Defrauding Sweden No Impediment to Ministerial Jobs in Iraq

Corruption is Everywhere - Iraqi government officials milk

Sweden's generous social benefits in blatantly fraudulent ways

Fishing for Swedish cash: Afghan politician collecting benefits

for his dead mother – report

Swedish Krona banknotes and coins ©  REUTERS/Fredrik Sandberg

An Afghan politician is under investigation in Sweden for collecting benefits intended for his dead mother, according to a new report. Welfare fraud has become a growing problem in the Scandinavian country.

Razaq Ahmadzai, co-leader of Afghanistan’s Green Trend party, is expected to receive a top post in Kabul once the new coalition government is formed. But the Afghan politician is already being handily rewarded by the Swedish government, according to an investigation conducted by Fria Tider. The Swedish outlet has alleged that Ahmadzai, a resident of Sweden, has been collecting a pension intended for his long-deceased mother.

The paper found that Ahmadzai’s mother was registered to receive benefits from the Swedish government in February 2017 – one month after her death was reported by relatives on Facebook. Sweden’s Census Register still lists the dead woman as alive and residing in Afghanistan. Fria Tider reported that Ahmadzai has access to his deceased mother’s bank account, and still enjoys Stockholm’s generosity.

Swedish police were tipped off about the alleged welfare fraud, which is now under investigation. However, cash is still being dutifully deposited into the dead mother’s bank account.

The scheme is the latest high-profile case of alleged fraud in Sweden’s welfare system. In November, Iraq’s serving defense minister, Najah al-Shammari, was accused of receiving child and housing support from Sweden for years – even after returning to his native Iraq.

Corruption is Everywhere, But in the LDS Church?

Mormon Church accused of stockpiling billions,

avoiding paying taxes

Cheri Mossburg and Stephanie Becker
CNN

A whistleblower accuses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints of keeping money for charitable causes.

(George Frey/Getty Images)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon Church, responded Tuesday to a recently filed whistleblower complaint that accuses the church of stockpiling US$100 billion in accounts intended for charitable works, misleading members and avoiding taxes.

A whistleblower alleges that billions of dollars collected in tithes -- mandatory donations by members -- was invested in an investment arm of the church, Ensign Peak Advisors, but in 22 years, has not been distributed to charitable causes in accordance with IRS rules, according to the complaint filed with the IRS.

"Claims being currently circulated are based on a narrow perspective and limited information," the LDS Church told CNN in a statement. "The Church complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes, and reserves. We continue to welcome the opportunity to work with officials to address questions they may have."

The complaint was first reported by the Washington Post. The whistleblower, David Nielsen, is a Mormon who worked for the church until September, his brother, Lars Nielsen, told CNN. David Nielsen is a former senior portfolio manager at Ensign Peak Advisors, his brother said.

The complaint was prepared by the brothers and filed with the IRS in mid-November, according to Lars Nielsen.

Under IRS rules, whistleblowers can be awarded up to 30 percent of any taxes and penalties collected.

"We began this effort before we knew the IRS whistleblower program existed and he asked me to work with him," Lars Nielsen said Wednesday.

David Nielsen wants the IRS to strip the Mormon church of its tax exempt status, according to the complaint.

An IRS spokesman declined to comment citing federal law prohibiting the agency from discussing any specific case. Ensign Peak Advisors declined to comment.

Sam Brunson, a professor of nonprofit tax law at Chicago's Loyola University who is a member of the LDS church, said under Ensign's Articles of Incorporation, "it is both a supporting organization," which means it has to make charitable donations "commensurate in scope" to its funds, and an "integrated auxiliary," which means it might not have to. An integrated auxiliary organization can legally sidestep paying taxes by being a non-profit.

"My guess is that the IRS will probably do nothing" and even if it does, "chances are very small we will find out," he said.

Brunson told CNN that "there is some hurt and questioning" among his friends and church members who worry about those who can't really afford the 10% tithing to a church that allegedly has such a large nest egg.

And he hopes that the whistleblower's complaint will spark some changes. "Members of the church aren't shareholders, but stakeholders, and there's something good about transparency," he said.

The church added in its statement that most of the donated money was used for education, humanitarian work, meeting houses, missionary efforts and temples. Other money was saved.

"Over many years, a portion is methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future," the church said in the statement.

In the statement the church made no mention of allegedly accumulating $100 billion, but did say, "All Church funds exist for no other reason than to support the Church's divinely appointed mission."

Lars Nielsen told CNN that his brother reveres the people he worked with and said they might have made mistakes. He said the church hierarchy may not have understood what was demanded under the law.

"David and I are very mindful that the money that could be recovered is money that came from the tithe, from people we care about. This is special money," he said.

Rex Murphy: A Political Travesty is Unfolding in America

This sleazy attempt to get Trump out of office illustrates what happens when one side refuses to accept the voice of the people in an election

Rex Murphy, National Post
Rex Murphy is Canada's best political commentator. His drifting to the right in
recent years resulted in the termination of a very long employment at the CBC.

Back in the days when it was obvious to all the oracles of the higher punditry that Donald Trump was on a quixotic quest towards the presidency, and when it was inscribed in the granite of fate that Hillary Clinton was going to thrash the rampageous outsider, some raised a caution: what if Trump, in violation of all standards of American democracy, refused, after losing, as he was surely going to do, to accept the election’s result?

Predictably, the answer was that it would be a horror, typical of Trump’s manic manner, and in Ms. Clinton’s own tweeted words a fundamental “threat to our democracy.” The standard has always been: the people vote, the votes are counted, and save in the most exceptional and absolutely vivid demonstrations of overt and blatant examples of fraud, the loser sighs and the winner goes on to Pennsylvania Avenue. Even after the nail-biter and hanging chads debacle in the 2000 election, did not Albert Gore himself accede to George Bush II, and Americans proceeded, in the most beautiful phrase in politics, “to put it all behind them?”

Not so when, so to speak, Alaric stormed the empire and reduced Rome to ruins, which is the only historic template for how progressives viewed and still view Trump’s successful march to the White House. The psychological shock was massive and unprecedented, the “pussy hats” were out marching in days, and opinion columnists sobbed over the trauma of voters who found themselves incontinent with rage and sorrow that Trump, the disruptor, had won.

It was not, among the virulently anti-Trump forces, supposed to have been this way. Within the coven of Clinton supporters a Trump victory was against nature; it could not be, the goddess of glass ceilings must have been, had to have been, cheated. Hillary herself over the months that followed unspiralled a vast catalogue of why she shouldn’t have lost and then fixed upon the No. 1 favourite. Trump and his lawless henchpersons had “stolen” or “manipulated” the process. And most particularly, most explosively, spun the story of how the dread Darth Putin and Trump had secretly, nefariously, maliciously colluded and “stolen” the election from Hillary.

From the elegant hostelries of Martha’s Vineyard to the sleek mansion-palaces of the Silicon Valley hyper-tycoons, the keening went on. And thus, as soon as Trump was installed, the charge was made, that Trump was in the White House only because he had “colluded” with the Russians, and therefore he was not “really” president. It went even more raw than that. Some of the cable networks, and most of the big press, became utterly absorbed in the effort to prove collusion. The most hysterical of the Russian conspiracy theorists, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, went on every night for two and a half years articulating every wild wisp of an allegation that Trump was an agent of Russia, Putin’s stooge — a president beholden to an enemy tyrant.

With that as context the move to impeach originated. It would not do to have a “Russian asset” control the government of the United States. And for close to two and a half years the Russian connection was investigated as the strongest possible, irrefutable reason to take him out of office: to impeach him, and rid the country of his Russian-contaminated presence in the White House.

Hillary Clinton speaks at the Jewish Labor Committee’s Annual Human Rights Awards Dinner on Dec. 9, 2019, in New York City. Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

So there were investigations without number, hearings without end, with Robert Mueller, the distinguished, highly respected Washington prestige-figure all the while doing the most detailed and rigorous dive into the whole mess. Mueller was going to do the job, bring home the bacon. No report was more anticipated. And when it did come: Nada, nothing, no American, no one in the Trump administration, not Trump himself or his auxiliaries had “colluded with the Russians to steal the election.” The Russian collusion fantasy collapsed. Democrats again went into mourning. Rachel Maddow checked in for aromatherapy and radical grief counselling.

But. The impeachment game itself was not the least affected. After Russia, Russia, Russia every day, almost within minutes the impeach brigade jumped on a phone call to Ukraine. I’m not going to detail this adventure save to note that the speed with which his opponents went from “having evidence of collusion with Russia” as the ground base for their impeachment efforts — the very speed of the switch to Ukraine, was or should be mind-blowing.

And now to this very week: when articles of impeachment have been drawn up to vote on, on Wednesday or Thursday, there are only two charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Where’s Russia, where’s Lord Putin, where’s treason and being a “stooge” of a foreign power? How can they leap, with such shameless ease, from the massive campaign of nearly three years insisting they had proof Trump was a tool of Putin, to this petty sideline of an allegation that Trump abused his power on a phone call to Ukraine?

A copy of the House of Representatives articles of impeachment resolution that Democrats hope to use to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump is seen after being released in Washington on Dec. 10, 2019. Jim Bourg/Reuters

All this sits alongside what has been revealed during this farce, that the FBI and its masters had set spies in Trump’s campaign, that they had used the Steele dossier — compiled by the Clinton camp and utterly discredited — to obtain the famous FISA warrants, that they had played pat-a-ball with Hillary on her server, and the Clinton Foundation’s octopus relation with foreign “investors.” That, in fact, the whole predicate of their investigations came from a paid-for, confected, Clinton research dump, with some of the most salacious, unverified and to-be-proven-false allegations ever to rise against a president. The immortal charge came from the head of the FBI himself, and was repeated in his book tour: “I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” he said. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.” Of course James Comey didn’t know — that’s the off-ramp of every sly insinuation.

So now this week, the move to impeachment proceeds but is reduced from the melodrama of Russian collusion, the word Russia not even in the two articles of the impeachment itself. And what are these two? Nothing more than a formless and flowing river of hot fudge and mostly composed of the same materials, so vague they could be hauled out on a thousand occasions.

Members of the House Rules Committee hold a hearing on the impeachment of U.S. President

Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 17, 2019. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

But no Russia. That’s the big take: It is what is not in the charges, which assures anyone looking at this that the desire to impede, demean and entangle Trump, not “high crimes and misdemeanours,” was and is the whole and only motive behind a transparent travesty. The impeachment process as we have observed turns, with vicious irony, on something Hillary Clinton herself warned about, when she was “certain” and half the country was, too, that she was going to win. That not accepting the result of an election was a grave threat to American democracy.

She was right. The past three years, clouded daily by this sleazy attempt to get Trump out by means other than by democratic vote, is the full illustration of what happens when one side — the Democrats — refuse to accept the voice of the people in an election. And there is an additional irony attached: the impeachment mania may well increase support for Trump and give him a second term. As was said of old: He who diggeth a pit shall fall into it.

If Trump's phone call with Zelensky is grounds for impeachment, I guarantee there is not one President who ever sat in the Oval Office who didn't deserve a similar fate. And many have committed far more outrageous travesties, but no-one is looking into those.

It should be noted here that the Republicans did exactly the same thing during the first term of Obama. They attempted to distort and prevent everything he tried to do, not on the basis of individual merit, but because they so intensely disliked him, whether for his colour, his progressiveness, or his preference for Muslims over Jews. They certainly did not respect the people's choice. Whoever wins next year, should expect more of the same, only, perhaps, worse.

Religion of Peace - Justice by Mob Rule and Mass Hysteria

Pakistani Court Sentences Professor to Death for Blasphemy

A police officer stands guard at the entrance of the Central Jail in Multan, during Hafeez' sentencing

© Reuters / Arshad Raza Zaidi

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has sentenced a university professor to death for insulting the Prophet Muhammed. The trial has already seen his defense lawyer shot dead, under the Muslim world’s harshest blasphemy regime.

Thirty-three-year-old Junaid Hafeez was arrested in 2013 and charged with making derogatory remarks about the Islamic Prophet Muhammed on social media. Under the country’s harsh blasphemy law, he was sentenced on Saturday to death by hanging.

"We have a spineless system.

No one can stand up to a blasphemy charge.”

His lawyers claim he was framed by Islamic extremists for his liberal views, and said they plan to appeal the verdict. “There can't be a fair trial in blasphemy cases in Pakistan,” defense lawyer Asad Jamal told Reuters. "We have a spineless system. No one can stand up to a blasphemy charge.”

Pakistan has the strictest blasphemy laws in any Muslim-majority country. Though nobody has been actually executed under these laws, more than 75 of those accused have been killed extra-judicially, according to the Centre for Social Justice.

Critics say blasphemy charges are used to settle personal scores, and allow the country’s Muslim majority to persecute religious minorities. While a 2014 poll showed that a majority of Pakistanis want blasphemy legislation repealed, religious hardliners often turn up in droves to punish offenders and their supporters extra-judicially.

Hafeez’s previous defense lawyer was gunned down in his office in 2014. Rashid Rehman was the first lawyer in a year to take up the case, for fear of mob violence, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told AFP at the time.

More recently, the acquittal last year of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy triggered nationwide protests, with one hardline Islamist party calling for the death of the judges who freed her. Earlier this year, a blasphemy charge against a Hindu veterinarian in Pakistan’s Sindh province caused an anti-Hindu riot, with multiple Hindu businesses set on fire before police intervened (see photos above).

50 Terrorists Arrested as Massive Palestinian Terror Cell Uncovered in the West Bank

Israeli security forces uncover massive PFLP terror cell in Ramallah area, arrest dozens of terrorists involved in string of terror attacks

Arutz Sheva Staff,

Israeli security forces operating in Samaria have uncovered a massive terrorist cell responsible for a string of terror attacks in the area, the Shin Bet internal security agency revealed Wednesday morning.

Some 50 terrorists linked to a cell operated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) have been arrested in the Ramallah area of Samaria, the Shin Bet said.

The PFLP terror cell was discovered during operations carried out by the Shin Bet, IDF, and Israel Police.

The terror cell’s members include the three terrorists responsible for the August bombing attack near Dolev, in western Samaria, which killed 17-year-old Rina Shnerb and injured her father and brother.

Investigators also found that the terror cell was involved in the two shooting attacks near Beit El, north of Jerusalem, a year and a half ago.

Security officials say the terror cell was planning major attacks, set to be carried out in the near future.

The three terrorists from the cell who carried out the August 2019 bombing attack that killed Rina Shnerb include:

Forty-four-year-old Samer Arbid of Ramallah, who was arrested in September for the attack and has been arrested four times in the past for his terrorist activities. Arbid organized the terror cell and was responsible both for constructing and detonating the bomb which killed Shnerb.

Yazan Hussein Hassani Magmas, 24, a resident of Bir Zeit near Ramallah, who was involved in not only the August 2019 bombing attack but also a number of other terror attacks.

Twenty-four-year-old Kassam Al Karim Ragah Shabli of Kobar, near Ramallah. Likue Magmas, he was involved in other terror attacks prior to the August bombing.

During the Shin Bet internal security agency’s interrogation of the three terrorists involved in the bombing attack, information was obtained leading to the discovery of various hidden weapons linked to the PFLP cell, including an M-16 assault rifle, an AK-47 assault rifle, a Galil assault rifle, a carbine rifle, a mini-uzi-style submachine gun, a number of pistols, a silencer, material used for the assembly of bombs, remote detonators, telescopic rifle sights, and large quantities of ammunition.

Many of the weapons were found during a joint IDF, Israel Police raid of the home of one of Arbid’s relatives.

After Year of Political Turmoil, SNC-Lavalin Gets Off Easy in Plea Deal

Corruption is Everywhere - Everywhere SNC-Lavalin works

'The rest of the company will be able to continue to have access to public contracts,' says François Legault

Peter Zimonjic · CBC News 

The bust-up between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada

Jody Wilson-Raybould came close to ending Trudeau's government - and it may have accomplished nothing.

(Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's failed efforts to see SNC-Lavalin avoid prosecution led to him losing two key ministers, his edge in the polls and (almost) his party's hold on government, the Quebec engineering firm at the centre of the controversy walked away today with a plea deal that looks a lot like what it asked the government for in the first place.

A judge on Thursday accepted the plea deal that a division of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. struck with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Under the agreement, the company pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud over $5,000 in relation to the company's activities in Libya.

All other charges have been dropped.

"We are happy. The company is happy," said SNC-Lavalin lawyer François Fontaine. "The fact that the charges are no longer pending over the head of the company is good. The uncertainty around that kind of proceeding is bad for business, is bad for the company.

"So we're very happy that it's now over. We are free to bid as normal. This guilty plea does not prevent construction, or any other entity of the group, to bid on public contracts."

After SNC-Lavalin was hit with fraud and corruption charges over its actions in Libya between 2001 and 2011, officials from the Prime Minister's Office spoke with then justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, asking her to reconsider offering the firm a deferred prosecution agreement.

Under newly passed legislation, a deferred prosecution agreement would allow the company to avoid trial providing it paid hefty fines and continued to adhere to a number of conditions for a period of time.

CBC, ever in Trudeau's court, neglect to mention here that SNC-Lavalin lobbied Trudeau furiously to pass that law, specifically for them. Trudeau snuck the law into the back pages of a very long and complex omnibus budget bill, without the opposition noticing. A bill passed by the previous government required companies guilty of corruption to be suspended from bidding on federal government contracts for a period of years. Many of the high level managers at SNC live in Trudeau's riding in Montreal.

Had the company been convicted in court of bribing Libyan officials — including Saadi Gadhafi, son of the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi — to get lucrative government contracts, it could have been blocked from competing for federal government contracts in Canada for a decade.

"I have long believed in the essential necessity of our judicial system operating as it should — based on the rule of law and prosecutorial independence, and without political interference or pressure," Wilson-Raybould said today on Twitter. 

"Ultimately, that system was able to do its work — as democracy and good governance requires — and an outcome was reached today. Accountability was achieved. The justice system did its work."

Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act

Former health minister Jane Philpott and former attorney general of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould

both resigned from cabinet over the SNC-Lavalin affair. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

In early 2019, media reports said that Wilson-Raybould felt she was being improperly pressured by Trudeau's senior adviser and the clerk of the Privy Council to ask the DPP to consider offering SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement.

Wilson-Raybould refused, saying she believed the prosecution service should be free from political influence in its decisions. Trudeau later said he did not direct the attorney general to reverse a decision — that he just wanted her to reconsider the deferred prosecution agreement option.

Months of political controversy followed, resulting in Wilson-Raybould resigning from cabinet before being tossed out of the Liberal caucus along with her ally in the public debate that ensued: former health and Indigenous services minister Jane Philpott.

Mario Dion, the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, released a report in August that found Trudeau had violated the Conflict of Interest Act.

'You don't get do-overs in politics'

The allegation that Trudeau improperly tried to influence the attorney general significantly depressed the prime minister's voter support.

Trudeau defended his actions by saying that he was trying to prevent the loss of jobs in Quebec, but the damage to the prime minister's reputation had been done — just as federal political parties were readying themselves for a fall election.

Primarily, he was trying to prevent the loss of his own job.

In its year-end interview with the prime minister, the Canadian Press asked Trudeau if his actions on the SNC-Lavalin file were worth the political cost.

"As we look back over the past year on this issue, there are things that we could have, should have, would have done differently had we known," he said.

"You don't get do-overs in politics. You only do the best you can to protect jobs, to respect the independence of the judiciary, and that's exactly what we did every step of the way."

No, that's not what you did! You did not respect the independence of the Judiciary or you wouldn't have lost two of your most capable ministers, nor would you have been found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. Or did you forget your Principal Secretary and top Public Servant were both forced to resign for their excessive pressure on JWR.

The deal SNC-Lavalin struck to avoid trial may not have been a deferred prosecution agreement, but it resulted in almost the same outcome for the company.

All other charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea on one charge of fraud over $5,000, plus an agreement to pay $280 million in fines and comply with a probation order for three years.

"So far I'm happy, because that's what we were asking for," said Quebec Premier François Legault. "SNC-Lavalin's paying $280 million, but it's only for a part of the company. The rest of the company will be able to continue to have access to public contracts."

Wilson-Raybould's successor, Justice Minister David Lametti, said he had no part in the deal.

"Yesterday, I became aware that the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and counsel for SNC-Lavalin had reached an agreement to resolve the ongoing criminal proceedings against the company and its affiliates," a statement from Lametti's office said.

"This decision was made independently by the PPSC, as part of their responsibility to continually assess and determine the appropriate path for cases under their jurisdiction. Canadians can have confidence that our judicial and legal systems are working as they should."

Right, it's our political system that is thoroughly screwed up! When you cause the two ministers with the most integrity to resign from cabinet and from the party, that says all you need to know about Justin Trudeau.

Yesterday, Jodie Wilson-Raybould was named Canada's Newsmaker of the Year. She and Jane Philpott have both left the very Liberal Party; JWR was re-elected in October as an independent MP; Jane Philpott failed in her attempt to do the same.

John Stossel Reveals a Certain Lack of Socialism in Sweden

Sweden is often held up as a model of successful socialism

..

Stossel looks into it and finds some very unsocialistic attitudes in Sweden made necessary by the drastic failure of real socialist programs

And don't forget Sweden's mind-boggling issue with domestic abuse, called the Nordic Paradox