Hillary's Corruptibility Was on Display This Week in New Hampshire

Hillary Clinton has many liabilities as a presidential candidate, her strident liberalism and thin record of accomplishment among them. But her greatest liability is her venality. And it may be what ultimately dooms her campaign.Hillary's corruptibility was on display at a town hall event in Nashua, N.H., on Wednesday. When asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper why she had accepted $675,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, Clinton replied, "I don't know. That's what they offered."

Clinton said she accepted the money in part because she wasn't really thinking about running for president at the time. Then she insisted that the money wouldn't influence her policies if she becomes president. When asked if she regretted taking the money, she said that she did not. First of all, it is untrue that Goldman Sachs offered Clinton $675,000 to speak. As the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard reported, Hillary's speech fee was set by her agent, not the bank.

Clinton challenged Cooper to "just name one thing" on which those who have paid her for speeches have influenced her. There are numerous examples of the Clintons or their charities receiving money at times when one or both of them exerted influence on behalf of the sources of that money. In fact, a best-selling book was written on the subject last May. Clinton also told Cooper about Goldman Sachs, "I mean, they're not giving me very much money now, I can tell you that much." 

But again, that's not quite true, at least according to most people's definition of "very much." As The Examiner's Timothy P. Carney notes, Goldman Sachs employees have donated more than $90,000 to Hillary's presidential campaign, nearly twice as much as Ted Cruz has raised from the Wall Street giant, even though his wife works there.

The Clintons' extreme wealth and close ties to Wall Street are likely to be a liability for Hillary as she continues trying to fend off a primary challenge from Bernie Sanders. The socialist senator from Vermont has become a plausible threat to her by railing against the 1 percent and assailing Clinton for her close ties to Wall Street.

And it will also hurt her in a general election contest. How can she inveigh against the cost of college when she charges public universities $300,000 to deliver speeches to students who are walking away from school with $100,000 in loan debt?

How can she complain about the insidious role of money in politics when she and her husband have made an estimated $139 million from paid speeches, routing them through a complex system of charities and private companies seemingly in an effort to elude detection?

And how can Clinton claim to "feel the pain" of America's hollowed-out middle class when between 2013-15 she earned roughly $2.9 million from Wall Street banks and other financial companies for just a dozen speeches? After all, according to one estimate, that's more than the average worker with a bachelor's degree can expect to earn in a lifetime.

The answer is she can't.

In 2012, exit polls revealed that most voters preferred Mitt Romney's values and policies over those of Barack Obama. But Obama bested Romney on empathy-related questions, including by 10 points on the question, "Who is more in touch with people like you?" With Clinton as their nominee, Democrats would cede the empathy vote to Republicans — and with it, perhaps, the election.

Read More

2 Charged in Gang-Related Murder of Teen Girls Found in Los Angeles Park

 

 

A gang feud is allegedly behind the brutal murder of two teenage girls whose bodies were found in October in a popular Los Angeles park, Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday.  

"This is a case that is gang motivated," Beck said at a late afternoon press conference. "This was motivated by hatred between gangs and unfortunately these two very young very innocent victims fell prey to that."

The bodies of Gabriela Calzada, 19, and her friend Briana Gallegos, 17, were found along a walking path on October 28 in Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in Montecito Heights. Both teenagers suffered blunt-force trauma. Calzada, who worked with the city's Summer Night Lights youth program and had dreams of becoming a firefighter, was also shot with a rifle.

Beck said Calzada and Gallegos, a student at Sonia Sotomayor Learning Academies in Glassell Park, were "known to the suspects" and "specifically targeted by those suspects."

Beck declined to give a motive for the crime.

"Almost 60 percent of our homicides were gang involved," Beck said. "Unfortunately these two young ladies have become part of that gruesome statistic. They were young vibrant women who certainly didn’t deserve to die."

Earlier in the day, prosecutors charged 17-year-old Dallas Stone Pineda and Jose Antonio Echeverria, 18, with capital murder. Echeverria, who was already in custody for an unrelated shooting, is eligible for the death penalty, but Pineda cannot be sent to death row due to his age. Both men appeared in jail attire at an afternoon court hearing. Superior Court Judge Sergio Tapia ordered them held without bail. An arraignment hearing is scheduled for March 8.

Read More

Feds Eye Laptop Bomb in Somalia Mid-Air Explosion, Sources Say

 

Investigators believe that an explosion aboard a plane in Somalia was likely caused by a small bomb that was placed inside of a laptop, sources familiar with the probe said. A small team of FBI agents has arrived in Somalia to help authorities in the East African nation investigate the cause of the explosion this week at 11,000 feet.

The A-321 jetliner made an emergency landing and returned to the airport, but two passengers were hurt. It’s believed one person may have been sucked out of the plane through a relatively small hole left by the explosion -- possibly the bomber.

It is still unclear exactly who is responsible for planning the explosion, but authorities are looking into whether the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group al-Shabab, based in Somalia, may be behind it, and they're not ready to rule out ISIS, sources said.

Many of the passengers on the flight were originally scheduled to be on a Turkish Airlines flight but the flight was canceled "due to operational reasons" and bad weather, according to Turkish Airlines spokesman Yahya Ustun. An FBI spokesman declined to comment for this article, referring questions to Somali authorities.

Read More

Donald Trump rolls out the expletives at Portsmouth rally

 

 

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire "And you can tell them to go f**k themselves," Donald Trump told a crowd at a Portsmouth Rally on Thursday night, uttering the expletive at the climax of the riff on his tax proposal. He was referring to companies that have relocated overseas for more favorable tax rates.

Trump often relies on expletives and crude language to spice up his stump speech, though Thursday evening's event was a little more profane than usual. While he refrained from using the vulgar Yiddish word that he directed at Secretary Clinton in December, Trump ran through more than his usual share of profanity at the Portsmouth rally.

"They're ripping the sh*t out of the sea," Trump said when explaining China's island building in the South China Sea, eliciting a gasp of approval and laughter from the rapt audience.

And he capped off a stream-of-consciousness rant on foreign policy this way. "These guys in Washington - they can't beat ISIS they can't beat anyone, Afghanistan is going to hell," he told the crowd.

Trump also sprinkled an obscenity into one of his current favorite one liners, criticizing what he called the hypocrisy of Obama's trips to Hawaii on an old Boeing 747 (a.k.a. Air Force One) while also advocating for a lighter carbon footprint. Trump said of Obama's golfing excursions, "I'd want to stay in the White House and work my ass off."

At the end of his event, Trump told the audience that he had done five campaign events in a single day for the voters of New Hampshire because, "you like that right?" This was a departure from his campaign schedule on most days, which consists of a single 7 p.m. rally.

Another less literal screw-you of sorts: Trump took the stage to strains of Adele's," Rolling in the Deep." Earlier this week, the award-winning British pop star banned Trump from playing her music at his campaign events.

Read More

Can Chelsea Clinton Handle the Heat?

Now a 35-year-old multi-millionaire, the political press is still grappling with how to cover the former First Kid.

As Chelsea Clinton crosses the country stumping for her mother, toting an adorable child and incubating another one, it is occasionally hard to remember that she is no longer the frizzy-haired, braces-clad teenager that we recall from Bill Clinton’s ascendance to the White House—that vulnerable young woman who had to grin and bear it as her parents’ marital troubles played out in the most public forum imaginable. But for all intents and purposes, she and her family still present her as an avatar of her younger self—even if the 35-year-old now sits on the boards of numerous nonprofits and corporations and lives in a $10 million apartment.

By and large, the media has allowed the Clintons to maintain this posturing, perhaps out of some reflexive guilt, or maybe because Clinton handled the humiliation with extraordinary sangfroid. Either way, the moratorium appears to be over. This morning Politico published an article titled “Time for Chelsea Clinton’s Easy Ride to End,” in which veteran media critic Jack Shafer chronicles the growing frustration of the political press over the former First Daughter, a grown-up public figure who, he argues, still expects to enjoy the “cone of deference” afforded to White House children. “The time for treating her as a fragile kid has long passed,” Shafer wrote, arguing that she was not a “goodwill ambassador” with solely a ceremonial function. “She’s an educated (Stanford, Columbia, Oxford), mature, wealthy, campaign surrogate and a well-connected ex-journalist who knows the score.”

In some respects, Shafer has a point. While the Clinton campaign has hesitated to make her a full-fledged proxy, Chelsea has been deployed as an unofficial surrogate—and an important one at that. Chelsea, who was born in 1980, can help deliver her fellow millennials to Hillary, who is struggling to attract young voters, especially young women, who overwhelmingly favor Bernie Sanders.

In this role, however, occasional moments of her past shyness emerge. Absent the preternatural political talents of her parents, Chelsea doesn’t always seem to connect. She also present some relatability issues. The ex-McKinsey consultant is married to a hedge-fund manager, sits on the board of media conglomerate I.A.C., serves as the vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, owns a very expensive apartment in Manhattan, and has an estimated net worth in the millions. It's a life that cash-strapped, indebted young women might not be able to identify with. The Clinton campaign has had better luck with fellow Hillary surrogate and Girls actress Lena Dunham, 29, who has not shied away from scrutiny. But it is highly unlikely that the Clintons would, for instance, intervene with a major news network and declare Dunham off-limits, as they did for Chelsea when she was 27.

But as Hillary shifts into attack mode ahead of the New Hampshire primary, making her opening moves during Thursday night’s fiery debate, Chelsea’s honeymoon may be coming to an end. With the presidential field rapidly narrowing, Republican opponents may soon focus their fire on the fundraising practices of the Clinton Foundation, where Chelsea holds a prominent role. Amid a flurry of controversy over Hillary’s ties to Wall Street, Chelsea’s marriage to hedge fund co-founder and former Goldman Sachs banker Marc Mezvinsky could also prove troublesome. Chelsea, who may one day harbor her own political aspirations, will have to come up with answers for these inquiries. If she hopes to embrace her role in public life, she had best prepare for the same scrutiny her mother has famously survived.

Read More

Wife crashes her own funeral, horrifying her husband, who had paid to have her killed

Noela Rukundo sat in a car outside her home in Melbourne, Australia, watching as the last few mourners filed out. They were leaving a funeral — her funeral. Finally, she spotted the man she’d been waiting for. She stepped out of her car, and her husband put his hands on his head in horror. “Is it my eyes?” she recalled him saying. “Is it a ghost?” “Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied. Far from being elated, the man looked terrified. Five days earlier, he had ordered a team of hit men to kill Rukundo, his partner of 10 years. And they did — well, they told him they did. They even got him to pay an extra few thousand dollars for carrying out the crime. Now here was his wife, standing before 

Noela Rukundo sat in a car outside her home in Melbourne, Australia, watching as the last few mourners filed out. They were leaving a funeral — her funeral. Finally, she spotted the man she’d been waiting for. She stepped out of her car, and her husband put his hands on his head in horror.

“Is it my eyes?” she recalled him saying. “Is it a ghost?”

“Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied.

Far from being elated, the man looked terrified. Five days earlier, he had ordered a team of hit men to kill Rukundo, his partner of 10 years. And they did — well, they told him they did. They even got him to pay an extra few thousand dollars for carrying out the crime. Now here was his wife, standing before him. In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Rukundo recalled how he touched her shoulder to find it unnervingly solid. He jumped. Then he started screaming.

“I’m sorry for everything,” he wailed.

But it was far too late for apologies; Rukundo called the police. The husband, Balenga Kalala, ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison for incitement to murder, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (the ABC). The happy ending — or as happy as can be expected to a saga in which a man tries to have his wife killed — was made possible by three unusually principled hit men, a helpful pastor and one incredibly gutsy woman: Rukundo.

Here is how she pulled it off.

Rukundo’s ordeal began almost exactly a year ago, when she flew from her home in Melbourne with her husband, Kalala, to attend a funeral in her native Burundi. Her stepmother had died, and the service left her saddened and stressed. She retreated to her hotel room in Bujumbura, the capital, early in the evening; despondent after the events of the day, she lay down in bed. Then her husband called.

“He told me to go outside for fresh air,” she told the BBC.

But the minute Rukundo stepped out of her hotel, a man charged forward, pointing a gun right at her.

“Don’t scream,” she recalled him saying. “If you start screaming, I will shoot you. They’re going to catch me, but you? You will already be dead.

Rukundo, terrified, did as she was told. She was ushered into a car and blindfolded so she couldn’t see where she was being taken. After 30 or 40 minutes, the car came to a stop, and Rukundo was pushed into a building and tied to a chair. She could hear male voices, she told the ABC. One asked her, “You woman, what did you do for this man to pay us to kill you?” 

“What are you talking about?” Rukundo demanded.

“Balenga sent us to kill you.”

They were lying. She told them so. And they laughed.

“You’re a fool,” they told her.

There was the sound of a dial tone, and a male voice coming through a speakerphone. It was her husband’s voice.

“Kill her,” he said.

And Rukundo fainted.

Rukundo had met her husband 11 years earlier, right after she arrived in Australia from Burundi, according to the BBC. He was a recent refugee from Congo, and they had the same social worker at the resettlement agency that helped them get on their feet. Since Kalala already knew English, their social worker often recruited him to translate for Rukundo, who spoke Swahili. They fell in love, moved in together in the Melbourne suburb of Kings Park, and had three children (Rukundo also had five kids from a previous relationship). She learned more about her husband’s past — he had fled a rebel army that had ransacked his village, killing his wife and young son. She also learned more about his character. 

“I knew he was a violent man,” Rukundo told the BBC. “But I didn’t believe he can kill me.”

But, it appeared, he could.

Rukundo came to in the strange building somewhere near Bujumbura. The kidnappers were still there, she told the ABC. They weren’t going to kill her, the men then explained — they didn’t believe in killing women, and they knew her brother. But they would keep her husband’s money and tell him that she was dead. After two days, they set her free on the side of a road, but not before giving her a cellphone, recordings of their phone conversations with Kalala, and receipts for the $7,000 in Australian dollars they allegedly received in payment, according to Australia’s The Age newspaper. 

“We just want you to go back, to tell other stupid women like you what happened,” Rukundo said she was told before the gang members drove away.

Shaken, but alive and doggedly determined, Rukundo began plotting her next move. She sought help from the Kenyan and Belgian embassies to return to Australia, according to The Age. Then she called the pastor of her church in Melbourne, she told the BBC, and explained to him what had happened. Without alerting Kalala, the pastor helped her get back home to her neighborhood near Melbourne. Meanwhile, her husband had told everyone she had died in a tragic accident and the entire community mourned her at her funeral at the family home. On the night of Feb. 22, 2015, just as the widower Kalala waved goodbye to neighbors who had come to comfort him, Rukundo approached him, the very man whose voice she’d heard over the phone five days earlier, ordering that she be killed. 

“I felt like somebody who had risen again,” she told the BBC.

Though Kalala initially denied all involvement, Rukundo got him to confess to the crime during a phone conversation that was secretly recorded by police, according to The Age.

“Sometimes Devil can come into someone, to do something, but after they do it they start thinking, ‘Why I did that thing?’ later,” he said, as he begged her to forgive him. Kalala eventually pleaded guilty to the scheme. He was sentenced to nine years in prison by a judge in Melbourne.

“Had Ms. Rukundo’s kidnappers completed the job, eight children would have lost their mother,” Chief Justice Marilyn Warren said, according to the ABC. “It was premeditated and motivated by unfounded jealousy, anger and a desire to punish Ms. Rukundo.” Rukundo said that Kalala tried to kill her because he thought she was going to leave him for another man — an accusation she denies. 

But her trials are not yet over. Rukundo told the ABC she’s gotten backlash from Melbourne’s Congolese community for reporting Kalala to the police. Someone left threatening messages for her, and she returned home one day to find her back door broken. She now has eight children to raise alone and has asked the Department of Human Services to help her find a new place to live.

And lying in bed at night, Kalala’s voice still comes to her: “Kill her, kill her,” she told the BBC. “Every night, I see what was happening in those two days with the kidnappers.”

Despite all that, “I will stand up like a strong woman,” she said. “My situation, my past life? That is gone. I’m starting a new life now.”

Read More

Bernie and Hillary end first solo debate with love fest

Democratic presidential rivals Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton knocked each other around Thursday in their first one-on-one debate of the 2016 season, but ultimately closed ranks behind the notion of keeping the White House in their party’s hands.

Sanders spent much of the evening arguing that he was the true standard-bearer for the Democratic Party, hammering the former secretary of state over her ties to Wall Street and vote in favor of the war in Iraq. Clinton focused her energies largely on defending her progressive bona fides, while arguing that the Vermont independent was putting ideological purity on a pedestal above pragmatic proposals that could actually become reality. 

But by the end of their MSNBC encounter, the two candidates closed ranks. 

It started when moderator Chuck Todd asserted that Clinton did not think Sanders could be president. She looked genuinely surprised, and said, “I never said that,” then brushed aside his follow-up about whether she might pick Sanders as a running mate if she wins the party’s nomination. 

“ Well, I’m certainly going to unite the party, but I’m not getting ahead of myself. I think that would be a little bit presumptuous,” Clinton said. “If I’m so fortunate as to be the nominee, the first person I will call to talk to about where we go and how we get it done will be Sen. Sanders.” 

Todd tried the question on Sanders.

“I agree with what the secretary said. We shouldn’t be getting ahead of ourselves,” the Vermont senator replied. ”And as I have said many times, you know, sometimes in these campaigns, things get a little bit out of hand. I happen to respect the secretary very much, I hope it’s mutual. And on our worst days, I think it is fair to say we are 100 times better than any Republican candidate.”

Clinton agreed, declaring “That’s true, that’s true.”

Read More

Watch How Hillary Clinton Fell Apart When Asked About Taking Wall Street Money

During the Democratic town hall that aired on CNN Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton completely fell apart onstage when Anderson Cooper asked her about $675,000 she received for delivering three speeches at Goldman Sachs.

Throughout the campaign, her opponent Bernie Sanders has criticized Clinton’s ability to deliver on her promises to crack down on Wall Street after taking more than $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in a year.

“Was that a mistake? Was that a bad error in judgement?” Anderson asked.

“Well, I dunno,” Clinton said. “That’s what they offered. Every secretary of State that I know has done that.”

Clinton’s remarks during the televised town hall may have given off the impression that she wasn’t very involved when negotiating speaking deals, but the truth is, she is actually a heavy-handed negotiator.

The Washington Post reported that when Clinton agreed to deliver a speech at the University of California Los Angeles in 2014, she charged the publicly-funded school $300,000. When school administrators asked for a discounted rate, Clinton’s handlers informed UCLA that $300,000 was the special, discounted rate for public universities.

They also fussed over what kinds of chairs she would sit in during an interview, and insisted that the school keep at least two pillows backstage in case she needed additional support. During a walkthrough five days before she was scheduled to give her speech, Clinton’s handlers demanded that the university get a new podium.

If her past behavior towards UCLA was any indication, it’s likely that Clinton was very involved in negotiating the $675,000 she received from the Wall Street investment bank.

Clinton will be in three more debates in the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, which is a 180-degree pivot from her previous reluctance to participate in them. Some speculate that her sudden eagerness is an indication that she is trying to regain ground in early voting states after slipping in the polls, and that by debating Bernie Sanders she can boost her profile in New Hampshire, where she trails him. 

Read More

Hillary Clinton, blind to her own greed, makes another blunder

It is the nature of our political environment that the best performance of one’s career can be ignored — and ruined — because of a single remark. Hillary Clinton was sailing along in the Democratic town hall hosted by CNN Wednesday night, sounding thoughtful and at ease when — bam! — the viral disaster ensued:

ANDERSON COOPER: One of the things that Sen. [Bernie] Sanders points to and a lot of your critics point to is you made three speeches for Goldman Sachs. You were paid $675,000 for three speeches. Was that a mistake? I mean was that a bad error in judgment?
CLINTON: Look. I made speeches to lots of groups. I told them what I thought. I answered questions.
COOPER: But did you have to be paid $675,000?
CLINTON: Well, I don’t know. That’s what they offered.

And if her feigned obliviousness to the access-buying game were not infuriating enough, she let out yet another whopper:

CLINTON : You know every secretary of State that I know has done [paid speeches].
COOPER: But (inaudible) for office they’re not running for an office…
CLINTON: Well, I didn’t know…
COOPER: … have known.
CLINTON: To be honest I wasn’t — I wasn’t committed to running. I didn’t know whether I would or not.
COOPER: You didn’t think you were going to run for president again?
CLINTON: I didn’t. You know when I was secretary of State several times I said you know I think I’m done. And you know, so many people came to me, started talking to me.

Really? Even while secretary of state, as we know from her emails, her political antennae were on high alert. And certainly those who paid her exorbitant sums and donated to her foundation believed that she would run for president. That is what drove up her price.

 

The good Hillary Clinton — knowledgeable, occasionally thoughtful (as when expounding on the centrality of gratitude in her life) — is inseparable from the bad Hillary Clinton — often dull and entirely incapable of hiding her greed. When she is hitting her stride, one can imagine how impressive she might be in a general election, but then fairly or not, she can be so unforgettably awful that her strengths are ignored.

It is not surprising that Republicans pounced as soon as the words “That’s what they offered” escaped her lips. “With her incredibly tone deaf answer on her exorbitant speaking fees, Hillary ‘Dead Broke’ Clinton gave New Hampshire voters a good reason not to support her next Tuesday,” Jeff Bechdel of America Rising said in a prepared statement. “The Clintons have lived at the nexus of money and politics for the last quarter century, and it’s one of the main reasons she is struggling so mightily in the areas of trust, ethics, and honesty.”

Clinton likes to fancy herself as an innocent (Oh, gosh, they just wanted to pay me a lot because what I say is so interesting) or a victim. She insisted that the vast right-wing conspiracy is still going strong: “Yes. It has gotten even better funded. You know, they brought in some new multi-billionaires to pump the money in. And, look, these guys play for keeps. They want to control our country. . . . They salve their consciences by giving big money to philanthropy, and, you know, getting great pictures of them standing in front of whatever charity they donated to.” Well, that’s an apt description of her Wall Street backers as well.

Clinton sees herself as the put-upon do-gooder. She is entitled to bend or disregard the rules because her motives are so pure, you see. We cannot question her motives or her shortcuts since she is, in her own mind, above reproach. Those motives always entail her acquisition of great power and wealth. Coincidence? Hardly.

Read More

Boko Haram attacks village near Dalori, Borno leaving 2 dead

Two people were killed after suspected Boko Haram members launched an attack on Malikiri village near Dalori in Borno state yesterday night February 4th. Residents say the sect members stormed their village in 2 hilux vans and 5 motorcycles. They stole 5 cows after the attack. This attack comes a week after Boko Haram members attacked Dalori village in Borno, killing over 100 people.

Read More

BVN exposes 23,306 ‘ghost workers’ on Fed Govt payroll

The Bank Verification Number Exercise has exposed no fewer than 23,306 ghost workers within the Federal Government’s payroll. The Federal Ministry of Finance made the discovery with the adoption of the BVN for salary payment recently.

Details of about 312,000 civil servants have so far been checked & 23, 306 of them had irregularities with their data within the ministry and the one in the bank.

According to The Nation, the Federal government has started deleting the indicted civil servants from its payroll. Some of those affected have tendered their resignation letters to pre-empt dismissal from service and prosecution. A source from the Ministry who spoke on the development said

“Out of the accounts of about 312,000 civil servants processed so far, the ministry was said to have uncovered irregularities in the account of about 23,306 of them, who were suspected to have been collecting double salary. These indicted individuals are in two categories. In the first group, we found out that the names of some civil servants, whose salaries are being processed, are different from the names on the accounts where their salaries are paid. What this means is either those in this category are drawing salary from two sources (which could be different agencies), or they are ghost workers,”.

The source added that the probe also showed that salaries were being paid to some inactive accounts, thus raising the suspicion that government was merely making payment to ghost workers. To this end, the Federal Government has placed some banks under watch for their roles in salary scam.

Read More

Documentary Alleges Diddy Took Out Hit on Tupac and Suge Knight, and Knight Retaliated with Hit on Biggie

Using audio-taped interrogations as well as statements from a former investigator, a documentary released on iTunes this week attempts to solve one of hip-hop’s oldest mysteries: Who is responsible for the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace?

The film, entitled Murder Rap, by filmmaker Mike Dorsey, features retired Los Angeles Police Department Detective Greg Kading, who says that media mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, one of Biggie Small's closest confidants, took out a hit on Tupac Shakur and his manager, Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight. In retaliation, Kading alleges, Knight paid somebody to kill Wallace.

However, a source close to Combs claims Kading's accusations are baseless.

Kading also insists the murders were solved long ago by the Los Angeles Police Department. Kading alleges that detectives learned Combs had allegedly hired a Crips gang member named Duane Keith "Keffe D" Davis to kill Shakur and Knight. Combs allegedly agreed to pay Davis $1 million for the hit, Kading says.

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Kading claims Keffe D's nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, gunned down Shakur in Las Vegas; Knight survived the attack. According to Kading, Knight subsequently hired Bloods gang member Wardell "Poochie" Fouse to kill Biggie in retaliation for $13,000. Biggie was murdered on March 9, 1997, in Los Angeles.

Detective: Combs Wasn't Charged Because He Was a Celebrity

As he does in the film, Kading alleges in an interview with PEOPLE that Los Angeles authorities decided not to charge Combs partly because of his celebrity. They also declined to pursue the case more than five years ago because both of the suspected gunmen were dead, having died in unrelated incidents.

"Suge Knight hired someone to shoot Smalls because he'd heard Biggie was in Las Vegas and provided the gun to the Crips, which was erroneous information," Kading tells PEOPLE.

Kading believes that prior to the murders, Combs was under the impression that Suge Knight was trying to have him killed because Knight believed Combs had something to do with the murder of one of Knight's friends.

"[Combs] was in a precarious situation. He knew he was being hunted down in Los Angeles and he knew Suge held him responsible for the murder of one of his friends. At that point, Suge had already accosted a producer to find out where Combs' house in Los Angeles was."

Combs, according to Kading, "was in a state of desperation and knew that if he didn't take matters into his own hands, he might have been the one murdered. It was a preemptive strike."

The L.A. Times Retracted a Story Fingering Combs in 2008

A number of music industry and hip-hop insiders confirm to PEOPLE that rumors of Combs' alleged involvement in the killings have swirled for years. But in the same breath, these same insiders were quick to point out the existence of other rumors, which all finger other potential suspects.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department tells PEOPLE that agency will not be issuing any comments on the contents of Murder Rap. The detectives assigned to Biggie's homicide case were not available for interviews. Davis' lawyer, Edi M.O. Faal, could not be reached for comment. Anderson and Fouse are both deceased.

Knight is currently in jail awaiting trial and his attorney, Stephen Schwartz, did not respond to calls Thursday seeking comment. Representatives for Combs did not respond to PEOPLE's requests for an interview to address Kading's allegations.

A source familiar with the allegations tells PEOPLE: "There is no truth to this – it's an old story and every few years, this kicks itself up. The LA Times ran a story in 2008 and they had to retract it because there is no truth to it."

Indeed, the Los Angeles Times did retract a piece seven years ago that alleged Combs had "orchestrated an attack in which Shakur was injured at the Quad Recording Studios in New York on Nov. 30, 1994." The article suggested Combs wanted to punish the rapper for refusing to sign with his label.

The Times investigated the piece's accuracy after it was questioned days after appearing in print, and pulled from its website because the story was based on claims the paper "no longer believes to be credible."

Kading: 'Within Law Enforcement, We Know What Took Place'

Kading insists in an interview with PEOPLE that detectives have not worked on either murder case since 2010, when he decided to retire from the force.

"Within law enforcement, we know what took place and we've corroborated claims from the various players who were involved," Kading tells PEOPLE.

"Both cases have been resolved on an investigative level, so there's no more work being done on these cases. They remain open cold case homicides because no one was ever prosecuted."

Kading says that he wrote his 2011 book about his claims because he needed to "set the record straight so there could be an accurate accounting" of what happened.

"Fans don't have to accept that there's no answers in these cases," Kading says. "They can have answers. I felt I had an obligation to provide this information to the public."

Read More

Diddy Killed Tupac Sounds Like Old, Bogus Claim

 

New stories are circulating that Diddy was out to kill Tupac Shakur. Well, a similar story was published in a big newspaper years ago ... and the paper was forced to eat crow and retract it.  

There's a film Netflix is about to release based on a book with the premise ... Diddy hired hit men to murder Tupac in 1996. The author of the book -- a retired LAPD investigator -- claims Diddy hired a Crip to kill Tupac for $1 million. 

Turns out the L.A. Times published a similar story in 2008, claiming 2 years before the murder Diddy's boys shot Tupac 5 times in NYC outside a recording studio, but failed to kill him. The paper relied on FBI files and Diddy's own people as sources.   

The Times published a major retraction, saying, "The Times has since concluded that the FBI reports were fabricated and that some of the other sources relied on -- including ... a 'confidential source' cited in the FBI reports do not support major elements of the story."

The paper concluded it believed the story was no longer credible.

As for the documentary, which purports to chronicle the 1996 murder in Vegas, the author relies on a confession from a Crip gang member, who said Diddy hired him to kill Tupac.  

Diddy has denied involvement in both the '94 shooting and the '96 murder.

Read More