Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Jeb Bush Conspires With FL Legislators To “Fix” Florida Primary Election

As some in Florida have long suspected, the rumored fix to help former Florida Governor Jeb Bush win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has already come to pass.

The Intercept was able to obtain emails between Jeb Bush and state Representative Matt Gaetz where the two men are coordinated ‘the fix’ by pushing back Florida’s presidential primary to favor the former governor.

State Representative Matt Gaetz wrote to Bush on January 2 that he is “concerned that Florida’s current primary date will lead to proportional allocation of delegates” and that a “winner take all” system would be preferable.

“Unless you ask me otherwise, I’ll file legislation to move our primary date back a week,” Gaetz told Bush, who responded to say that his political advisor Sally Bradshaw would give Gaetz a call. “10 4,” Gaetz shot back.

The email exchange had begun with Bush emailing Gaetz, the son of State Senator Don Gaetz, president of the Florida Senate in the previous session. Bush thanked the younger Gaetz for his “willingness to head to Iowa to go door to door,” adding, “Wow, what a generous offer! Happy New Year!”-The Intercept

Gaetz’s boss, House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, has already endorsed Jeb Bush for his upcoming 2016 presidential run, and now the bill filed that would push back Florida’s primary to March 15 was rushed through the legislature and recently signed into law by current Florida Governor Rick Scott.

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DEA agent arrested for stealing Silk Road bitcoins also orchestrated murder-for-hire scheme

The former undercover federal agent who was arrested on Friday for allegedly stealing bitcoins from the online black market Silk Road also helped orchestrate a fake assassination scheme allegedly carried out by Silk Road’s founder Ross Ulbricht, according to the agent’s deleted LinkedIn page.

Carl Mark Force IV, a 46-year-old former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officer, has been charged with wire fraud, theft of government property, and money laundering. He allegedly sold information about the government investigation and stole over $500,000 in bitcoins, the digital cryptocurrency, for himself during the federal investigation into Silk Road.

Shaun Bridges, a Secret Service agent who allegedly stole $800,000 in bitcoins from Silk Road, was also arrested.

“The fact that Ross’ attorneys were not permitted to use this important information at trial was devastating to Ross’ defense,” mother Lyn Ulbricht told the Daily Dot. “These revelations of corruption cast doubt on the integrity of the entire investigation and the government’s case, including accusations of murder-for-hire, which we have always been certain were false.”

Force, who was central to the investigation of Ulbricht and Silk Road, played the single biggest role in the most damning charges leveled against Ulbricht: allegedly paying for the assassination and torture of a once-trusted confidant.

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Monday, March 30, 2015

Benghazi chairman: Clinton wiped private email server ‘clean’

The head of the House Select Committee on Benghazi says former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has erased all information from the personal email server she used while serving as the nation’s top diplomat.

“We learned today, from her attorney, Secretary Clinton unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said in a statement Friday.

He said while it’s “not clear precisely when Secretary Clinton decided to permanently delete all emails from her server, it appears she made the decision after October 28, 2014, when the Department of State for the first time asked the Secretary to return her public record to the Department.”

Last week, Gowdy sent a letter to Clinton’s attorney asking that the email server be turned over to a third party in the hopes that an investigation could recover about 30,000 emails that her team deleted before turning the rest over to the State Department.

Gowdy said “it is clear Congress will need to speak with the former Secretary about her email arrangement and the decision to permanently delete those emails.”

“Not only was the Secretary the sole arbiter of what was a public record, she also summarily decided to delete all emails from her server, ensuring no one could check behind her analysis in the public interest,” Gowdy said.

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The State Is Spying on You Right Now. Where’s the Outrage?

When Hillary Clinton learned that a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives had subpoenaed her emails as secretary of state and she promptly destroyed half of them—about 33,000—how did she know she could get away with it? Destruction of evidence, particularly government records, constitutes the crime of obstruction of justice.

When Gen. Michael Hayden, the director of both the CIA and the NSA in the George W. Bush administration and the architect of the government’s massive suspicionless spying program, was recently publicly challenged to deny that the feds have the ability to turn on your computer, cellphone, or mobile device in your home and elsewhere, and use your own devices to spy on you, why did he remain silent? The audience at the venue where he was challenged rationally concluded that his silence was his consent.

And when two judges were recently confronted with transcripts of conversations between known drug dealers—transcripts obtained without search warrants—and they asked the police who obtained them to explain their sources, how is it that the cops could refuse to answer? The government has the same obligation to tell the truth in a courtroom as any litigant, and in a criminal case, the government must establish that its acquisition of all of its evidence was lawful.

The common themes here are government spying and lawlessness. We now know that the Israelis spied on Secretary of State John Kerry, and so Netanyahu knew of what he spoke. We know that the Clintons believe there is a set of laws for them and another for the rest of us, and so Mrs. Clinton could credibly believe that her deception and destruction would go unpunished.

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Friday, March 27, 2015

DEA agents had ’sex parties’ with prostitutes, watchdog says

Agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly had “sex parties” with prostitutes hired by drug cartels in Colombia, according to a new inspector general report released by the Justice Department on Thursday.

In addition, Colombian police officers allegedly provided “protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property during the parties,” the report states. Ten DEA agents later admitted attending the parties, and some of the agents received suspensions of two to 10 days.

The stunning allegations are part of an investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general into claims of sexual harassment and misconduct within DEA; FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Marshals Service. The IG’s office found that DEA did not fully cooperate with its probe.

The congressional committee charged with federal oversight is already promising hearings and an investigation into the allegations.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told POLITICO on Thursday he wanted the agencies involved to swiftly fire those involved and that his panel would immediately start digging into the allegations.

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