Sen. Jeff Sessions: How Trillion Dollar Budget Was Passed, In Secret

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

[From article]
Senator Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Republican of Alabama, in a blistering interview Thursday night, shed some light on the details.
According to Sessions, lawmakers found out what was in the bill by talking to lobbyists, who had a better idea than they did as to what was being included in the bill. “No member of even the House and Senate knew what was going on,” he told Portland, Oregon talk show host Lars Larson. “Special interests did because we heard from lobbyists what some things were being considered.”
Sessions went on to note that basically four members of congress put the deal together without consulting their colleagues. “It’s not right for ultimately four members, in secret — for reasons we have no understanding of — to make critical decisions on things,” he said.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/18/who-wrote-the-omnibus-four-lawmakers-many-lobbyists/

Who Wrote the Omnibus? Four Lawmakers, Many Lobbyists
by PETER SCHWEIZER

18 Dec 2015

https://youtu.be/PBqrWL3h9-g

White House Demands Secrecy For Iran Nuclear Weapons Deal

Kerry Demands Secrecy

[From article]
Cotton said. "Why can't we confirm or deny the content of these agreements in public? Why is this classified? It's not a sensitive U.S. government document."
"Because we respect the process of the IAEA and we don't have their authorization to reveal what is a confidential agreement between them and another country," said Kerry.



Cotton said, "So the ayatollahs will know what they agreed to but not the American people?"
Kerry said that members of Congress would be able to learn about it in a classified briefing.



http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kerry-we-cant-reveal-contents-secret-side-deals-american-people_1000761.html

Kerry: We Can't Reveal Contents of Secret Side Deals to American People
12:24 PM, JUL 29, 2015

BY DANIEL HALPER

YouTube Secrets

[selection of tips, more in article, plus more details]
[From article]
You know when you're watching a video and little clickable messages pop up over the video and block what you want to see? Most YouTube creators use these sparingly, but some go overboard, and it can ruin the video.
To turn these off, click the gear icon at the lower right of the video player, and next to "Annotations," click "Off."
[. . .]
On any video, click the gear icon in the lower-right corner of the video player and click the drop-down box next to "Speed." You can drop the video speed to half or a quarter of the normal playing speed.
[. . .]
You found a hilarious video you want to share with a friend. Unfortunately, it doesn't get good until three minutes in. The first part is boring and you don't want your friend to stop watching.
Cue up the video to the start of the section you want your friend to see. Then right-click the video and select "Get video URL at current time." Copy the link that appears and paste it into an email or on Facebook. When someone clicks on the link, the video will start at the exact spot you wanted.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/07/18/5-youtube-secrets-should-try/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

5 YouTube secrets you should try
By Kim Komando
Published July 18, 2015
The Kim Komando Show

Ex Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick and Pals, Traveled Well Using Secret Trust Fund and State Credit Cards

Former Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick

[From article]
Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and his wife put taxpayers on the hook for nearly $17,000 in airfare on a single trade mission to Israel, part of an often lavish worldwide tour funded by a tucked-away trust the Patrick administration never revealed to the public, new records obtained by the Herald reveal.
State records tracking the trade mission costs also showed Deval and Diane Patrick took a three-day trip to Colombia in 2013 on the taxpayer dime, ringing up a $8,342 bill for flights that far exceeded what other state officials paid.
Patrick’s airfare on other overseas junkets sometimes tripled that of his traveling contingent, such as a round-trip flight to Ireland reported in state records as costing $5,751. The former governor also racked up a $2,400 tab for a three-day stay at the five-star Merrion Hotel, which bills itself as the most “luxurious” hotel in the city, according to records.
Patrick saved the most expensive flight bill for his last trade mission — $12,356 for just a five-day trade mission to France, Denmark and England, according to records compiled by the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, which oversaw the travel trust fund.
The records also list a one-way flight from Hong Kong to Singapore under Patrick’s name costing a hefty $1,640.
One of Patrick’s traveling companions on several trips was Richard Davey, former Department of Transportation chief and current CEO of the Boston 2024 Olympic bid.
[. . .]
The former governor’s 10 international trade missions have come under new scrutiny by government watchdogs and lawmakers since the Herald first reported that the Patrick administration funneled $27 million from state quasi-public government agencies into trust funds kept separate from budgetary constraints and hidden from public scrutiny.
The Herald first reported that one of the trusts, funded by Massport and the Mass Tech Collaborative, paid for the $1.4 million trade mission costs from 2009 to 2014.
A former Patrick administration aide, Alec Loftus, said the trips were well worth the cost, citing new international flights that the former governor pushed for in the countries he visited.
[. . .]
The $21,141 hotel bill for the Colombia trip was simply charged to a “state credit card,” according to records.
But it’s clear that the former governor and his aides traveled in style. In Tel Aviv, Patrick bedded down at the InterContinental and was charged $1,005, while the room for Richard Elam, the former executive director of the international trade office, cost $1,550, according to records.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/joe_battenfeld/2015/07/battenfeld_deval_patrick_was_flying_high_on_taxpayers

Battenfeld: Deval Patrick was flying high on taxpayers’ dime
Thursday, July 16, 2015
By: Joe Battenfeld
Boston Herald

Updated: Massachusetts Gaming Commission Meets In Secret. PR Flack Assures Voters It Is Legal. Wynn Threatens To Sue Mayor Walsh

Posted July 6, 2015 9:00 PM ET; Last updated July 7, 2015 7:42 PM ET

[From article]
In its lawsuit against the Gaming Commission, the city issued subpoenas to eight current and former state police, alleging that troopers assigned to an investigation of Charles Lightbody gave former staties now working as private detectives for Wynn information about the
investigation in the “wire-tap room” at the attorney general’s office.
The Walsh administration yesterday stood by the claims in its motions seeking subpoenas. “We dispute the assertions in the letter and we firmly stand
behind the allegations in the amended complaint,” said Laura Oggeri, the mayor’s spokeswoman.
Lightbody, a convicted felon with mob ties, had an interest in the land Wynn Resorts is planning to use for a casino in Everett. The city sued the Gaming Commission seeking host city status, which could force a renewed license process.
Wynn has denied hiring the former troopers. The judge handling the case agreed to delay the subpoenas until after a hearing on a Gaming Commission motion to dismiss the case.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/07/wynn_to_mayor_walsh_i_ll_sue_you

Wynn to Mayor Walsh: I’ll sue you!
Threatens defamation fight in casino fight
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
By: Jack Encarnacao
Boston Herald

* * *

[From article]
“Commissioners discuss social matters, organizational structure and morale,” Driscoll said. “The commissioners do not discuss any matter that constitutes public business within the jurisdiction of the commission.”
But former Inspector General Greg Sullivan of the Pioneer Institute said he found that hard to believe.
“You can only talk about Tom Brady and ‘Deflategate’ for so long,” Sullivan told the Herald. “Eventually, the conversation probably drifts around to the subject of Massachusetts gaming.”
At least one commissioners’ lunch even featured a special guest — Frank Fahrenkopf, who had stepped down as president of the American Gaming Association one year before he met for 90 minutes with the MGC on Oct. 22, 2014.
[. . .]



Sullivan told the Herald the Gaming Commission’s structure — where the commissioners all work out of the same office — is a problem.
“It’s vulnerable to violations of the Open Meeting Law because of the design of the agency and the decisions the Legislature made,” said Sullivan. “It’s an inherently problematic situation because of the extremely unusual arrangement whereby the commissioners are full-time employees that work in the same building.”
Some of the datebook information the Herald requested could not be produced.
Stebbins’ calendar from March 2012 through the end of 2013 was “unavailable due to technical issues caused by his BlackBerry,” the MGC told the Herald.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/07/gaming_commission_racks_up_100_hours_in_secret_meetings

Gaming Commission racks up 100 hours in secret meetings
Panel playing games with open meetings law
Monday, July 6, 2015
By: Chris Cassidy
Boston Herald

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Warns of Loss of Trust After Passage of Secret Trade Agreement

[From article]
“Americans increasingly believe that their country isn’t serving its own citizens. They need look no further than a bipartisan vote of Congress that will transfer congressional power to the Executive Branch and, in turn, to a transnational Pacific Union and the global interests who will help write its rules.
"The same routine plays out over and again. We are told a massive bill must be passed, all the business lobbyists and leaders tell how grand it will be, but that it must be rushed through before the voters spoil the plan. As with Obamacare and the Gang of Eight, the politicians meet with the consultants to craft the talking points—not based on what the bill actually does, but what they hope people will believe it does. And when ordinary Americans who never asked for the plan, who don’t want the plan, who want no part of the plan, resist, they are scorned, mocked, and heaped with condescension.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/sessions-they-won-vote-lost-trust-american-people_976870.html

Sessions: They Won the Vote, But Lost the 'Trust of the American People'
'Washington broke arms and heads to get that 60th vote'
2:27 PM, JUN 23, 2015

BY DANIEL HALPER

Dangerous Secret White House Trade Deal Would End Supremacy of US Constitution

[From article]

On Friday, Congress disrupted President Obama’s plan for a sweeping transfer of U.S. sovereignty to an unaccountable group of foreign busybodies. Hurray for the stalwart Americans who resisted the demands of Obama, the Republican leadership and the big-donor claque – but Speaker Boehner plans to give Congress another chance this week to make this dangerous mistake.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would turn over to globalists the power to issue regulations about U.S. trade, immigration, the environment, labor and commerce. It’s called a “living agreement,” which means the globalists can amend and change the text of the so-called agreement after it has gone into effect.
That reminds me of our supremacist judges who invented the term a ‘living” Constitution, which they can rewrite to comport with their own updated ideology. The globalists claim that this “living” document (TPP), now called Obamatrade, has all the powers of a treaty to commit the U.S. to new foreign obligations, although it certainly did not comply with any U.S. constitutional provisions for treaty ratification.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has frankly warned about this giveaway of U.S. sovereignty. Not only would Congress give up its powers to negotiate and write the terms of a treaty, but Congress also gives up its power to debate and amend the deal, to apply a cloture vote in the Senate, and to require a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
The secrecy wrapped around TPP is appallingly un-American. Whatever happened to Obama’s promise of “transparency”? TPP was negotiated and agreed to by Obama’s trade representative and a bunch of foreigners in a secret room, and the American people are not allowed to know the details until after it’s a done deal.

[. . .]

TPP is separating us from the U.S. Constitution and from national sovereignty and replacing both with a global governance superstructure. TPP has wrapped its audacious global governance plan in the mantle called “free trade,” which is a misnomer if there ever were one.

[. . .]

Sen. Sessions says TPP will give Obama a backdoor to increase immigration, and the same lobbyists who are pushing for Obamatrade are demanding open borders.

http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/no-wonder-obama-wont-let-us-read-tpp/

NO WONDER OBAMA WON'T LET US READ TPP
Phyllis Schlafly: Deal would separate us from Constitution and national sovereignty
Phyllios Schlafly
June 15, 2015

Journalists Not Welcome At Bilderberg Conference In Austria

[From article]
That’s right: Bilderberg has its own military radar station. It has its own no-fly zone. Nothing gets near it: there are police, right this minute, up on the surrounding mountaintops stopping hang gliders from getting airborne. Presumably to avoid them being shot down by the itchy security detail of the secretary-general of Nato.
[. . .]
At one point, in my umpteenth roadside check, I turned round to see an officer taking my picture on his phone. I trotted over and gave him a card with my email address. “Do you mind sending me that photo? Just so I can remember this moment.” He mumbled something about not taking one, so I got my own camera out. “No photographs! You must not take pictures of police.” No, no, I assured him. Not my intention at all. I handed him the camera. “Could you take one of me?” A bit confused, he obliged – and promptly took one of me and his colleague.
[. . .]
“You’ve checked me out a dozen times already,” he grumbled. “I’m going to be here all week, I don’t want to be checked every five minutes.” The lieutenant in charge of the checking shrugged: “We can check you as many times as we want. Open your car please.” My Swiss friend stood his ground: “Don’t you need probable cause?” The lieutenant shook his head and smiled: “No, we don’t.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/at-g7-we-journalists-pampered-bilderberg-we-harassed-by-police

At the G7, we journalists were pampered – at Bilderberg we're harassed by police
Bilderberg uses the same security as the G7, just on a slightly different alp. So why don’t the lavish state resources extend to allowing free press reporting?

* * *


A mobile radar station has been supplied to cover the Bilderberg conference, guarded by Austrian soldiers. 

Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

[From article]
The secretive Bilderberg Group has deployed a hi-tech jamming system to shut down communications around the site of the elitist confab’s luxury hotel in order to strangle media coverage of the event.
[. . .]
Cellphone jammers work by preventing cellular phones from receiving signals from base stations. The jammers are technically illegal in European Union countries.
This triangulated jamming system would explain why Infowars reporters Rob Dew and Josh Owens have been unable to broadcast live via Skype anywhere near the InterAlpen hotel.

http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-bilderberg-deploys-hi-tech-jamming-to-shut-down-communications/

EXCLUSIVE: BILDERBERG DEPLOYS HI-TECH JAMMING TO SHUT DOWN COMMUNICATIONS
Source tells Infowars giant mast erected to kill cellphone coverage
by PAUL JOSEPH WATSON

JUNE 11, 2015

New York Civil Liberties Union Releases Sheriff's File On Cell Phone Technology Obtained From FBI

[From article]
The cell phone surveillance equipment is called the Stingray, which costs $350,000. It allows the sheriff's office to track and record the location of a person through their cell phone.
[. . .]



“These records confirm some of the very worst fears about local law enforcement’s use of this expensive and intrusive surveillance equipment,” said NYCLU Staff Attorney Mariko Hirose. “Not only did the Sheriff’s Office promise the FBI breathtaking secrecy to keep information about stingrays as hidden as possible, it implemented almost no privacy protections for the Erie County residents it is sworn to protect and serve.”

http://www.wkbw.com/news/nyclu-releases-details-of-ec-sheriffs-cell-phone-spying

NYCLU releases details of EC Sheriff's cell phone spying
12:42 PM, Apr 7, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Asks, "If White House Nuclear Deal With Iran Is Good, Why Hide It?"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speeks at the Conference of Presidents in Jerusalem, February 16, 2015. 

(photo credit:MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

[From article]
Israeli-US public sparring over the Iranian issue continued Monday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking, if the emerging agreement with Tehran is a good one, why hide the details? Netanyahu’s comments at the annual meeting in Jerusalem of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations came the same day that The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported that the US had decided to “reduce the exchange of sensitive information about the Iran talks,” because of a concern that Netanyahu’s office had leaked “sensitive de

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Netanyahu-If-theres-a-good-nuclear-deal-with-Iran-then-why-hide-it-391235


By HERB KEINON

02/16/2015 20:56
Netanyahu: If emerging nuclear deal with Iran is so good, why hide it?

White House Negotiating With Iran On Nuclear Weapons In Secret. Israel Sees Threat

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

[From article]
Citing an Iranian diplomat, the paper said the Iranian cleric had written to Obama in recent weeks in response to a presidential letter sent in October.
Obama's letter suggested the possibility of U.S.-Iranian cooperation in fighting Islamic State if a nuclear deal was secured, the paper said, quoting the diplomat.
Khamenei's letter was "respectful" but noncommittal, it quoted the diplomat as saying.
Both the White House and the Iranian mission at the United Nations declined to comment on the report.
Khamenei said this week he could accept a compromise in the nuclear talks and gave his strongest defense yet of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's decision to negotiate with the West, a policy opposed by powerful hardliners at home.

[. . .]

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to address the U.S. Congress on Iran on March 3 - to the annoyance of the Obama administration - has vowed "to foil this bad and dangerous agreement."

http://news.yahoo.com/iranian-leader-ayatollah-khamenei-sent-obama-secret-letter-003045495.html

Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei sent Obama secret letter: WSJ

February 13, 2015

Banks Want Secrecy on Taxpayer Funded Loans

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ax8ulGXswn4E

Fed Shouldn’t Reveal Crisis Loans, Banks Vow to Tell High Court
Bloomberg
By Bob Ivry
April 14, 2010