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Seamus Bruner, Government Accountability Institute (GAI) researcher and author of Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption, explained how former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller leveraged their government positions to enrich themselves. He joined Peter Schweizer, GAI president and Breitbart News senior editor-at-large, for a Wednesday interview with Sean Hannity.

“This is a familiar story [about] the revolving door; turning public service into self service,” said Bruner. “We followed the money. We followed it to the top, and we found that these choir boys or boy scouts — as the media likes to depict them — James Comey and Robert Mueller, they’re really no better than anyone else in the swamp. They use their public service [and] their contacts and they cash in through the revolving door.”

Bruner described Lockheed Martin’s — the country’s largest national defense and security contractor — hiring of James Comey in 2005 to the dual position of general counsel and senior vice president as unusual. Comey was 44 at the time and without requisite corporate experience.

Listen to the discussions below:

Bruner added, “[James Comey] wasn’t just consulting Lockheed Martin, he was their general counsel and a senior vice president at the corporation, which begs the question, why would you choose a young James Comey? He’s got no corporate experience of that kind.”

Bruner drew on a 2012 Huffington Post article describing Next Generation identification — a proposed biometric database and facial recognition system commissioned by the FBI via Lockheed Martin — as a “billion-dollar boondoggle.” He noted that Comey “signed off” on the project as a Lockheed Martin executive and chief legal counsel in 2012, and the project’s authorization by then FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Bruner spoke of Comey’s and Mueller’s complementary roles in expanding “the surveillance state.”

“James Comey and Robert Mueller have this long history together going back to the nineties at the DOJ,” recalled Bruner:

They’ve been very concerned with matters relating to surveillance, especially FISA and the Patriot Act. We see repeatedly throughout the early 2000s and all the way up through today [that] Robert Mueller and James Comey wanted to “tear down the wall,” so to speak, between intelligence agencies, and had issues with what they call “the going dark problem,” where they didn’t have enough information. So they really rapidly expanded [what I describe as] “the surveillance state” which is now, of course, being used against journalists, citizens, and even now a presidential candidate.

Schweizer explained how government officials leverage their roles towards self-enrichment: “What this highlights is this problem, happens at Health and Human Services, it happens at DoD, where you have government officials, who basically, while they’re in government, create demand for their own services when they leave.”

Schweizer continued:

So in the case of Jim Comey, he goes to Lockheed Martin from the Department of Justice. At the Department of Justice, he helped establish some of these very programs that Lockheed Martin was getting contracts to implement and carry out. So he sets up these programs, who is Lockheed Martin going to look for to give a paycheck to who understands this program better than anybody else? The government official who helped put it together, and that is sort of a tried and true story in Washington, DC, and the point is, you played that clip at the beginning of James Comey talking about how sensitive he is to the appearances of doing something wrong or wrongdoing, the fact of the matter is, this is a very familiar story, unfortunately, in the swamp.

Schweizer concluded, “What Seamus shows is this pattern where, when Mueller is in the private sector and Comey is in government, there seem to be contracts and resources that flow in that direction, as well. It’s kind of a tag team arrangement that these two have. It speaks to the financial underbelly that exists even at the Department of Justice. … There are lots of ways in which these officials self-enrich themselves.”

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REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — For several hours, cartel gunmen used armored trucks, explosives, and machine-guns in a new fight for control of lucrative drug trafficking areas at the Texas border. 

This week, a faction of Los Zetas called Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) and the Gulf Cartel went to war in Los Guerras, Tamaulipas, immediately south of the border from Starr County, Texas. Los Guerras is a short distance from Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas, one of the main crossing points used by the Gulf Cartel to move people and drugs into Roma, Texas. The region south of Starr County, Texas, is commonly known as “La Ribereña” as a reference to the Rio Grande. 

While authorities have not released any official information, law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that the most intense fighting took place in the early morning hours of Tuesday along rural dirt roads, where convoys of gunmen from both groups clashed. The number of casualties remains unclear, however, residents reported hearing gunfire for close to four hours in one of the clashes. During the fighting, cartel gunmen used “mounstros” or “monsters,” a term referring to the makeshift armored vehicles gunmen use to move in battle. Mexican authorities found some of the vehicles along dirt roads. Some had bloodstains on them, while others were burned out. 

The area near Los Guerra is considered a border of sorts with the CDN to the west and the Gulf Cartel on the east. The new violence comes at a time when the Gulf Cartel spent over a year in a fierce internal war where factions from the border city of Reynosa fought with the splinter from Matamoros over territorial control. In a similar fashion, the CDN has been at war with another group of Los Zetas called “Vieja Escuela.”

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “A.C. Del Angel” from Tamaulipas. 

Craig confirms all of James’s worst suspicions about the pointlessness of (most) further education. And if you think it is bad in the U.S., wait until you hear how much worse it is in the U.K.: Mickey Mouse degree courses at third-rate universities with huge dropout rates – all ultimately serviced by the hapless taxpayer.

Then there are those poor kids who leave even more stupid than when they arrived – indoctrinated by a toxic mix of post-modernism and neo-Marxism, which turns them into cry-bully unemployables with a huge sense of entitlement but no obvious qualifications for the world of work.

 

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James Delingpole is a writer, journalist, and columnist. He is a writer at Breitbart London. Follow him on Twitter: @JamesDelingpole.

One North Texas school district became the first in the nation to outfit all of its faculty and staff members in high-tech, wearable security panic buttons.

This week, the Lovejoy Independent School District upped the ante on school safety with the MadeSafe emergency alert system. They issued more than 600 employees were issued a Personal Location Device (PLD). It can be worn like a necklace on a lanyard. When activated, MadeSafe notifies first responders by displaying the location of an alert on a 3D map of a school. It also advises administrators to a situation via text and email.

Enseo, based in Richardson, Texas, launched MadeSafe in 2015 for use in the hotel industry. In a press release, the company said it adapted the technology for schools. The “networking and cloud computing” system provides immediate notification of an incident such as a medical emergency, a student altercation, or an encounter with a potentially suspicious or dangerous person on a school campus. MadeSafe uses a high resolution detection grid to track the exact location of teachers and staff when they activate the PLD.

Lovejoy ISD officials said they integrated MadeSafe into their existing emergency response protocols. Superintendent Ted Moore told Breitbart Texas by email they chose the Enseo product because it met their education, security, and well-being needs. He also cited future plans for “educational benefits such as improved AV/Distance Learning and Education on Demand.”

Enseo Founder and CEO Vanessa Ogle, a Lovejoy ISD parent, told Dallas Innovates the school district was “very aggressive in terms of wanting to lead the state in security.”

Nationwide, school safety concerns soared after the deadly Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas, high school shootings. In the Lone Star State, Governor Greg Abbott ordered education officials to review and strengthen K-12 and higher education security protocols. Abbott also unveiled a 40-page school and firearm safety action plan that contained a bevy of suggested strategies. It called for more than $120 million in funding through grant dollars to help districts implement or enhance safety measures.

Many Texas school districts have hardened campuses through the use of clear backpacks, random searches, classroom door locks, increased police presence, and active shooter training for educators and campus staff participating in marshal and guardian programs. Some redesigned school building entrances, retrofitted windows with bullet proof glass, and added campus perimeter fencing. Others incorporated varying degrees of technology from entryway metal detectors to upgraded surveillance systems, classroom panic buttons, and “apps” for students to anonymously report suspicious behavior.

However, high-tech security solutions are pricey and raise concerns for some over efficacy, increased student data collection, weakened privacy, and zero tolerance policies that can result in the school-to-prison pipeline.

Texas City ISD issued student and staff ID badges with a built-in chip that monitors their locations. Also, they introduced an app that gives dispatchers access to school surveillance cameras, added eight police deputies, and hired a former Secret Service agent to oversee the district’s security protocols, according to KTRK.

Fort Bend ISD hopes to add facial recognition, more commonly used in airports and by law enforcement, into a lengthy wish list that allocates $8.6 million for security upgrades, among them metal detectors and mandatory bar-coded student ID badges.

Garland ISD will pump $36 million in high-tech surveillance, overhauling its existing system. Last year, Mansfield ISD devoted more than $10 million from a $275 million bond to safety and security. McKinney ISD budgeted $6.5 million from a 2016 school bond for 1,500 HD cameras in its schools.

Breitbart Texas asked the Lovejoy ISD superintendent about MadeSafe’s price tag. He did not disclose costs. Instead, he explained each system is designed based “on size, construction type and network infrastructure.” Moore then said, “After surveying our schools, Enseo gave us a turn-key price including design, installation, testing, and training.”

He also said that MadeSafe was not purchased from their 2018-19 adopted Maintenance and Operations budget which set aside nearly $500,000 for security. This reflected almost a $400,000 increase in security spending from the previous school year. Moore commented these funds were earmarked for “personnel cost to cover a security office” on all six Lovejoy ISD campuses. He said, “The Enseo system was purchased from capital funds” that “resulted from savings on projects that had already been completed.”

Follow Merrill Hope, a member of the original Breitbart Texas team, on Twitter.

JERUSALEM, Israel — U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that the Trump administration insists “Hezbollah forces in Syria have to go back to Lebanon.”

In a wide-ranging conversation following several days of meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Israeli defense officials, Amb. Bolton discussed the U.S. position on Iranian and Hezbollah operations in Syria and the threat they pose to Israel and to U.S. interests in the region.

Syria and Iranian deployment in Syria, he said, dominated President Donald Trump’s discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last month. That came after Netanyahu had previously expressed grave concern regarding the threat Iran’s entrenchment in Syria poses to Israel.

In Bolton’s words: “Syria was the main topic of discussion during President Trump’s meeting with President Putin in Helsinki. This was the case both during their meeting with their advisors and during their one-on-one meeting. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s discussion of the issue during his phone call with the president earlier that week and during his visit with Putin during the FIFA [World Cup] tournament [on July 12] contributed to making Syria such an important issue.”

During his press conference with President Trump, Putin prompted concerns from critics about his intentions regarding the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

On the one hand, Putin reinstated his previous agreement with Netanyahu, that the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement that Israel and Syria concluded would be reinstated. Putin said, “The south of Syria should be brought to the full compliance with the treaty of 1974 about the separation of forces of Israel and Syria.”

The Separation of Forces Agreement bars Syrian military forces from deploying along the border with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

But Putin went on to say that implementing the 1974 agreement would contribute “toward creating a lasting peace in compliance with the respective resolutions of Security Council, for instance the [UNSC] Resolution 338.”

Resolution 338 from 1973 is a restatement of UN Security Council Resolution 242 from 1967. Resolution 242 was adopted at the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six Day War. During the course of that war, Israel took control over the Golan Heights from Syria.

The resolution calls for Israel to withdraw “from territories” it took control over during the war in the framework of a regional peace. That peace would be based on the Arab states’ acceptance of Israel’s right to exist, “within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

Putin’s allusion to Resolution 338 raised concerns that he would use his position as a powerbroker in Syria to try to coerce Israel into negotiating its continued control over the Golan Heights.

Bolton told Breitbart News that he addressed the issue during the meeting that Putin and Trump held with their advisors in Helsinki.

“I asked him about that during our meeting and he basically said that he isn’t challenging the legitimacy of Israeli control over the Golan Heights,” Bolton said.

Over the past several months, as the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and its Iranian and Russian sponsors effectively won the civil war and ensured the regime’s survival, senior Israeli officials have called for the Israeli government to work towards achieving U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Israel effectively annexed the Golan Heights when it applied its law to the area in 1981. The Syrian civil war underlined that Israel cannot defend northern Israel without the Golan Heights.

During an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Bolton said, “I’ve heard the idea being suggested but there’s no discussion of it, no decision within the U.S. government.

“Obviously we understand the Israeli claim that it has annexed the Golan Heights. We understand their position – but there’s no change in the U.S. position for now.”

Speaking to Breitbart Wednesday, Bolton made clear that the administration’s position is not final, noting, “U.S. recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan is not on the table, for now.”

The biggest conventional threat Israel faces today is the Iranian-controlled Hezbollah terror group. Discussions of the future of Syria between Israel, Russia, and the U.S. have focused on the joint Israeli-U.S. position that Iranian forces must be removed from Syria. But in response to a question from Breitbart News, Bolton said that this position includes Hezbollah forces as well.

“Hezbollah forces in Syria have to go back to Lebanon,” he said.

Bolton added, “They are functionally part of the [Iranian Revolutionary Guards] Qods Force.”

He explained that Hezbollah forces were deployed to Lebanon by the Qods Force because Iran needed boots on the ground to protect the Assad regime.

Bolton noted that Hezbollah’s already daunting threat to Israel is rapidly expanding. Iran seeks to transforms Hezbollah’s arsenal of 150,000 rockets into guided missiles through kits that place fins on their backs and add GPS devices.

In his words, “The Iranian kits that transform rockets into ballistic missiles are a profound threat.”

Following his interview with Breitbart, Bolton gave a press conference to the Israeli and U.S. media. There he repeated the Trump administration’s support for the air strikes Israel has conducted in Syria to block Iranian transfer sof advanced weapons, including the ballistic missile conversion kits to Lebanon.

In his words, “Every time Iran has brought missiles or other threatening weapons into Syria in recent months, Israel has struck those targets. I think that is a legitimate act of self-defense on the part of Israel.”

At the press conference, Bolton also said the U.S. was committing to wiping ISIS out, while countering Iranian influence:

What is absolutely central to American policy is that we’re determined to finish the job of eliminating the ISIS territorial caliphate but to deal with the consequences of continuing ISIS activity in Syria and Iraq. But also to deal with the presence of the Iranians. This is something that perhaps the Obama administration didn’t foresee, whether they should have or not didn’t foresee at the beginning of the anti-ISIS campaign, that Iran obviously had a strategic plan to create an arc of control from Iran through the Shia areas of Iraq, into Syria, linking up with Hezbollah in Lebanon. That’s not something we want to see.

Hezbollah extended its control over the Lebanese government in the parliamentary election in May. Israeli leaders have warned repeatedly that Hezbollah’s control over the Lebanese government extends as well to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

Following the Lebanese elections, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned, “Hezbollah has in practice completed its takeover of Lebanon. And this means it is in complete control not just of the Lebanese [government], but also its army. From now on a Lebanese sniper is a Hezbollah stand-in and takes direct orders from Hezbollah and [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah. And that is a new reality.”

Despite Hezbollah’s tightened grip on the Lebanese government and armed forces, the U.S. continues to supply the Lebanese military with advanced weapons.

In June, the U.S. delivered four Super Tucano A-29s, completing a shipment of six since the beginning of 2018.

At the ceremony transferring the fighter jets to the Lebanese air force, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard said, “The A-29 provides the LAF with precision guided munitions and advanced precision strike capability.  This is a game-changing acquisition that takes the LAF to the next level of combat capability.

“With the A-29, the LAF will now be able to conduct joint combined arms maneuvers in all conditions, day and night, in a way that greatly reduces the risk of collateral damage and the danger to civilians.”

She added, “We will be complementing the power of the A-29 aircraft with six MD-530G light attack scout helicopters…This is a significant Air Force that we are building together.”

Richard summarized U.S. military aid to the LAF by noting, “Over the last decade, the U.S. government has invested over $1.5 billion in training and equipment, and we have trained over 32,000 Lebanese troops.”

In his conversation with Breitbart, Bolton did not directly engage the question of U.S. military assistance to the LAF, which is strongly promoted by the Pentagon. He did note, “Lebanese Americans are very worried about it. They see that [Lebanese President Michel] Aoun is controlled by Hezbollah.”

Bolton underlined as well the connection between the Iranian nuclear program and the North Korean nuclear program. In 2007, Israel destroyed a North Korean-built nuclear reactor in Al-Kibar, Syria. Israelis have long attested that Iran paid for the reactor. Bolton acknowledged the truth of Israel’s claim.

“Syrian [military] officers who defected to the United States have told us that they helped transfer Iranian funds that financed the North Korean built nuclear reactor in Syria,” Bolton told Breitbart News.

The nuclear negotiations the Trump administration is conducting with North Korea may have profound implications for Iran.

Bolton explained, “The lesson Iran took from the 2007 bombing [of the al Kibar nuclear reactor] was that if you conduct illicit nuclear operations, do them far away from Israel.”

Austria deported 21 African failed asylum seekers late last week to Nigeria and Gambia with the Interior Ministry revealing that the vast majority of the deportees had been drug dealers.

The deportation of the 21 failed asylum seekers marks the seventh flight this year to take back Nigerian and Gambian migrants from Austria under the authority of the Interior Ministry, which has been headed by populist anti-mass migration Freedom Party (FPÖ) Interior Minister Herbert Kickl since December, Kronen Zeitung reports.

The 19 Africans had all been convicted for drug offences, with several of them additionally being convicted of violent crimes as well.

Since April 1st, Austria has chartered 23 different flights to a total of twelve different countries including both Nigeria, Gambia and Azerbaijan earlier this month.

Around 45 percent of the 247 failed asylum seekers deported since April have been convicted of crimes, according to the Interior Ministry.

“We are doing everything we can to take criminal migrants out of the country as soon as possible,” Interior Minister Kickl commented.

According to the Austrian Federal Immigration and Asylum Service (BFA), Nigerians accounted for one of the top five countries for asylum applications in 2017 but also had one of the highest rejection rates.

Nigerian drug dealers have been problematic in the past in Austria, particularly in the capital of Vienna. In 2016, Vienna police claimed that drug crime had increased by ten percent due to the inflow of Nigerian migrants, who made up as much as 80 percent of the criminal suspects in cases under the Narcotic Substances Act.

Nigerian Migrants Wage Gang Wars with Axes and Machetes, Turn Italian Town into Battleground https://t.co/hn8g1TJjft

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 3, 2018

In neighbouring Italy, Nigerian criminal gangs have an even larger presence with towns like the former resort area of Castel Volturno north of Naples being impacted by Nigerians pushing drugs and pimping prostitutes.

Nigerian criminals have also been linked to horrific violence, including the murder and dismemberment of Italian teen Pamela Mastropietro who was lured away from a drug rehab clinic, killed, chopped up into pieces and left in suitcases by the side of the road earlier this year. It is alleged the teen was killed by a Nigerian drug dealer.

Prominent Italian criminologist Alessandro Meluzzi described the Nigerian mafia as taking over Italy and spoke of their brutal methods following Mastropietro’s death saying, “In the Nigerian mafia, ritual cannibalism, is not an exception, but a rule. These are normal things for them, but here nobody talks about it, out of fear of being called racist.”

“We should get used to these things: this is just the tip of an iceberg destined to grow larger,” he said.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com