran as quickly as possible."   And thus much the same as with the retrofitting of the USS Ponce, the Pentagon has decided to sidestep the normal budgetary request process in seeking additional funds for the MOP.  As Journal notes, “The Pentagon deems the MOP upgrades to be a matter of some urgency.”

Meanwhile, it was also reported Friday that the joint Israel-U.S. war games—deemed Austere Challenge 12—have been rescheduled for October 2012.  The games were originally scheduled for spring, but were postponed on January 15 for reasons that were unclear.  But with Austere Challenge 12 now set to take place in October, U.S. military officers are scheduled to begin arriving in Israel this coming week in preparation for the largest joint operation ever conducted between the two armed forces.

These latest military maneuvers come on the heels of an announced U.S. troop build-up in the region revealed earlier this month.  As the Los Angeles Times first reported (1/12), the build-up, including the stationing of 15,000 U.S. troops in Kuwait, is “intended as a quick-reaction and contingency force in case a military crisis erupts in the standoff with Tehran over its suspected nuclear weapons program.”

Yet despite the ongoing military preparations, the power elites in both Washington and Tel Aviv remain divided as to whether to go ahead with a strike against Iran.  As Jim Lobe noted, this growing debate has actually led to "a number of influential members of the [U.S.] foreign policy establishment - including several prominent liberal interventionists who had supported the Iraq war - to warn against any further escalation either by the US or Israel."

Report Unloads on ATF for Mexican ‘Gunwalking’

Wired

Days before Attorney General Eric Holder is once again hauled before Congress to testify for Operation Fast and Furious, a new report sheds light on whether high-ranking officials knew, or have been honest about, one of the biggest failures in Justice Department history: a disastrous plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to allow gunrunners to “walk” firearms into the hands of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.

These questions are crucial because Fast and Furious has not only become a huge political issue, it also determines who will take responsibility for allowing thousands of guns to move unimpeded into a war zone south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The gunwalking operation — an attempt to build cases by not stopping but monitoring the flow of U.S. straw-purchased weapons to Mexico’s cartels — eventually saw the ATF lose track of more than 2,000 guns, many in the hands of cartel hitmen.

Hundreds of weapons recovered at crime scenes in Mexico were later traced to Fast and Furious, including AK-47 variant rifles discovered at the scene of a Dec. 14, 2010, shootout between border bandits and a Border Patrol BORTAC tactical unit in Arizona. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in the fight.

But Fast and Furious wasn’t the first operation to run guns. The report, released by House Democrats, describes the plot as “the latest in a series of fatally flawed operations run by ATF agents in Phoenix and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office,” beginning with the 2006-2007′s Operation Wide Receiver. In the beginning, Phoenix-based ATF agents “went forward with plans to observe or facilitate hundreds of suspected straw firearm purchases,” according to the report. Faced with the risk of losing track of the guns, Wide Receiver was shuttered.
In two cases, named the “The Hernandez Case” and “The Medrano Case,” the ATF watched groups of conspirators cross into Mexico carrying straw-purchased guns. In “Medrano,” smugglers snuck more than 100 firearms into Mexico while under observation by the ATF.

Fast and Furious was much bigger, with greater potential rewards — and risks — for field agents, involving “a sizable network the operation of straw puchasers [the ATF] believed were trafficking military-grade assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels.” But then the operation went badly wrong. Guns disappeared, or appeared after gunfights with the Mexican military or in stash houses. Then agent Terry was shot.