Four years ago, in a top-secret gathering in Colorado, the most powerful utility executives in the country met to hear warnings about a growing threat to their dominance over the U.S. energy markets: solar panels
The group also discussed how they could collude to influence local and state governments to help them keep U.S. citizens from getting access to rooftop solar and maintain their government-supported monopoly.
According to a presentation prepared for the group of industry moguls, if demand for residential solar installations continued to grow unchecked, it could mean the death of their businesses as they knew them. The report warned of “declining retail sales” and a “loss of customers” to outright “obsolescence” of utility companies. Fighting the Future
Ever since, the industry and its fossil fuel supporters have been waging war against their own customers. They’re trying to stop a surge in solar energy generation that could decimate utility companies across the country and finally put an end to their monopoly over energy generation.
They started by pushing for laws that would raise prices for residential solar customers to an astronomical level that would drive the majority of would-be converts away from the idea. More recently, they have focused efforts on fee hikes for solar customers that still use the main electrical grid. These increases are targeted at people like you and me in an effort to put solar panels out of our reach.
Utility companies in Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and other states have already pushed to impose harsh penalties on customers who produce some of their own power with rooftop solar panels. And now, Florida utility companies are trying to add their state to that list.
There’s a proverb that says a tiger is most dangerous when he senses his end is near. And these utility companies, like the aging tiger, are showing their teeth.
Over the past year, they’ve pumped almost $30 million into campaigns against rooftop solar panels in a desperate effort to maintain their monopoly over electricity generation — and maintain the huge paychecks for their executives.
The companies say it’s not about profits but about protecting customers who haven’t opted for solar. But really, these rooftop installations are taking away several of the main ways utilities generate profits.
First, and most obviously, there’s the power they’re not selling to people with solar panels on their roofs. But then there’s also the funding the utility companies get from taxpayers and ratepayers to build new transmission lines and power generation plants. The companies often get paid in advance for building these plants and, in the case of Duke Energy’s nuclear plants in Florida, sometimes don’t even follow through with the construction — they just pocket the money and cancel the project.
In reality, these solar users are helping not only themselves, but non-solar households as well. At times when the grid is most taxed — hot, sunny summer days — the rooftop panels are providing extra energy to the grid, reducing the need to turn on expensive emergency power plants and buy extra energy at higher rates. That’s saving non-solar customers money at the same time it’s helping keep down carbon emissions. So it’s pretty apparent that this war against solar is really all about maintaining a monopoly and making more money for the executives at these utilities. An Unwinnable War
But the thing is, they’re fighting a losing battle. In time (and not very much time), energy generated with solar panels is going to be cheaper than energy generated by traditional fossil fuels. And solar panels (which already dropped in cost by more than half since 2010) are going to be even cheaper and more accessible to homeowners. And that is going to lead to a huge change in the way people get their energy.
Think about the phone companies a decade ago — nobody thought landlines would ever become a thing of the past, but now, there are more cell phones on the planet than there are people. With cable Internet, I don’t even have a home phone anymore — it just made more financial sense to go mobile.
That’s exactly what’s going to happen in the electric industry over the coming years. And smart investors are already getting ready.
In fact, members of my investment service, The Wealth Advisory, are well prepared. We’ve invested in the absolute best solar companies out there. We’ve found the top companies generating electricity with solar power and selling it to companies and residents alike. And while those alone will bring us huge profits as the utility industry continues its decline, we’ve even zeroed in on an investment that literally goes up every time the utility industry takes a hit.
If you’re interested in finding out more about these companies and investment strategies — plus many other market-beating ideas — click here to join thousands of others who are already getting the best investment ideas, and start banking huge profits right along with us.
To investing with integrity (and foresight),
Jason Williams Wealth Daily
If you are as surprised as I am at the depth of dishonesty and corruption that has been revealed in this campaign, then you will understand why I am writing this particular column the weekend before the election.
Americans are faced with a crisis of dishonesty and corruption vastly bigger and deeper than Secretary Hillary Clinton. Defeating her is necessary if we hope to clean up our dishonest and corrupt capitol city, but in many ways Hillary is merely the most prominent face in an entire network of dishonest people.
I have been actively involved in politics and government since August of 1958.
In all those years, nothing prepared me for the avalanche of blatant corruption and dishonesty that has been exposed and detailed during this campaign.
The dishonesty infects the news media, the Justice Department, the IRS, the Veterans Administration, the State Department, and the White House, among others.
From lying about Benghazi, to lying about the Affordable Care Act, lying about the payments to Iran, lying about corruption, incompetence, dishonesty and failure at the Veterans Administration–the pervasive willingness to lie infects our government.
Secretary Clinton’s dishonesty has been breathtaking in its brazen contempt for the American people. She has mastered the art of memorizing lies and then repeating them with such arrogance and assertiveness that she almost convinces you, even when you know everything she is saying is false.
Now with the various Wikileaks, court-ordered disclosures and hard work by a small number of reporters (especially at Fox News and the Wall Street Journal) we have learned that Hillary’s mendacity is merely the most public in a network of corruption and dishonesty so pervasive it can only be described as a cesspool that threatens the entire American system.
One of the greatest dangers to our entire system of self-government under the laws has been the growth in foreign influence seeking to buy control of American policies and actions.
Our Founding Fathers were vividly aware of the danger of foreign money and influence-seeking to control our politics and our government. In fact, they wrote a prohibition against foreign influence buying into the Constitution.
Article I, Section 9 says, “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
“Emolument” is a fancy word for payment.
Congress has implemented this ban through the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, which specifically prohibits spouses of public officials from receiving payments linked to foreign governments. Thus, during the eight years Hillary was in the Senate and the four years she was Secretary of State, every foreign government payment to President Bill Clinton or to the Clinton Foundation was expressly prohibited by the Constitution and by federal law.
Why were the Founding Fathers 229 years ago worried that people like the Clintons would introduce foreign corruption?
First, they had lived through the corruption of the British government, and rebelled against it. As Gordon Wood has described authoritatively, the Americans embraced the Whig critique of and hostility to corruption. Their passion for limited government was in part driven by the depth of their hostility toward government corruption.
Decades before Lord Acton warned that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” the Founding Fathers were designing a constitution to enforce the law and limit dishonesty and corruption.
Second, many of the Founding Fathers had read Roman and Greek history. They had a profound sense of the degree to which corruption destroyed liberty and the rule of law leading to dictatorship and tyranny.
If you read Colleen McCullough’s magnificent novels about the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of Caesar you will see sobering parallels.
Volume one is called The First Man in Rome. Already, in that first book (set around 100 B.C.), foreign rulers had learned that the Roman Senate had grown corrupt and could be bribed. The cancer of dishonesty was growing throughout the Roman power structure.
McCullough would have understood the Clintons and the cesspool of corruption they live in and preside over.
Donald Trump says he will drain the swamp.
We all need to understand how big a job and how great a struggle that will be.
President John Adams warned:
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
We are now testing the capacity of America to survive immoral, dishonest corrupt leaders and a network of corruption that is pervasive and frighteningly powerful.
If, in John Dean’s words, The Watergate cover-up was a “cancer on the Presidency,” then the scale and influence of today’s dishonesty and corruption is a cancer threatening the very survival of the rule of law and the American system of self government.
Lincoln, seeking to prevail in a crisis of the Republic, went to Gettysburg and rallied the American people with these words:
It is for us the living…to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Now it is our turn to rededicate ourselves to the same cause–to reject the pervasive dishonesty and corruption that threatens our system and our institutions, and to return once again to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
That is how important next Tuesday is.
Your Friend,
Newt
Ragan Freitag and Don Gould serve on the Will County Board Republican Caucus. They helped pass a property tax reduction last year and will be voting for a property tax decrease this year. As elected officials they want what is best for the citizens in Will County. They both are very accessible and active in the community. Their opponent said he would raise your Property tax.
He’s been called the “King of Illinois.” Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan is the most powerful politician in Illinois history, and the longest-serving state House speaker in the nation. This unprecedented documentary explores his reign over the Illinois Statehouse.
Why the U.S. presidential election has the entire world confused
Well, everyone thought it was a sure thing — Hillary Clinton had the White House in the bag; the entire political system from the DNC to the RNC and the mainstream media had already called the election over and done. Online gambling sites listed Clinton as a sure bet and Irish site Paddy Power even paid out one million dollars on the assumption of a Clinton win. And then one Weiner ruined everything — Anthony Weiner.
The revelation of an October surprise re-opening of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s misuse of classified data on private and vulnerable email servers does not come as a shock to me, but it certainly does to many people around the world. Hundreds of mainstream outlets are scrambling to spin the news as misconduct by the FBI rather than a victory for the halls of justice. Numerous alternative media analysts are rushing to cover their butts and admit that there is now a “chance” of a Trump win. Confusion reigns supreme as the weirdest election in U.S. history continues to bewilder observers.
The first issue that needs to be addressed is the lack of an open mind displayed by some when it comes to the real purpose behind this election. The second issue here, of course, is one of timing.
Through the majority of this election cycle the public consensus has been that Clinton will win. Some argued that Trump would not be able to compete with the leftist media empire standing against him, while others have argued that the entire system including the Republican establishment would ensure that Trump would fail. The alternative media has in the past simply pointed out that elections have always been rigged, either by the elites playing both sides of the competition, or through outright voter fraud. They have assumed that the elites want Clinton, and therefore, the election has already been decided.
I tend to agree with the latter point of view, though I disagree with the conclusion. U.S. elections are indeed controlled, and have been for decades, primarily through the false left/right paradigm. However, as I have been pointing out since I correctly predicted the success of the Brexit referendum, I don’t think that Clinton is the choice of the elites.
I outline my reasons for this conclusion in-depth in articles like 2016 will end with economic instability and a Trump presidency published in August. For the past several months it seems as though I have been the only person holding the view that Trump will be president. Only in the past few days have I received emails from readers stating that they used to think I was probably crazy, but now they aren’t so sure…
Of course, the election is not over yet, and if Clinton ends up soiling the already thoroughly soiled Oval Office with her presence, then everyone can color me confused as well. That said, here are some issues that I think many people are overlooking when coming to conclusions on the election and the events surrounding it.
Clinton is the worst candidate the elites could have chosen
I have been studying the activities and behaviors of establishment elites for over a decade and I have to say… they are not stupid. They certainly have hubris, and I would not call them “wise,” but they are definitely devious. They know how to rig a game. They know how to cheat to get what they want when it comes to politics and how to manufacture consent from portions of the public. They’ve been doing it a long time. They have mastered it.
So, in my view it is rather insane for the elites to field a candidate such as Hillary Clinton if the entirety of their globalist empire hangs in the balance. Though she is fond of BleachBit, the woman is unbleachable. With a decades-long rap sheet from her work at Rose Law Firm (in which document destruction and “misplacement” was apparently routine) to her interference with investigations into Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions, to the strange odyssey surrounding her lies on the Benghazi attack, as well as her rampant mishandling of classified documents as head of the state department, not to mention the Clinton Foundation’s pay to play scandals, it is impossible to endear her to the masses. Her dismal crowd turnouts are rather indicative of this.
On top of all this, Clinton’s anti-Russia rhetoric is coming off as absolutely crazy, and I think this is by design. Many in the alternative media forget that the average person may not be up to speed on the same information we are, but most of them aren’t ignorant. Clinton’s ravings on Russian hacking and potential war are even putting liberals off rather than inspiring their confidence.
One would think that if the elites have their veritable pick of any politician to represent their interests in the White House and convince the American public to go along for the ride, Clinton would be the worst choice. Even if the intention were to rig the election in favor of Clinton, she would be a lame-duck president the second she took office, and, her mere presence would galvanize conservatives to the point of mass rebellion.
This is not generally how the elites play the game. Instead, they prefer co-option to direct confrontation.
Which president is better for the elites during an economic breakdown?
Those that follow the underlying economic data that the mainstream tends to ignore know that large swaths of the global financial system are not long for this world. With Europe’s banking system plunging towards a Lehman-style event, the OPEC production freeze deal ready to fall apart yet again, and the Federal Reserve threatening to raise rates into recessionary conditions in December, our already floundering fiscal structure is approaching another crisis.
My questions has always been who would the elites rather have in office when this crisis occurs? I’ve said it a hundred times before and I’ll say it again here: with Clinton in office, globalists and international financiers get the blame for any economic downturn. With Trump in office, conservative movements will be blamed. In fact, I suggest anyone who doubts this scenario watch stock market reactions every time Trump rises in the polls or Clinton faces renewed scandal. The narrative is already being prepared — a Trump win equals a market loss.
The FBI’s move prepares the way for Trump
Clinton and the DNC argue that FBI Director James Comey’s announcement of a re-opened investigation is politically motivated. And they are right, sort of. The real motivation, I believe, is that Clinton was never meant to win the election, and that the elites want Trump in place during the final hours of the U.S. economy. Everything else is just theater.
The democrats are crying foul and accusing Comey of “working with Putin,” or working with the alt-right. The nefarious Harry Reid has even accused the FBI of hiding Trump’s supposed ties to the Russian government and violating the Hatch Act.
I think much of this outrage is real, as I believe much of the mainstream media attacks on Trump are coming from people who really think they are waging a propaganda war to get Hillary Clinton elected. This, however, does not mean that the elites plan to install Clinton.
Some might see my position as bizarre. I understand. But equally bizarre to me are some of the rationalizations people attempt to argue when dealing with the Comey revelation.
For example, the argument that the entire re-opening of the investigation is a complex ploy designed by the establishment to distract away from the Wikileaks data dumps. This makes little sense. If anything, the re-opening investigation is only bringing more attention to the Wikileaks data, not less. If the elites were hoping to create a distraction, they failed miserably.
The FBI’s announcement only harms the Clinton campaign. Period. Even if it fizzles out, even if they announce that nothing was found, the investigation hitting the news streams so close to election day refocuses all public attention back on Clinton’s corruption and will continue to do so for the next week at least. The idea that the elites hope to use it to help Clinton is absurd.
I have also seen the argument that Comey is acting to cover his own posterior, perhaps because of a fear that Trump may steal away a victory. I find this equally absurd. Months back the consensus among alternative analysts was that Comey was a traitor and the FBI was a puppet agency of the establishment. Now, suddenly, Comey is worried about a possible Trump win and so takes an action which might self-fulfill the prophecy?
Comey does what he is told. The FBI is an owned and operated elitist franchise. They do not go rogue. If the rogue FBI narrative were true and Comey actually feels the need to cover his bases with Trump, then it is only because he knows something the rest of us do not. With Clinton in office, his goose would be cooked after this little incident. Comey only gains advantage if Trump is slated to win.
Trump may or may not be aware of the plan
The bottom line, according to the evidence I have seen in terms of elitists influence over U.S. elections, is that if Trump wins it will only be because they wanted him to win. The FBI firestorm this past week appears to support my view and we still have another week left for further Clinton ugliness to be revealed. I also expect that if Trump wins, the reaction from conservatives and liberty activists will be that the event was a “miracle,” a shocking upset against the establishment. Much like the reaction to the Brexit referendum. I continue to hold that conservatives and sovereignty champions in Europe and America are being set up to take the fall for a coming global destabilization.
My position is truly the losing position, if one thinks about it honestly. If Clinton wins then I’ll probably never hear the end of it, and that’s a risk that has to be taken, because what I see here is a move on the chess board that others are not considering. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong.
That said, if I am right, then I still lose, because Trump supporters and half the liberty movement will be so enraptured that they will probably ignore the greater issue — that Trump is the candidate the elites wanted all along. It may be like the days of George W. Bush all over again, when people accused me of being a “liberal” for my criticisms.
If I am right, I cannot say either way if Trump is aware that he will be a potential scapegoat for the elites. With Trump on the way to the White House I can guarantee a Fed rate hike in December. Imagine what a staged war between Trump and the Federal Reserve will do to the U.S. dollar? I also suspect that widespread rioting is on the schedule as well from various social justice mobs; a perfect excuse for expansive martial law measures, don’t you think?
The point is, as horrifying as a Clinton presidency might be to conservatives (or everyone), don’t get too comfortable under Trump. The party is just getting started and our vigilance must be even greater with a conservative White House, because, like it or not, everything Trump does is going to reflect on us. We can no more allow unconstitutional activities under Trump than we could under Clinton. If you think the election has been chaotic and confusing, just wait until after it is over. — Brandon Smith
Trump adviser reveals how Assange ally warned him about leaked Clinton emails
Roger Stone told the Guardian he was briefed about the embarrassing and sensitive leaked emails by a ‘mutual friend’ of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
A key confidante of Donald Trump has provided new details about the “mutual friend” of Julian Assange who served as a back channel to give him broad tips in advance about WikiLeaks’ releases of emails to and from key allies of Hillary Clinton.
Roger Stone, a longtime unofficial adviser to the Republican presidential nominee, was briefed in general terms in advance about the sensitive and embarrassing leaked Democratic emails by an American libertarian who works in the media on the “opinion side”, he told the Guardian in an interview.
Stone claims his American source, whom he declined to identify, has met with Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, in London and is a “mutual friend” of Stone and Assange. The WikiLeaks source, Stone said, is not tied in any way to the Trump campaign but has served as a back channel for Stone, who is an outside adviser to the Republican presidential candidate, allowing the adviser to tweet and comment very broadly prior to some key WikiLeaks disclosures.
A source close to Trump Tower also told the Guardian that Stone once boasted to him of meeting with Assange himself and told the source, who is active in GOP political circles, that WikiLeaks would be “coming down like a ton of bricks” on Clinton. Stone adamantly denied meeting with Assange (“Your source is bullshitting u” he wrote in an email) or having any direct contact with Assange or anyone with WikiLeaks.
Despite Stone’s advance tweets and comments about some major WikiLeaks disclosures – including recent ones in October relating to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and the Clinton Foundation – the self-styled “rabble rouser” and onetime Watergate dirty tricks operative said the FBI had not contacted him in its investigation into the illegal computer hacking of private Democratic emails, and he was not worried.
“There is nothing to investigate,” Stone said. The Obama administration has accused Russia of being the source of the hack.
But Stone’s tweets and comments about forthcoming WikiLeaks releases have put him in the media spotlight and is just one of the controversial ways he has played a role as an outside Trump booster and adviser, after a several-month stint last year as a key campaign insider.
In August, well before WikiLeaks released Podesta’s emails, Stone tweeted: “Trust me, it will soon [be] Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
After thousands of Podesta’s emails were published last month, Podesta told reporters: “It’s a reasonable conclusion that Mr Stone had advanced warning and the Trump campaign had advanced warning about what Assange was going to do.”
In response to Podesta’s comments, Stone told the conservative Daily Caller: “I’ve admitted I’ve been in communication with Assange through an intermediary,” adding: “They don’t tell me what they’re going to release.”
Likewise in August, Stone told a Florida audience: “I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be.”
Last month, WikiLeaks released thousands of internal emails about the Clinton Foundation, including ones alleging a gender pay gap.
But Stone dismissed suggestions by Podesta and some congressional Democrats that he may have played a role in WikiLeaks releases or the hacking, stressing that he has no financial or client ties to Russia.
Stone, who said he talked to Trump about once a week on average, is a regular on Infowars and other conservative talk radio shows, pushing conspiracy theories and espousing the unsubstantiated view, as Trump does, that the elections are rigged. “The entire election has been rigged, including the debates,” Stone told the Guardian.
Given that premise, Stone has been leading a controversial exit poll project in nine cities that has been attacked as potential “voter suppression” by independent experts, spawned a lawsuit from Democrats, and prompted one GOP operative who knows Stone to exclaim: “It’s right out of a Roger playbook as an example of voter suppression.”
Moreover, Stone said he “totally supports” Trump’s position of waiting until after the election to say whether he will accept the results if he loses. “It will depend solely on whether the election has been fairly conducted.”
“Roger operates by a different set of rules, and his object is to disrupt,” Peter Kelly, a former lobbying partner and a Democrat, told the Guardian. “He traffics in the unusual.”
Stone was a junior figure in Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks operation during the president’s re-election campaign in 1972 when, aged only 19, he pulled off two political scams, according to the 1973 congressional hearings on Watergate, hiring a GOP operative to infiltrate the campaign of Democrat George McGovern and making contributions to Republican Pete McCloskey in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance. After Stone’s covert operations were revealed, he was sacked from his job on Senator Bob Dole’s staff. He has a tattoo of Nixon’s face on his back.
Several unsuccessful attempts were made to contact Assange for comment on any direct or indirect contact with Stone he may have had.
Clinton campaign embraces outright insanity to draw attention from emails
Longtime Clinton attack dog James Carville suggests the FBI is working in concert with “the KGB and the House Republicans” to undermine American democracy.
Joining MSNBC for a Hilary Clinton apologist-fest Monday, Carville barked that FBI Director James Comey is “acting in concert and coordination with House Republicans. End of story.”
“Why are you defending this?” he said. “Why are sitting here when our democracy is under assault? When they FBI is acting at the behest of Jason Chaffetz? And sitting here acting like this is something legit? It’s not. It’s an effort to affect this election, and Democrats and people across this country have to know this.”
Carville went on to say KGB several more times.
He, of course, refused to acknowledge that Clinton’s emails reveal that she’s a liar.
Because… KGB.
“I can’t think about the election right now, what I can think about, what I can talk about, is how unprecedented this is. And how the House Republicans and the KGB are trying the affect our democracy,” Carville said. “And I think that’s a very important issue. I think it’s probably the most important issue anybody’s aced in a presidential campaign in a long, long time.”
Wow, how things change. As MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” just pointed out:
Meanwhile, Clinton’s showing her own desperation on the campaign trail by suggesting that Republican Donald Trump wants to bring back slavery… or something.
“Abraham Lincoln understood a house divided against itself cannot stand, and that was over the greatest of challenges – the challenge posed by slavery – and we fought a civil war,” she said during an Ohio campaign stop.
Clinton continued, trying to explain that Trump would create a civil war and that she’d bring the nation together.
“Instead of dark and divisive, it’s hopeful and inclusive. It’s big-hearted, not small-minded. It is about lifting people up, not putting them down,” she said. “It’s a vision that says, and I believe this with all my heart, we are stronger together.”
CHICAGO, IL — Cook County has more cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia per capita than any other county in the country, besides one.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Cook County had 915 reported case of syphilis in 2015, 11,082 of gonorrhea and 39,539 of chlamydia. That’s a lot of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
The only county with more cases of the three sexually transmitted diseases per capita is Los Angeles County.
Per 100,000 population, Illinois had the 11th most reported cases of syphilis, 15th most cases of gonorrhea and 11th most cases of chlamydia among the 50 states. Louisiana had the most syphilis and gonorrhea per 100,000 population. Alaska ranked first for chlamydia.
The CDC also focused on the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin area and determined the number of reported cases of syphilis climbed by more than 1,500 from 2011 to 2015. In that same time period, gonorrhea cases increased as well, but by less than 400. There were nearly 5,000 more chlamydia cases in that time for that area.
But it’s not all bad in Cook County. Those 915 cases of syphilis in Cook equal 17.4 per 100,000 population. Not great, sure, but definitely way better than the 45.2 in Fulton County, Georgia, or the 60.5 in San Francisco County. And the City of St. Louis alone has nearly three times the cases of gonorrhea per 100,000 population than all of Cook County combined. St. Louis also has an awful lot more cases of chlamydia per 100,000 population than Cook County.
Cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia are all up nationwide, according to the CDC. From 2014 to 2015, syphilis cases increased by 19 percent, gonorrhea rose 12.8 percent and chlamydia went up 5.9 percent.
Photo via the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
IS HUMA ABEDIN HILLARY CLINTON’S SECRET WEAPON OR HER NEXT BIG PROBLEM?
The loyal aide has spent decades at the presidential contender’s side with unparalleled access. But with a powerful Republican senator raising questions about her role in the Clinton-era State Department, Abedin finds herself the latest victim of the Stop Hillary movement.
Huma Abedin, about to testify in a closed hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, on Capitol Hill, October 16, 2015.
By Jacquelyn Martin/A.P. Images
Faced with an unending scandal about her use of a private e-mail server when she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton decided last September to “reset” her presidential campaign. As Amy Chozick wrote in the New York Times, the new Hillary would display her “humor” and her “heart,” the qualities that her friends say rarely come across in public appearances.
The reset reached its zenith on October 3 when Hillary appeared on Saturday Night Live as “Val,” a bartender to whom Kate McKinnon, as Hillary Clinton, pours her heart out. The six-minute segment ends with “Hillary” and “Val” bonding as they sing “Stand by Me,” the Ben E. King classic. “Hillary” gets so carried away with her manic crooning that she doesn’t realize “Val” has disappeared and been replaced by cast member Cecily Strong, playing a character known as “Huma.” “I was just hanging out with my best friend Val,” Hillary says. Huma tells Hillary there is no one there. “I think you’ve had one too many, Hillary, let’s go,” Huma says.
Huma, as anyone who follows politics knows, is 40-year-old Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s “shadow,” as Politico once described her. She began working for Hillary in 1996, when she was a 19-year-old intern fresh from George Washington University assigned to the First Lady’s office. Abedin had wanted to be a journalist like her hero Christiane Amanpour and was hoping to work in the White House press office. “Take a chance,” her mother told her. “Don’t fall in love with Plan A.” Huma took the advice. “Sixteen years later, I wouldn’t change a thing,” she told a dinner audience in 2012, at a Fortune conference. “And I got to meet Christiane Amanpour.”
Over the years Huma has served in several positions, with increasingly important-sounding titles. She has been Hillary’s “body woman,” her traveling chief of staff, a senior adviser, and a deputy chief of staff when Hillary was secretary of state. Now, based in Brooklyn, she is the vice-chair of Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign. But whatever the title, the job she performs for Hillary has always been essentially the same: confessor, confidante, and constant companion. It’s safe to say that over the years Abedin and Hillary have spent more time together than either has with her husband.
A former adviser to Bill Clinton describes her as “a mini Hillary.” Wherever Hillary goes, Abedin goes. In November 2008, when Hillary flew to Chicago to meet with President-Elect Barack Obama to discuss becoming secretary of state, she took Huma along. During Hillary’s grueling, nearly 11-hour congressional testimony in October about Benghazi, Abedin was there. She has been referred to as a “second daughter” to the Clintons. Others have described Hillary and Huma as like sisters.
Whoever wants to curry favor with Hillary has to go through Abedin, as thousands of recently released e-mails make abundantly clear. For the quotidian matters of the schedule, she speaks for Hillary, and people adept at getting access to Hillary know it. “Everybody fights to be at the center,” the former adviser says, “and Huma controls a lot of that dynamic.”
“I’m not sure Hillary could walk out the door without Huma,” Clinton adviser Mandy Grunwald told Vogue’s Rebecca Johnson eight years ago. “She’s a little like Radar on *M*A*S*H. If the air-conditioning is too cold, Huma is there with the shawl. She’s always thinking three steps ahead of Hillary.” It’s still true today. Nothing Hillary-related is too big or too small for Abedin’s purview. Take, for example, the secretary of state’s December 2009 struggle to get a faxed document:
Abedin: Can you hang up the fax line? They will call again and try fax.
Clinton: I thought it was supposed to be off hook to work?
Abedin: Yes, but hang up one more time. So they can reestablish the line.
Clinton: I did.
Abedin: Just pick up phone and hang it up. And leave it hung up.
Clinton: I’ve done it twice now. Still nothing.
In January 2013, Abedin was concerned that Clinton might miss an early-morning call from Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India. Abedin discussed the call with Monica Hanley, another Clinton aide.
Abedin: Have you been going over her calls with her? So she knows [S]ingh is at 8?
Hanley: She was in bed for a nap by the time I heard that she had an 8am call. Will go over with her.
Abedin: Very imp[ortant] to do that. She’s often confused.
In her new position as vice-chair of Hillary’s campaign, Huma has even taken to being a stand-in for her boss at campaign-related events. In October, she and Vogue’s Anna Wintour were off to Paris together for a $1,000-a-person fund-raiser at the home of James Cook, an American businessman.
But, for all her proximity to the white-hot center of American politics, Abedin is every bit as unknown to the general public as her boss is world-famous.
FOLLOW THE FAITH
Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her mother, Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is Pakistani; her late father, Syed Zainul Abedin, was Indian. Both were intellectuals. When Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank, and became the first editor of its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which stated its mission as “shedding light” on minority Muslim communities around the world in the hope of “securing the legitimate rights of these communities.”
After Syed died, in 1993, his wife succeeded him as director of the institute and editor of the Journal,positions she still holds. She has also been active in the International Islamic Council for Da’wa and Relief, which is now headed by Nasseef and was banned in Israel on account of its ties to the Union of Good, a pro-Hamas fund-raising network, run by Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Google Abdullah Omar Nasseef, the man who set up the Abedins in Jidda, and a host of right-wing screeds pop up. Though he is a high-ranking insider in the Saudi government and sits on the king’s Shura Council, there are claims that Nasseef once had ties to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda—a charge that he has denied through a spokesman—and that he remains a “major” figure in the Muslim Brotherhood. In his early years as the patron of the Abedins’ journal, Nasseef was the secretary-general of the Muslim World League, which Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the “Blind Sheik,” Omar Abdel Rahman, in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, claims “has long been the Muslim Brotherhood’s principal vehicle for the international propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology.”
Google Yusuf al-Qaradawi and you’ll find even more right-wing hysteria. Says McCarthy, who has conducted something of a personal crusade on the question of the Abedin family’s purported connections, “The Union of Good is a designated terrorist organization and Qaradawi is the leading global jurisprudent”—a term McCarthy prefers to “cleric”—“of the Muslim Brotherhood, who has issued fatwas calling for suicide bombings in the Palestinian territories and in Israel and has called for the killings of American soldiers in Iraq.”
It turns out the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is an Abedin family business. Huma was an assistant editor there between 1996 and 2008. Her brother, Hassan, 45, is a book-review editor at the Journal and was a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, where Nasseef is chairman of the board of trustees. Huma’s sister, Heba, 26, is an assistant editor at the Journal.
In June 2012, then congresswoman Michele Bachmann and four conservative congressmen wrote to the State Department warning that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. government. The letter specifically cited Abedin: “Huma Abedin has three family members—her late father, her mother and her brother—connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations,” they wrote. But a month later Senator John McCain, no friend of the Clintons, took to the Senate floor to denounce Bachmann’s letter as an “unwarranted and unfounded attack” on Abedin. “I know Huma to be an intelligent, upstanding, hard-working, and loyal servant of our country and our government.”
“There are few things that President Obama and John McCain agree on. One is that … Bachmann’s lies about Huma are baseless and bigoted fear-mongering,” says Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill.
The Washington Post once described Abedin as “notoriously private.” That’s a fiction, of course. Like many other political operatives, she appears in the media when it suits her agenda. (Appearing in Vanity Fair is not on it; the Clinton campaign declined to make her available despite repeated requests.) The campaign has put the fear of God into many who might speak about her. One longtime Clinton observer explained that, along with Chelsea, Abedin is “the third rail” of the Clinton political world. “I’m being very candid with you,” this person says. “It’s a situation where everyone’s afraid to comment for fear that they’ll be misquoted, for fear of saying something they may think is laudatory that others may not. You can’t imagine the paranoia…. It’s a paranoia that clearly affects how everyone responds to Huma.”
There is a long list of usually chatty Clinton surrogates and supporters who have gone mute on the subject of Huma Abedin. The ones who didn’t get the memo, or choose to ignore it, stick close to the prescribed script. Michael Feldman, the managing director of the Glover Park Group, a communications consulting firm, says that after 20 years Abedin has become part of the “institutional memory” and now occupies “a really important and unique place in an organization.” Bob Barnett, the lawyer who brokered the Clintons’ multi-million-dollar book deals, says Huma is “now one of the key glues that holds Clintonworld together…. She knows everyone and everyone knows her. She knows their strengths. She knows their weaknesses. She knows the roles they’ve played, and that history is priceless to a person in public life.” “Huma is a terrific leader. She’s multifaceted, has a great strategic sense, and she’s a wonderful colleague. She’s an integral part of the team, and her competence is only exceeded by her humility,” says Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
When Anthony Weiner, then in his second term as a congressman from Queens, New York, first saw Abedin around Washington, in 2001, early in Hillary’s Senate term, “I was like, ‘Wow, who is that?’ ” he told The New York Times Magazine’s Jonathan Van Meter in 2013 for an in-depth story about their courtship and marriage.
At a Democratic Party retreat on Martha’s Vineyard, in August 2001, he asked her out for a drink. She said she had to work, but Hillary promptly gave her the night off and urged the two young folks to go out and have fun. In the event, Abedin, who doesn’t drink alcohol, ordered tea and then retreated to the bathroom. She was slow to return. “She ditched me,” Weiner recalled to Van Meter.
They kept running into each other, but Abedin wasn’t interested. She thought he was a brash, ambitious, camera-hogging New Yorker. But opposites began to attract during George W. Bush’s 2007 State of the Union address, at which Weiner found himself sitting between Senators Clinton and Obama. “I appreciate you looking out for my boss,” Huma texted him. By 2008 their relationship had become romantic, and they were married on July 10, 2010, with President Clinton presiding.
In May 2011, Abedin accompanied Hillary and Obama on a trip to London that included a state dinner at Buckingham Palace. Abedin was invited to the festivities and afterward, in her “spectacular” room at the palace, wrote to Weiner: “I cannot believe what an amazingly blessed life that we live, these incredible experiences we’ve both had.” It was like a fairy tale.
A few days later, though, the fairy tale became a nightmare when Weiner called and left a message for his wife, who was in Washington: “My Twitter was hacked.” In fact, despite what he told Abedin and the media, Weiner had mistakenly tweeted a photograph of his erection, meant for a 21-year-old college student in Seattle, to his 45,000 followers. Reporters besieged him.
Desperate for privacy, he and his wife, then pregnant, spent the first weekend of June at a friend’s house in the Hamptons. As they were packing up the car to return to New York City, Weiner confessed, “It’s true. It’s me. The picture is me. I sent it.” Abedin was devastated. “It was every emotion that one would imagine: rage and anger and shock,” she told the Times.
At a news conference on June 6, Weiner tried to come clean. He admitted he had sent explicit messages to six women during the previous three years, but said he had never actually met any of them. One longtime State Department official says that inside Foggy Bottom some people’s initial reaction was that Abedin might have driven Weiner to sexting because she “was never around. She gave so much to Hillary Clinton, what did she have left for him? It was politically incorrect, but we did wonder.”
Abedin turned to Hillary. After all, who better to give advice on a husband’s extramarital escapades? The next day Huma returned to work at the State Department. “My compass was my job,” she said. “It was where I could go and life was normal.”
“Huma didn’t really want me to [resign], frankly,” Weiner told Van Meter. “Her frame was: ‘We’ve got to get back to normal somehow.’ ” But between Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s call for his resignation and the fact that the Clintons were now disgusted with him, according to Politico, he believed he had no choice. He resigned the following day, which meant the end of his $174,000 salary, leaving the couple to make do with Abedin’s $155,000 State Department compensation.
THE MONEY TRAIL
After the scandal broke, Clintonworld seemed to go into overdrive to help Huma financially. A key first step was finding the family a new place to live. Soon after he resigned from Congress, Weiner sold his Forest Hills condominium for $430,000. Then Abedin sold her Washington condominium, for $620,000, at a loss of $29,000. Thanks to the generosity of Jack Rosen, a longtime Clinton supporter and New York developer, the couple moved into a sunlit, 12th-floor, 2,120-square-foot, four-bedroom apartment in one of Rosen’s buildings, at 254 Park Avenue South. The monthly rent has been estimated to have been at least $12,000. (In an interview, Rosen says the apartment was made available to the couple in part because of his relationship with the Clintons and they paid a market rental rate.) How Weiner and Abedin could afford the rent had the press wondering, although Weiner had started a consulting firm, Woolf Weiner Associates. The couple reported a combined income of $496,000 for 2012. (While Woolf Weiner remains a corporate entity, last July Weiner joined MWW, a public-relations firm. Two months later he was gone. “I was either not consulted or ignored on every part of this excellent summer adventure,” he tweeted.)
The next step was to sign off on Abedin’s 2012 request to become a “special government employee,” or S.G.E., at the State Department. This would allow her to continue to get paid while working from home, in New York City, as a consultant with expertise that no other person could supply on a “myriad of policy, administrative and logistical issues,” according to her application for S.G.E. status. At the same time she could care for her new baby son, Jordan, born on December 21, 2011. She became an S.G.E. in early June 2012 and was paid $62.06 per hour.
By then, Abedin was also acting as a consultant to Teneo Holdings, a global strategic-consulting and investment-banking firm co-founded by her old friend Douglas Band, who did the same thing for Bill Clinton that she did for Hillary. For the seven months she worked at Teneo, she was paid $105,000.
In addition to the State Department and Teneo jobs, Huma was hired as a consultant to the William J. Clinton Foundation to help plan for Hillary’s “post-State philanthropic activities,” and as a personal employee of Hillary’s.
The potential for conflicts cropped up immediately. In April 2012, after her maternity leave and while she was waiting to get her S.G.E. designation, Teneo asked her to intercede on behalf of its client Judith Rodin, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, in obtaining a seat on the President’s Global Development Council. That year, the Rockefeller Foundation paid Teneo $5.7 million for public-relations work. “[Rodin] is expecting us to help her get appointed to this,” reads the subject line of an e-mail between two Teneo officials. “[Senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett’s] team is aware of the request, but has not made a commitment,” another e-mail explains. A few months later Band e-mailed Abedin: “Judy Rodin. Huge [Clinton] foundation/cgi [Clinton Global Initiative] supporter and close pal of wjc [Bill Clinton]. Teneo reps her as well. Can you help?” (There was no reply from Abedin in the e-mail chain, and Rodin did not get the appointment.)
In July 2012, Huma, Weiner, and Jordan, then six months old, posed for People magazine in their Park Avenue South apartment, which had been listed for sale at more than $3 million. In the piece Abedin proclaimed, “Anthony has spent every day since [the scandal] trying to be the best dad and husband he can be. I’m proud to be married to him.”
Soon thereafter, Weiner announced he was running for mayor. But it turned out he had again sent sexual messages to a woman on social media, starting in July 2012, after the People story appeared. He ended up losing badly in the Democratic primary. For many in Clintonworld, this was the end of their involvement with Anthony Weiner. “The Clintons have put him in exile,” one longtime Clinton insider says.
But not Huma. She quickly returned to Hillary’s side. Daniel Halper, online editor at the conservative Weekly Standard and the author of Clinton, Inc., an unflattering portrait of the Clintons, theorizes Huma had little choice after the second sexting fiasco but to stick with Hillary. “She started sort of easing her way out,” he says. “It would have helped if she was the First Lady of New York and would’ve had her own gig going, but, of course, her husband completely fucked her over. But, at that point, there was no way for her to exit gracefully.”
CORN STATE CRITIC
In June 2013, Huma’s various roles caught the attention of Iowa Republican senator Charles Grassley, then the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a June 13 letter to Abedin, he claimed that Teneo had paid her for gathering “political intelligence” on behalf of its clients. (Teneo disputes this assertion.) He noted that, in addition to her $135,000 State Department compensation, she had also been paid “as much as $355,000” for her other consulting. He said he was “concerned” that her S.G.E. status “blurs the line between public and private sector employees.” He asked her to provide him information about her various jobs. In her July 5 response, she denied providing any advice or insights to Teneo clients about the State Department.
But these answers did not mollify Grassley. Specifically, he objected to Abedin’s becoming an S.G.E., because he believed she provided no irreplaceable expertise and therefore her designation as one had violated Congress’s intent when it created the program, in 1962. The State Department dismissed his concerns. Her appointment as an S.G.E. “was consistent with employment and ethics rules,” it said. “She was retained for her expert knowledge of policy, administrative, and other matters.”
Grassley, now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, remains unsatisfied and has cited another Abedin-related beef: he claims she had worked 244 days as an S.G.E., far more than the 130 days allowed by the federal S.G.E. law. “If there’s a reason for more than 130 days, then she shouldn’t be an S.G.E.,” he says. “She ought to be a full-time employee.” But, according to someone close to Abedin, the State Department’s Office of Inspector General “miscalculated” the amount of time Huma worked as an S.G.E. and Grassley and his staff are “wrong” about the implications of her working more than 130 days as one. In her interview with the O.I.G,. Abedin recalled receiving verbal approval for the time she spent working.
Grassley continues to probe Abedin’s potential conflicts of interest when she was getting four different paychecks at once. “We know she set up dinners for Secretary Clinton and her private-sector employers and e-mailed private-sector employees from government accounts,” he says.
During the course of his looking into Abedin’s S.G.E. status, the senator stumbled upon an O.I.G. “criminal” inquiry, commenced in October 2013, about whether Abedin knowingly got paid for hours she did not work while she was on vacation and maternity leave. The heavily redacted report of the inquiry, dated January 2015, is titled “Huma Abedin. Embezzlement.” Essentially, the O.I.G. found that Abedin was paid $33,140.03 (or $20,331.42 after taxes) in a lump sum as a result of her possibly submitting “false or inaccurate time records resulting in pay received for work hours which should have been charged to sick and/or annual leave.” (The Department of Justice declined to prosecute.)
The report makes clear that there was confusion about whether she had been authorized to take a maternity leave and whether she should have been paid for a “babymoon”—an August 2011 trip Abedin, then pregnant, and Weiner took to Italy. During that trip, she said in an interview with investigators, “Every day we had calls. We had emails. I was—I feel like I was constantly on conference calls. I have clear memories of walking around and just being on a conference call the whole time as we were walking.” The 161-page report concludes that the State Department wants her to repay $10,674.32, which equates to 62 days of work. As of this writing Abedin has not done so, pending an administrative appeal.
In Clintonworld, the reaction to Grassley’s relentless assault on Huma is one of resignation. “It’s understood that if you live in that white-hot center in Clintonland you’ll be the subject of investigations, you’ll be the subject of personal attacks,” explains the longtime Clinton observer. “You expect it to come, and it’s handled. She’s done nothing wrong and has nothing to be apprehensive about. It doesn’t mean she still won’t be attacked.” Another says simply, “Senator Grassley would not be pursuing Huma if she was not a key senior aide to Secretary Clinton.”
Grassley says that charge is ridiculous and that he has no plans to give up this fight until he gets more information from Abedin and the State Department. The Judiciary Committee’s lawyers have been trying to schedule a meeting with Abedin’s lawyer, Miguel Rodríguez, but that meeting keeps getting postponed. (Each side says the other is to blame.) “I have to go by my reputation,” Grassley says. “I don’t give up. You know the old saying ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat’?”
But Rodríguez says, “Neither the law nor the facts support Senator Grassley’s baseless allegations and extrapolated conclusions. It is disappointing that the senator and his staff continue to focus a politically motivated campaign on Ms. Abedin, who has been known her entire professional life for hard work, integrity, and her sterling reputation. It is people like Ms. Abedin whom we should all want in public service.”
Whether it’s palatable for the vice-chairman of Hillary’s presidential campaign to be embroiled in allegations of conflicts of interest, obtaining patronage jobs, or misrepresenting time worked remains to be seen. Asked if at some point Huma becomes a liability to Hillary, the long-term Clinton insider replies, “It’s like anything else. I don’t think so, but you know I don’t have any idea. Hillary is very loyal, but she’s obviously pragmatic.”
It’s all gotten more complicated since the simpler days of 2011, when one Saturday morning, just before noon, Huma sent Hillary a copy of an A.P. story about gunmen who tried to assassinate the head of the Libyan Army. Hillary replied about an hour later: “Did you get info from Chelsea about the wall lamps?”
Chelsea had sent Huma the link. Huma replied, “They are beautiful, but way out of my price range!”
“Did you look at all the ones in the link to the brand?” Hillary asked later that afternoon. “Can you call me at home?”
Ed Note: This article has been changed from its original, adding an attribution to the New York Timesin the opening paragraph.
The left-wing attack machine wasted no time in posting an article with false information and smears in order to protect the Clinton campaign.
Hillary Clinton has stated publicly that she helped “start and support” Media Matters, and that organization has consistently come to Clinton’s aid with a consistent campaign of misinformation, half-truths and smears of her critics that can then get repeated by the mainstream media.
The Vanity Fair article must have sent shockwaves through the Clinton camp. It’s rare to read mainstream press criticism of Huma Abedin.
Instead, mainstream adoration for Huma by the media is often so over the top that even other outlets are forced to say something. For example, after Abedin’s husband, disgraced former New York congressman Anthony Weiner, was once again caught sexting with other women as he ran for mayor of New York City, New York magazine published a piece so gushing that it led the Atlantic to write an article titled New York Magazine Has a Crush on Huma Abedin. New Republic chimed in and said that “Abedin always gets good press, but this piece takes it to a new level” and cited this description of Huma as an example of New York’s Silliest/Creepiest Huma Abedin Descriptions:
She wore bright-red lipstick, which gave her lips a 3-D look, her brown eyes were pools of empathy evolved through a thousand generations of what was good and decent in the history of the human race.
Despite the fawning coverage she has received, there are many unanswered questions about Abedin, especially given her complete access to Hillary Clinton, one of the most powerful people in the world, a former Secretary of State and possible future president. As Vanity Fair’ William Cohan writes in his piece:
Over the years Huma has served in several positions, with increasingly important-sounding titles. She has been Hillary’s “body woman,” her traveling chief of staff, a senior adviser, and a deputy chief of staff when Hillary was secretary of state. Now, based in Brooklyn, she is the vice-chair of Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The Facts about Huma Abedin and Abdullah Omar Nasseef
To his credit, Cohan’s Vanity Fair piece on the secretive Abedin confirms a number of facts that have been reported by conservative media for a couple of years but have been twisted and convoluted by the mainstream media.
For example, the Vanity Fair article flatly lays out the information that Huma Abedin was an assistant editor at a publication called the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs from 1996 until 2008. He writes:
When (Huma) Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank, and became the first editor of its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which stated its mission as “shedding light” on minority Muslim communities around the world in the hope of “securing the legitimate rights of these communities.”
…
It turns out the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is an Abedin family business. Huma was an assistant editor there between 1996 and 2008. Her brother, Hassan, 45, is a book-review editor at the Journal and was a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, where Nasseef is chairman of the board of trustees. Huma’s sister, Heba, 26, is an assistant editor at the Journal.
Not one statement is actually controversial because they can all be confirmed by simple research that refers to primary sources. In other words, you don’t need to reference conservative media in any way to determine the truth about the Abedin family and their connections to Abdullah Omar Nasseef.
As the masthead of this 1996 issue of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs shows, Huma Abedin was an assistant editor at Journal. Down the masthead you can see the name of Abdullah Omar Nasseef.
Because of the smear tactics used by Media Matters and repeated by the mainstream media, this point cannot be stressed enough: this is a primary source showing Abedin was an Assistant Editor of the Journal. It’s not a right-wing theory, a conservative fever dream, Islamaphobia nonsense or anti-Muslim fear-mongering. It’s a fact, a cold hard fact shown on the Journal’s masthead at the site where the Journal itself publishes.
Because it’s such it’s an easily verified fact, it should not be a significant breakthrough that the mainstream publication Vanity Fair published the truth about Huma Abedin’s clear and indisputable connection to the Journal and Naseef.
It is a breakthrough, however, and that’s precisely why Media Matters for America immediately went to work trying to obscure the facts, telling its readers— which include many journalists— that claiming Huma Abedin has connections to alleged terror funders is a “spider-web of guilt by association.”
Although Cohan brought the facts about Abedin to light for the first time in a mainstream media article, he failed to flesh out some of the key background of Abdullah Omar Nasseef.
Again, please note that we can point out these facts about Abdullah Omar Nasseef without linking to a single conservative media source. We are only going to link to primary sources and widely respected, left-leaning media like CNN and the New York Times.
Aside from helping found the “Abedin’s family business” it’s beyond dispute that Abdullah Omar Nasseef was the secretary-general of a group called the Muslim World League. That’s not controversial and Cohan does acknowledge this in Vanity Fair:
In his early years as the patron of the Abedins’ journal, Nasseef was the secretary-general of the Muslim World League, which Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the “Blind Sheik,” Omar Abdel Rahman, in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, claims “has long been the Muslim Brotherhood’s principal vehicle for the international propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology.”
Although it describes itself a nongovernment organization, the Muslim World League is an effectively an arm of the Saudi Arabian government. As a lawsuit posted on the Philadelphia Enquirer website states “a full time employee of the Muslim World League testified as follows:”
Let me tell you one thing, the Muslim World League, which is the mother of IIRO (International Islamic Relief Organization) is a fully government funded organization. In other words, I work for the government of Saudi Arabia. I am an employee of that government.
Second, the IIRO is the relief branch of that organization which means that we are controlled in all of our activities and plans by the government of Saudi Arabia.
Keep that in mind, please … I am paid by my organization which is funded by the [Saudi] government … the [IIRO] office, like any other office in the world, here or in the Muslim World League, has to abide by the policy of the government of Saudi Arabia. If anybody deviates from that, he would be fired; he would not work at all with IIRO or with the Muslim World League.
According to the group’s own website, the Muslim World League:
…is engaged in propagating the religion of Islam, elucidating its principles and tenets, refuting suspicious and false allegations made against the religion. The League also strives to persuade people to abide by the commandments of their Lord, and to keep away from prohibited deeds. The League is also ready to help Muslims solve problems facing them anywhere in the world, and carry out their projects in the sphere of Da’wah, education and culture. The League, which employs all means that are not at variance with the Sharia (Islamic law) to further its aims, is well known for rejecting all acts of violence and promoting dialogue with the people of other cultures.
The group’s claim about “rejecting all acts of violence” is specious given its connection to the Saudi government and the Kingdom’s advocacy for sharia law, which it practices with gusto.
Desperate to retain the Saudi royal family’s iron grip, Saudi Arabia banned all public gatherings. The Saudi Arabian government uses both public beheading and crucifixion as punishments, for example, and in 2012 sentenced a 16-year-old who’d protested against the government to both. Saudi Arabia recently sparked international outrage when it executed over 40 people deemed “terrorists.” Many were beheaded.
Following 9/11, the Saudis came under intense government scrutiny for their role in funding terror through ostensively charitable groups. In 2007, ABC News reported Saudis Still Filling Al Qaeda’s Coffers:
Despite six years of promises, U.S. officials say Saudi Arabia continues to look the other way at wealthy individuals identified as sending millions of dollars to al Qaeda.
“If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing, told ABC News.
The mainstream media has done nothing to serious vet the connection between the Clinton and Saudi Arabia, and the key role Huma Abedin plays in the life and work of Hillary Clinton are one core link. Abedin not only lived in Saudi Arabia from the time she was two years old, but her mother currently lives in Saudi Arabia and runs the Journal for Muslim Minority Affairs as well as being a dean at a woman’s college there.
Further tying the Clintons to the Saudis is big money. CNN reported in 2008 that “donations to the William J. Clinton Foundation include amounts of $10 million to $25 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Vanity Fair points out Huma’s ties there after Clinton left her role as Secretary of State:
In addition to the State Department and Teneo jobs, Huma was hired as a consultant to the William J. Clinton Foundation to help plan for Hillary’s “post-State philanthropic activities,” and as a personal employee of Hillary’s.
The Saudis have denied the accusation they’ve funded terrorism and also say they complied with U.S. orders, telling ABC “that after the Sept. 11 attacks, the country took prompt action and “required Saudi banks to identify and freeze all assets relating to terrorist suspects and entities per the list issued by the United States government.”
One of the organizations specifically singled out for funding terrorism was founded by the Abedin family benefactor. In 1988, Naseef also founded the charitable giving arm of the Muslim World League, an entity called Rabita Trust.
Remember the League’s connection to the Saudis as stated earlier and it’s clear that Naseef was not a loose cannon but effectively acting as an “employee” of the Kingdom.
One of the other founders of the Rabita Trust was Wa’el Hamza Julaidan, who that same year would also become one of the four founders of Al Qaeda. In 1984, Julaidan had worked with Osama bin Laden to set up mujahedin training camps in Afghanistan. As U.S. News reported in 2003:
Afghanistan forged not only financial networks but important bonds among those who believe in violent jihad. During the Afghan war, the man who ran the Muslim World League office in Peshawar, Pakistan, was bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam. Another official there was Wael Julaidan, a Saudi fundraiser who would join bin Laden in founding al Qaeda in 1988. Documents seized in raids after 9/11 reveal just how close those ties were. One record, taken from a Saudi-backed charity in Bosnia, bears the handwritten minutes of a meeting between bin Laden and three men, scrawled beneath the letterhead of the IIRO and Muslim World League. The notes call for the opening of “league offices . . . for the Pakistanis,” so that “attacks” can be made from them. A note on letterhead of the Saudi Red Crescent–Saudi Arabia’s Red Cross–in Peshawar asks that “weapons” be inventoried. It is accompanied by a plea from bin Laden to Julaidan, citing “an extreme need for weapons.”
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the government froze the assets of the Rabita Trust for funding terrorism. As the New York Times reported in October, 2001:
The Bush administration vowed today to seize the assets of more individuals it says support terrorism, including a prominent businessman from Saudi Arabia, a United States ally whose reluctance to move against people and groups with ties to Osama bin Laden has become a politically sensitive
…
Also on the list is Rabita Trust, a Pakistani charity that at least until recently had Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on its board. Administration officials said they warned President Musharraf of the impending order against the Rabita Trust and encouraged him to disassociate himself from what they described as its founder’s links to Al Qaeda, Mr. bin Laden’s terrorist network.
In March, 2002 federal law-enforcement officials conducted raids on 15 organizations that the Treasury Department suspected of laundering money. The New York Times reported:
One other place searched today was the office of the International Islamic Relief Organization at 360 South Washington Street in Falls Church, Va., another Washington suburb.
That charity has a parent, the Muslim World League, that officials said was also searched. Corporate records show that the Muslim World League, which is financed in part by the Saudi government, is based at the same address as the relief organization, in Falls Church, but that it has used the Herndon building as a mailing address.
Last October, the Treasury Department listed another Islamic charity financed by the Muslim World League, the Rabita Trust, as having connections to Al Qaeda.
The connection of Abdullah Omar Nasseef to terror funding in general and Al Qaeda specifically is clear and convincing; just as clear and persuading as his connection to the Abedin family is.
The Muslim World League was the mother organization of two groups the government believed were involved in funneling money to terrorists–the Rabita Trust and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). Both groups are listed on the Treasury department’s website. Both Naseef’s co-founder Wa’el Hamza Julaidan himself and the Rabita Trust as an organization were placed by lists of terror funders by both the United States and the United Nations.
The Treasury Department met cited the Rabita Trust “for providing logistical and financial support to al Qaida.”
The Treasury Department’s discussion of the IIRO goes into detail about the money and logistics support they provided terror groups and includes information that shows that these provide both legitimate charity services but also act as a money laundering operation to get funds to terror groups:
International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO)
The IIRO was established in 1978 and, according to its website, the organization has branch offices in over 20 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Abd Al Hamid Sulaiman Al-Mujil (Al-Mujil) is the Executive Director of the IIRO Eastern Province (IIRO-EP) branch office in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Al-Mujil has been called the “million dollar man” for supporting Islamic militant groups. Al-Mujil provided donor funds directly to al Qaida and is identified as a major fundraiser for the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
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The IIRO-PHL is a source of funding for the al Qaida-affiliated ASG. IIRO-PHL has served as a liaison for the ASG with other Islamic extremist groups. A former ASG member in the Philippines familiar with IIRO operations in the country reported that a limited amount of foreign IIRO funding goes to legitimate projects and the rest is directed to terrorist operations.
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The IIRO Indonesia director has channeled money to two Indonesia-based, JI-affiliated foundations. Information from 2006 shows that IIRO-IDN supports JI by providing assistance with recruitment, transportation, logistics, and safe-havens. As of late 2002, IIRO-IDN allegedly financed the establishment of training facilities for use by al Qaida associates.
Vanity Fair did publish some other elements of the close connections between the Abedin family, Naseef and groups with terror funding designation. Writing about Abedin’s father and mother, Cohan writes that “in 1993, his wife succeeded him as director of the institute and editor of the Journal, positions she still holds.She has also been active in the International Islamic Council for Da’wa and Relief, which is now headed by Nasseef and was banned in Israel on account of its ties to the Union of Good, a pro-Hamas fund-raising network, run by Yusuf al-Qaradawi.”
After some solid initial work in the article, howerCohan suddenly gives readers the impression that Nasseef’s connection to terror funding might possibly be a sketchy, tenuous affair that still up for debate, pushed by “right-wing screeds.” The article doesn’t even mention the IIRO or the Rabita Trust despite Naseef’s clear connections and both group’s designations. Instead, the Vanity Fair article says:
Google Abdullah Omar Nasseef, the man who set up the Abedins in Jidda, and a host of right-wing screeds pop up. Though he is a high-ranking insider in the Saudi government and sits on the king’s Shura Council, there are claims that Nasseef once had ties to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda—a charge that he has denied through a spokesman…
Again, if you’re skeptical about these claims just click on any of the above links. There’s not a right wing screed in the bunch. Everything about Abedin and Naseef can be proven through primary and left-leaning mainstream media sources.
The lack of any mention of all about the Rabita Trust or the IIRO combined with the inherently insulting phrase “right-wing screeds” may have been intended to mollify Democrats who are desperate to smother the Huma Abedin story, but it utterly failed.
Media Matters went on the attack against Vanity Fair, anyway. And why not? The mainstream media had already proven that it wouldn’t report any of this material as it related to Huma Abedin in 2012.
Anatomy of a Smear Campaign
The “protect Huma” smears have six elements:
Never mention that Huma Abedin was an Assistant Editor at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs for over a decade. Simply leave that fact out of your reporting and assume your audience won’t do the research themselves.
Never mention Abdullah Omar Nasseef’s clear connections to terror funding, as supported by both the U.S. goverment and reporting in sources non-right wing sources like the New York Times.
Write the whole thing off as a convoluted, completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. Because the audience does not know Huma worked at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs or about Naseef’s terror funding ties., with no clear connection to Huma Abedin at all.
Call it a conservative fantasy. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy since nobody else in the mainstream media will report the facts, so the facts are only being reported by conservative media.Point to the lack of MSM coverage as proof the the whole thing is a right-wing chimera.
Exaggerate the claims of the critics. Tell your audience that Huma is being accused of being “a spy” when in fact what critics are pointing out is that there are clear connections and gaps in the record that raise troubling questions about Huma Abedin that should be answered. If you make the claims seem outrageous, you can distract from the actual facts.
Point to Huma Abedin’s Republican defenders such as Sen. John McCain or Sen. Marco Rubio as proof that “even Republicans” don’t think questions should be raised about Huma Abedin. Once again, this conveniently avoids the actual facts.
The new Media Matters article uses every one of these tactics. It doesn’t acknowledge that Huma Abedin was an Assistant Editor at the Journal or explain Abdullah Omar Nasseef’s connection to terror funding.
Media Matters begins its attack on Vanity Fair and Cohan by saying:
Cohan chose to introduce Abedin to the magazine’s readers by regurgitating a series of right-wing attacks that have previously been widely covered or discredited by other journalists — including the ridiculous and offensive question of whether she might have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Media Matters closes the section discussing Vanity Fair’s treatment of Abedin’s associations:
Although Cohan describes some of the allegations as “right-wing hysteria” and provides quotes from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and the Clinton campaign denouncing the attacks, Cohan takes no position on the claims.
In fact, everyone from the Department of Homeland Security to former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio to former GOP chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers (R-MI) has denounced the attacks as false and despicable.
The way these deceptive tactics have played out in the media is important to understand, because it gives a clear indication of what is in store for the 2016 election. Republican presidential contenders and their consultants would do well to study how the media not only failed to vet Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin, but actually covering up the facts and attack people for pointing them out.
The six smear tactics outlined above were also used in the summer of 2012 when a handful of Republican representatives including Louis Gomert and Michele Bachmann began asking questions about Abedin.
If you want to be clear on why Andrew Breitbart said: “The media is the enemy” take the time to see what people who don’t read conservative media were being told about Huma Abedin during the last election cycle.
For a prime example, watch Anderson Cooper’s explanation on his CNN show AC360 in 2012 talking about the connection between Huma Abedin and Abdullah Omar Nasseef. He takes over a minute to explain what he calls a “conspiracy” and never once mentions that Huma was the Assistant Editor of the Journal for Muslim Minority affairs for 12 years.
Here’s liberal radio host Sam Sedar in 2012 describing the relationship using hand gestures behind the back of his head to indicate just how crazy it is to think that Huma Abedin has a connection to Naseedf but again, no mention that Huma worked at the Journal.
The spectacle of right-wingers like Michele Bachmann throwing around accusations that State Department deputy chief Huma Abedin is a secret agent of the Muslim Brotherhood has been remarkably information-free. So we decided to trace the most ardent supporter’s case for radical Islamic infiltration of the U.S. government. The results are a tangled, convoluted mess.
Huma Abedin Must Be Vetted
The Vanity Fair article may be the first crack that breaks the mainstream media’s protective shell around Hillary Clinton’s top aide.
The case for raising questions about Huma Abedin is compelling but needs to be laid out in a methodical, fully documented and factually accurate way that will stand up to the inevitable defense mechanism of the mainstream media and Democrat machine.
It’s not just the media that needs to be held accountable; it’s the entire Democratic machine as well as Republicans who defended Huma, including John McCain and Marco Rubio.
They say that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and there is ample proof that when politicians get pressed for facts, they often fold like a cheap card table.
I asked Representative Keith Ellison about the factual points about Abedin in 2012 on Twitter. Democrats often tout Ellison as a brave pioneer, the first Muslim elected to Congress.
Congressman Ellison then blocked me. Follow Breitbart News lead investigative reporter and Citizen Journalism School founder Lee Stranahan on Twitter at @Stranahan.
An exclusive sit down with Dr. Sebastian Gorka, author of “Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War”, and Dan Proft. Gorka compares Islamofascists to Soviet-era communists, assess the magnitude of the threat faced by the West, who is currently winning and the signals that will be present to indicate the end is near for ISIS and other radical Islamic terrorist groups. Gorka also explains Putin’s play in the Middle East.