Feds: VA official stole cash for stripper sex, gambling

The Detroit News
May 10, 2015

Glenn Alan Bates, 57, of Saline schemed to steal money from the VA retail store — or canteen — he managed in Ann Arbor, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.(Photo: Steve Perez / The Detroit News)

A former federal employee admitted embezzling about $150,000 from a Veterans Affairs retail store and blowing the cash on strippers, prostitutes and gambling sprees, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Glenn Alan Bates, 57, of Saline schemed to steal money from a VA retail store — or canteen — he managed in Ann Arbor, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Bates, who was released on $10,000 unsecured bond Tuesday, told investigators he spent some of the cash on a stripper named "Ashley" at an Ohio strip club, according to court records. He said he often spent $500 a night on lap dances — and more.

"After visiting the club numerous times, Glenn Alan Bates convinced Ashley to come to his hotel room for sex, for which he paid her," VA Special Agent Frederick Lane wrote in a court filing.

The hotel trysts were frequent and non-exclusive. Bates said he also met with other strippers and prostitutes, according to court records.

"Glenn Alan Bates stated he became addicted to the sexual encounters and he stole cash from the canteen to pay for this addiction," Lane wrote.

Bates was an assistant coach for the varsity baseball team, varsity girls' basketball team and varsity football statistician, according to the Saline Post. The Post said Bates was no longer involved with the schools "effective immediately."

According to court records, Bates told investigators he spent part of the money at casinos in Indianapolis and Battle Creek.

Bates and his court-appointed lawyer, Stacey Studnicki, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The investigation dates to May 2013 after an audit discovered more than $478,000 missing from the retail store. The store is part of the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System on Fuller Road.

The retail stores are operated by the Veterans Canteen Service, a VA branch catering to veterans who receive military health care benefits. The canteens sell food, clothing and electronics.

The VA's Office of Inspector General launched an investigation that focused on cash missing from the sale of commemorative military hats, vending machines and retail sales.

Bates managed the store from May 2006 to March 2013. He told investigators he stole about $150,000, according to court records.

Bates was hired to manage the VA canteen despite an extensive criminal record, The Detroit News has learned.

He served 18 months in federal prison in the late 1970s after being charged with stealing a car, according to the U.S. Pretrial Services Agency.

He also was charged with felony arson in 1992 and sentenced to probation.

During his arraignment in Detroit Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony Patti asked Bates about his current job.

"You're currently employed at Wal-Mart?" Patti asked.

"That's correct," Bates said.

"And what do you do there?" the magistrate asked.

"I work overnight," Bates said. "Overnight supervisor."

rsnell@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2028

Americans Not In The Labor Force Rise To Record 93,194,000

Zero Hedge
May 8, 2015

In what was an "unambiguously" unpleasant April jobs payrolls report, with a March revision dragging that month's job gain to the lowest level since June of 2012, the fact that the number of Americans not in the labor force rose once again, this time to 93,194K from 93,175K, with the result being a participation rate of 69.45 or just above the lowest percentage since 1977, will merely catalyze even more upside to the so called "market" which continues to reflect nothing but central bank liquidity, and thus - the accelerating deterioration of the broader economy.

End result: with the civilian employment to population ratio unchanged from last month at 59.3%, one can easily on the chart below why there will be no broad wage growth any time soon, which will merely allow the Fed to engage in its failed policies for a long, long time.

Globalists Using Muslim Terrorists as Pawns

The New American
May 8, 2015

Jihadists beware: You are being used as pawns and useful idiots for a much deeper agenda. The evidence is clear, and the goals are relatively transparent.

The Obama administration plans to begin more military training and arming of “moderate” jihadists in Syria as soon as this week, according to U.S. defense officials cited in media reports. The U.S. government’s stepped-up military support for “vetted” Syrian jihadists is ostensibly aimed at helping them battle less moderate Islamists in ISIS — a terrorist group that both Vice President Joe Biden and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey haveadmitted was armed and funded by Obama’s “anti-ISIS” coalition in the war on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in an interview last month that the U.S. government had been providing support to Chechen Islamist militants in the northern Caucasus region. “Our security services recorded direct contact between North Caucasus fighters and representatives of U.S. intelligence in Azerbaijan,” Putin said in the film, adding that he informed then-President George W. Bush, who vowed to stop the support. Instead, Putin claimed, U.S. intelligence agencies wrote to Russian authorities and said they had a right to back all “opposition forces” in the country.

In other words, Muslims are being used as pawns. That much is clear.

But exploiting Islamists and fanning jihad to advance a totalitarian global agenda is hardly a new phenomenon.

And despite alleged “East-West” tensions recently, that narrative also collapses under scrutiny, with “Eastern” and Western” rulers all pushing what they themselves refer to as a “New World Order.”   

Read the entire article

Jade Helm 15 Cancelled in Two Texas Counties; Remaining Texans Wary

The New American
May 8, 2015

The Texas counties of Victoria and Goliad, originally scheduled as two of the sites for the massive Jade Helm 15 military war simulation exercises across the Southwest this summer, will no longer host the operations, reported theVictoria (Texas) Advocate. No reason for the cancellations has yet been released.

Covered in depth by The New American, Jade Helm 15 has been the source of increasing concern and speculation among residents of Texas, ever since a map connected with the training operations surfaced that labeled the states of Texas and Utah as "hostile," while more liberal states were tagged as "permissive." Disquieted and unconvinced residents do not trust that the military and federal government are telling them the truth, or that the media is accurately representing their concerns.

The Goliad Advance-Guard noted that the Goliad County exercise was to have been conducted on the famed O’Connor Ranch, property owned by Sheriff T. Michael O’Connor. Various publications have been unable to elicit responses from the Army Special Operation Command, and as of press time, The New American had not received answers from calls to the two sheriffs of Victoria and Goliad Counties.

Mention of "Jade Helm" anywhere in central and south Texas these days will most likely not receive a neutral response. Talk of the controversial military training exercises has been akin to prodding a rattlesnake, polarizing some residents against their county and city governments.

The mainstream media have focused on reporting conspiracy theories, with few interviews of residents in targeted Texas areas — including the small Bastrop County town in which this reporter resides, which will be one of the hosts of Jade Helm. The county will host a large portion of the military events, and sentiment is running high here against the military exercises, as well as against city and county officials for not informing the citizens until after the decision had been made to host the operations. One resident wondered which was more frightening: Jade Helm itself, or a county government so out of touch with its residents that it didn’t realize they would be concerned.

Communities are reporting various accounts of what they’ve been told by the military command personnel. A Victoria resident who closely follows all city council meetings told The New American that there was no mention of the exercise until after it was cancelled. “We never heard anything about it till after the fact," said the resident, "and only then were assured it would only have been out in the county, anyway, and we never would have seen [the military personnel].”

A different report comes from the Bastrop County town of Smithville. One resident remembers the city council meeting at which the plan was announced: “We were told that personnel would be in plain clothes and in uniform, on Main Street, out in the community and would be armed. Since that first meeting, those things have never been acknowledged again, and we don’t feel that our concerns have been acknowledged at all.”

From another, “We’d like Jade Helm to withdraw from our town.” And yet another, “This seems a violation of Posse Comitatus" (a federal law passed in 1878 which forbade the use of the military in domestic law enforcement).

Read the entire article

ALERT: Obama’s Pentagon Issues Response to Texas’ Move Against “Martial Law” Exercises

Conservative Tribune

May 8, 2015

Recently, news broke concerning Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s announcement that he ordered the commander of the Texas State Guard to mobilize his forces to monitor the activities taking place soon in his state that will be part of a domestic military exercise known as Jade Helm 15.

The governor made the announcement after hearing an outcry from Texas residents who live in counties where the large special operations exercise will take place. Many feared the exercise would lead to a federal takeover of Texas or serve as the start of implementing martial law.

But the Pentagon issued a response to the Texas governor and residents of the state Monday, essentially telling them to chill out — dismissing claims of a possible federal takeover of the state as “wild speculation.”

“Operation Jade Helm poses no threat to any American’s civil liberties,” Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.

Jade Helm 15 will involve thousands of special operations military personnel, including Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Green Berets and similar units training across seven states, including Texas, which was labeled as “hostile” for training purposes.

A spokesman for the Texas State Guard, a state-based military force that answers to the governor’s office and cannot be pressed into service by the federal government, said, “The Texas State Guard stands ready to support the governor of Texas when called upon to serve.”

While many Democrats and even a few Republicans blasted Gov. Abbott for his actions, 2016 presidential hopeful Ted Cruz defended the governor, saying, “You know, I understand the concern that’s been raised by a lot of citizens about Jade Helm.”

He added, “When you see a federal government that is attacking our free speech rights, our religious liberty rights, our Second Amendment rights, that produces distrust as to government.” (H/T McClatchy DC)

There seems to be a split among Texans as far as concerns Jade Helm 15, which is set to launch in July. Some cities held council meetings allowing U.S. Army officials to present their operational plans for within city limits, allowing them to vote whether or not to allow the operation to move forward in their city. Many voted yes.

But there are plenty of citizens who smell trouble, standing by the idea that Jade Helm 15 is part of something much more sinister than a simple training exercise.

The Best Explanation Yet Of How The NSA's PRISM Surveillance Program Works

Business Insider
May 8, 2015

The Associated Press has published a detailed report about how the NSA's PRISM program — established to acquire data from tech giants including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook — is a small part of a massive domestic dragnet run by the nation's premier covert intelligence gathering organization.

The report reaffirms what we already know, specifically that "the NSA copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis," and it also shores up a few things about how PRISM works.

First, it clears up the controversy around the assertion that PRISM involves nine tech companies providing "direct access" to their servers.

From AP (emphasis ours):

Technology experts and a former government official say that ["direct access"] phrasing, taken from a PowerPoint slide describing the program, was likely meant to differentiate Prism's neatly organized, company-provided data from the unstructured information snatched out of the Internet's major pipelines.

In slide made public by the newspapers, NSA analysts were encouraged to use data coming from both Prism and from the fiber-optic cables.

Prism, as its name suggests, helps narrow and focus the stream.

So PRISM leverages the direct access the NSA has to the Internet's major pipelines and then uses court orders authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to collect specific data from tech companies.

[UPDATE 7/11] Here's the corresponding PRISM slide, published by The Washington Post:

NSA

Here's how the AP explains the court order part (emphasis ours):

Every year, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence spell out in a classified document how the government plans to gather intelligence on foreigners overseas.

By law, the certification can be broad. The government isn't required to identify specific targets or places.

A federal judge, in a secret order, approves the plan.

With that, the government can issue "directives" to Internet companies to turn over information.

While the court provides the government with broad authority to seize records, the directives themselves typically are specific, said one former associate general counsel at a major Internet company. They identify a specific target or groups of targets. Other company officials recall similar experiences.

All adamantly denied turning over the kind of broad swaths of data that many people believed when the Prism documents were first released.

Here's where it's still murky — the government has a authority to take troves of data, and wants as much data as possible, but tech companies say they aren't providing broad swaths of data.

When PRISM leaked, The Washington Post reported that the 702 orders given to tech companies "serve as one-time blanket approvals for data acquisition and surveillance on selected foreign targets for periods of as long as a year."

Tech companies say it doesn't play out that way.

Microsoft said in a statement: "We only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers."

Google chief architect Yonatan Zunger wrote that Google only responds to "lawful, specific orders about individuals.”

And Facebook revealed it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests for user data in the second half of last year, and said "we respond only as required by law."

So it remains to be seen how just much data the NSA can acquire from tech companies.

It should be noted that in July the court that was established to "hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance," called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), found that government 7o2 orders at the heart of PRISM had violated the Fourth Amendment's restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures "on at least one occasion."

Journalists Prevented from Covering PEN Event on Press Freedom

The Observer
May 8, 2015

As part of the PEN World Voices Festival, the international press freedom organization scheduled an event this afternoon titled, “Finding Security in Unsafe Passages: United Nations Event about Protecting Journalists’ Safety and Rights.” The panel, according to PEN’s website, will “delve into the wide range of risks journalists face every day. Experts will offer safety tips, share advice for protecting sources and copyrights in all types of media and address cybersecurity risks.”

But on the morning of the event, a spokeswoman for the festival, Kyla McMillan, notified the Observer that we had been denied entry. “The press is no longer able to attend this event,” said Ms. McMillan by email. “There has been an issue with press authorizations through U.N. security.”

UPDATE 1 (12.47pm): Ms. McMillan elaborated in a second email and by phone: “Please accept my sincere apologies—the U.N. requires that all press visiting the headquarters, for any event, have an official U.N. press pass. Due to a miscommunication, we’ve not been able to secure this for you in time.” She added that her team was unaware of United Nations’ rules regarding media credentials and that a total of four journalists have been disinvited.

Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of PEN’s Free Expression Programs, and one of the panelists at United Nations event, criticized the decision.

“One would think the more coverage for these types of issues would be better because these are really serious issues that journalists are facing,” Ms. Deutsch Karlekar said, “so discouraging journalists from covering the event just seems odd.”

UPDATE 2 (1.05pm): Ms. Deutsch Karlekar added by email that “it seems that due to a snafu with these U.N. rules (that we were not aware of until late last night), it won’t be possible to add anyone else on to the list. I am really sorry, and as I said, it does seem extremely odd to be keeping press out of the event.”