17 years for model-plane plot to bomb US Capitol

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Cable from slain ambassador disputes Obama version of facts

The Liberty Sphere

A cable obtained Wednesday by reporters covering the scandal surrounding the Libyan massacre at Benghazi shows that U.S.Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack, had sent multiple requests to Washington for more security in the wake of a report which indicated that U.S. personnel in the region were in grave danger.

The cable, and the report that prompted it, directly dispute the version of the facts told to the American public by the Obama administration.

Click here to continue reading at Anthony G. Martin's National Conservative Examiner >>

Time to Out Sinister Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s Iranian-born chief advisor

CFP/ Judi McLeod

Valerie Jarrett

The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya demand the outing of President Barack Obama’s Iranian-born,  chief advisor Valerie Jarrett.

Three times Stevens and his staff were denied help to save their lives on the day of their death.

While the courageous serving America were denied help, private citizen Valerie Jarrett seems to have a 24-hour, around-the-clock security detail, with five or six Secret Service agents at her disposal at home and abroad.  (former Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell, Breitbart News interview. )

“At the urging of Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions before finally approving the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL mission.” (Richard Miniter, Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him.)

Valerie Jarrett gave the order for the bin Laden kill.  Was it Jarrett who advised Obama to refuse help to Americans under sustained terrorist attack in Benghazi?

The ‘Happy Gang’ membership of the Two-Obamas-Plus-Valerie is one of the most peculiar relationships to ever make a home of the White House.

Jarrett never lets either Obama out of her sight and reportedly even follows them home to the White House at the end of each day.

Why is this private citizen afforded full security at taxpayer expense while heroes die in Benghazi?

It was Jarrett more than any other who made a manchurian candidate out of radical community organizer Barack Hussein Obama, having first hired his fiance Michelle Robinson back in 1991 when she was still Deputy Chief of Staff to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

Jarrett took Michelle, now Mrs. Barack Obama, with her when she left the mayor’s office to head Chicago’s Department of Planning & Development.

Until joining the Obama administration, Jarrett was CEO of the Habitat Co, a real estate development and management company, where she found notoriety as a slum landlady.

It was Jarrett who secured the contacts and money essential to Mr. Obama’s long-shot Senate victory. (U.S. News &World Report post, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Valerie Jarrett”.?

‘Valerie Jarrett ’74’ recounts that “after the historic election, President Obama named Jarrett his senior advisor, assistant to the president for intergovernment relations and public liaison, and head of a new panel on women and girls.

One could easily ponder how a mostly municipal realm employee could rise to the power of intergovernment relations, public liaison and women and girls issues.

These positions of power fade in comparison to what Valerie Jarrett has been up to during the lead in to the November 6 election:

While the magician on stage activated the theatrical fog and diverted everyone’s attention elsewhere, the activities behind the scenes were in full swing.” (Doug Hagmann, Canada Free Press, Oct. 29, 2012).  “Concurrent with the appointment of (Thomas) Pickering to throttle the outflow of information about Benghazi, Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s Iranian-born Senior Advisor, jetted to the nation of Qatar.  Although her activities were concealed by the magician’s accomplice—the dutiful Western media—it was reported by the Asia Times last week that Jarrett met with senior Iranian officials to negotiate a deal pertaining to Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions. 

““Talks about any such meetings or potential deal were quickly denied by the White House. What else would one expect, as premature disclosure would certainly ruin the outcome of the magic trick being performed right before our eyes.

A break in the magician’s fog

While the creation of an October surprise of this nature could be relegated to the historical dustbin of speculation, it is here that a seemingly random series of dots - or events - come into view and the magic trick becomes exposed to those looking for the clues.
It was on July 31, 2012, about a month before the September 11 attack in Benghazi that a mortar ripped into the wall of the CIA occupied military intelligence building (research into ownership suggests a possible UK connection), now apparently designated as “the consulate in Benghazi.” The explosion did not cause any deaths or injuries and consequently, it did not make many headlines.
It is here that I rely on my well-placed intelligence source to help me understand the magic trick onstage. According to my source, our intelligence operatives noticed something unusual near that building. Seven members of the Iranian Red Crescent were milling about, almost like they were inspecting the damage. It was as if they were looking to see if the walls were reinforced, and assessing the response to that facility. The next instant, they were gone.
It was reported that the seven member contingent of the Red Crescent were inexplicably kidnapped by “armed men.”
Fast forward to October 6, 2012, about the time when Valerie Jarrett was reportedly meeting with Iranian officials in Qatar. The kidnapped Red Crescent delegation was suddenly, inexplicably and unceremoniously released unharmed in Libya after 65 days in captivity.
Rumors inside the intelligence community suggest that the Jarrett “October surprise” meetings with Iran were contingent on the release of the Iranian Red Crescent workers.”

Tuesday’s election is the reason why the Obama regime works feverishly to close the window on the tragedy in Benghazi.

Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, should wedge the window wide open.

It is time to out the Secret Service protected, private citizen Valerie Jarrett.

The hidden real truth about Benghazi

CFP/ Doug Hagmann

Most people know that we’ve been lied to about the attacks in Benghazi, but few realize the extent of those lies or the hidden secrets they cover. After all, the lie is different at every level. Thanks to a well placed source with extensive knowledge about the attack, the disturbing truth is slowly beginning to emerge and is lining up with information contained in my previous articles published here weeks ago (Here, Here and Here). The truth reveals the most serious situation in the world today as it involves the interests and destinies of us all.  More >>

Agencia federal emplea imagen del Che por Hispanic Heritage Month

WND/

An email from the Environmental Protection Agency to employees about Hispanic Heritage Month was a copy-and-paste production that included the image of Che Guevara, the insurgent who helped bring Fidel Castro to power in Cuba and is thought to have ordered hundreds of people executed during that time.

A report in the Weekly Standard highlighted the work of the federal bureaucracy that apparently copied text and images from Buzzle.com.

And U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida, was outraged.

“I am aghast and upset that a federal agency would send an email depicting el Che Guevara in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month,” she wrote today in a statement on her website. “This administration just doesn’t seem to get it. The image of Che is an insult to countless people who lost family members because of his evil and twisted acts.”

At historyofcuba.com, Guevara is called “an intellectual and an idealist, able to speak coherently about Aristotle, Kant, Marx, Gide or Faulkner.” The site credits Guevara with “an important role in converting Castro to communism.”

Ros-Lehtinen, however, uses different words.

“El Che was a blood thirsty, vengeful, cowardly, sadistic, two bit delinquent who used his position as enforcer in chief of the Castro brothers to send countless innocent persons before the firing squads. His role in the early part of the disastrous calamity that befell the Cuban nation known as the Castro Revolution is well documented and those who ignore it do so willingly so as not to tarnish their love affair with the dictatorship of the Castro brothers.

“Surely, the EPA could have chosen the image of a Hispanic person who really possessed the attributes that showcase our proud Hispanic heritage,” she continued. “This sad and unnecessary episode encompasses all that is wrong with this administration: Their priorities are backwards and their allegiances border on the fringe of society with a leftist fanatical slant that is worrisome and not descriptive of our great nation.”

The Standard report said the email was from Susie Goldring and the subject was Hispanic Heritage Month.

Under the headline “Hispanic news you can use!” was the copied text about the events beginning on Sept. 15, the anniversary of independence for five Latin American countries – Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

It features the image of a horse and carriage passing an image of Che on a billboard.

BuzzFeed Politics noted both the image of the “Marxist revolutionary” as well as the “plagiarism.”

The “text and the photo appear to be lifted word-for-word and without attribution,” BuzzFeed reported.

The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration »

Frontpagemag.com/

If anyone needed evidence that Hillary Clinton is in the pocket of the Muslim Brotherhood, the events of the last few days should be more than sufficient.  On the anniversary of 9/11, on what should be a day of shame for the Muslim world, the US Embassy in Cairo issued a statement condemning critics of Islamofascism in language appropriate to the office of propaganda for the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamofascists launched violent attacks on Americans, repeating the outrages in miniature of the World Trade Center attacks 11 years ago. In the face of these outrages the posture of the U.S. government is one that would make Neville Chamberlain blush. In four years Barack Obama has managed to turn the entire Middle East over to America’s enemies. So that our readers can understand how this has happened and how far advanced the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the Obama administration has progressed, we are publishing this pamphlet by Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, called The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration.

More >>

Marco Rubio calls on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign

ForaTv

Obama's Commerce Secretary resigns

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Holder reprimanded by House Republicans

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Loose lips and the Obama national security ship

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Chuck Colson, Former Watergate Figure, Dies

By AssociatedPress

More on  WND >>

Obama quietly seeking to cede U.S. oceans to U.N. law

stevenjohnhibbs.wordpress.com

WND/ By Aaron Klein

President Obama’s ambitious plan for stepped up government regulation of the oceans includes an unreported effort to cede U.S. oceans to United Nations-based international law, WND has learned.

The plan was previously a pet project of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, whose ocean-zoning scheme was partnered with a globalist group that also aimed to hand over U.S. oceans to U.N. governance.

Obama’s plan is still in draft form. It calls for an executive order to be issued for a National Ocean Policy that will determine how the ecosystem is managed while giving the federal government more regulatory authority over any businesses that utilize the ocean.

The executive order is to be based on the recommendations of Obama’s Interagency Ocean Policy Taskforce, created in 2010 also by executive order.

The agency is tasked with recommending specific actions for a presidential plan to achieve the vision of “an America whose stewardship ensures that the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes are healthy and resilient, safe and productive, and understood and treasured so as to promote the well-being, prosperity, and security of present and future generations.”

The Taskforce’s final recommendations, based in part on the supposed effects of “global warming, were released in a 78-page paper reviewed by WND.

The entire third section of the report recommends that the U.S. join the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Convention.

The convention defines the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment and the management of marine natural resources.

States the report:

The Task Force strongly and unanimously supports United States accession to the Convention on the Law of the Sea and ratification of its 1994 Implementing Agreement. The Law of the Sea Convention is the bedrock legal instrument governing activities on, over and under the world’s oceans.
United States accession to the Convention will further our national security, environmental, economic, and diplomatic interests.

The report lists key reasons for compliance with the law, including:

• The Convention has garnered the unequivocal support of our national security leadership under both Republican and Democratic administrations, because, among other things, it codifies essential navigational rights and freedoms upon which our Armed Forces rely.

• The Convention sets forth the rights and responsibilities of nations to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment and to protect and preserve resources off their shores.

• By becoming a party to the Convention, U.S. legal rights to our extended continental shelf can be put on the strongest legal foundation.

• As a party to the Law of the Sea Convention, the United States would have the ability to participate formally and more effectively in the interpretation and development of the Convention.

• Joining the Law of the Sea Convention would reaffirm and enhance United States leadership in global ocean affairs.

While the White House claims its ocean plans are not meant to zone the seas, a major conclusion of the Taskforce was to “establish a framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) that establishes a comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based approach to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources.”

Panetta’s ocean scheme

Much of the Taskforce’s recommendations were previously called for by a group headed by Panetta until his appointment as CIA director in 2009. Panetta became defense secretary in July 2011.

Until his CIA appointment in 2009, Panetta co-chaired the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, which is the partner of Citizens for Global Solutions in a push to ratify U.S. laws and regulations governing the seas.

The oceans initiative bills itself as a bipartisan, collaborative group that aims to “accelerate the pace of change that results in meaningful ocean policy reform.”

Among its main recommendations is that the U.S. should put its oceans up for regulation to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Other recommendations of Panetta’s Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, which mirror Obama’s taskforce recommendations, include:

• The administration and Congress should establish a national ocean policy. The administration and Congress should support regional, ecosystem-based approaches to the management of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes.

• Congress should strengthen and reauthorize the Coastal Zone Management Act.

• Congress should strengthen the Clean Water Act.

The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Leadership Council includes John Podesta, president and CEO of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, which is reportedly highly influential in advising the White House on policy.

Podesta served as co-chairman of Obama’s presidential transition team.

Panetta’s oceans initiative is a key partner of Citizens for Global Solutions, or CGS, which, according to its literature, envisions a “future in which nations work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms and solve the problems facing humanity that no nation can solve alone.”

CGS states it works to “build the political will in the United States” to achieve this global vision.

The organization currently works on issues that fall into five general areas: U.S. global engagement; global health and environment; peace and security; international law and justice; and international institutions.

CGS is a member organization and supporter of the World Federalist Movement, which openly seeks a one-world government. The World Federalist Movement considers the CGS to be its U.S. branch.

The movement brings together organizations and individuals that support the establishment of a global federal system of strengthened and democratized global institutions with plenary constitutional power accountable to the citizens of the world and a division of international authority among separate global agencies.

The movement’s headquarters are located near the U.N. building in New York City. A second office is near the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The locations are significant, since the movement heavily promotes the U.N. and is the coordinator of various international projects, such as the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect military doctrine. That doctrine formed the basis of Obama’s justification last year to launch NATO airstrikes in Libya.

Obama Administration on the Verge of a Presidential Meltdown

By Victor Davis Hanson, Townhall.com 

 

Administration meltdowns are hardly novel. In almost every presidency there comes a moment when sheer chaos takes hold, whether self-induced or as a result of an outside crisis.

 

AP

Vietnam had effectively destroyed Lyndon Johnson by 1967. Watergate unraveled the Richard Nixon administration, as the disgraced president resigned in the face of certain impeachment. Gerald Ford could not whip inflation and was not re-elected. One-termer Jimmy Carter was undone by the Iranian hostage crisis and skyrocketing oil prices.

 

For a time, it seemed that Ronald Reagan's second term might not survive the Iran-Contra scandal. George H.W. Bush could not be re-elected after he broke his promise not to raise taxes and Ross Perot entered the 1992 race. The popular Bill Clinton was impeached over the Monica Lewinsky affair and limped out of office tainted. The insurgency in Iraq and the fallout from Hurricane Katrina crashed for good the once-high poll ratings of George W. Bush.

 

The Obama administration over the last month has seemed on the verge of one of these presidential meltdowns.

 

An open mic caught the president promising Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would be more flexible after the election -- as if Obama might grant concessions that would be unpalatable if known to the general public before November. That embarrassment followed an earlier hot-mic put-down of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year.

 

The president also unwisely attacked the Supreme Court as it deliberated the constitutionality of Obamacare. He needlessly referred to the justices as "unelected" and wrongly claimed that that they had little precedent to overturn laws that dealt with commerce. The gaffe about the court and its history was doubly embarrassing because Obama has often reminded the public that he used to teach constitutional law.

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2012/04/19/obama-administration-verge-presidential-meltdown?cmpid=NL_FiredUpFoxNation#ixzz1sVUIrAaA

The entire Obama presidency in one anecdote

http://blog.american.com/

By James Pethokoukis

One of my favorite moments from the new book The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery:

Energy was a particular obsession of the president-elect’s, and therefore a particular source of frustration. Week after week, [White House economic adviser Christina] Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investments in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. “I don’t get it,” he’d say. “We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?” But the numbers rarely budged.

I recalled that snippet when reading this Reuters story today: “Obama’s ‘green jobs’ have been slow to sprout.” Some highlights:

Three weeks ago, President Barack Obama stood in front of a sea of gleaming solar panels in Boulder City, Nevada, to celebrate his administration’s efforts to promote “green energy.” Stretching row upon row into the desert, the Copper Mountain Solar Project not far from Las Vegas provided an impressive backdrop for the president.  Built on public land, the facility is the largest of its kind in the United States. Its 1 million solar panels provide enough energy to power 17,000 homes.
And it employs just 10 people.
Three years after Obama launched a push to build a job-creating “green” economy, the White House can say that more than 1 million drafty homes have been retrofitted to lower heating and cooling costs, while energy generation from renewable sources such as wind and solar has nearly doubled since 2008.
But the millions of “green jobs” Obama promised have been slow to sprout, disappointing many who had hoped that the $90 billion earmarked for clean-energy efforts in the recession-fighting federal stimulus package would ease unemployment – still above 8 percent in March.

Some other tidbits:

– A $500 million job-training program has so far helped fewer than 20,000 people find work, far short of its goal.

– On the campaign trail in 2008, Obama promised that a $150 billion investment would generate 5 million jobs over 10 years.

– The White House said in November 2010 that its clean-energy efforts had generated work for 225,000 people and would ultimately create a total of 827,000 “job years” – implying average annual employment of around 200,000 over the four years of Obama’s presidential term.

– The wind industry, for example, has shed 10,000 jobs since 2009 even as the energy capacity of wind farms has nearly doubled, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry has added 75,000 jobs since Obama took office, according to Labor Department statistics.

– ”They were obviously just guessing,” said Robert Pollin, a University of Massachusetts professor and green-energy supporter who helped the Energy Department sort through loan applications. “If an undergraduate gave me a paper of that quality I would have probably given them a C or a C-plus.”

– By the end of 2011, some 16,092 participants had found new work in a “green” field, according to the Labor Department – roughly one-fifth of its target. The program also helped employed workers upgrade their skills.

When ideology meets markets, markets always win unless government puts a big, fat thumb on the scale. And, eventually, markets will still win.

11 Stunning revelations From Larry Summers’ Secret Economics Memo To Barack Obama

James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute

A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House.  A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, “Sensitive & Confidential” memo written by economist Larry Summers — eventually to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council — to Obama in December 2008. Here’s some what I learned about Team Obama’s thinking as the financial crisis was exploding, followed by quotes from the memo:

1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda.

The short-run economic imperative was to identify as many campaign promisesor high priority items that would spend out quickly and be inherently temporary. …  The stimulus package is a key tool for advancing clean energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.

2. Team Obama knows these deficits are dangerous (although it has offered no long-term plan to deal with them).

Closing the gap between what the campaign proposed and the estimates of the campaign offsets would require scaling back proposals by about $100 billion annually or adding new offsets totaling the same. Even this, however, would leave an average deficit over the next decade that would be worse than any post-World War II decade. This would be entirely unsustainable and could cause serious economic problems in the both the short run and the long run.

3. Obamanomics was pricer than advertised.

Your campaign proposals add about $100 billion per year to the deficit largely because rescoring indicates that some of your revenue raisers do not raise as much as the campaign assumed and some of your proposals cost more than the campaign assumed. … Treasury estimates that the repealing the tax cuts above $250,000 would raise about $40 billion less than the campaign assumed. … The health plan is about $10 billion more costly than the campaign estimated and the health savings are about $25 billion lower than the campaign estimated.

Read more: http://blog.american.com/2012/01/11-stunning-revelations-from-larry-summers-secret-economics-memo-to-barack-obama/#ixzz1kJty8YXC

US Department of State: The Cuban Government Should Respect Human Rights

Respect Human Rights Week Activities

The Cuban Government Should Respect Human Rights Week Activities

Press Statement

Victoria Nuland
Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

December 14, 2011

---

We are deeply troubled by reports of increased repression by the Government of Cuba against Cuban citizens peacefully expressing themselves. Of particular concern are reports that government officials and government-organized groups detained, harassed, and assaulted dozens of human rights activists, journalists, and others to prevent them from marking Human Rights Day on December 10. President Obama has declared Human Rights Week from December 10 to December 17.

Members of the Damas de Blanco, winners of the Department of State's 2011 Human Rights Defenders Award, faced harassment by government officials and pro-government groups over the past week and were arrested after attending Mass on Sunday December 4. Several activists, including one detained November 30 for demonstrating peacefully in a Havana park, have been held without charges or judicial review. Over the last month, dozens of other activists have faced repression throughout the island. Reports put the number of detentions in December at more than 300.

At a time when citizens around the world are marking Human Rights Week, we call for an immediate end to the harassment and violence against Cuban citizens who are peaceful critics of the government.

President Obama has focused our policy toward Cuba on increased engagement with the Cuban people to promote democratic ideals and improve human rights conditions on the island. As he said during his March address in Chile, “Cuban authorities must take some meaningful actions to respect the basic rights of their own people – not because the United States insists upon it, but because this is what the people of Cuba deserve.” We call on the Cuban government to respect all peaceful activities related to the commemoration of Human Rights Week.

Congressman Rivera Questions US Secretary Salazar on Cuba Oil Drilling

Uploaded by RepRivera
 

Declassified Documents: #CIA History of DCI William Colby

National Security Archive

DCI William Colby speaks during a National Security Council meeting on the situation on Vietnam. April 28, 1975. Clockwise, left to right, Colby; Robert S. Ingersoll, Deputy Secretary of State; Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State; President Ford: James Schlesinger, Defense Secretary; William Clements, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Vice President Nelson Rockefeller; General George S. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (lower left corner). Image A4234-11A ,http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/avproj/vietnam.asp Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, MI.

CIA director William Colby rebuffed criticisms from senior Agency operators about disclosure of CIA misdeeds by describing the difference between "bad secrets," "non-secrets," "good secrets" and "lesser" secrets, according to a previously SECRET internal CIA history of the Colby tenure, published today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).

Colby responded in March 1974 to the head of the CIA's clandestine service, who claimed that any public discussion would "degrade the fabric of our security" and "lead inevitably to a further exposure of intelligence sources and methods," by writing:

"There are some 'bad secrets' which are properly revealed by an aggressive press. there are some older 'non-secrets' which no longer need to be kept secret and which we should gradually surface, but there are some 'good secrets' which deserve greater protection than we have been able to give them, in part by reason of their association with 'secrets' of lesser importance."

The latest declassification (in August 2011) from a series of secret studies by the CIA History Staff of the agency's directors, the volume gains credibility from its authorship by veteran CIA analyst and operative Harold Ford, who courageously presented to the Congress well-documented internal critiques of CIA director-designate Robert Gates during his confirmation hearings in 1991. To win confirmation, Gates had to promise Congress not to fire Ford in retaliation. The history, William Colby as Director of Central Intelligence, 1973-1976, provides detailed accounts of key episodes such as the firing of counterintelligence chief James Angleton, Colby's role in the revelation of the CIA "family jewels," and the collapse of South Vietnam, where Colby had spent much of his career.

The posting features an introduction and review written by Archive senior fellow John Prados, author of the widely-praised biography, William Colby and the CIA: The Secret Wars of a Controversial Spymaster (University Press of Kansas, 2009). The favorable Prados review points out some shortcomings as well, including the history's lack of attention to Colby's fraught relationships with Presidents Nixon and Ford, and most of all, Henry Kissinger. Declassified Kissinger transcripts show Kissinger fuming about Colby's airing of the CIA's dirty laundry, but Prados concludes that Colby in effect saved the CIA from possible abolition as an agency.

Opening in Washington, D.C. on October 28 at the Landmark E Street Theater is a biographic documentary produced by Colby's son Carl, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby.

From the film's Web site: "A son's riveting look at a father whose life seemed straight out of a spy thriller . the story is at once a probing history of the CIA, a personal memoir of a family living in clandestine shadows, and an inquiry into the hard costs of a nation's most cloaked actions .. The film forges a fascinating mix of rare archival footage, never-before-seen photos, and interviews with the 'who's who' of American intelligence, including former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense and Director of CIA James Schlesinger, as well PulitzerPrize journalists Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh and Tim Weiner."

More >

More details on $18 million in Cuba grants

Cuba Money Project

A Miami human rights organization and Lawyers without Borders are among the winners of the latest U.S. government grants for Cuba-related democracy and civil society work.
The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded $3.4 million to the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, and the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor awarded $1 million to Lawyers without Borders.
Lawyers without Borders is based in Hartford, Conn., and isn’t connected to Doctors without Borders. The group does not mention Cuba on its website, which states:

Because LWOB and its lawyers frequently operate in “challenging” political environments, we ask for your indulgence for our not revealing the entirety of available details about our work . We are sure that you appreciate that the safety of our lawyers is paramount and while our pro bono public relations team at Walek & Associates cringes when they hear this, there are important accomplishments and work ongoing at all times that we simply cannot discuss in a public forum.

Also new is that the State Department evidently awarded the University of Texas at El Paso a grant for Cuba-related work, but I do not have the dollar amount.

On Oct. 13, the Cuba Money Project reported that nine organizations had won more than $8.6 million in Cuba grants from Sept. 1 to Sept. 27, according to federal records.

At the time, I couldn’t account for the full $20 million in fiscal 2010 funds that were set aside for Cuba programs. I now have new numbers showing that 11 organizations received more than $18 million.

In the Oct. 13 breakdown, I included Creative Associates International, the National Endowment for Democracy and Evangelical Christian Humanitarian Outreach, which have been awarded a total of more than $5 million for ongoing Cuba programs as part of multi-year grants. I’m not certain they are getting fiscal 2010 funds and so I’m not including them in the list below.

Organizations that received fiscal year 2010 funds (see Excel file and chart data):

• Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) – Two grants: USAID, Facilitating the Free Flow of Information, $3.9 million. State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Cuba: Greater Freedom of Expression on the Island, $733,000. Total: $4,633,000.
• International Relief and Development (IRD) – Two grants: U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Democratic Engagement at the Community Level, $3.6 million. State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, $693,069. Civic participation in Cuba. Total: $4,293,069.
• Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) – USAID, Democratic Engagement at the Community Level, $3.4 million. The FHRC is part of the Cuban American National Foundation, or CANF, which has called for greater transparency in the use of Cuba funds.
• National Democratic Institute (NDI) – USAID, Democratic Engagement at the Community Level, $2.3 million.
• Lawyers without Borders, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, $1 million.
• International Republican Institute (IRI) – State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, $700,000. Cuba: Strengthening Social Inclusion through Survey Research
• Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) - State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, $600,000. Empowering Civil Society Engagement by Supporting Freedom of Expression.
• Freedom House (FH) - Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, $437,000. Enhancing Human Rights Documentation in Cuba (EHRD).
• Development Research Center (DRC) – State Department, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, $376,237. Information Technology Training and Material Development.
• Florida International University (FIU) – State Department, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. $376,000.
• University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, $ amount unknown.

Total: $18,165,237.

Note: I get my numbers from different sources. These figures differ from some of the numbers on the USASpending.gov website. Some of the figures here may not be exact. As I get more precise numbers, I’ll post them. If anyone has better numbers, feel free to share them.

US: Fidel #Castro Needs to Go

But you need to push him out and don't forget his brother.

------------------------------------------ 

Voice of America

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States' position on Cuba remains that "Castro needs to go."

Clinton spoke at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee where the major topics were Afghanistan and Pakistan. But when questioned on U.S. policy on Cuba, she said the policy has been the same for more than 50 years - that communist leader Fidel Castro should leave office.

"Unfortunately," she added, "he doesn't seem to be going anywhere."

Clinton said the U.S. wants democracy for Cuba. She also said U.S. officials regularly meet with their Cuban counterparts on areas of mutual concern.

In 2006 Fidel Castro formally handed over power to his younger brother Raul, but he remains an influential figure in the communist state.

Since taking office in 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama has eased restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, and on money sent back to Cuba from family members living in the United States. He has said the U.S. will change its policy further if Cuba is ready to reform.