Think Obama Administration Wasn t Corrupt Think Again Investor s Business Daily

EDITORIAL I INVESTOR'South Concern DAILY

Obama Scandal:  Erstwhile President Obama and his political supporters take repeatedly stated that his administration was scandal-free, unlike administrations earlier and after. "We're probably the get-go administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House," Obama himself said. A new volume puts the lie to that argument.

Never mind that the left-leaning big media basically ignored major scandals during the Obama years, ranging from the IRS targeting scandal and the VA's mortiferous waiting lists for veterans to Hillary Clinton's illegal use of an unsecured, hackable abode-brew server for her official duties as secretary of country and the Fast and Furious gunwalking programme.

These and others were ballsy scandals that the media simply ignored or downplayed.

The media have contrasted Obama'southward supposed honesty and forthrightness with President Trump's supposed venality and political unscrupulousness, as embodied in the year-and-a-half long Russia-Trump scandal investigation that shows few signs of letting upwardly.

The book claims "Obama and his administration would deem industries either destructive to the environment or exploitative for the financial and professional gain of his freines, including industries such as coal mining, offshore drilling, cash advance companies, and for-profit colleges.  wrote Katelyn Caralle of the Washington Examiner.

Schweizer'southward book, based on extensive research, says that Obama acted to regulate sure industries in such a way that it lowered the value of some of the companies,wrote Katelyn Caralle of the Washington Examiner.These actions allow two family friends to turn a profit handsomely on deals through their own investment house.

Hither'south how information technology worked: Obama buddies Marty Nesbitt and Harreld Kirkpatrick III formed a individual disinterestedness investment firm chosen Vistria, correct around the time Obama was re-elected in 2012.

Nothing wrong with that, except, every bit Schweizer notes in his volume, "A curious blueprint began to emerge. Obama and his assistants would set on industries with regime ability, which led to substantially lower valuations for these companies. Nesbitt and Vistria, or others close to Obama, could then acquire those assets for pennies on the dollar."

Every bit an example, Schweizer cites the case of for-turn a profit higher education schools like University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute, and DeVry University. In 2013, Obama blamed the schools for taking advantage of students by saddling them with massive amounts of student debt, ruining their credit and making a profit on information technology. He ordered the Federal Trade Committee to get later them.

In the case of the University of Phoenix, its parent Apollo Instruction Group was suspended later on a Federal Trade Commission investigation in 2015. The following year, three companies, including Vistria, swooped in to buy what remained of Apollo at a price xc% below its share cost earlier the investigation.

As Vistria's education investment portfolio bulged, a number of Obama Didactics Department officials, including Secretary of Instruction Arne Duncan, ended upward taking loftier-level jobs with Vistria.

That'due south just one example. There are others.

Schweizer noted in his volume, for instance, that both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry were deeplyinvolved in trade and security talks with China even as that land began its aggressive campaign to expand its military and physical presence in the South Cathay Sea.

Opposite to standard diplomatic exercise, still, both played "good cop," not seriously confronting Communist china on its misbehavior.

Remember, Biden and Kerry were close friends from their years spent together in the Senate. And so in that location was petty surprise when Biden'southward son, Hunter, and Kerry'due south stepson, Christopher Heinz, ane of the heirs to the Heinz ketchup fortune, went into business organization together in 2009.

They created a number of equity and real estate investment firms allied to Rosemont Capital, "the alternative investment fund of the Heinz Family Role."

And then far so adept. Except, "Over the next 7 years, as both Joe Biden and John Kerry negotiated sensitive and high-stakes deals with foreign governments, Rosemont entities secured a series of exclusive deals with those same foreign governments."

In Dec of 2013, for instance, Biden traveled to Prc for talks. He brought Hunter Biden along. While there, the senior Biden soft-pedaled Mainland china'southward articulate aggression, and played upwards the bilateral trade partnership. 10 days later the trip concluded, Prc's central depository financial institution, the Depository financial institution of Red china, set up a $1 billion investment articulation venture chosen Bohai Harvest RST. For the tape, the "RS" referred to Biden'south son'southward business firm, Rosemont Seneca.

Just months later on, in July 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to China, likewise for talks. Kerry talked niggling of People's republic of china'south clear aggression, but did conspicuously notation that "China and the Usa represent the greatest economical alliance trading partnership in the history of humankind."

He should know. In the ensuing months, Chinese government-linked firms took major stakes in several of the firms owned or controlled past Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz, and provided them with massive funding totaling billions of dollars. Nor isthis the only scandal involving John Kerry.

And this but scratches the surface. The book is a catalog, a virtual roadmap, to the way decadent business gets done in Washington — and why Americans are smart to question why their representative get to Washington as paupers, and return as millionaires.

We tin can only hope that as Biden or Kerry gears up for a claiming to Trump in the 2020 presidential contest, they volition receive the aforementioned relentless scrutiny that a Republican with the same record of venality would get. But nosotros won't concord our breath.

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IN OTHER NEWS

Trump Hits China For Stealing U.S. Intellectual Belongings

President Trump signed another round of tariffs at the White House Thursday afternoon, this time targeting Chinese intellectual belongings theft.

Citing a threat to American innovation, the administration  "volition propose for public comment adding 25 percent additional tariffs on sure products that are supported past China's unfair industrial policy" with "sectors subject to the proposed tariffs will include aerospace, data communication technology, and machinery."

"We're doing things for this state that should've been done for many, many years," Trump said before a brief signing ceremony. "Nosotros have a tremendous intellectual holding theft going on, which besides is hundreds of billions of dollars and that's on a yearly footing."

"It [Communist china] is the largest deficit of any country in the history of our world," he continued. "This has been long in the making. We've lost, over a fairly short menses of time, threescore,000 factories in our land, six meg jobs at least. Gone."

"The era of economic give up is over," Vice President Mike Pence added.

Trump too addressed NAFTA, which he has repeatedly threatened to walk away from unless Mexico and Canada can come up with a better deal for the U.s..

"NAFTA's been a very bad deal for the United States," Trump said.

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Wait, What? Andrew McCabe Launched an FBI Investigation Into Chaser General Sessions Because Dems Asked Him To?

It'southward been less than a calendar week since one-time FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired past Attorney Full general Jeff Sessions later a recommendation for termination from the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility.

The drama surrounding the lawful and justified firing hasn't stopped since and belatedly Wednesday night, ABC News dropped a bombshell story alleging Sessions was nether FBI investigation last yr for perjury. The man leading the charge? Andrew McCabe.

Nearly a year before Attorney Full general Jeff Sessions fired senior FBI official Andrew McCabe for what Sessions called a "lack of candor," McCabe oversaw a federal criminal investigation into whether Sessions lacked candor when testifying before Congress near contacts with Russian operatives, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

I source told ABC News that Sessions was not enlightened of the investigation when he decided to fire McCabe last Friday less than 48 hours before McCabe, a former FBI deputy managing director, was due to retire from government and obtain a total pension, but an attorney representing Sessions declined to ostend that.

Last twelvemonth, several tiptop Republican and Democratic lawmakers were informed of the probe during a closed-door briefing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and McCabe, ABC News was told.

Co-ordinate to the written report, the investigation came after Democrat Senators requested the FBI look into contacts Sessions had with the Russians during the grade of the 2016 presidential campaign and the White Firm transition between Nov 2016 and January 2017.

According to the sources, McCabe authorized the criminal enquiry after a tiptop Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and then-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wrote a letter in March 2017 to the FBI urging agents to investigate "all contacts" Sessions may take had with Russians, and "whether whatever laws were cleaved in the course of those contacts or in whatsoever subsequent give-and-take of whether they occurred."

Yikes.

As Mollie Hemingway notes over atThe Federalist, this story was likely leaked to ABC by squad McCabe or McCabe himself in an effort to undermine Sessions in the wake of his firing. That strategy is backfiring and instead bolsters accusations the FBI is highly politicized and allowing Democrat Senators, with whom they agree, to drive criminal investigations.

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John Bolton: The Wisdom of This Choice Is Made Articulate in the Panic of Liberals

Photograph: John Bolton, sometime U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and Trump's new National Security Adviser

With ane presidential decision, America gained i of its boldest National Security Advisers, and lost one of its best cablevision news guests.

Roughly an hour after John Bolton, one-time U.Southward. Ambassador to the U.North., was named as the replacement for the outgoing adviser H.R. McMaster, he appeared on Pull a fast one on News with "The Story" host Martha MacCallum, who was loaded with great questions for a homo known for his blunt assessments of the earth scene and sharp views on the policies that best serve America.

She learned speedily that the new position changes everything for Bolton.

Amid stories of inner-circle discord over President Trump's praise for freshly re-elected Russian President Vladmir Putin, she had to wonder if Bolton would speak disapprovingly of the congratulatory words that accept alarmed so many, despite Barack Obama having washed the same six years ago.

The adviser-designate made articulate that his years of writing and speaking about countless issues have left a record he is proud of, but that his task now is to subjugate his views to the president's. He did let on that the whole flap struck him equally overblown: "I don't consider information technology a meaning point… I've said congratulations to a lot of people, foreign diplomats and officials, it'south a matter of beingness polite...It's a matter of courtesy more annihilation."

Having gleaned a sliver of an answer on ane result, MacCallum plowed forrad, seeking newsworthy specifics on how Bolton'south strong views might inform the advice he gave the president. "I don't think it's advisable to tell you what advice I would requite him," he replied.

Would he go on to oppose the Iran nuclear deal, creating conflict with Defence force Secretarial assistant James Mattis, who has shown more tolerance for it? Does he expect his views on that, or annihilation else, to create conflict amid the Trump national security team? Should we proceed the armed services choice on the table with regard to North Korea? Is coming together with Kim Jong-un a good idea?

"Aforementioned question, aforementioned answer," he replied. E'er with a smile, Trump'south newest squad member made articulate his thoughts and analysis were no longer for the benefit of the general public, but for his new boss.

He did intimate that he would non be shy in that setting: "If the government can't have a free interchange of ideas amid the president'southward directorate, the president is not well served."

He also shared a story revealing that if his opinion did not prevail, he would always maintain awareness of his role, as implementer of presidential volition.

Harry Truman's Secretarial assistant of Land, Dean Acheson, he recalled, would often depict why they got along and so well: "Neither one of usa always forgot who was president."

Then, a story from his own service: If, as an Assistant Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush, some idea of his was just not property sway, James Baker would remind him: "The guy who got elected doesn't desire to exercise information technology."

So as John Bolton the spirited commentator fades from view, I have condolement in the knowledge that if his views and passions will no longer exist heard by me, they volition surely be heard past the president during what should be a chapter that leads to fifty-fifty clearer bear witness that this is an assistants serious most the threats of a unsafe world.

There is something else Bolton is serious about, the i area he was non hesitant in addressing—leaks, of the sort that enabled the absurd Putin congratulation uproar to go a brushfire.

"I was outraged past it," he told MacCallum, "It recalled before in the assistants when somebody was leaking transcripts of the president's conversations with strange leaders. Information technology'southward completely unacceptable; y'all cannot conduct diplomacy, yous cannot expect other foreign leaders to exist aboveboard and open in their conversations with the president if some Munchkin in the executive branch decides they're going to leak the talking points or the transcript or any other aspect of it."

At present at that place's the John Bolton we know.

America will now come to know him with greater familiarity in his service to the nation and the administration, which will hopefully last longer than the tenure of his ii predecessors.

There is healthy evidence of the wisdom of this choice in the panic of liberals who convulsed the moment it was announced. Just there is as well a office of the Trump base that might be uneasy, the voters who viewed him as unlikely to entangle America in farther extended deployments in various hot spots.

Brand no error, Bolton believes in the American military machine as a force for good effectually the world. He will never share the Trump view that going to war in Iraq was a mistake. But if he is to be taken at his word, he knows that he is not "the guy who got elected." There is no evidence that his hawkish nature contains some potent urge toward new, large troop deployments anywhere.

But he shares the Trump view that the Iran nuclear deal is a disaster, and that N Korea should know every mean solar day that a military option is always on the table to address his missile adventures. That strong position, both men would say, has contributed to better Northward Korean beliefs of tardily, and even the prospect of a Trump/Kim meeting.

Ronald Reagan famously said that no war in his lifetime ever started considering America was too strong.

If that is instructive, war is in fact less likely with a president unafraid to requite voice to such strength, and a National Security Adviser willing to inform information technology.

smithblied1970.blogspot.com

Source: http://blackrepublican.blogspot.com/2018/03/think-obama-administration-wasnt.html

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