WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s national security team discussed the Ukraine crisis in a session at the White House on Saturday after a last-ditch bid to find a diplomatic solution to the Cold War-style standoff with Russia floundered.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who just returned from talks with his Russian counterpart in London, was at the White House meeting along with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
Obama did not attend the meeting but was being briefed about it and other developments involving Ukraine, said Laura Lucas Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.  (read more)

The issue at hand is essentially the CIA covertly monitoring the Senate Intelligence Committee as the Senate investigated the CIA.     The problem stems from an obvious oversight issue where the CIA takes illegal action to monitor the Senate as they investigate.
However, there’s something more within the behavior of the people involved.  Dianne Feinstein is clearly outlining the CIA is violating the law.   As a consequence the CIA claim to be following instructions from the Obama administration and the White House.  That alone represents a big issue – However, the way CIA Director John Brennan is responding to the charges against his office are, well, somewhat troubling.

Brennan is acting, and speaking, as if he is untouchable.  It’s almost like he has a card up his sleeve; an unspoken leverage.    And when you think about how Brennan got to his CIA post, and his relationship with President Obama, alarm bells begin to ring.
Please forgive me for connecting the dots but I’m not going in this rabbit hole alone 😉
Remember, it was Brennan’s security firm who broke into the State Department passport files of Candidate Obama in 2008.   Watching him now respond to Feinstein one would take away he indeed holds a lever that allows him to feel “untouchable“.

WASHINGTON DC – The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: “I am not taking it lightly.”
She confirmed that an internal agency investigation of the action has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. And she said that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance. (more…)

“It’s ironic that for all the talk about how tough Chicago politics are, and what hardball they train into their politicians, Obama is absurdly soft in the face of menace. Sure, he’s tough on certain things – House Republicans, debt ceiling limits, Bibi Netanyahu – but give him someone who doesn’t have to kowtow and he shrivels.”

We knew the Obama Administration was serious because they sent their most steely-eyed national security heavy to lay down the law on the Sunday talk shows….or maybe it was just a line of ketchup drawn in the sand.  Anyway, John Kerry dropped the hammer:

“I think there are, you know, they are inviting the possibility of very serious repercussions on trade, on investment, on assets, asset freeze, visa bonds. The potential of actions by the global community against this unilateral step.”

(more…)

I will be headed to Kyiv, Ukraine tomorrow night for discussions there Tuesday.

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) March 2, 2014

On the positive side at least the Obama administration is using the “I” word now (Invasion).

But seriously, you must watch this video of Kerry on Meet The Press. He seems genuinely stunned.   This is incredulous, unbelievable….. this is just… incredulous, abhorrent, cannot be happening.

With mindset of incredulity Kerry says:

…. “you just don’t invade other countries”..

On March 6th 2009 then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously used a prop, “a reset button“, to announce a new approach toward relationships between the United States and Russia.   Clinton presented the button to her counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

In an attempt to break the ice with Lavrov, Clinton handed him a makeshift “reset” button wrapped in a ribbon at the start of their meeting. Laughing, she told the foreign minister that “we want to reset our relationship” and “we will do it together.”

Lavrov promised to keep the button on his desk, but pointed out that the Russian word written on it, “peregruzka,” meant “overload” — not “reset.”  (link)

At the time many people forewarned the Obama Administration was taking a very naïve position if they collectively thought the Russians would in any way align with U.S. interests.

The reasoning for the caution was simple. For two decades the general Russian political class had felt “the West” in a general sense, and the U.S. in particular, had been dancing in the end zone about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Regardless of whether or not the Obama administration wanted to admit there was a resentment in place, it factually existed. (more…)

Confirmation Hearings Have Consequences:

(Left) Director of National Intelligence James Clapper  –  (Right)  Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

(left) Director of CIA John Brennan – (Right) Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey

The four men above are the players who give the daily National Security Briefing to President Obama. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – Archivists released thousands of records from the Bill Clinton presidency on Friday, including documents on activities by former first lady — and prospective 2016 presidential candidate — Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The more than 4,000 pages of documents include records on the health care task force Mrs. Clinton chaired in 1993, as well as her efforts on children’s issues, women’s rights, and micro-credit for developing countries.

The Friday release is the first in a series of document dumps from the Clinton era over the next several weeks that are expected to total more than 30,000 pages.

https://twitter.com/bendreyfuss/status/439473815240712192

Most of the focus will be on records related to Hillary Clinton, the former senator, secretary of State and unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2008 who may make another bid in 2016. (more…)

The basic reason for his claim is that Jakarta is a little over three feet above sea level.

However, what’s more alarming is that apparently John Kerry does not know more than 85% of Florida is less than three feet above sea level…..  Or, maybe he does and he just doesn’t want to tell Floridians they are going to be sunk by the end of the century.

(Via CNSNews)  During his speech on global warming in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that by century’s end the sea level could rise by one meter, a little over three feet, and “put half of Jakarta underwater.”

Jakarta is the capital and largest city in Indonesia, on the island of Java, on the northwest coast. About 9.5 million people live there and the city is 258 square miles around.

In a speech before largely college students in Jakarta, Kerry talked about greenhouse gases warming the Earth and said, “And because the earth is getting hotter at such an alarming speed, glaciers in places like the Arctic are melting into the sea faster than we expected. And the sea is rising – slowly, but rising – and will rise to dangerous levels” (more…)

Two weeks ago Musab Masmari was arrested for an arson attack on a gay bar in Seattle.   Shortly it was discovered that Masmari was in fact an official State Department Cultural Ambassador from Benghazi Libya.

Now a recent report from Seattle shows he fully intended to exterminate the patrons of the nightclub due to his extreme hatred toward homosexuals.

Seattle WASHINGTON – KIRO 7 has uncovered explosive new details in the case of the Capitol Hill arson at a popular gay nightclub.  Suspect Musab Masmari’s motive may have stemmed from his “distaste for homosexual people.”

Masmari is charged with arson for allegedly setting the fire at Neighbours nightclub shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day.

According to investigative documents filed in King County Superior Court, the 30-year old Masmari told a friend “that homosexuals should be exterminated.”  That friend, a member of the local Muslim community, went straight to the FBI because he believed Masmari may have also been planning a terrorist attack. That friend became a confidential informant.

According to the documents, Masmari first met the informant at Fatima’s Cafe near the Masjid at Taqwa Mosque on Seattle’s East Union Street, shortly after the fire at Neighbours. (more…)

I Miss Grown-Ups !…

The United States State Dept. apparatus, meaning the entire construct of the foreign policy unit of the U.S. administration, has been spiraling downward for several years.   However, the slope of the declining maturity and actual effectiveness is now exponential.

From 2009 when Hillary Clinton managed to drive the unprofessional standards, culminating in a global apology tour from WikiLeaks publication of high-school type communication about international leaders; to the insufferable immaturity of the hipster Occupy-Type ideologues who staff the podium at the press briefings, this entire State Dept is fraught with inept immaturity top to bottom.   Now this….    

EGYPT – An Egyptian employee of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo has been detained by local authorities for nearly three weeks without charges, an embassy official said Wednesday.

Ahmed Aleiba, an Egyptian citizen who works at the embassy, was arrested on January 25, the third anniversary of the uprising that deposed former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Moufid Deak, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, said. (more…)