Conservative Blogger
Friday, August 5, 2016
Rep for federal prosecutors blasts Obama over mass commutations
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| Aug 3, 2016: President Barack Obama listens to a question during a Young African Leaders Initiative event at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. |
Obama's was the most commutations ever issued on a single day, according to political scientist P.S. Ruckman Jr., who tracks presidential commutations. His total now stands at 562, more than the previous nine presidents combined.
"These aren't little, nonviolent offenders."
Steve Cook, president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, told LifeZette that 55 of the prisoners have firearms convictions -- in many cases not just possessing a weapon but using it help carry out drug distribution operations. Others have criminal backgrounds that should have raised red flags, he said.
"The reason some of this should shock people is when this clemency program was announced, the public was told in order to qualify, applicants had to meet six very specific criteria," he said, adding that even a cursory review suggests many should have failed that test.
Cook noted that two men who received a break were serving time for "engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise," which he said indicates they were drug kingpins.
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Since the conspiracy involved more than 1.5 kilograms of crack, his life prison term was mandatory at the time -- but would not be under more lenient sentencing guidelines that have since taken effect. He will get out of prison on Dec. 1, thanks to the president's commutation.
The other prisoner cited by Cook is Dawan "Swannie" Croskery, a Buffalo man sentenced in 2004 to 20 years in prison for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and money laundering. He will also be released from prison Dec. 1.
According to a Buffalo News article from the time he was sentenced, authorities arrested Croskery in October 2002, after a lengthy investigation by the FBI and the Public Safety Department of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority. He admitted to selling powder and crack cocaine and washing drug proceeds by purchasing cars in the names of other people.
Then there is Ralph Casas, whose life sentence Obama reduced to a little more than 24 years. Casas was convicted in connection with a drug conspiracy to smuggle -- as described by a federal appeals court -- "massive amounts cocaine and heroin from Puerto Rico and several foreign countries into Miami and New York."
Casas used his job as an American Airlines baggage handler at Miami International Airport to sneak the drugs past customs officials from September 1992 to March 1995. Cook noted that the cocaine quantity -- 9,445 kilograms -- is more than 10 tons.
"These aren't little, nonviolent offenders," Cook said.
Cook said those three cases may represent the tip of the iceberg, as a thorough analysis of the 214 names on the list has yet to be performed.
"That's without doing any digging at all," he said.
Another criterion set forth by the Obama administration in 2014 was that prisoners eligible for commuted sentences should not have extensive criminal records. But he said one prisoner who got a break in a previous round of clemency had eight felony drug convictions on his record.
"I don't know where in the country this would not be considered a significant criminal history," he said.
Cook said he is bracing himself for further commutations, as Obama has promised. He said he believes the White House will review some 30,000 cases.
"My theory is when they went in and looked [at the applications], there were not significant numbers of low-level, nonviolent offenders who didn't have significant criminal histories," he said. "I don't know how much worse it can get."
Battle of the Billionaires: Clinton’s uber-rich backers pour money into Trump fight
Donald Trump has his billions, but Hillary Clinton has her billionaires.
As the candidates formally enter the general election season after their conventions, the former secretary of state’s wealthiest backers are pouring money into political groups opposing Trump. Within the past year, according to a review by FoxNews.com, a total of 24 billionaires have donated more than $42.5 million to two Clinton campaign arms and three allied super PACs.
All this is in preparation for a blitz of advertising and other efforts to defeat Trump over the next three months – as some big-money Republicans stay on the sidelines.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, for instance, is joining industrial power-brokers Charles and David Koch in refusing to back fellow Republican billionaire Trump. While the Koch brothers plan to stay out of the presidential race, Whitman is going one further by stating she will endorse and help fund Clinton.
Whitman will be in some influential company. Her most famous Clinton donor colleagues include movie producers Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, financiers Warren Buffett and George Soros, and Walmart heiress Alice Walton.
The billionaire donations were given to Clinton campaign funds Hillary for America and Hillary Victory Fund; and the pro-Clinton PACs American Bridge 21st Century, Priorities USA Action 2016 and Correct the Record.
The largest donor was Soros with $9 million, according to 2015 and 2016 Federal Election Commission records. This was followed up by mathematician and hedge fund manager James Simons at $7 million and Haim and Cheryl Saban, with $3.5 million each. Haim Saban owns the Spanish television network Univision.
Most of the money is donated to PACs because candidate campaigns are only allowed to accept $2,700 per donor. Clinton’s overall campaign total is $374.5 million and Trump’s is $98.7 million through July 21, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Clinton campaign – which only recently put away a primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, who boasted of his small-dollar donations – stresses that the bulk of the nominee’s support is grass-roots.
"More than 900,000 people contributed to Hillary Clinton's campaign in July and the average donation is just $44,” Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin said. “That grass-roots support is the true power behind this campaign as Hillary lays out her plans to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.”
But the high-dollar backing from some of the wealthiest Americans contrasts with some of the themes at last week’s Philadelphia convention. Clinton, who called in her convention address to get “money out of politics,” repeatedly has said her presidency would work for lower- and middle-class Americans while taxing the wealthiest, like Wall Street executives.
“I believe American corporations that have gotten so much from our country should be just as patriotic in return. Many of them are. But too many aren't,” Clinton said during her nomination acceptance speech. “It's wrong to take tax breaks with one hand and give out pink slips with the other. And I believe Wall Street can never, ever be allowed to wreck Main Street again.”
The super PACs, though, are a valued resource to push Clinton along in her quest to be the first female president.
American Bridge 21st Century was founded in 2010 to provide opposition research to the Democratic Party by following key Republicans and videotaping everything they say. The material is used to blanket airwaves and the Internet with their foibles. Its site is mostly dedicated to the presidential race.
Priorities USA Action 2016 was founded a year later with the purpose of raising funds from wealthy donors. Its website states “We’re all in for Hillary Clinton.” Correct the Record’s mission is to “defend Hillary Clinton against baseless attacks.”
Despite the looming ad onslaught, Trump’s campaign is voicing confidence about its financial position, after announcing an $80 million July fundraising haul for the campaign and the GOP. The haul marks a big fundraising surge, and comes close to the combined $90 million raked in by Clinton and the Democrats last month.
"The campaign is in good shape. We are organized. We are moving forward," campaign chairman Paul Manafort told Fox News' "Happening Now" on Wednesday.
While Trump also is willing to keep spending from his own fortune to pad the account if necessary, Clinton enjoys a deep bench with deep pockets.
The other billionaires who donated to her cause are: heir to the Hyatt Hotel chain J.B. Pritzker and his wife Mary; Slim-Fast founder Daniel Abraham; film executive Thomas Tull; entrepreneur Marc Benioff; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg; Jon and Pat Stryker, heirs to a self-named family medical device company; scientist David E. Shaw; philanthropist Barbara Lee; financiers John Doerr, Bernard Schwartz, Roger Altman, Henry Laufer and Herb Sandler; and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Oprah Winfrey stated on television that she endorses Clinton, but she doesn’t have any donations listed on the FEC website.
But one high-profile backer has decided to fund his own anti-Trump endeavors.
Billionaire Tom Steyer spent $1.9 million through his environmental action organization NextGen to produce a television commercial titled “The Wall,” which ran in California during the Republican convention. In the commercial, Steyer and a group of young people stand in front of a montage of Trump clips where the candidate discusses building a wall at the border. “That’s not America,” Steyer states as the group says in chorus, “Vote!”
Earlier this year, Steyer told reporters he would spend $25 million in an effort to turn out youth voters. He historically has used the nonprofit NextGen as a political platform for Democratic candidates.
Report: Hillary Clinton would hike taxes by $1.3 trillion
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| Will small business owners suffer under Clinton's tax plan? |
The American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, released a report Thursday finding Clinton’s domestic agenda would “have a dramatic effect on the federal budget.”
Gordon Gray, American Action Forum’s director of fiscal policy, based the report on estimates of policy proposals from the Clinton campaign itself, as well as independent analyses from the Tax Policy Center and the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Gray found Clinton’s policies for expanding government’s role in family leave and student loans would contribute significantly to the deficit, and in turn a growing national debt that stands at $19.358 trillion.
In fact, the amount of debt held by the public alone would reach $25.825 trillion in 2026 under Clinton’s plan. The amount of debt held by the public today is $13.968 trillion.
Obama denies US paid Iran to release hostages, says ISIS still a threat
President Obama on Thursday pushed back on claims that the United States paid $400 million for the release of four American hostages in Iran – defending the transaction as evidence that the controversial nuclear deal with Tehran acted as a catalyst for progress in other areas.
"This wasn’t some nefarious deal," he said during a press conference at the Pentagon. "We do not pay ransom for hostages."
Reports have surfaced in recent days that a $400 million pallet of cash was airlifted by the Obama administration to the Iranian government at the same time four Americans hostages were released.
Obama said the money sent to Iran wasn’t a secret and suggested the news had been recycled to drum up drama.
Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry flatly denied any connection between the cash — and an additional $1.3 billion interest payment — and the prisoner swap, which occurred in rapid succession.
The payment was part of a decades-old dispute over a failed military equipment deal dating to the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution in 1979, the Obama administration has said.
"The United States does not pay ransom and does not negotiate ransoms," Kerry told reporters during a press conference in Buenos Aires. "It is not our policy. This story is not a new story. This was announced by the president of the United States himself at the same time."
The Obama administration has said the payment was part of a deal under the then-U.S.-backed shah to buy $400 million worth of military equipment in 1970s. The equipment was never delivered because in 1979, the government was overthrown and revolutionaries took Americans hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
The U.S. and Iran have been negotiating the Iranian claim to the money since 1981.
Some Republicans have slammed the payment as “ransom” and says it puts more Americans at risk of being taken hostage.
"The Obama Administration’s airlift of $400 million in cash to Iran is disturbing, but hardly surprising given its long record of concessions to America’s adversaries," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a written statement. "Whatever the Administration may claim, it is clear that this payment was a ransom for Americas held hostage in Iran."
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the cash payment marked "another chapter" in the Obama administration’s "ongoing saga of misleading the American people to sell this dangerous nuclear deal."
During the press conference, Obama also gave an update on the Islamic State terror group, saying it continues to pose a serious threat to Americans.
Despite the warning, he vowed to take them down and said the group will "inevitably be defeated."
"None of the (ISIS) leaders are safe, and we’re going to keep going after them," Obama said.
"We will expose them for what they are – murderers," he added.
The president also questioned Russia’s involvement in Syria, saying the relationship raises "very serious questions."
On the domestic front, Obama called Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s claims that the U.S. election will be rigged "ridiculous."
"Of course the election is not rigged – what does that even mean?" he said in response to a reporter’s question.
"This will be an election unlike any other election," he added. "I think all of us at some point in our lives played sports or in a schoolyard – some folks, if they lose, they say they got cheated but I’ve never heard of someone that hasn’t lost yet saying they got cheated."
His advice for Trump?
"My suggestion would be to go out and try to win the election."
Both Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will soon receive classified briefings, giving them access to sensitive information about national security threats and the U.S. military posture. Asked whether he was worried about Trump having access to such material, Obama said simply that those who want to be president need to start acting like it.
"That means being able to receive these briefings and not spread them around," he said.
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