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Barack Obama taught the principals of radical activist Saul Alinsky at the University of Chicago.

A virtual slush fund of taxpayer money the Obama administration deployed to supportprivate groups that advanced his agenda has been shut down by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Sessions issued a memorandum June 7 to all U.S. attorneys and Justice Department leaders that put an end to the policy of requiring the departments settlements with defendants, particularly corporations, to include donations to non-governmental organizations, Breitbart News reported.

Among the recipients of the funds under Obama, was the radical National Council of La Raza, or The Race, which supports mass illegal immigration.

In 2015, WND published a four-part series exposing the massive shell game with taxpayer funds that, while not new, was perfected by the Obama administration as a means to deploy and reward nonprofit co-laborers in an effort to fulfill the presidents stated aim of radically transforming America.

The federal government has been funding left-wing groups for at least a half-century, ever since the so-called War on Poverty was launched by President Lyndon Johnson.

But President Obama aggressively used taxpayer funds in a way that blurred the line between government functions and political activism, while at the same time fostering a steady increase in the overall size and scope of government.

Another example of the Obama administrations funding and deployment of left-wing groups in governmental functions to carry out its ideological agenda, reported exclusively by WND in 2014, was the IRS hiring of the avowedly progressive Urban Institute, supported by far-left billionaire activist George Soros, to process the Form 990s of nonprofit groups.

At the time, revelations of the IRS targeting of conservative groups that oppose Obamas agenda were continuing to emerge.

Together, the two stories presented a picture of an administration that rewarded its friends, punished its enemies and, in the process, fundamentally changed the character of government.

Community organizations

The practice of funding nonprofits began in the 1970s with the Community Reinvestment Act, which required banks and financial institutions that settled cases with the DOJ to give donations tocommunity organizations to offset alleged wrongdoing, Breitbart noted. The practice exploded after the 2008 financial crisis when big banks agreed to massive settlements with Obamas DOJ over alleged unfair lending practices.

A group of congressional Republicans raised concern about the practice, and theircampaigngained momentum under the Trump administration, Breitbart said.

This is a tremendous victory people ought to be very encouraged by, said Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, in an interview with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXX host Raheem Kassam.

Schweizer explained that rather than going to a companys victims, the money ended up in the hands of activist groups such as La Raza that used the money for their own efforts, such as voter registration.

These were politically active groups, he said.

Blurring the lines

WNDs series of articles in 2015 exposed the massive shell game with taxpayer funds, which went to progressive groups that share the ideology and political inclinations of a president who looks back warmly on his time as a community organizer in Chicago, including the notorious Media Matters for America, founded by Hillary Clinton ally and Fox News nemesis David Brock.

Barack Obama was a community organizer in Chicago from 1985 to 1988.

Barack is not a politician first and foremost, first lady Michelle Obama has said. Hes a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.

Another charity that received federal funding was the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a favorite philanthropy of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Based in Mountain View, California, it is already was awash in private funds.

On its website, the foundation acknowledged having $4.7 billion in assets under its management.

Zuckerberg pledged in December 2013 to give Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation shares worth $1 billion. He previously gave $500 million worth of Facebook shares to the foundation and another $100 million to the foundation earmarked for public schools in Newark, New Jersey.

WNDs second story showed how taxpayers were funding one of the nations largest health-insurance brokers, which had a significant role in passing Obamacare and became one of its chief cheerleaders.

The third in the series showed how the Obama administration was channeling millions of dollars of taxpayer funds through a propaganda machine that financed organizations such as an educational advocacy group named for President Obamas Marxist law-school mentor, known for his promotion of the radical critical race theory.

The Obama administration had given $16.8 million since 2010 to its allies at a left-wing nonprofit known as the Local Initiatives Support Corp, or LISC.

LISC, in turn, provided grants to many radical groups, including a Chicago-based nonprofit founded by the late Marxist activist Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky is often referred to as the father of left-wing community organizing. His work inspired President Obama and Hillary Clinton, who had a friendship with Alinsky and wrote her college thesis on him.

Saul Alinsky

Alinsky was known for creating a blueprint for revolution, under the banner of social change and organizing, that focused on penetrating existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.

In his 1946 handbook Reveille for Radicals he encouraged community organizers to fan the latent hostilities of the poor and search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them. In Rules for Radicals, published in 1971, he advised revolutionaries regarding their adversaries: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

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Trump axes Obama's 'slush fund' for radical agenda

MIAMI President Donald Trump on Friday ordered tighter restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba and a clampdown on U.S. business dealings with the Caribbean islands military, saying he was canceling former President Barack Obama's "terrible and misguided deal" with Havana.

Laying out his new Cuba policy in a speech in Miami, Trump signed a presidential directive rolling back parts of Obamas historic opening to the Communist-ruled country after a 2014 diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes.

But Trump left in place many of Obamas changes, including the reopened U.S. embassy in Havana, even as he sought to show he was making good on a campaign promise to take a tougher line against Cuba, especially over its human rights record.

"We will not be silent in the face of communist oppression any longer," Trump told a cheering crowd in Miamis Cuban-American enclave of Little Havana, including Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who helped forge the new restrictions on Cuba.

"Effective immediately, I am canceling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba," Trump declared as he made a full-throated assault on the government of Cuban President Raul Castro.

Cuba later denounced the move as a setback in U.S.-Cuban relations, saying Trump had been badly advised and was resorting to "coercive methods of the past" that were doomed to fail. The government remained willing to engage in "respectful dialogue," it said in a statement.

Trumps revised approach calls for stricter enforcement of a longtime ban on Americans going to Cuba as tourists, and seeks to prevent U.S. dollars from being used to fund what the Trump administration sees as a repressive military-dominated government. (tmsnrt.rs/2rBfMTI)

But, facing pressure from U.S. businesses and even some fellow Republicans to avoid turning back the clock completely in relations with Cuba, the president chose to leave intact some of his Democratic predecessor's steps toward normalization.

The new policy bans most U.S. business transactions with the Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group, a Cuban conglomerate involved in all sectors of the economy. But it makes some exceptions, including for air and sea travel, according to U.S. officials. This will essentially shield U.S. airlines and cruise lines serving the island.

"We do not want U.S. dollars to prop up a military monopoly that exploits and abuses the citizens of Cuba," Trump said, pledging that U.S. sanctions would not be lifted until Cuba frees political prisoners and holds free elections.

While the changes are far-reaching, they appear to be less sweeping than many U.S. pro-engagement advocates had feared.

Trump based his partial reversal of Obamas Cuba measures largely on human rights grounds.

His critics, however, have questioned why his administration is now singling out Cuba for human rights abuses but downplaying the issue in other parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally Trump visited last month where political parties and protests are banned.

SOME OBAMA POLICIES LEFT IN PLACE

Trump, however, stopped short of breaking diplomatic relations restored in 2015 after more than five decades of hostilities. He also will not cut off recently resumed direct U.S.-Cuba commercial flights or cruise-ship travel, though his more restrictive policy seems certain to dampen new economic ties overall.

The administration, according to one White House official, has no intention of disrupting existing business ventures such as one struck under Obama by Starwood Hotels Inc, which is owned by Marriott International Inc, to manage a historic Havana hotel.

Nor does Trump plan to reinstate limits that Obama lifted on the amount of the islands coveted rum and cigars that Americans can bring home for personal use.

Still, it will be the latest attempt by Trump to overturn parts of Obama's presidential legacy. He has already pulled the United States out of a major international climate treaty and is trying to scrap his predecessor's landmark healthcare program.

When Obama announced the detente in 2014, he said that decades of U.S. efforts to achieve change in Cuba by isolating the island had failed and it was time to try a new approach.

Critics of the rapprochement said Obama was giving too much away without extracting concessions from the Cuban government. Castro's government has clearly stated it does not intend to change its one-party political system.

Trump aides say Obamas efforts amounted to "appeasement" and have done nothing to advance political freedoms in Cuba, while benefiting the Cuban government financially.

"It's hard to think of a policy that makes less sense than the prior administration's terrible and misguided deal with the Castro regime," Trump said in Miami.

International human rights groups say, however, that renewed U.S. efforts to isolate the island could worsen the situation by empowering Cuban hard-liners.

The Cuban government, which has made clear it will not be pressured into reforms, had no immediate comment.

But ordinary Cubans said they were crestfallen to be returning to an era of frostier relations with the United States with potential economic fallout for them.

"It's like we are returning to the Cold War," said Cuban designer Idania del Rio, who joined a group of friends in a hotel in Old Havana to watch the speech in English on CNN.

Trump announced his new approach at the Manuel Artime Theater in the heart of the United States' largest Cuban-American and Cuban exile community, whose support aides believe helped him win Florida in the election.

The venue is named after a leader of the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 against Fidel Castros revolutionary government.

I have trust in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to Cuba, said Jorge Saurez, 66, a retired physician in Little Havana.

Trumps vow to keep the broader decades-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba firmly in place drew criticism from some U.S. farmers, especially growers of corn, soybeans and rice. Obamas dtente has already lifted exports and raised hopes for more gains, which they said were now in doubt.

Mexicos foreign ministry urged the United States and Cuba to resolve their differences "via dialogue."

But Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose leftist government is Cuba's main regional ally, slammed Trump's tightening of restrictions as an "offence" against Latin America.

"His speech was aggressive and threatening, ... revealing his contempt and ignorance," President Nicolas Maduro said in a speech. "We reject Donald Trump's declarations against our brother Cuba. It is an offence against Latin America."

The biggest change in travel policy will be that Americans making educational people-to-people trips, one of the most popular authorized categories, can no longer go to the island on their own but only on group tours. Trump's aides said the aim was to close off a path for Americans seeking beach vacations in a country where U.S. tourism is still officially banned.

U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, one of the Republican Party's most vocal advocates for easing rules on U.S. dealings with Cuba, called for a vote on legislation lifting restrictions on American travel there. But the Republican leadership in Congress has long blocked such a move, and it appears unlikely to budge.

Under Trumps order, the Treasury and Commerce departments will be given 30 days to begin writing new regulations, which will not take effect until they are complete.

In contentious deliberations leading up to the new policy, some aides argued that Trump, a former real estate magnate who won the presidency vowing to unleash U.S. business, would have a hard time defending any moves that close off the Cuban market.

But other advisers have contended that it is important to make good on a campaign promise to Cuban-Americans.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Lesley Wroughton and Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Sarah Marsh and Marc Frank in Havana, Bernie Woodall in Miami; writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Yara Bayoumy, Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker)

YOKOSUKA, Japan U.S. Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald sailed back to its base in Yokosuka, with seven of its sailors still missing after it collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship more than three times its size in eastern Japan early on Saturday.

MOSCOW/BAGHDAD Moscow said on Friday its forces may have killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an air strike in Syria last month, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials were skeptical.

Originally posted here:
Trump rolls back parts of what he calls 'terrible' Obama Cuba ...

Photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp, 2012

While Delta Air Lines and Bank of America have dropped their sponsorships of New Yorks Public Theater over a President Trump-inspired staging of Shakespeares Julius Caesar, corporate sponsors at the Guthrie Theater had no public reaction to a 2012 staging that featured a black actor in the role of Caesar.

That production, part of a national tour done in collaboration with the Acting Company of New York, starred Bjorn DuPaty, a tall basketball aficionado who resembles then-President Barack Obama (pictured above).

Caesar is stabbed to death in the middle of the play.

The New York production, staged by Twin Cities-born director Oskar Eustis, was questioned in a tweet by the president's son, Donald J. Trump, Jr.

"I wonder how much of this art is funded by taxpayers? he asked. Serious question, when does art become political speech & does that change things?

The reaction from corporate sponsors was swift.

No matter what your political stance may be, the graphic staging of Julius Caesar at this summers free Shakespeare in the Park does not reflect Delta Air Lines values, Delta said Sunday in a statement.

Delta and, before it, Twin Cities-based Northwest Airlines, which merged with Delta in 2009, is a longstanding supporter of the Guthrie. It is the theater's official airline, and the title sponsor of the Guthries summer musical, Sunday in the Park with George.

I havent seen the Publics production of the play, but I know the conversation is not about whether its a good production or not, or whether Caesar is a hero or villain, said Guthrie artistic director Joseph Haj. I feel for Oskar [Eustis] and the Public, because its complicated. Corporate sponsors have been vitally important to the health of the American theater theyve been extraordinary partners over many decades. But theres also been a firewall there. Ive never had a conversation with a sponsor that has been around the art-making itself.

Haj worries that the retreat of the sponsors in the face of a tweet by the presidents namesake son will have a chilling effect on the field.

The idea of supporting a theater cant be limited to an idea that I only support he work I like most, said Haj. It has been based on that organizations values, commitment, vision and mission as we serve our community.

Advertisers sometimes abandon hot-potato TV programs, as evidenced recently with Fox shows hosted by Sean Hannity and Bill OReilly. But its unusual for a corporate sponsor, let alone two, to bail on a performing arts institution over a show.

Haj recently directed Shakespeares King Lear in modern dress. That tragedy, about a mad ruler surrounded by fawning sycophants, did not make any overt nods to contemporary American politics although audiences reacted audiblyat linesthat spoke to the moment.

But Full Circle Theaters recent Twin Cities production of Suzan-Lori Parks 365 Days/365 Plays did feature an insecure character in a blond wig who spoke like Trump and wanted to be famous just to be famous. His mother yells at him to get off the stage, drawing approving laughter from the audience.

The job of art is to speak truth to power and stand up to authoritarianism, said director and theater scholar Stephanie Lein Walseth, who staged the Parks playlet, written 15 years ago. In this moment, things are happening on so many fronts, its overwhelming.Doing something through art to preserve our democracy thats what Im called to do.

Haj said that hes not sure if there will be a residual effect for this episode. But he hopes that artists will continue to be brave and courageous.

Arts funding is always, in one way or another, under assault," he said. Its the easiest political football in the world. When Donald Trump called for the defunding of the NEA and the NEH, thats not a budget decision. The funding is pennies per every American every year. But we dont get to line-item veto things we dont like or dont use. I dont get to say, 'I dont want to fund schools or roads we dont use.' We, as a nation, value art and culture. We value the protected space, the freedom of thought and expression.

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Obama-based Julius Caesar - startribune.com

Last Updated Jun 16, 2017 2:53 PM EDT

President Trump is expected to announce sweeping changes to U.S.-Cuba relations Friday, rolling back some key provisions in the Obama-era decision to open ease diplomatic and business restraints on the communist country.

The new Cuba policy will prohibit transactions with businesses controlled by the Cuban regime and will mean some Americans will now have to travel to Cuba as part of an organized tour group if they wish to visit, although many other categories of travel remain. All categories of travel to the island will be subject to an audit.

The new policy will reiterate the importance of extraditing fugitives, according to senior administration officials who briefed members of the press Thursday. The changes won't end diplomatic relations with Cuba, re-establish the controversial "wet foot, dry foot" policy, or change the policy on how much rum, cigars and other popular products Americans can take from Cuba. It also won't change the status of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

The changes won't go into effect until regulations are issued. That process will take about 30 days to initiate, and then, an unforeseen amount of time from there.

"The president vowed to reverse the Obama administration policies towards Cuba that have enriched the Cuban military regime and increased the repression on the island -- it is a promise that President Trump made and it is a promise that President Trump is keeping," one senior administration official said during the briefing.

The administration argues restricting transactions with Cuban regime-controlled businesses, including many hotels Americans would normally stay in, will allow money to go directly to the Cuban people and not the regime. The State Department will create a list of hotels that don't violate that ban, although it's unclear how the ban will be enforced.

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The most significant change under the new policy, CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk says, would be the end of the permitted individual travel called "people to people," which Trump advisors, including Senator Marco Rubio, believe has been used to allow tourist travel.

Falk says that by prohibiting transactions with businesses and hotels controlled by the Cuban military and security services, Mr. Trump is looking to economically squeeze the Castro government into reforms -- months before Cuban President Raul Castro is set to retire and at a time when human rights groups and dissidents in Cuba have reported a rise in arrests and abuses.

The administration will consider benchmarks -- free elections, the release of political prisoners and direct pay for Cuban workers -- as progress that could eventually lead to the easing of the restrictions, according to the senior administration officials.

"The president has made clear that he will look toward repressive regimes in this hemisphere," the same senior administration official said.

The president developed the plan after meeting with members of Congress -- including Republican Sen. Marco Rubio -- who were experts on Cuba policy.

Mr. Trump will travel to Miami Friday to announce the policy changes more fully.

CBS News' Brian Gottlieb contributed to this report

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Trump Cuba Policy: What it will and won't do - CBS News

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing late last week, Dr. David Asher, who previously served as an adviser to U.S. Gen. John Allen at the Pentagon and State Department, accused the former administration of a serious miscarriage of justice by interfering in U.S. investigations against Hezbollah, also spelled Hizballah.

The Obama administration, he claimed, acted out of concern that American law enforcement units would interfere with the United States nuclear deal with Tehran.

In his written testimony, Dr. Asher, now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, declared:

Senior leadership presiding, directing, and overseeing various sections within the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, and portions of the U.S. Intelligence Community [during the Obama administration] systematically disbanded any internal or external stakeholder action that threatened to derail the administrations policy agenda focused on Iran.

Top law enforcement officers working Hizballah, Iran, and Venezuela cases were reassigned from key investigative units and moved to peripheral assignments. Several top cops retired. Frankly, it was a mix of tragedy and travesty combined with a seriously misguided turn of policy that resulted in no real strategic gain and a serious miscarriage of justice.

U.S. officials have linked Hezbollah to various criminal activities, including drug trafficking and money laundering. The proceeds from the illegal activity are reportedly used to buy weapons for Hezbollah in Syria.

Venezuelas socialist regime has been affiliated with Hezbollahs illicit activities in Latin America, carried out in partnership with the Iranian and Syrian governments.

The Obama administration reportedly allowed the nuclear deal to take precedence over the terror threat against the United States posed by Iranian activities in the Western Hemisphere, a move that placed American citizens at risk.

Dr. Asher noted:

The result is that criminal states and criminal terrorist organizations continue to benefit from a type of implicit immunity from prosecution. Neither al-Qaeda nor Hizballah has ever been organizationally prosecuted for repeatedly attacking the United States, killing our citizens, and for being tied to a wide number of trans-national organized crimes in violation of our laws.

The same is true with the Islamic State [ISIS/ISIL]. Despite clear and abiding bodies of evidence and testifying witnesses, these terrorist organizations have, in effect, been shielded from mafia-style RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] prosecutions that would aim to incarcerate their members for life, take away their sanctuary, strip them of their finances, and undermine their credibility.

Dr. Asher also suggested that the Obama administration may have threatened U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and other law enforcement officials with reprisals if they continued to investigate Hezbollah, which is part of their sworn duty to protect the American homeland.

I have even heard statements of fear of reprisal should these terrorists be prosecuted from top DOJ officials as well as senior law enforcement agency leaders and intelligence analysts. I personally find this phobia, baseless, bizarre, and, moreover, against both the spirit and the letter of the laws we are sworn to uphold, he testified.

Today I am confident all of this is coming to an end, also said Asher. We have a White House and NSC [National Security Council] determined to attack and defeat not only the Islamic State and al-Qaeda but also take on Iran and Hizballah terrorist networks, finances, facilitators, and senior functionaries.

Had the former Obama administration not allowed the nuclear deal to take priority over dismantling Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere, the terrorist groups terrorism financing networks could have been taken apart, according to the former official.

Asher pointed out:

For a very low financial cost we could have legally taken apart the finances, the global organization, and the ability of Hizballah to readily terrorize us, victimize us, and run a criminal network through our shores, inside our banking system, andin partnership with the worlds foremost drug cartelstarget our state and society.

Instead, in narrow pursuit of the P5 + 1 [United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, plus Germany] agreement, the administration failed to realize the lasting effect on U.S. law enforcement collaborative efforts and actively mitigated investigations and prosecutions needed to effectively dismantle Hizballah and [Irans worldwide terrorism network].

For years, the U.S. military has been warning against Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere, particularly South America.

The U.S. military disagreed with an assessment issued by Obamas State Department amid the nuclear deal negotiations in 2013 claiming that Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere is waning, reported the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congresss investigative arm.

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House Witness: Obama Admin 'Systematically Disbanded' Anti ...