State Department – The Burning Platform

Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Like the weather when a storm approaches, or as the seasons turn, or waves pounding on a shoreline, any deviations are measured and compared by speed and intensity. The same can be said for headlines: Omnibus, discouraged Deplorables, rumors of war, prospects of peace, economic bubbles, fluctuating markets, and political intrigue. Round and round it goes; when it ends, nobody knows. It’s a time of transition; and when traveling over mountaintops, through valleys, and on rough seas, no one has all of the answers.

Even when looking at maps.

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The books, “Generations” (1992) and “The Fourth Turning“ (1997), were written by the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. These recent explorers identified recorded cycles of history and categorized them across multiple cultures and eras. In both books, historical timelines were analyzed and populations were correlated to specific life-cycles labeled as generational types. Strauss and Howe additionally addressed the concept of time in the context of both circular and linear perspectives and defined what is called a “saeculum” as a “long human life” measuring roughly 80 to 90 years. Every saeculum is comprised of four turnings, each lasting around 20 years.

Continue reading “Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.”

Latest Hillary Email Scandal Reveals State Department “Favors” To Clinton Foundation

by Tyler Durden

In the latest installment over Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch released 296 pages of new emails from Hillary’s personal server, most of which were not handed over as part of the 30,000 emails originally provided to the FBI. The emails were provided to Judicial Watch pursuant to a FOIA request. These new emails, among other things, demonstrate how the Clinton Foundation and it’s top donors sought favors from the State Department within 3 months of Hillary taking the Secretary of State position.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal:

“That the Clinton Foundation was calling in favors barely 3 months into Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department is deeply troubling, and it is yet another reminder of the conflicts of interest and unethical wheeling and dealing she’d bring to the White House,” said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, in a statement Tuesday.

The first request for a “favor” came in April 2009, just 3 months after Hillary was confirmed as Secretary of State on January 21, 2009. The request came from Doug Band, a long-time adviser to Bill Clinton who helped him setup the Clinton Foundation after his Presidency. Per the email exchange, Mr. Band reached out the State Department to ask a “favor” on behalf of a person who the Clinton Foundation had recently setup with a trip to Haiti which he found “eye-opening” (the name of the person seeking the favor was redacted from the email exchange). Yes, well trading taxpayer dollars intended for earthquake relief in exchange for lucrative gold mining contracts from the Haitian government can be quite “eye-opening” indeed (see our post “Clinton Cash: “Devastating” Documentary Reveals How Clintons Went From “Dead Broke” To Mega Wealthy“).

DIDN’T HILLARY RUN THE STATE DEPARTMENT?

Oh big deal. The Federal government goes $6 billion further into debt every two days. As Hillary would say, “what difference does it make.” Multiply this level of incompetence and reckless disregard for YOUR tax dollars by 1,000 and you’ve got your Federal government. Then add in the total incompetence of your state and local governments and you have the biggest clusterfuck in human history. Happy Saturday.

$6 Billion Goes Missing at State Department

Brianna Ehley

The Fiscal Times

April 4, 2014

The State Department has no idea what happened to $6 billion used to pay its contractors.

In a special “management alert” made public Thursday, the State Department’s Inspector General Steve Linick warned “significant financial risk and a lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted dollars over the last six years.

The alert was just the latest example of the federal government’s continued struggle with oversight over its outside contractors.

The lack of oversight “exposes the department to significant financial risk,” the auditor said. “It creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit behavior by omitting key documents from the contract file. It impairs the ability of the Department to take effective and timely action to protect its interests, and, in tum, those of taxpayers.”

In the memo, the IG detailed “repeated examples of poor contract file administration.” For instance, a recent investigation of the closeout process for contracts supporting the mission in Iraq, showed that auditors couldn’t find 33 of the 115 contract files totaling about $2.1 billion. Of the remaining 82 files, auditors said 48 contained insufficient documents required by federal law.

In another instance, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement issued a $1 billion contract in Afghanistan that was deemed “incomplete.”

The auditor recommended that the State Department establish a centralized system to track, maintain and retain contract files.

The department responded and said it concurred with the recommendations to address the “vulnerability” in its contracting process.

Before Linick took office last fall, the State Department had been without an inspector general position for five years—the longest IG vacancy in the government’s history, as noted in The Washington Post.

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