State Department ignores lawsuit over records linking Boko Haram and Clinton Foundation

Abubakar Shekau, centre, the leader of Boko Haram, Nigeria's Islamic extremist group. Boko Haram fighters have shot or burned to death about 90 civilians and wounded 500 in ongoing fighting in a Cameroonian border town near Nigeria, officials in Cameroon said. (AP Photo/Boko Haram

)A conservative group is suing the State Department in an effort to find out whether the agency's refusal to place Boko Haram on the terrorist watch list while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state had anything to do with the fact that a high-level Nigerian official was a major Clinton Foundation donor and close friend of the former president.

Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit, brought the case to court after the State Department ignored its request for records about the Chagoury Group, a sprawling Nigerian company headed by a Clinton friend and financial supporter of Clinton causes, Gilbert Chagoury.

Chagoury donated between $1 million and 5 million to the Clinton Foundation, donor recordsshow.

More than 30 days have passed since Citizens United first filed the lawsuit without a response of any kind from the State Department.

David Bossie, president of Citizens United, said it was the first time he'd seen the State Department completely ignore a case against it in federal court.

"These proceedings are important that both sides take them seriously," Bossie said. "I have no idea what the judge will do, but I believe the judge will order a hearing to find out why the government did not respond."

"Federal judges, I don't think, look kindly on people who ignore the court's workings," he added.

In January 2010, Chagoury was removed from a private jet and questioned by federal agents for hours because his name had been added to the no-fly list, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

Although he was removed from the list before the U.S. government issued a formal, written apology, it is still unclear why he received that designation in the first place and how he was able to get his name off the no-fly list.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., wrote a letter to Kerry in March raising concerns that Chagoury may haveattempted to influence Clinton's decision about whether to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group.

Via: Washington Examiner

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How Mich. Rebuts Redistricting/Polarization Claims

Dave Weigel wrote a brief post on gerrymandering last Friday in response to my piece on the same topic. He used Michigan as an example of how Republicans were able to use redistricting to enhance their standing in the House, particularly by shoring up vulnerable members, thereby contributing to extremism.

Before responding, I think it’s important to note up front, as Weigel does, that this isn’t really a black-and-white issue, a fact that is easily glossed over. People run along a continuum of opinion regarding how much redistricting contributed to the GOP’s House majority and to polarization. We might place Tom Friedman at one pole, as he seemingly laid our increasingly divided nation at the feet of redistricting, Citizens United, and Fox News. At the other end are those political scientists who find little to no effect from redistricting. In the middle are people like Weigel, Charlie Cook, and myself, who think redistricting played a role, but who disagree -- sometimes strongly -- on the extent to which it mattered and how much other factors contributed.

From my point of view, redistricting helped Republicans gain between five and 10 seats that they wouldn’t have otherwise won, by shifting the median district rightward. But even this is more a function of polarization than a cause of it.

Weigel’s Michigan example is actually instructive in showing the limits of what redistricting contributes to polarization. At first blush, it looks like a classic case of a horrendously gerrymandered state. Barack Obama defeated John McCain by 16.4 percentage points there, more than twice his national average. Mitt Romney ran a much stronger race four years later, but the president still managed to win by a healthy 9.4 points. Yet under the Republican-drawn maps, the president ran better than his statewide 2008 showing in only five districts (of 14), and ran ahead of his national showing in just six. Romney carried nine of these districts outright.

As Weigel writes:

It’s not like gerrymandering created Justin Amash. It shored up Tim Walberg. Who's Tim Walberg? He was a Club for Growth-backed candidate who primaried a moderate Republican in 2006, lost in the 2008 Democratic wave, came back in 2010, and benefited when the new GOP legislature drew a map that packed Democrats in Detroit and Flint-centric districts, shoring him up to make no news but provide reliable "no" votes on anything that did not delay or defund Obamacare.

Via: Real Clear Politics

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Dingy Reid: “Karl Rove And 17 Angry Old White Men Are Trying To Buy The Election”…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a former boxer, isn't one to let a few bruised ribs take the fight out of him.

Still feeling the after-effects of a recent car accident, Reid sat down with the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review Journal and explained that one of his biggest worries about the upcoming election was the power of the moneyed interests supporting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"My concern is that Karl Rove and 17 angry old white men are trying to buy the election. And that's the truth," Reid told the Review Journal. "You have [Las Vegas Sands casino billionaire Sheldon] Adelson, the Koch brothers [billionaires David and Charles]. You have [billionaire Harold] Simmons of Texas. They are literally trying to buy the election. Think about this. The day after the election, Karl Rove sits down and talks to …the 17 angry old white guys and says, 'Hey, listen guys, we just bought America. And we're still rich.' That's the concern that we all have."

The men Reid listed are all top contributors to super PACs that support Romney's campaign.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, individuals, corporations and unions can spend unlimited money on attempts to influence elections. And spend they have, to the tune of more than $650 million this cycle.

Pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future announced earlier this month that it raised $20 million in the first half of October, half of it from Adelson alone.

Reid has been a tireless Romney detractor throughout the general election. Earlier this month, Reid described himself as a "one-man wrecking crew" set on getting Romney to release additional years of tax documents. Romney, Reid charged, was a “plastic man" who "changes his position every chance he gets."

Via: Huffington Post

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POLITICO: 'OCCUPY UNMASKED' BREITBART'S 'LAST MAJOR PIECE OF WORK'

Today, Politico interviewed the two of the chief creators, along with Andrew Breitbart, of Occupy Unmasked, the new documentary examining the origins, motives, and effects of Occupy Wall Street. Citizens United President David Bossie and writer and director Stephen K. Bannon sat down with Politico’s Patrick Gavin, who rightly called Occupy Unmasked Andrew Breitbart’s “last major piece of work.”

The film, says Gavin, “portrays the occupy movements in such cities as New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., as dirty and dangerous encampments that exploited the grievances of average Americans.” Bossie described the movement as “this very well-organized machine, very much the hard-core left, the anarchists movement,” which “utilized the people who kind of felt put upon, or that their American dream or their hope of an American dream had been taken away: College kids that weren’t finding work, middle age folks who were out of work for a long period of time.”

Bannon added that the attitude prevalent in Occupy Unmasked – what he called “the fighting spirit of Andrew Breitbart” – is missing from the political debate today. “You just need that,” he added. “He was a unique guy at a unique sense of time. The conservative movement has really never had a guy who was that physical and that magnetic …. We’re really missing that.”

Via: Breitbart

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Obama floats constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United

President Barack Obama used the online springboard provided by Reddit to dive into the media crush at the GOP convention, with a skillfully executed call for a constitutional amendment to curb the free-speech of wealthier people and corporations.

“I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United. … Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change,” Obama said during 4:30 p.m. EST online event.

The publicity-grabbing gambit complements his campaign-theme portrayal of himself as the defender of middle-class Americans, and Gov. Mitt Romney as the champion of wealthy, job-exporting plutocrats.

The proposal also helps shift the media’s focus away from the stalled economy, record unemployment, debts and deficits.

“Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs,” Obama told his Reddit audience.

Those super PACs “fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens,” he declared.

Obama’s new focus on spending curbs comes as he is being out-raised by Romney.

Via: The Daily Caller

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REPUBLICAN CONVENTION SET TO ROCK LIKE A HURRICANE

This isn’t 2008 any more. The conservative movement, aware of the dire threat to America’s future, is unifying this time. Their awareness is spreading to independents, as Steve Bannon’s devastating indictment of the Obama presidency, The Hope & The Change, produced by Citizens United, shows. That means that Barack Obama is in trouble.  The bounce the Romney/Ryan team should get from this week’s Republican National Convention should be very real, no matter how the press spins it for Obama.

The RNC isn’t going to waste any time gunning their engine; the second night, the Convention features a screening of Bannon's The Hope & The Change, which features the personal stories of 40 Democrats and independents who supported President Obama in 2008, but now want nothing to do with him. (Monday night, Bannon and Citizens United are slated to show one of the late Andrew Breitbart's great passion projects, Occupy Unmasked, as well.)

Another salient fact to note is that Paul Ryan, who is garnering stunning positives in surveys being conducted, is still largely an unknown to the general citizenry.  Just as Obama was a fresh face in 2008, Ryan has the glow of someone who hasn’t been diminished by excessive exposure to the public. And he’s a politician who grows on people with time.

Via: Breitbart:

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SEAN HANNITY: STEPHEN K. BANNON'S 'THE HOPE AND THE CHANGE' 'MOST POWERFUL DOCUMENTARY I'VE EVER SEEN'

This evening on Fox News’ "Hannity," Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, director of "The Hope & the Change," David Bossie of Citizens United, producers of the film, and adviser Pat Caddell appeared to discuss the massive disillusionment of Democrats and independents with President Barack Obama – and their film, which details that disillusionment in devastating detail.

The show opened with a promo of former Obama voter after former Obama voter decrying Obama’s horrible record and their own disappointment with the Obama administration. “I fear for my children,” says one. “I’m exhausted, and I’m tired,” says another.

The film will premiere on Tuesday at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. 

“This is the most powerful documentary I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Sean Hannity. “There’s no way that anybody who watches this film can vote for Barack Obama. It’s impossible. You bring us back and walk us through the whole election cycle.”

Via: Breitbart

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