"Kerry faces scrutiny over extensive investments; Panel considers steps to prevent conflicts for secretary of state" by Bryan Bender and David Uberti | Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent, January 16, 2013
WASHINGTON — Senator John F. Kerry and his wife hold an array of international investments that could pose conflicts of interest for him as secretary of state, and an ethics review is already underway to determine whether he needs to divest holdings, put them in a blind trust, or recuse himself from some discussions, according to Obama administration officials.
Kerry’s 2012 financial disclosure statement details some of the investments that could be seen as problematic if, as expected, he is confirmed as secretary of state. Among them: shares in a Canadian oil company that is lobbying for the Keystone XL pipeline; a stake in Brazil’s energy giant, which was recently accused by Congress of flouting UN sanctions against Iran; and a large investment in a private equity firm seeking deals across Asia.
No wonder Kerry gets caught in so many compromising positions.
Such holdings could present conflicts for Kerry when advising the Obama administration on trade deals, diplomatic agreements, or other decisions that affect international economics, according to government ethics specialists and watchdog groups. In addition, his holdings in sustainable energy companies could be seen as in conflict with his expected efforts to curb global climate change....
Oh, so like his friend Al Gore, Kerry $tands to benefit from the fart-misting fraud literally created out of thin air. Kerry also benefited from his war stocks.
The Kerrys’ investments stretch from East Asia to Canada to Brazil, a global financial network that ethics lawyers must carefully map.
For example, records show he has up to $31,000 invested in the Canadian oil company Cenovus Energy, which has been lobbying for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to bring Canadian oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States. The green light for such a transnational project would have to be granted by the State Department.
Others are harder to track, such as Asia Alternatives Management LLC, a San Francisco-based private equity firm focusing investment on Asian countries, including China, Japan, and South Korea, according to its website. As of 2011, the Kerrys had at least $1 million invested in two separate funds, his disclosure reports show.
That same year the family sold off as much as $350,000 worth of assets in the South American oil giant known as Petrobras. They currently maintain a smaller investment in the company, which is half-owned by the Brazilian government. Still, the investments could prove problematic for other reasons: Petrobras, has been investigated for flouting the UN sanctions against Iran. In 2007, the energy conglomerate signed a $470 million contract to explore oil fields off the coast of Iran, according to the Iranian oil ministry’s news service.
Kerry’s energy interests extend further, the most recently available filings show, including at least $1 million in each of three Sustainable Technologies funds focusing on clean energy in Scandinavia. As secretary of state, Kerry could preside over decisions that would at least indirectly benefit such firms.
Hey, in Congress he was inserting language that would direct tax loot to favored interests, so WTF?
There is also a $500,000 to $1 million stake in PotashCorp, a Canadian fertilizer firm attempting to merge with Israel Chemicals Ltd., among the largest firms in Israel....
Just another reason Israel wanted him over Rice.
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"Kerry to divest some financial holdings; Move aims to avoid conflicts of interest at State Department" by Bryan Bender | Globe Staff, January 23, 2013
WASHINGTON — Senator John F. Kerry said he and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, pledged to divest shares in such companies as a Canadian oil firm and defense contractor Raytheon Co., and in a series of international equity funds, according to an agreement reached with the Obama administration and released Wednesday....
It's at this point you realize Kerry is PART of the PROBLEM!
A prerequisite for the job, government lawyers concluded, is that he and Heinz Kerry, the heir to the ketchup fortune, sever a series of financial ties that could raise ethics questions....
Kerry, who is expected to win speedy confirmation from fellow senators, also agreed to resign from his position at the American Security Project, a think tank he help found in 2007, as well as his advisory role at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.
But the greatest concern was a number of investments — in the form of outright stock or as part of family trusts — that could be directly affected by decisions he makes as secretary of state on trade agreements, security contracts, or other transnational arrangements.
For example, the divestitures will include his shares of Cenovus Energy Inc., the Canadian company that would benefit from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
His wife, meanwhile, will sell her interests in the so-called Sustainable Technologies Fund, a private equity fund that invests in alternative energies such as wind power.
In both instances, his decisions or recommendations to the Obama administration could conceivably benefit such investments.
Kerry was also advised to dump a series of other energy-related holdings, according to the documents, including shares of ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, BP, and the electric and gas provider Wisconsin Energy Corp.
But Kerry is a big climate change guy!
A pair of Kerry’s family trusts, which are separate from his wife’s, will also be divested of shares in Waltham-based defense giant Raytheon Co.; Pentagon contractor United Technologies; drug maker Pfizer; communications giant Qualcomm Inc.; and American Express, among others.
Related: Don't Leave Home Without This Post
Also see: American Express to cut 5,400 jobs
The Kerry investments slated to be sold touch on a variety of other industries including computer software, banking, fast food, and food packaging. Among them are shares in Boston investment bank State Street Corp.
Got his mitt$ in ju$t about everything, huh?
See: State Street Profit Soars
Is that how they got the tax subsidies and write-offs?
The Massachusetts senator has also been advised to recuse himself from certain matters involving the H.J. Heinz Co. because the Kerrys’ investments in company stock are greater than in other publicly traded firms, according to the ethics documents.
That includes Heinz Co. holdings in Italy, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, France, Venezuela, Indonesia, and India....
Maybe someone else should have been nominated.
Kerry spent Wednesday in his so-called “hideaway” US Capitol office preparing for his confirmation hearing and watching Clinton testify on the terrorist attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September.
See: Clinton's Clot
Judging by the testimony she still has one.
Kerry, who will remain chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee until confirmed, also attended what is likely his last official lunch with fellow committee chairmen.
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So when is the hearing?
"Senate panel schedules Kerry’s confirmation hearing" January 17, 2013
WASHINGTON — Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry will appear before fellow members of the Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 24 for his confirmation hearing to be secretary of state, according to a Senate aide.
The hearing will be chaired by Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who is expected to become chairman upon Kerry’s elevation to President Obama’s Cabinet and his subsequent resignation from the Senate....
Also see: Sunday Globe Specials: Initiating Immigration Reform
Bobby!
Kerry is expected to win speedy confirmation from the Foreign Relations Committee and the full Senate....
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"McCain jokes about grilling of Kerry
“We will look forward to interrogating him at his hearing . . . mercilessly,” the Arizona Republican joked about the Massachusetts Democrat at a Capitol Hill press conference. “We will bring back for the only time waterboarding to get the truth out of him.”
That isn't going to do it you sick old fossil.
If anyone has earned the right to make light of torture, it is McCain....
I'm sorry, but I SEE NO LIGHT regarding TORTURE!
That's an OFFENSIVE STATEMENT proving the mouthpiece media has internalized the values of its masters!
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What is torture is reading this shit:
"Kerry vows to combat climate change" by Bryan Bender and David Uberti | Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, January 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — In a confirmation hearing unusual for its bipartisan comity, Secretary of State-designate John F. Kerry pledged Thursday to pursue a different brand of foreign policy — one rooted in greater cultural understanding of the developing world — while leading a global fight to combat climate change, which he described as a direct threat to American security.
Un-flipping-real!
Kerry drew praise from Republicans and Democrats as he spoke, sitting at the same witness table where, more than four decades earlier, he had testified as a Vietnam veteran-turned war protester.
How far he has fallen.
Senators nodded to his deep knowledge of overseas challenges, which Kerry said require more active diplomacy to advance US economic and security interests.
Where Kerry was most passionate was on the issue of climate change, calling it a “life-threatening issue.”
*******************************
“I will be a passionate advocate for this,” he added, “not based on ideology but facts.”
I'm $ure he will.
Blizzard in a Senate hearing room.
In discussing global markets, Kerry warned that “There are some places where we are not in the game.” He noted the expanding global role of China, saying: “I hate to say, we got to get in the game. The world is competing for resources in global markets. Every day that America is unwilling to engage in that arena . . . is a day in which we weaken the nation itself.”
??????????????
How many f***ing countries have we invaded and bombed for those?
Kerry cruised through the nearly four-hour session, sustaining no political damage. He is expected to easily win a positive recommendation from the committee followed by confirmation by the full Senate — probably next week....
The proceedings went largely according to script....
And they called it news!
At one point the hearing was interrupted by a female protester who shouted, in part, “The Middle East is not a threat to us! I am tired of my friends in the Middle East dying!”
A Code Pink plant no doubt.
She was removed by US Capitol Police, but Kerry responded to the outburst by drawing on his own experience.
“I’ll tell you Mr. Chairman, when I first came to Washington to testify it was obviously as a member of group who came to have their voices heard,” he told Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey who chaired the session. “That is what this place is all about.”
The appearance was deeply personal for the 69-year-old lawmaker, who first testified before the panel in April 1971 after he returned from Vietnam and became a leader of the antiwar movement.
The nomintion of Kerry, the son of a foreign service officer, was seen by some as the culmination of a life spent immersed in foreign affairs — well before his 29 years on the Foreign Relations Committee and three years as chairman.
“I think you have led a life that has brought you to this moment,” Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, told him.
Questions from the committee ranged ranged from economic development in Africa to diplomatic involvement in Syria to women’s rights in Afghanistan.
Much of the hearing centered on the US interest in the Islamic world, especially in light of the recent Arab Spring that has toppled dictators from Libya to Egypt....
Then why did the Globe emphasize the climate change crap?
He said there must be a greater emphasis on spreading American ideas in a “struggle for hearts and minds."
I suppose that is why Obama is expanding the drone program into Africa.
It is un-f***ing-believable and damn offensive that AmeriKan officials are still spewing such shit after the millions murdered over lies the last ten years.
“We have to do better,” he said, citing as an example alternative media to help reach foreign populations that enjoy little press freedom....
Yeah, I know how they feel:
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Operation Mockingbird
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
Yup, my "newspaper" is nothing more than an intelligence operation megaphone for Israel.
Kerry told the committee that much has changed since he first appeared before the panel 42 years ago.
“Today’s world is more complicated than anything we have experienced,” he said, citing, among others, the emergence of China, nuclear proliferation, poverty, pandemic disease, refugees, as well as “faiths struggling with the demands of modernity, and the accelerating pace of technological innovation shifting power from nation-states to individuals.”
But what the United States does at home will most determine its international position, Kerry offered.
“We can’t be strong in the world unless we are strong at home, and the first priority of business which will affect my credibility as a diplomat working to help other countries create order, is whether America at last puts its own fiscal house in order.”
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Umm, Senator, one more question, regarding Afghanistan. Is there any reason you can think of that justify the continuing deaths of young American men and women?
“I think that in the next days, the government of Afghanistan’s response to anticorruption efforts are a key test of its ability to regain the confidence of the.... American people [who] are prepared to support with hard-earned tax dollars and with most importantly, with the treasure of our country — the lives of young American men and women.... and say, ‘Hey, that’s something worth dying for.’ ’’
Thank you, Senator.
I vote nay.
"John Kerry sails in Senate voting; Confirmed for State; farewell speech today" by Christopher Rowland | Globe Staff, January 30, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed President Obama’s nomination of Senator John F. Kerry to be secretary of state on Tuesday, handing the Massachusetts Democrat a redemptive career victory that ensconces him in an elite echelon of national leadership nine years after his failed bid for the presidency.
The 94-to-3 vote was the final hurdle for Kerry, whose nomination roared through the Senate after Obama’s first choice of UN Ambassador Susan Rice encountered stiff GOP opposition and never got off the ground.
Kerry met virtually no resistance, as his colleagues on both sides of the aisle lauded his 28 years of service in the Senate and his deep experience in international affairs, most recently as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is expected to give a farewell speech in the Senate on Wednesday.
Little suspense hung over the proceedings after Kerry cruised through a confirmation hearing last week before the Foreign Relations Committee. The accolades and ceremony began Tuesday morning when the committee — in just 10 minutes with almost no discussion — approved Kerry’s nomination, setting up the late afternoon vote by the full Senate. Even harsh administration critics such as Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky joined the unanimous voice vote in committee.
In a statement, Obama said he was pleased....
Well, that's all that matters then.
In addition to his diplomatic role, the career lawmaker will face significant administrative challenges. The State Department has a budget of about $50 billion, more than 50,000 American and foreign employees, and nearly 300 embassies, consulates, missions, and other posts around the world....
And Kerry has never even met a payroll let alone run a bureaucracy.
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Related:
Both parties embrace Kerry for secretary of state
It's official!
Also see: EPA head Lisa Jackson to step down
Hagel Haters
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
John Kerry parts with warning on gridlock
Kerry must engage China
Also see: Globally bound, John Kerry first retraces, recalls roots
No offense, but I have more important things on which to spend my time.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
John Kerry parts with warning on gridlock
Kerry must engage China
Also see: Globally bound, John Kerry first retraces, recalls roots
No offense, but I have more important things on which to spend my time.
