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The problem "we the people" face is we know there is corruption, we know government no longer serves as intended, we know we need to change the way government functions. The problem is we do not know how to accomplish this nor do we feel we have the tools and mechanism's. This is very frustrating and can lead to an internal uprising much greater than what was witnessed January 6th.
This is one reason why I support Judicial Watch.
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Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch continue to strive on behalf of the entire nation by pursuing corruption:
Judicial Watch Seeks Release of Sally Yates Records on Her Refusal
to Defend President Trump’s Travel Ban
It
should surprise no one that on Joe Biden’s short list for attorney general was
former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama holdover “who shot to
national prominence after President Donald Trump fired her, making her one of
the first heroes of the #Resistance.”
President
Trump fired her after she refused in early 2017 to enforce his travel ban
executive order. We filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals
for the DC Circuit in order to gain the release of Department of Justice
records about Yates’ gross insubordination. We argue that the documents are not
shielded from disclosure, as they are evidence of government misconduct by
Yates.
At
issue are four records described as “working drafts” of a January 30, 2017
statement by Yates instructing DOJ officials not to defend the executive order
issued by then-President Trump. Trump fired Yates after she issued the one-page statement.
The
appeal concerns a May 2017 FOIA lawsuit we filed after the Justice
Department failed to respond to a February FOIA request seeking Yates’ emails
from her government account (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.
1:17-cv-00832)) for the time period she served as Acting Attorney General for
President Trump. We recently filed the brief in the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch vs. U.S. Department of Justice (No.
20-5304)).
The
lower court ruled that the Justice Department could withhold the records under
FOIA’s Exemption 5 “deliberative process
privilege,” which is used to keep secret “pre-decisional” agency records.
We
argue that the court has recognized “that government misconduct may overcome
the deliberative process privilege.”
“[W]here
there is reason to believe the documents sought may shed light on government
misconduct, the privilege is routinely denied, on the grounds that shielding
internal government deliberations in this context does not serve the public’s
interest in honest, effective government.”
***
Insubordination,
especially by an acting attorney general seeking to defy an executive order
issued by the President, is a “serious breach of the responsibilities of
representative government.” The records at issue relate directly to Yates’
defiance of the President and breach of the duties she owed the President,
which resulted in her being fired. The records reflect, or at least are
purported to reflect, the thought process by which Yates chose to direct her
subordinates to defy the President by not defending the President’s executive
order. They are, in effect, deliberations on Yates’ decision to commit
insubordination. They do not warrant protection under the deliberative process
privilege and should be made public.
The
“working drafts” were sent as attachments in a chain of emails sent without
messages between Yates and her deputy Matthew Axelrod.
We
also highlight how the Justice Department is undermining the FOIA reforms the
Congress passed into law under the FOIA Improvements Act (FIA) in 2016 that
“established a new, heightened standard of proof that agencies must meet when
making discretionary withholdings of records requested under FOIA. Congress
intended the FIA to shore up FOIA, not preserve a years-long, unsatisfactory
status quo of ‘withhold-it-because-you-want-
In
an act of seditious and unethical conduct, Obama holdover Sally Yates sought to
subvert then-President Trump by interfering with his lawful travel ban. That
the Justice Department would try to cover up the details of this lawlessness is
yet another scandal.
As
an indication of the pandemic of lawlessness in the Justice Department, we obtained records in this case in 2017
that show strong support by Robert Mueller Deputy Andrew Weissmann and other top DOJ
officials for Yates’ refusal to enforce President Trump’s travel ban. In one
email Weissmann writes: “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much. All my
deepest respects.”
Professor Charged with
Stealing $1.75 Million in Research for China
We
are closely watching the growing threat China poses to the United States, not
the least of which is its wholesale, systematic theft of scientific and medical
research. A recent criminal indictment, reported in our Corruption Chronicles blog,
illustrates how this theft is too often enabled with your tax dollars:
Communist
China has long benefitted from American-funded research stolen by Chinese
academics who infiltrate colleges throughout the United States. This month a criminal indictment sheds light on a
recent scheme allegedly masterminded by a Chinese professor at one of the
nation’s top-ranked public universities. His name is Lin Yang, a 43-year-old
member of the Thousand Talents Program (TTP) operated by the Chinese government
to transfer original ideas, technology and intellectual property from foreign
institutions, especially American colleges. TTP rewards Chinese scientists for
stealing propriety information, usually funded by Uncle Sam.
In
this case Yang, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical
Engineering at the University of Florida (UF), fraudulently obtained a $1.75
million federal grant to conduct research that he stole for China, according to
a federal indictment. The money came from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), the U.S. government’s handsomely funded medical research agency, which
has an immense $41.7 billion annual
budget. The research involved developing an imaging informatics tool for
muscles known as “MuscleMiner.” Federal prosecutors say that between 2014 and
2019 Yang served as the principal investigator for the NIH grant at UF, a
top-ranked public research institution in Gainesville. That means he was
responsible for conducting and administering the money in compliance with
applicable federal law and institutional policies. “Among other things, Yang
was required to disclose his foreign research support and financial conflicts
of interest, including his ownership of, or interest in, a foreign company,”
according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) announcement.
Instead,
Yang established a business in China known as “Deep Informatics” that he
promoted by disclosing that its products were the result of years of research
supported by millions of dollars of U.S. government funding. To maintain
employment at UF and continue receiving NIH grant money, Yang intentionally
concealed his conflicts of interest, including his Chinese business,
participation in the TTP and affiliation with a Chinese research university.
“On multiple occasions, Yang submitted disclosures to NIH containing false
statements and material omissions concerning his affiliations and research
endeavors with a foreign government and company,” the DOJ reveals.
Additionally, in January 2019, UF’s College of Engineering required all faculty
to provide, in writing, updated disclosures concerning activities with foreign
entities in China and two other countries. Yang provided UF with a written
response falsely stating he had no affiliation with any business, entity, or
university in China, the indictment states. Yang fled to China in August 2019.
He has been charged with six counts of wire fraud and four counts of making
false statements to an agency of the United States.
This
is hardly an isolated case. The U.S. government has long permitted communists
working in the U.S. to steal billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded research.
Many of them work at public universities throughout the country or at
government agencies such as the NIH, National Science Foundation (NSF) or
national laboratories affiliated with the Department of Energy (DOE). For
decades many of the institutions have been deeply impacted by Chinese
infiltrators stealing highly valuable intellectual property. A U.S. Senate investigation determined
that not only has American-funded research long been stolen by China, but that
the work is helping the communist nation meet its goal of becoming a world
leader in science and technology. China uses hundreds of government-funded
talent recruitment plans, such as TTP, to incentivize individuals engaged in
research and development in the U.S to transmit information in exchange for
salaries, research funding, lab space and other perks. The communists then use
the American research for their own economic and military gain.
The
Trump administration addressed the problem by having the NIH fire dozens of
scientists last summer over their secret financial ties to communist China. It
is not clear how long they went undetected or how much taxpayer-funded research
they stole, but at the time some 54 scientists got booted for failing to
disclose a troubling financial arrangement with a foreign government. In the
overwhelming majority of cases—93%—the cash came from China, according to an NIH investigation that
started more than two years ago. Also, in most of the probes the targets were
Asian men in their 50s. The bulk of the ousted researchers received generous
grants from the NIH, which annually invests tens of billions of
dollars in medical research by giving around 50,000
grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities,
medical schools and other institutions throughout the country. Only 10% of the
agency’s budget supports projects conducted by scientists in its own lab in
Bethesda, Maryland.
Until
next week,
Tom Fitton
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This was sent to me by an oil man, a very dear friend and fellow memo reader:
KEYSTONE PIPELINE VS TRAIN VS SHIP TO MOVE OIL
Someone spent a little time putting these numbers together:
1 Train has 100 cars, 2 engines and weighs 27,240,000 LBS.
1 Train carries 3,000,000 gallons of oil.
1 train uses 55.5 gallons of diesel per mile.
It takes 119,000 gallons of diesel to go 2150 miles from Hardidsy, AB to Freeport, TX.
Keystone pipeline was to deliver 34,860,000 gallons of oil per day.
It would take 12 trains and 1,428,000 gallons of diesel to deliver that amount.
PER DAY!
521,220,000 gallons of diesel per year.
The oil will still go to market with or without the pipeline. By stopping the pipeline
billions of gallons of diesel will be wasted and pollute needlessly. Does that make
you feel good?
Stop the Tar Sands all together? Then we must ship the oil from the overseas sandbox.
1 large oil tanker can haul 120,000,000 gallons of oil
1 boat takes 15 days to float across the Atlantic.
1 boat uses 63,000 gallons of fuel PER DAY, that is about 1 million gallons of the
most polluting type fuel in the world PER TRIP.*(See below)
Or take 3.5 days of Keystone Pipeline to move the same amount of oil with a
fraction of the pollution.
*ln international waters ship emissions remains one of the least regulated parts
of our global transportation system. The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically
what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the same as asphalt and
is so thick that when cold it can be walked upon . It's the cheapest and most
polluting fuel available and the world's 90,000 ships chew through an
astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each day, or more than 84% of all exported
oil production from Saudi Arabia.
Shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter in the world. There are 760
million cars in the world today emitting approx 78,599 tons of Sulfur Oxides
annually. The world's 90,000 vessels burn approx 370 million tons of fuel per
year emitting 20 million tons of Sulfur Oxides. That equates to 260 times more
Sulfur Oxides being emitted by ships than the worlds entire car fleet. One large
ship alone can generate approx 5,200 tons of sulfur oxide pollution in a year,
meaning that 15 of the largest ships now emit 50 times more than the worlds
760 million cars.
Eliminate all gas consuming cars and diesel vehicles?
Worldwide car gas consumption is 403,583,712,000 gallons a year. That's billion.
Worldwide oil consumption is 1,500,000,000,000 gallons a year. That's a trillion.
It takes 2.15 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of car gas and .6 gal of diesel.
So it takes 867,704,980,800 gallons of oil to run the worlds cars, most diesel
vehicles for a year and some ships.
That leaves 632,295,019,200 gallons of oil for other uses.
Passenger vehicles are only a very small percentage of the problem. If emissions
are the problem why not just capture them at the exhaust? Create an industry to
clean exhaust instead of crushing and entire industry and building a complete
untested, replacement industry?
So are we willing to dramatically increase mining to get all the minerals
necessary to make all these batteries and electric engines?
Mining is far worse for the environment than oil extraction.
Is stopping the Keystone still making you feel good?
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