BTW, in reviewing taht exchange in which Stuart got banned, was anyone struck by how flimsy Howard's complaint was; how certain he was that it was racist?
So in current event in New Orleans, this is what our stupid cunt Mayor’s priorities are. Adding a piece of art to Lafayette Square to celebrate Juneteenth. It’s a fucking hair pick with a black power symbol on top. For a culture that has supposedly contributed so much, this is what they pick as a representative? Of course you see the hair pick with the back drop of Gallier Hall. This city is so fucked. It’s a perfect representation of the stupid, ignorant residents who voted and re-elected this clown.
I think Biden is on to something by ordering the oil companies to put more gasoline on the market. What a concept! He should also order stores to put more baby formula and tampons on the shelves. Problem solved.
I am very happy that the oil industry is doing to Biden exactly what COVID did to Trump. The push towards green energy has been a disaster for Biden. Oil executives know things were much better under Trump. People screaming about oil companies needing to up their production show look at everything Biden has done to stifle the industry. I think that alone has the capacity to oust Biden and pave the way for a Republican to win the presidency. I hope Trump puts his ego aside and throws all his weight behind DeSantis. Also, the Texas/Louisiana coastal areas are just one major hurricane away from choking off the petroleum supply chain even more since it typically results in a shutdown of refining capacities due to a major storm.
Border Dispatch, Part I: ‘Everyone Who Arrives Here Has Paid’
REYNOSA, Mexico — We met Osniel at Senda de Vida, a massive migrant shelter situated on the south bank of the Rio Grande across from McAllen, Texas. The slender 23-year-old Cuban didn’t give us his last name, but did tell us he’d paid a coyote, or smuggler, $11,000 to leave his home country, transit through Central America and Mexico, and cross the border into the United States — twice.
He said he wasn’t sure what he was going to do now. Having tried to cross the border twice, he couldn’t try again without paying the local cartel, and he had no more money.
Early the next morning, around 2 a.m., Osniel called David in a panic. He had swam across the river, he said, but hadn’t paid, and now feared he was being pursued by cartel gunmen. He said he was hiding on the north bank of the Rio Grande.
Osniel’s last communication, via WhatsApp, was at 5:52 a.m. The GPS pin showed he was on the U.S. side of the border, near the riverbank. We haven’t heard from him since.
Why are so many coming now? We asked that question to every migrant we spoke to in Mexico and Texas, and nearly every one of them at some point said that they had heard it was a good time to come, that they would be able to get in. They’re not wrong.
What they find upon arriving in northern Mexico, however, is not what many of them expected. For some, like Osniel, Title 42 still represents a real obstacle (although since Joe Biden took office, fewer and fewer illegal immigrants are being expelled under its authority). All of them, though, are drawn into a vast criminal enterprise run by cartels that have in recent years transformed illegal immigration into an industrialized black market. Elias Rodriguez, director of a migrant shelter run by the Catholic Diocese of Matamoros, told us bluntly that “everyone who arrives here has paid.”
Indeed, migrants transiting Mexico must not only make sure they have paid whichever cartel controls the area of the border they intend to cross, they often have to pay off Mexican officials en route to the border. More than one person told us how the bus they were on was stopped in Monterrey, or outside Reynosa, and boarded by federal or state officials who asked for everyone’s papers. Those without papers had to pay.
Setting aside the impossibility of confirming these accounts, the proof of such official corruption on a mass scale is the mere fact that hundreds of thousands of migrants arrive at northern Mexican border cities each month. They are here, and they could have gotten here only by paying their way.Border Dispatch, Part I: 'Everyone Who Arrives Here Has Paid' (thefederalist.com)
True. Even that Faux Libertarian Triad is changing his tune in how bad Biden is for the country. Biden has been an absolute disaster for the country. It’s a clown car with Sleepy Joe at the wheel. The progs on Democratic underground are having a meltdown because a Congressional District in Texas that had traditionally been hard blue flipped to red. I can only hope the midterms in November give them more to wail and gnash their teeth about. Hopefully that hag Pelosi will get booted out of the Speaker‘s chair if the House flips to a Republican majority.
Did sunlight hit the Poliboard troll known as Winn and turn him to stone? Dude hasn't even shown his face on the board to pump up Biden's successes. Meanwhile, the Fed is looking at enacting the largest rate increase in about 25-30 years. But Americans are "doing very, very well."
Top Biden economic advisor Bharat Ramamurti says Biden is "sympathetic" to Americans concerned about gas prices, inflation, and market losses — but they "need to take a step back" because they're actually "doing very, very well."
Makes me think of Caddyshack when Judge Smails tells his nephew he will have nothing and like it. Meanwhile, Dementia Joe and his lemmings have marching orders to gaslight the fuck out of Americans with their lies about the economy.
Just to drive home the point, this guy lost his primary by something like 51 - 25%. If we accept the premise that the House committee is investigating 1/6 in order to discover what happened, then the impeachment vote when Trump was already on his way out the door was made without all the facts. The polling shows Cheney losing by a similar margin.
South Carolina GOP Rep. Tom Rice loses primary after his vote to impeach Trump
Another sham of this committee is that Cheney is using it to attack her primary opponent.
quote: The day after a poll was released showing @Liz_Cheney getting destroyed by Trump-endorsed @HagemanforWY, the committee just happened to subpoena Stepien, who is running Harriet’s campaign. This circus is beyond an embarrassment and will forever stain the integrity of congress. https://t.co/w8NCe4Jvdp — Taylor Budowich (@TayFromCA) June 12, 2022 I'm sure the timing here was just coincidental and totally not Liz Cheney using her power on the committee to get political retribution ???? https://t.co/C0GkuxBlA8 — Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) June 12, 2022
Pelosi’s Court: How the Jan. 6 committee undermined its own legitimacy
BY JONATHAN TURLEY,
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided a year ago to break from tradition and blocked two Republican committee members selected by GOP leaders. In response, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pulled his other committee nominees, and Pelosi then seated two staunchly anti-Trump Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (Illinois).
Congress has a long history of bipartisan investigatory and select committees. Many were formed during deep political rifts — yet, for 230 years, Congress maintained the need for bipartisan membership. That was the case with the Watergate committees, the House Committee on Assassinations, the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions and other investigations. It would have been easy to stack the decks and limit the members by party on each of those committees, but past congressional leaders understood that the credibility of such investigations required balance, including opposing views.
Pelosi’s decision to gut that process was something of a signature muscle play. As a witness in the first Trump impeachment, I was highly critical of her insistence that the House would impeach before Christmas rather than conduct the traditional impeachment investigation with witnesses. Instead of building a more convincing case, Pelosi preferred to impeach with virtually no record, for a certain defeat in the Senate. In the second impeachment, she went one better: She held no hearing at all and pushed through the first “snap impeachment.”
The Jan. 6 committee was similarly stripped of any pretense. It was as subtle a political move as Pelosi’s ripping up President Trump’s State of the Union speech. Asked what she hoped to achieve from the committee on the first day of hearings, Pelosi tellingly referred to it as a “narrative.” It is the difference between seeing and simulating justice.
That withheld line from Trump would hardly have exonerated the former president. I publicly condemned Trump’s speech while it was being given, and I called for a bipartisan vote of censure over his responsibility in the Capitol riot. The new footage shown by the committee only magnified the revulsion many of us felt in watching this desecration of our Capitol and our constitutional process. However, such one-sided accounts rob these proceedings of a sense of authenticity and authority.
However, they deliver precisely what Pelosi demands: politics unburdened by process. Ironically, it is the very same dismissal of process and principle that is often attributed to Trump.
This first hearing looked like the uncontested opening statement in a persona non grata proceeding, a hearing designed to denounce or expel an individual. Much of the evidence was designed to show that Trump repeatedly was told that he lost the election and thus had no good faith basis to challenge the election’s certification.
Well, many of us said exactly that two years ago. Moreover, if the effort is to convict Trump of being a narcissistic or craven person, you hardly need a select committee to make that case to the Democratic base or to much of the rest of America.
Perhaps the most surprising element in the start of the hearings is the person who was portrayed as the guardian of democracy: former Attorney General William Barr. After Democrats called for Barr to be impeached or even criminally charged, he was shown repeatedly as holding the line against Trump’s claims and demands. For those of us who have defended Barr for years, it was a welcome but weird sight to behold.
There is considerable evidence that Trump’s people planned for a certification challenge, but that was always anticipated. Not long after the election, I wrote about that possibility in what I called the “Death Star strategy.” It is not a crime to plan such a challenge, even without good cause. Without any direct connection to organizing or supporting the ensuing violence, that would remain a moral — not a legal — failure.
I just picked up my AR from the FFL dealer I had it shipped to yesterday. Can't wait to get to the firing range to try it out. Interestingly enough, I asked the license transfer person if there had been an uptick in people buying AR's, and he said he has never been busier with transfers. All the increased talk about banning these weapons as well as the proposal to enact a 1000% to 5000% excise tax on purchase of these firearms will have the exact opposite effect that the narrow-viewed legislators want. More guns are being sold now than ever before. And of course if it comes to pass that these weapons are banned and will be required to returned to the government, I may just have a freak boating accident in which the weapons I own are suddenly lost to a random body of water.
About a year ago, I stumbled on a really big story. It was about black Americans being gunned down across the country and the ways in which we report on that violence. We had been talking nonstop about race and police brutality, and I thought: This is a story that could save lives. This is a story that has to be told.
But when I shared the story with my coworkers, my boss chastised me, telling me expressing this opinion could limit my ability to take on leadership roles within the company. Then I was maligned by my colleagues. And then I was fired.
The data was unequivocal. It showed that, if anything, police were slightly less likely to use lethal force against black suspects than white ones.
Statistics from the most complete database of police shootings (compiled by The Washington Post) indicate that, over the last five years, police have fatally shot 39 percent more unarmed whites than blacks. Because there are roughly six times as many white Americans as black Americans, that figure should be closer to 600 percent, BLM activists (and their allies in legacy media) insist. The fact that it’s not—that there’s more than a 500-percentage point gap between reality and expectation—is, they say, evidence of the bias of police departments across the United States.
But it’s more complicated than that. Police are authorized to use lethal force only when they believe a suspect poses a grave danger of harming others. So, when it comes to measuring cops’ racial attitudes, it’s important that we compare apples and apples: Black suspects who pose a grave danger and white suspects who do the same.
Unfortunately, we don’t have reliable data on the racial makeup of dangerous suspects, but we do have a good proxy: The number of people in each group who murder police officers.
According to calculations (published by Patrick Frey, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County) based on FBI data, black Americans account for 37 percent of those who murder police officers, and 34 percent of the unarmed suspects killed by police. Meanwhile, whites make up 42.7 percent of cop killers and 42 percent of the unarmed suspects shot by police—meaning whites are killed by police at a 7 percent higher rate than blacks.
If you broaden the analysis to include armed suspects, the gap is even wider, with whites shot at a 70 percent higher rate than blacks. Other experts in the field concur that, in relation to the number of police officers murdered, whites are shot disproportionately.
There has been only one study that has looked at the rate at which police use lethal force in similar circumstances across racial groups. It was conducted by the wunderkind Harvard economist Roland Fryer, who is black, grew up poor, had his fair share of run-ins with the police and, initially, supported BLM. In 2016, Fryer, hoping to prove the BLM narrative, conducted a rigorous study that controlled for the circumstances of shootings—and was shocked to find that, while blacks and Latinos were likelier than whites to experience some level of police force, they were, if anything, slightly less likely to be shot. The study generated enormous controversy. (In 2018, Fryer was suspended from Harvard over dubious allegations of sexual harassment.)
Unfortunately, because the BLM narrative was now conventional wisdom, police departments, under intense scrutiny from left-wing politicians and activists, scaled back patrols in dangerous neighborhoods filled with vulnerable black residents. This led to soaring violence in many communities and thousands of needless deaths—otherwise known as the Ferguson Effect.
Good to hear from you bud. I haven't had the curiosity to go back. There were several folks that I liked a lot personally, and who were well-informed as well as interesting. And then there were the trolls. In the first week after I left, I was fed all sorts of inside scoop. What doomed me was a comment made years ago, that was un-related to the meme about white people. the discussion was about how to avoid poverty. There is a famous study about 4 things a parent can do to avoid poverty. One of them is to avoid single-parenting before marriage. That got me in trouble. Go figure.
Since I don't actively participate in the DT political blog anymore, just reading some of the posts from the resident liberal fuckwads makes me see how deranged and out of touch they are with reality. Its a liberal cesspool of wokeness and liberals strutting around like pigeons shitting on the chess board acting like they are right.
It's no "Mandy", but the whole disco vibe doesn't age well. There's a video of Gary Lewis and The Playboys from the '60s at the beach that I need to find. It's totally bogus, but it works.
This is an amazing shot of the moon passing over the Earth taken from a satellite. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/from-a-million-miles-away-nasa-camera-shows-moon-crossing-face-of-earth
'Big guy' reemerges in Hunter Biden grand jury: Report
A grand jury witness was asked to identify the infamous "big guy" mentioned in discussions regarding a Chinese business deal involving the president's son Hunter Biden, according to a new report.
The question came up after this person, who was not identified, was shown a piece of evidence before the grand jury, located in Wilmington, Delaware, a source told the New York Post. The answer that was given was not reported, though some have claimed the "big guy" is President Joe Biden, raising the prospect that the commander in chief could be drawn into a federal criminal investigation.
It reminds me of that whole "SUV" kerfluffle where he (Tom) spent the whole day arguing a point I had already conceded. He's pissed that Sal and I keep bringing up the actual point. He and DSL are thick as thieves.
Biden got 255,000 ‘excess’ votes in fraud-tainted swing states in 2020, study finds
Looking at six swing states, the data he crunched found that voter turnout in Republican areas increased from 2016 to 2020 while voter turnout among Democrats dropped — except in places where voter fraud was claimed.
“More heavily Democratic counties actually had a slightly lower turnout in 2020, except for counties where vote fraud was alleged. In those counties, you had a huge increase in turnout,” Mr. Lott told The Washington Times in an interview explaining his findings.
For more than two hours—shackled to a metal bar in a freezing room at the New Jersey FBI field office—Khater, who has no criminal record, was interrogated without a lawyer present. FBI Special Agent Riley Palmertree refused to tell Khater why he was under arrest until he agreed to proceed without counsel in the room, which Khater reluctantly did. Recently released video confirms Khater initially told the agents he “would feel more comfortable if I had a lawyer” answering questions on his behalf. An hour later, Khater again said he wanted his lawyer.
But Palmertree pushed back, presenting videos and photos implicating Khater in the alleged assault. Palmertree assured Khater that by admitting he sprayed Sicknick with pepper spray rather than a can of bear spray—an item Palmertree later testified was not used that day—a judge would go easy on him. Khater signed a statement confessing that he attacked officers with pepper spray.
Khater has been in jail ever since, housed in the D.C. gulag specifically used to detain January 6 protesters; his trial is scheduled for June 6.
But Khater’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, is now asking the court to toss the interrogation as evidence, arguing that the FBI used “coercion and deception” to force Khater into waiving his Miranda rights. Further, Tacopina wrote in a February 22 motion that Palmertree lied in his FBI report by claiming he advised Khater about the “nature of the interview” before asking Khater to waive his rights.
I'm disappointed that Stewart hasn't given up on this theme. Sullivan's points are well-taken, and we have experienced this attitude in our lives. We're guilty because they say so.
@s-sibley Do you think Sullivan will ever go on one of their shows again? They basically just flat-out lied to get him to do their show. Then, it's just more abusive lying. "Where do I sign up for more of this?"
@msibley570let me know when Stewart has the balls to have Thomas Sowell on his show. He would absolutely destroy that fucking cow guest panelist Stewart had.
What is the difference between a meme of the Smithsonian poster vs posting the actual thing? Watching people try to do mental gymnastics over this question is funny.
@s-sibley So true. Your brother and I were messaging on DT about Jay's post regarding the Slap heard round the world. Jay ticked off a couple of the bullet points on the Smithsonian White Privilege poster in his post. I was debating on whether to ask him if I could consider him an Uncle Tom based upon HoGo's criteria.
@Bewildered You might have been debating on whether you want to stay in DT...There is some good discussion going on there if you're willing to wait on it. And don't tell 'em what you think, cuz they already know that. BTW, on the Slap, there are some pretty good commentators discussing it. Something is wrong with Will Smith's head. He was laughing, then he was crying. It's the sign of a person being abused. Have you read up on what he and his "wife" have said about their relationship? She was boinking some rapper for the last 5 years. It's complicated.
@s-sibley Yes, exactly. His comment was do you want to point that out, or should I. My response was it depends on how quickly either one of us wants to get banned. Jay seems like an all around good guy though, so I really don't want to offend him. But yes, the jokes going around are a guy talking about your wife's alopecia triggers you, but her openly flaunting her infidelity doesn't upset you. So you become violent to defend your wife's honor when you don't even have that in your marriage. Something is cray-cray with this dude.
I'm struggling to care, but if Rock made a joke about Smith's wife's health problems, . . . . . . them's fighting words. Also, it was an open-palm slap, and only one, at that.
This was a complete set back for women’s rights. Will Smith must be anti-feminism. If he wasnt, he would have had Jada go up and bitch slap Chris Rock.
Some posters on DT are wondering why Will Smith wasn’t arrested for assault. Of course we really can’t publicly write why he wasn’t arrested because that would be politically incorrect. Although this just goes to show that black on black crime is common and prevalent. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think I will start dropping the "Uncle Tom" monikers on DT since that is okay. I mean, HoGo did it and it was okay. You think Jay would be offended if I called him that?
@Bewildered Ram said he doesn't owe us the truth. He seems to be sticking by that point. When I do that with him, it is mostly for the entertainment of my fellow conservatives. It kind of makes me a bad person. It is a little like making fun of a mentally handicapped person. OTOH, he brings it on himself.
If any of you are familiar with Charles Murray, you know that he has written controversial books on the topic of race from a scientific POV. It borders on impossible for him to speak on a college campus due to violent protests.
He has a new book out that will do nothing but add fuel to the fire. Here is a (long) review of his latest book, with an excerpt to give you an idea of what it is like. Clearly, posting the URL in other forums would be risky:
Charles Murray’s Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America challenges this prevailing dogma. Murray puts forward a simple thesis: The most consequential racial differences in our society are “in cognitive ability and crime.” These gaps cause and explain virtually all racial disparities that currently exist. It follows that discussions of “domestic policy issues involving more than one race” will virtually always prove “invalid” unless they take these facts into account.
This means that the ratio of Europeans to Africans with high I.Q. becomes ever larger as I.Q. increases. An I.Q. score of 125, achieved by about 5% of Europeans, is thought necessary for basic competence in the professions and other elite fields; 135 or above, representing less than 1% of Europeans, is typical for those functioning at the highest levels in top-tier jobs. By Murray’s estimation, among the 23 million Americans who are in their late twenties, there are currently about 228,000 with I.Q.s in excess of 135. That pool contains only about 2,800 Africans and 9,500 Latins (Murray’s term for Hispanics), compared to more than 50,000 Asians and 160,000 Europeans nationwide. Whereas Africans are about 14% of the population, they represent slightly more than 1% of that pool—or about 1 in every 100 people available for entry-level hiring in the most demanding jobs.
8 Joe Biden Scandals Inside Hunter Biden’s MacBook That Corporate Media Just Admitted Is Legit
1. Pay-to-Play in Ukraine
The most obvious scandal bared by the emails and text messages contained on Hunter’s laptop concerns the influence profiteering Joe Biden apparently participated in during his eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president, with Ukraine featuring heavily in the pay-to-play scheme.
The New York Times, in its likely “get ahead of the story,” coverage from last week, touched on the Ukrainian angle by noting Hunter’s connection to Burisma and then quoting emails recovered from the laptop indicating the younger Biden leveraged his dad’s position — then as vice president. But the Times’ surface coverage of the Burisma scandal doesn’t nearly suffice.
Surface it was: The Times made no mention of Hunter’s appointment to Burisma Holdings Board of Directors at a reported salary of $50,000 per month during his dad’s time as vice president. Hunter Biden had no experience in energy. So, a deep-dive on the entire Biden-Burisma connection is a first step.
2. China Gets in the Game
Ukraine is but a patch on the influence-peddling undertaken by Hunter on behalf of “the big guy,” as the younger Biden referred to his dad. China also played a large role in the family enterprise, as demonstrated by, again, passing coverage in November 2021. Then, the Times reported, in brief, that Hunter Biden’s joint global equity firm, the Bohai Harvest Equity Investment Fund, had helped coordinate the purchase by a Chinese mining company of the world’s largest cobalt source in the Congo.
That deal gave China control over a huge chunk of the world’s known cobalt supplies — an ingredient necessary to make electric car batteries. And the role of Hunter Biden’s company, Bohai, in the transaction again connects directly to Joe Biden, as Hunter reportedly launched that new joint enterprise with Chinese business partners less than two weeks after he traveled to China on Air Force Two with his then-vice president father.
In exploring this scandal, the press needs to push beyond the emails recovered from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, and do what Tucker Carlson did when the pay-to-play scandal first surfaced: talk to Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski. Bobulinski provides further proof that this scandal reaches the top of the Biden family.
3. Moscow, Kazakhstan, and More
While Ukraine and China likely hold the most significant revelations, once those threads are pulled, investigators should move on to Moscow, which according to a Senate report, holds another possible scandal. That report documents that Hunter also received a combined $3.5 million from the wife of the former Moscow mayor, a Kazakhstan investor, and several other individuals. After all, there is no reason to think that a person willing to let his son sell access to the vice president of the United States would close the money train to just a few countries.
4. Ukraine’s Firing of the Prosecutor Investigating Burisma
With the elite media now deigning coverage of Hunter’s laptop appropriate, the public knows the Burisma scandal was real and threatened to be spectacularly devastating to the elder Biden. That makes questions concerning then-Vice President Joe Biden’s demands that Ukraine fire the state prosecutor who was reportedly investigating Burisma ripe to revisit.
I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours.’ If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b-tch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.
While the Obama administration attempted to spin Biden’s push for the firing of Shokin, by claiming the international community had demanded Ukraine terminate the state prosecutor, a State Department official contradicted that claim during congressional testimony. George Kent, who worked on issues related to Ukraine at the State Department, reportedly told lawmakers it was the Obama administration that “spearheaded the efforts to have Shokin removed from his position as the top federal prosecutor in Ukraine.”
Biden needs to answer questions anew over his threats to withhold money from Ukraine unless the country removed the state prosecutor responsible for investigating Burisma. Democrats have impeached a president for less.
5. Obama-Biden Administration Ignoring Conflicts of Interest
Biden also needs to answer questions about his decision to ignore the clear conflicts of interest involved with him negotiating with the same countries Hunter was shaking down. Of course, since “the big guy” was in on the scam, bowing out over conflicts of interest is the lesser of the evils, but it is still worth investigating to assess how Biden handled the concerns raised by the Obama administration’s State Department.
Here, the testimony of the State Department official charged with issues related to Ukraine again proves significant. Kent told lawmakers that after learning Hunter sat on the board of Burisma, he raised concerns with the vice president’s office about the relationship.
“I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of millions of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest,” Kent testified before House members in October of 2019. “The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son Beau was dying of cancer and that there was no further bandwidth to deal with family-related issues at that time … That was the end of that conversation.”
The question for now-President Biden, then, is whether anyone in his office raised concerns about the clear conflicts-of-interest with him personally, and if so, why did Biden ignore the problem?
6. The Intelligence Community’s Briefing of Biden
Another scandal reaching President Biden concerns his interactions with the intelligence community after the FBI, and presumably the CIA and other such agencies, learned in December of 2019, that Hunter Biden believed Russians had stolen Hunter’s laptop, rendering the Bidens susceptible to blackmail.
Here, it is important to understand that there are two separate Hunter Biden laptops at issue. The most-discussed laptop was actually the second laptop. That laptop was the one Hunter had abandoned at the Delaware repair shop. Then, after the repair shop owner discovered concerning material on the MacBook, the store owner handed it to the FBI in December of 2019. The owner of the repair shop, however, had first made a copy of the hard drive, which resulted in The New York Post’s coverage in October 2020.
But there was another laptop — one Hunter believed Russians had stolen from him when he was binging on drugs with prostitutes in the summer of 2018 in Las Vegas. While the public did not learn about the existence of this earlier laptop until August of 2021, the FBI knew about it as early as December 2019, when they took possession of the second laptop Hunter had left at the repair store.
Among other material contained on the second laptop was a video of Biden recounting the circumstances of his first laptop disappearing with some Russians. Significantly, on that video Hunter Biden said his first laptop contained a ton of material leaving him susceptible to blackmail, since his father was “running for president” and Hunter talked “about it all the time.”
It is inconceivable that the FBI and the intelligence communities did not brief Biden on this discovery and the risk of blackmail, given that former FBI Director James Comey briefed Trump on the fake Steele dossier. On second thought, that is the initial question reporters should ask the president: “Did the FBI brief you, Mr. President, on the fact that Hunter believed Russians had stolen a laptop containing compromising information?”
From there, an inquiring press should investigate to ensure that Joe Biden did not direct the intelligence community to bury this national security risk to protect himself or his son.
7. Possible Collusion to Interfere in the 2020 Election
An honest press should also investigate whether now-President Biden or anyone connected to his then-presidential campaign pressured reporters, media outlets, or companies such as Twitter and Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden story. And what about the “fifty former intelligence officials” who publicly declared the laptop resembled a Russian disinformation campaign—something clearly untrue? Did Biden or his campaign coordinate with those individuals, several of whom had endorsed the Democratic candidate, in the release of the letter?
Given that polls show that 17 percent of Joe Biden voters would not have voted for him in 2020, if they had known about the Biden family scandals, the collective burying of the laptop scandal represents the most significant interference in elections ever seen in our country. So, “Did Biden or his campaign have anything to do with the decision to kill the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter’s MacBook?” And “What about the ‘fifty former intelligence officials?’”
From there the follow-ups flow quickly: “Who was involved in the push to silence the story and who were the executives or ‘journalists’ who bowed to the demands?” “Who coordinated with the intelligence officials?” “Were any threats or promises made?” “What were they?” “What did Joe Biden know?” “What about other Democrats and the Democratic National Committee?”
8. Joe Biden Is a ‘Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier’
The final Joe Biden scandal the press should push President Biden to answer concerns his lies to the American public. While there are too many to count, two merit further questioning.
First, the media should demand Biden answer for lying to the country when he seethed, “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.” The evidence overwhelmingly shows that Biden not only knew of the family business deals but was part of them.
The second bold-faced fabrication from Biden came during his pre-election debate with Trump, when Trump raised “the laptop from hell.” When Trump asked Biden if he was saying the “laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax?” the then-Democratic candidate replied, “That’s exactly what [I] was told.”
Unlikely. Biden also countered with this doozy, which again raises the question of whether Biden had a role in the intelligence officials’ statement:
There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. They have said that this has all the … five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend, Rudy Giuliani.
We can now add The New York Times to Giuliani. It remains to be seen, though, whether the Old Grey Lady and the other legacy outlets will report on the further scandals the laptop revealed—the ones that reach the president of the United States.
I don’t know where the timeframe comes from, but the crisis may occur sooner, judging from US production and Chinese food purchases in the first half of 2022. The population of Africa continues to explode. The world is also facing a rapidly approaching fertilizer shortage because of the war in Ukraine. These knock-on effects cause a perfect storm of a rapid decline in available food and the ability to produce more food.
Looking at the chart above, substantial portions of African food imports come from Russia and Ukraine. Devastation from the war and sanctions will cause difficulty filling the gap in the second half of 2022. It’s essential to take notice of the countries at the bottom of the chart, particularly Egypt.
Egypt is a country whose government’s stability depends substantially on inexpensive bread. Despite promises of increasing domestic planting of wheat, increasing production substantially is difficult for Egypt.
.@SpeakerPelosi: "When we're having this discussion, it's important to dispel some of those who say, well it's the government spending. No, it isn't. The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt. It is not inflationary."
We've discussed the myth of the "WP" gesture - the "OK" gesture that was alleged to be a "W" and a "P" for "White Power". Now that the word is out, it raised the potential that it could be adopted by racists, as was the case with the confederate flag. We WILL have to ban the gesture:
"Two cases have gotten particular attention recently: a boys' hockey game between St. Louis Park and New Prague last month, and a girls' basketball game between New Prague and Robbinsdale Cooper that same day. The racial taunting at those games drew attention because officials in both the Robbinsdale and St. Louis Park districts have served notice that their student athletes will not compete against New Prague at least for the remainder of the school year.
And Wednesday, students in the New Prague fan section at the state high school hockey tournament were caught on camera making what appeared to be "OK" hand gestures, which are sometimes associated with white supremacy groups."
There's been some polling, asking people if they'd pay extra for gas in exchange for helping Ukraine. People say yes, they'd do that. They are lying. This is a classic example of people telling the pollster what they think they'd like to hear. "Look what a good person I am."
Rs, IMO, know this, and are going to hammer Biden on gas prices.
Exclusive: Special Counsel’s Office Is Investigating The 2016 DNC Server Hack
There was previously no known connection between the special counsel and the government’s investigation into the 2016 Democratic National Committee hack.
The U.S. Department of Defense tasked the same Georgia Tech researcher embroiled in the Alfa Bank hoax with investigating the “origins” of the Democratic National Committee hacker, according to an email first obtained by The Federalist on Wednesday. That email also indicates the special counsel’s office is investigating the investigation into the DNC hack and that prosecutors harbor concerns about the DOD’s decision to involve the Georgia Tech researcher in its probe.
This is a long post, but it only hits the highlights of this article:
Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened in the 2016 race to help Clinton and hurt Donald Trump in a sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation that's been largely ignored by the press. The improper, if not illegal, operation was run chiefly out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, where officials worked hand-in-glove with a Ukrainian-American activist and Clinton campaign operative to attack the Trump campaign. The Obama White House was also deeply involved in an effort to groom their own favored leader in Ukraine and then work with his government to dig up dirt on – and even investigate -- their political rival.
Ukrainian and Democratic operatives also huddled with American journalists to spread damaging information on Trump and his advisers – including allegations of illicit Russian-tied payments that, though later proved false, forced the resignation of his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The embassy actually weighed a plan to get Congress to investigate Manafort and Trump and stage hearings in the run-up to the election.
As it worked behind the scenes to undermine Trump, Ukraine also tried to kneecap him publicly. Ukraine's ambassador took the extraordinary step of attacking Trump in an Op-Ed article published in The Hill, an influential U.S. Capitol newspaper, while other top Ukrainian officials slammed the GOP candidate on social media.
Sources say Durham has interviewed several Ukrainians, but it’s not likely the public will find out exactly what he's learned about the extent of Ukraine’s meddling in the election until he releases his final report, which sources say could be several months away.
In the meantime, a comprehensive account of documented Ukrainian collusion – including efforts to assist the FBI in its 2016 probe of Manafort – is pieced together here for the first time. It draws from an archive of previously unreported records generated from a secret Federal Election Commission investigation of the Democratic National Committee that includes never-before-reviewed sworn affidavits, depositions, contracts, emails, text messages, legal findings and other documents from the case. RealClearInvestigations also examined diplomatic call transcripts, White House visitor logs, lobbying disclosure forms, congressional reports and closed-door congressional testimony, as well as information revealed by Ukrainian and Democratic officials in social media postings, podcasts and books.
"All of this is because of incompetence, inexperience, disingenuous behavior of Lina Hidalgo's handpicked election administrator. She must go!" said State Senator Paul Bettencourt.
Kim Foxx: In Jussie Smollett case, our justice system failed. Here’s how and why.
The tactics used are becoming common when cases involve progressive prosecutors. I worry it will serve as a deterrent to the next generation of prosecutors eager to fight for critical reforms.
It's an interesting take. She says Smollett was victim of wrongful prosecution, since there are so many killings in Chicago that deserve more attention. "Things are so screwed up that we shouldn't waste time on such trivial stuff."
@s-sibley I don't know if you caught Smollett's exit from the courtroom. He was holding his fist up in the air, saying something about 400 years of injustice. The judge had just finished reaming him out for perjury and bringing all of this down on himself.
"President Joe Biden raised eyebrows after blaming soaring US inflation on Vladimir Putin, after the consumer price index hit another 40-year high of 7.9 percent in February.
Although the inflation data released on Thursday does not capture the full impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which occurred just days before the end of February, Biden in a statement chose to blame 'Putin's price hike.'
'A large contributor to inflation this month was an increase in gas and energy prices as markets reacted to Putin's aggressive actions,' said Biden.
Ballot Bombshells: 20 episodes exposing fraud, illegalities and irregularities in 2020 election
Illegal rule changes, ballot harvesting, Iranian voter hack are among the many now-confirmed serious irregularities, putting the lie to the "perfect election" narrative.
Asked “ If you were in the same position as Ukrainians are now, do you think that you would stay and fight or leave the country? ” 68% of Republicans said stay and fight, as did 57% of independents. Only 40% of Democrats said they would take up arms to defend the country from an invading force.This isn’t explained by race. Fully 61% of Hispanics said they would stay and fight, the highest of any racial group. Among black respondents, 38% said stay and fight, which is statistically the same as the average Democrat (40%).Some of the difference is by sex. Men are far more likely to stay and fight than are women. Still, that’s not nearly enough to explain the partisan gap, given that the average woman was just as likely (40%) as the average Democrat to stay and fight.So there really is something in being a Democrat, whether white or black, man or woman, that makes you significantly less likely to say you’ll defend your country than your non-Democratic peers.When I see these sad numbers, I think of some other recent data:A clear majority, 55%, of young Democrats believe the U.S. is not in the top tier of good countries in the world. If that finding is true, it would help explain why Democrats are much less likely to be willing to defend America.I believe it goes deeper. Democrats have seen a disproportionate drop in their desire to have children.It’s a broad malaise. I think Democratic millennials and Zoomers don’t think Americans are good. They don’t think humans are good, for that matter. They especially don’t think the wealthiest 20% of the planet is good.Is it any wonder? If your leading lights tell you the U.S. is inherently a white supremacist nation, if you think humans are melting the planet, if you believe that 46% of the electorate supports all of former President Donald Trump's worst traits and the even worse traits that you imagine in him, then of course you wouldn't spill any blood for America. Of course you wouldn't want to have children and make more of us.
@s-sibley The final sentence of the article addresses that (along with another earlier. There was a data table in the article, but they did not make it to Dentalfrogz.
In the 10 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, relations between the first nation to reach space and the Western world have been stripped to the bone.
To wit: Europe's space agency has canceled several launches on Russian rockets, a contract between privately held OneWeb and Roscosmos for six Soyuz launches has been nullified, Europe suspended work on its ExoMars exploration mission that was set to use a Russian rocket and lander, and Russia has vowed to stop selling rocket engines to US launch companies.
Virtually every diplomatic and economic tie between Russia's space industry and Europe and the United States has been severed but one—the International Space Station.
In addition to these actions, Russia's chief spaceflight official, Dmitry Rogozin, has been bombastic since the war's outbreak, vacillating between jingoistic and nationalistic statements on Twitter and threats about how the ISS partnership could end. Moreover, the Kremlin-aligned publication RIA Novosti even created a creepy video showing Russians leaving their American colleagues behind in space.
Regardless of the rhetoric, neither the United States nor Russia wants to lose the International Space Station. Its first component, the Russian-built Zarya module, launched on a Proton rocket in 1998. Now the size of a US football field, the station has a habitable volume equivalent to a six-bedroom house. Its assembly has required more than 40 spaceflight missions, mostly flown by NASA's space shuttle. After two decades, the station remains the bedrock of both the US and Russian human spaceflight programs.
For NASA and the United States, losing the space station would mean the forfeiture of more than $100 billion invested in developing the facility and billions more in provisioning and inhabiting the station. NASA has used the space station for myriad purposes, from a platform to conduct more than 2,500 science experiments to testing human health during extended human spaceflight. The station has also served as an incubator for commercial space. The United States has by far the largest and most robust commercial space industry in the world, led by SpaceX, and most of this activity would not exist today without the station.
“No climate crisis” is, of course, not the spin the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is putting on its new 3,676-page report released last month. “The choices we make in the next decade will determine our future,” the IPCC says. “Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”
It could hardly be plainer. The report is political advocacy barely masquerading as science.
The IPCC Working Group II report is not meant to be about policy; that’s the job of Working Group III, which has yet to produce its contribution to the sixth assessment report. “The focus of our new report is on solutions,” the IPCC says of the Working Group II report. “It highlights the importance of fundamental changes in society.” The solution to climate change, the IPCC claims, is renewable energy, circular economies, healthy diets, universal health coverage and social protection. The only surprise is that the IPCC didn’t include abolishing the Second Amendment in its climate catechism.
“Scientific evidence shows that addressing the risks and impacts of climate change successfully involves a more a diverse set of actors than previously thought” and involves partnerships with “traditionally marginalized groups, including women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local communities and ethnic minorities (high confidence).” How on earth did the IPCC exclude the LBGTQ+ community? “Different interests, values and worldviews can be reconciled if everyone works together,” the IPCC says. This isn’t science. It’s climate kumbaya.
I am more intrigued by Facebook's (?) comment - "Missing context". Yes, the facts in this joke are correct, but without the correct spin of D-sympathetic censors, people might get the wrong idea that the facts are true. . . . . . . which they are.
The reaction of the censors is as entertaining as the meme, itself. It's as if we are trolling the censors, getting a rise out of them just for the entertainment.
Is it me or are the same people who are praising Armed Ukrainians fighting for freedom the same ones who hate the second amendment and lose their minds when you don’t wear a mask?
Question: If stopping the Nordstream 2 Pipeline is a punishment for Russia because it would cause economic damage, what is stopping the Keystone Pipeline?
On the 10th anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death, the media is still rewriting history. He is being depicted as an innocent young victim minding his own business who wasn’t a threat to anyone in Sanford, Florida, when George Zimmerman shot him.
“The killing of this baby-faced, hoodie-wearing, unarmed youth at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later,” writes the Associated Press.
It’s almost as if there wasn’t a trial, and that the evidence wasn’t clear and overwhelming.
The anniversary is opening old racial wounds. AP is merely picking up where the media left off a decade ago. In 2012, NBC News deceptively edited a 911 call by Zimmerman to make it appear that he had volunteered Martin’s race. It turned out that Zimmerman only revealed Martin’s race when asked about it by the police operator.
“When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids,” President Barack Obama famously said at the time. “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” The media invariably described the case as a white man killing a black youth, but they ignored the fact that Zimmerman was Hispanic and his great-grandfather was black.
Race always played a central role in the judicial handling of the case and its news coverage. If Zimmerman and Martin had both been white, or if Zimmerman had been black, it seems unlikely this case would ever have gotten to court. The local district attorney declined to prosecute, and the chief of police lost his job because he refused to charge Zimmerman with a crime. The county medical examiner’s investigation confirmed Zimmerman’s story, and was removed from the case for his troubles. Even the case’s lead detective told the jury that he believed Zimmerman’s version of events.
Politicians brought in an outside prosecutor to handle the prosecution. Likewise, an outside medical examiner had to be located to act as an expert for the prosecution.
The witnesses who saw the struggle between Zimmerman and Martin confirmed Zimmerman’s account.
The witness with the clearest view, Jonathan Good, was only 15 to 20 feet away when Zimmerman fired the shot. His testimony on the color of the men’s clothes and skin confirmed that Martin was on top of Zimmerman, straddling and pummeling him.
Pete Buttigieg accepted $250,000 and gifts from mayoral campaign donors who were later awarded $33million in city contracts, raising concerns of 'pay to play' as Transportation Secretary doles out $210billion in infrastructure plan
What we really need is for an overthrow of Putin. It occurs to me that we have an elite special operations unit here that is uniquely qualified at insurgencies:
It's a long article, discussing the mass psychology of war. Here was the pull quote that Bewildered chose and that I really liked:
In his 1931 novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley perfectly described what happens to humans and our reasoning process when we are subsumed by crowd sentiments and dynamics:
Groups are capable of being as moral and intelligent as the individuals who form them; a crowd is chaotic, has no purpose of its own and is capable of anything except intelligent action and realistic thinking. Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point where they cease to have any judgment or will of their own. They become very excitable, they lose all sense of individual or collective responsibility, they are subject to sudden accesses of rage, enthusiasm and panic. In a word, a man in a crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant. He is a victim of what I have called "herd-poisoning." Like alcohol, herd-poison is an active, extraverted drug. The crowd-intoxicated individual escapes from responsibility, intelligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness.
It's great that the Ukrainians are fighting the Russians, but Russia is going through Ukraine like a hot knife through butter. Too many Ukrainians aren't all that motivated to fight. Too many Russians have infiltrated throughout the country. If you are thinking about fighting, your biggest threat might be the Ukrainian behind you rather than the Russian in front of you.
"Adam Johnson, the Florida man who posed for a picture while carrying the lectern of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the Senate Rotunda of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and led a pro-Trump mob that tried to break into the House chamber that day, was sentenced to 75 days in jail Friday and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine."
There’s Giant Loophole In Biden’s Sanctions Against Russia
To keep oil and food prices from skyrocketing, the U.S. was forced to drastically weaken its response against Putin.
"While it is an impressive effort overall, the sanctions also have a glaring weakness: They largely spare Russia’s all-important energy sector, the backbone of its entire economy, and its agricultural center (the country is a major wheat exporter).
If you are Europe & dependent on Russia for 40% of your energy (It is 50% for Germany) what would you do to punish bad acts by Russia? Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to shut down all those Nuclear plants? Perhaps "green energy" isn't very good for your security?
I don't know if you noticed, but during the recent cold spell, Texas energy usage push the capacity of the grid to near its limit. The problem was that in addition to really cold temperatures, the wind also wasn't blowing very hard. This is the problem with wind energy (and solar, FTM) - it is dependent on a quality that is variable.
Imagine if we were totally dependent on wind, there was a large increase in demand, and an extreme weather event like this (it wasn't THAT extreme). Solar would face a similar problem if the weather were overcast during that same time period. You need a source of electricity that can be ramped up if needed, in a short period of time. You can't do that with wind and solar.
NEW YORK -- The two prosecutors in charge of the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into former President Donald Trump have suddenly resigned.
As CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Wednesday, it's a stunning development in what is arguably the highest-profile case in the DA's office.
The abrupt resignations by Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz called into question the future of the probe, which has been going on for years.
Here's a follow-up analysis by former prosecutor, Andrew McCarthy:
Manhattan DA’s Trump Investigation Appears to Have Cratered
Michael Cohen was the SDNY’s witness, yet its prosecutors wouldn’t give him a deal, and they dropped the case. That strongly suggests that it’s not much of a case. The Biden Justice Department’s id may be anxious to prosecute the Democrats’ archnemesis, but its better judgment is to be wary and resist unless there is something truly worth pursuing. Doesn’t look like there is.
Four other points.
The Times suggests the main problem for prosecutors has been the “inability thus far to persuade any Trump Organization executives to cooperate.” I doubt that. To be sure, no one would expect the former president’s children to roll on him, but none of them have been charged either, despite investigators’ poring over mounds of their records. And besides not being Trump’s children, Weisselberg and Calamari are at an age when serious charges carrying a potentially lengthy prison sentence are usually an irresistible incentive to turn state’s evidence. Further, when a case is based on serious financial shenanigans, it is the paper trail that strangles white-collar suspects; with no realistic prospect of acquittal, defendants see the wisdom in becoming cooperators. The issue for prosecutors here is that their investigation hasn’t yielded evidence of egregious criminal conduct — as the Weisselberg indictment attests.
Second, New York criminal law is tougher for prosecutors than federal law — there are more protections for defendants, particularly in conspiracy cases. If the feds are unable to make a conspiracy case, chances are the state won’t be able to make one.
Third, as we’ve noted, Alvin Bragg is a progressive prosecutor. He didn’t try to fool anyone on that. His policies are nuts, but he ran on them, and Manhattanites elected him (so good luck with that). While progressive prosecutors are known to become aggressive prosecutors when it comes to the banes of progressive existence (e.g., cops), Bragg would look terrible if, while he is declining to prosecute hardened criminals, he appears to go to great lengths to prosecute Trump. That is a headline war with the former president and the New York Post that he does not need in his life unless there is a really strong case to be made. He’s clearly not seeing such a case.
Which brings us to the fourth and last point: the state civil-law probe being conducted by Attorney General Letitia James. As the Times notes, James seems to be “escalating” her investigation while Bragg closes shop on the criminal case that hasn’t materialized. In a court filing, she claimed to have gathered significant evidence of “fraudulent or misleading” practices engaged in by the Trump organization. And she has gotten a state judge to rule that she can depose Trump under oath. That does not mean she will necessarily get to depose him — Trump is appealing (as are Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, whose depositions have also been ordered). In addition, even if they lose their appeals, they could invoke the Fifth Amendment to refuse to answer questions, as Eric Trump did when he submitted to questioning by James’s office in October 2020.
It is easier for state attorneys to make a civil case because the burden of proof is less demanding than in criminal cases. But a Trump case might be very tough for AG James. There would be a strong argument that any charge was political rather than evidence-driven because James — whose office is elective, not appointed — campaigned on scorching the earth to nail Trump. Furthermore, as we saw in James’s high-profile investigation of former governor Andrew Cuomo, she is known to make provocative allegations that grab the headlines, but then refrain from filing formal accusations that she’d have to prove in court. For all the fanfare of her investigative findings that drove Cuomo from office, not a single case — civil or criminal — was brought based on them.
Invasion and conquest, although do-able, would come at a high price - too high, IMO. However, in the recent past - when Obama was president - there was a Russian-friendly gov't in Ukraine. That might be kind - it was a puppet gov't. Why not shoot for this?
If Russia can exert influence here, surely it is that much easier in neighboring Ukraine. We know that Ukraine has a lot of ethnic Russians who like Putin. He would just need a little shove to have a pro-Putin gov't win election.
I have no doubt that Putin's current actions are harming the Ukrainian economy. Who wants to invest in Ukraine when it could be wiped out tomorrow? We know Russia is hacking into all of their computer systems, disrupting businesses, utilities, and gov't services. Shortages and inflation are bad since so much of Ukraine's economy depends on trade with Russia. A bad economy makes people dislike the current gov't and vote for change.
The ongoing fighting in the Russian areas of Ukraine are also a drain on the Ukrainian gov't. The fighting is on Ukrainian soil, which means that area contributes little or nothing to the economy. Plus, there is the expense of supplying troops (and they are not working at jobs). It costs Russia little to fund insurgents (and maybe throw in a few troops of their own). Russia can keep this going almost indefinitely. It is much cheaper than invasion.
So, my tactic is persistence. Outright invasion unifies Ukrainian patriotism, even in the face of a miserable economy. Eventually, a pro-Russian gov't would win an election. At that point, you just cement your win so you can't lose another election.
The summary of this article is that Texas Ds are avoiding Biden like the plague. They not only face tough general elections against Rs, but have progressive primary challenges from the Left. Progressives are seeking out endorsements from AOC, Bernie, and Elizabeth Warren, showing that it is selectively Biden who they are avoiding.
“If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges,” Ottawa police tweeted Sunday. A day earlier, interim Police Chief Steve Bell was asked whether police would continue to go after those protesters who had remained in Ottawa, even if they chose to go home at some point.
“The simple answer is yes,” he said, adding the investigation would go on for “months to come.”
“You have my commitment that that investigation will continue and we will hold people accountable for taking our streets over,” Bell said.
BTW, in reviewing taht exchange in which Stuart got banned, was anyone struck by how flimsy Howard's complaint was; how certain he was that it was racist?
Tim, there are rumors spreading in DT that you might be back. True?
Hi Tim, Do you still come on here?
So in current event in New Orleans, this is what our stupid cunt Mayor’s priorities are. Adding a piece of art to Lafayette Square to celebrate Juneteenth. It’s a fucking hair pick with a black power symbol on top. For a culture that has supposedly contributed so much, this is what they pick as a representative? Of course you see the hair pick with the back drop of Gallier Hall. This city is so fucked. It’s a perfect representation of the stupid, ignorant residents who voted and re-elected this clown.
I think Biden is on to something by ordering the oil companies to put more gasoline on the market. What a concept! He should also order stores to put more baby formula and tampons on the shelves. Problem solved.
I am very happy that the oil industry is doing to Biden exactly what COVID did to Trump. The push towards green energy has been a disaster for Biden. Oil executives know things were much better under Trump. People screaming about oil companies needing to up their production show look at everything Biden has done to stifle the industry. I think that alone has the capacity to oust Biden and pave the way for a Republican to win the presidency. I hope Trump puts his ego aside and throws all his weight behind DeSantis. Also, the Texas/Louisiana coastal areas are just one major hurricane away from choking off the petroleum supply chain even more since it typically results in a shutdown of refining capacities due to a major storm.
Border Dispatch, Part I: ‘Everyone Who Arrives Here Has Paid’
REYNOSA, Mexico — We met Osniel at Senda de Vida, a massive migrant shelter situated on the south bank of the Rio Grande across from McAllen, Texas. The slender 23-year-old Cuban didn’t give us his last name, but did tell us he’d paid a coyote, or smuggler, $11,000 to leave his home country, transit through Central America and Mexico, and cross the border into the United States — twice.
He said he wasn’t sure what he was going to do now. Having tried to cross the border twice, he couldn’t try again without paying the local cartel, and he had no more money.
Early the next morning, around 2 a.m., Osniel called David in a panic. He had swam across the river, he said, but hadn’t paid, and now feared he was being pursued by cartel gunmen. He said he was hiding on the north bank of the Rio Grande.
Osniel’s last communication, via WhatsApp, was at 5:52 a.m. The GPS pin showed he was on the U.S. side of the border, near the riverbank. We haven’t heard from him since.
Why are so many coming now? We asked that question to every migrant we spoke to in Mexico and Texas, and nearly every one of them at some point said that they had heard it was a good time to come, that they would be able to get in. They’re not wrong.
What they find upon arriving in northern Mexico, however, is not what many of them expected. For some, like Osniel, Title 42 still represents a real obstacle (although since Joe Biden took office, fewer and fewer illegal immigrants are being expelled under its authority). All of them, though, are drawn into a vast criminal enterprise run by cartels that have in recent years transformed illegal immigration into an industrialized black market. Elias Rodriguez, director of a migrant shelter run by the Catholic Diocese of Matamoros, told us bluntly that “everyone who arrives here has paid.”
Indeed, migrants transiting Mexico must not only make sure they have paid whichever cartel controls the area of the border they intend to cross, they often have to pay off Mexican officials en route to the border. More than one person told us how the bus they were on was stopped in Monterrey, or outside Reynosa, and boarded by federal or state officials who asked for everyone’s papers. Those without papers had to pay.
Setting aside the impossibility of confirming these accounts, the proof of such official corruption on a mass scale is the mere fact that hundreds of thousands of migrants arrive at northern Mexican border cities each month. They are here, and they could have gotten here only by paying their way. Border Dispatch, Part I: 'Everyone Who Arrives Here Has Paid' (thefederalist.com)
An inflation has gotten bad, too. Now a picture is only worth 850 words.
The economy is so bad, I saw some CEOs playing miniature golf.
US retail sales unexpectedly drop in May as inflation weighs on spending
Unexpectedly?
Did sunlight hit the Poliboard troll known as Winn and turn him to stone? Dude hasn't even shown his face on the board to pump up Biden's successes. Meanwhile, the Fed is looking at enacting the largest rate increase in about 25-30 years. But Americans are "doing very, very well."
@RNCResearch
Top Biden economic advisor Bharat Ramamurti says Biden is "sympathetic" to Americans concerned about gas prices, inflation, and market losses — but they "need to take a step back" because they're actually "doing very, very well."
Makes me think of Caddyshack when Judge Smails tells his nephew he will have nothing and like it. Meanwhile, Dementia Joe and his lemmings have marching orders to gaslight the fuck out of Americans with their lies about the economy.
Just to drive home the point, this guy lost his primary by something like 51 - 25%. If we accept the premise that the House committee is investigating 1/6 in order to discover what happened, then the impeachment vote when Trump was already on his way out the door was made without all the facts. The polling shows Cheney losing by a similar margin.
South Carolina GOP Rep. Tom Rice loses primary after his vote to impeach Trump
Stick a fork in Cheney. She took a huge gamble that the Ds weren't pranking her and got burned. She's done.
Another sham of this committee is that Cheney is using it to attack her primary opponent.
Pelosi’s Court: How the Jan. 6 committee undermined its own legitimacy
BY JONATHAN TURLEY,
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided a year ago to break from tradition and blocked two Republican committee members selected by GOP leaders. In response, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pulled his other committee nominees, and Pelosi then seated two staunchly anti-Trump Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (Illinois).
Congress has a long history of bipartisan investigatory and select committees. Many were formed during deep political rifts — yet, for 230 years, Congress maintained the need for bipartisan membership. That was the case with the Watergate committees, the House Committee on Assassinations, the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions and other investigations. It would have been easy to stack the decks and limit the members by party on each of those committees, but past congressional leaders understood that the credibility of such investigations required balance, including opposing views.
Pelosi’s decision to gut that process was something of a signature muscle play. As a witness in the first Trump impeachment, I was highly critical of her insistence that the House would impeach before Christmas rather than conduct the traditional impeachment investigation with witnesses. Instead of building a more convincing case, Pelosi preferred to impeach with virtually no record, for a certain defeat in the Senate. In the second impeachment, she went one better: She held no hearing at all and pushed through the first “snap impeachment.”
The Jan. 6 committee was similarly stripped of any pretense. It was as subtle a political move as Pelosi’s ripping up President Trump’s State of the Union speech. Asked what she hoped to achieve from the committee on the first day of hearings, Pelosi tellingly referred to it as a “narrative.” It is the difference between seeing and simulating justice.
According to The New York Times, that narrative is meant to “recast the midterm message” and “give [Democrats] a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.” It was packaged with the help of a high-powered media figure brought in to help stage the event. Much of the media touted how the hearings would be “must-see TV” and would force voters “not to look away” from Trump’s “coup.” Countervailing evidence was edited out. Thus, Trump was shown calling for the protesters to “march” on the Capitol — but not his additional words to do so “peacefully.”
That withheld line from Trump would hardly have exonerated the former president. I publicly condemned Trump’s speech while it was being given, and I called for a bipartisan vote of censure over his responsibility in the Capitol riot. The new footage shown by the committee only magnified the revulsion many of us felt in watching this desecration of our Capitol and our constitutional process. However, such one-sided accounts rob these proceedings of a sense of authenticity and authority.
However, they deliver precisely what Pelosi demands: politics unburdened by process. Ironically, it is the very same dismissal of process and principle that is often attributed to Trump.
This first hearing looked like the uncontested opening statement in a persona non grata proceeding, a hearing designed to denounce or expel an individual. Much of the evidence was designed to show that Trump repeatedly was told that he lost the election and thus had no good faith basis to challenge the election’s certification.
Well, many of us said exactly that two years ago. Moreover, if the effort is to convict Trump of being a narcissistic or craven person, you hardly need a select committee to make that case to the Democratic base or to much of the rest of America.
Perhaps the most surprising element in the start of the hearings is the person who was portrayed as the guardian of democracy: former Attorney General William Barr. After Democrats called for Barr to be impeached or even criminally charged, he was shown repeatedly as holding the line against Trump’s claims and demands. For those of us who have defended Barr for years, it was a welcome but weird sight to behold.
There is considerable evidence that Trump’s people planned for a certification challenge, but that was always anticipated. Not long after the election, I wrote about that possibility in what I called the “Death Star strategy.” It is not a crime to plan such a challenge, even without good cause. Without any direct connection to organizing or supporting the ensuing violence, that would remain a moral — not a legal — failure.
Indeed, if opposing views were allowed, then Republicans likely would call for the testimony of committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who voted to challenge the certification of the 2004 results of President George W. Bush’s reelection; committee member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to challenge Trump’s certification in 2016. Both did so under the very law that Trump’s congressional supporters used in 2020. And Pelosi and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the challenge organized by then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in 2004.
The difference, of course, is that while there were violent protests in 2016 in Washington, there was not a riot that breached the Capitol.
This, from the Babylon Bee...
A few of the better memes...
I just picked up my AR from the FFL dealer I had it shipped to yesterday. Can't wait to get to the firing range to try it out. Interestingly enough, I asked the license transfer person if there had been an uptick in people buying AR's, and he said he has never been busier with transfers. All the increased talk about banning these weapons as well as the proposal to enact a 1000% to 5000% excise tax on purchase of these firearms will have the exact opposite effect that the narrow-viewed legislators want. More guns are being sold now than ever before. And of course if it comes to pass that these weapons are banned and will be required to returned to the government, I may just have a freak boating accident in which the weapons I own are suddenly lost to a random body of water.
About a year ago, I stumbled on a really big story. It was about black Americans being gunned down across the country and the ways in which we report on that violence. We had been talking nonstop about race and police brutality, and I thought: This is a story that could save lives. This is a story that has to be told.
But when I shared the story with my coworkers, my boss chastised me, telling me expressing this opinion could limit my ability to take on leadership roles within the company. Then I was maligned by my colleagues. And then I was fired.
The data was unequivocal. It showed that, if anything, police were slightly less likely to use lethal force against black suspects than white ones.
Statistics from the most complete database of police shootings (compiled by The Washington Post) indicate that, over the last five years, police have fatally shot 39 percent more unarmed whites than blacks. Because there are roughly six times as many white Americans as black Americans, that figure should be closer to 600 percent, BLM activists (and their allies in legacy media) insist. The fact that it’s not—that there’s more than a 500-percentage point gap between reality and expectation—is, they say, evidence of the bias of police departments across the United States.
But it’s more complicated than that. Police are authorized to use lethal force only when they believe a suspect poses a grave danger of harming others. So, when it comes to measuring cops’ racial attitudes, it’s important that we compare apples and apples: Black suspects who pose a grave danger and white suspects who do the same.
Unfortunately, we don’t have reliable data on the racial makeup of dangerous suspects, but we do have a good proxy: The number of people in each group who murder police officers.
According to calculations (published by Patrick Frey, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County) based on FBI data, black Americans account for 37 percent of those who murder police officers, and 34 percent of the unarmed suspects killed by police. Meanwhile, whites make up 42.7 percent of cop killers and 42 percent of the unarmed suspects shot by police—meaning whites are killed by police at a 7 percent higher rate than blacks.
If you broaden the analysis to include armed suspects, the gap is even wider, with whites shot at a 70 percent higher rate than blacks. Other experts in the field concur that, in relation to the number of police officers murdered, whites are shot disproportionately.
There has been only one study that has looked at the rate at which police use lethal force in similar circumstances across racial groups. It was conducted by the wunderkind Harvard economist Roland Fryer, who is black, grew up poor, had his fair share of run-ins with the police and, initially, supported BLM. In 2016, Fryer, hoping to prove the BLM narrative, conducted a rigorous study that controlled for the circumstances of shootings—and was shocked to find that, while blacks and Latinos were likelier than whites to experience some level of police force, they were, if anything, slightly less likely to be shot. The study generated enormous controversy. (In 2018, Fryer was suspended from Harvard over dubious allegations of sexual harassment.)
Unfortunately, because the BLM narrative was now conventional wisdom, police departments, under intense scrutiny from left-wing politicians and activists, scaled back patrols in dangerous neighborhoods filled with vulnerable black residents. This led to soaring violence in many communities and thousands of needless deaths—otherwise known as the Ferguson Effect.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/i-criticized-blm-then-i-was-fired?s=w&fbclid=IwAR0HBnivt_D0TgnBhJYinCJBljmYgSLi5T_KYCx3RnqORkj0Eds_i-dGIyI
Good to hear from you bud. I haven't had the curiosity to go back. There were several folks that I liked a lot personally, and who were well-informed as well as interesting. And then there were the trolls. In the first week after I left, I was fed all sorts of inside scoop. What doomed me was a comment made years ago, that was un-related to the meme about white people. the discussion was about how to avoid poverty. There is a famous study about 4 things a parent can do to avoid poverty. One of them is to avoid single-parenting before marriage. That got me in trouble. Go figure.
Since I don't actively participate in the DT political blog anymore, just reading some of the posts from the resident liberal fuckwads makes me see how deranged and out of touch they are with reality. Its a liberal cesspool of wokeness and liberals strutting around like pigeons shitting on the chess board acting like they are right.
Remarkable. That must be the side of the Moon that never faces the Earth.
This is an amazing shot of the moon passing over the Earth taken from a satellite. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/from-a-million-miles-away-nasa-camera-shows-moon-crossing-face-of-earth
'Big guy' reemerges in Hunter Biden grand jury: Report
A grand jury witness was asked to identify the infamous "big guy" mentioned in discussions regarding a Chinese business deal involving the president's son Hunter Biden, according to a new report.
The question came up after this person, who was not identified, was shown a piece of evidence before the grand jury, located in Wilmington, Delaware, a source told the New York Post. The answer that was given was not reported, though some have claimed the "big guy" is President Joe Biden, raising the prospect that the commander in chief could be drawn into a federal criminal investigation.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/hunter-biden-grand-jury-witness-asked-about-big-guy-report
Very spirited debate on the poliboard. You should just break out the flint lock pistols and settle it with a duel.
Biden got 255,000 ‘excess’ votes in fraud-tainted swing states in 2020, study finds
Looking at six swing states, the data he crunched found that voter turnout in Republican areas increased from 2016 to 2020 while voter turnout among Democrats dropped — except in places where voter fraud was claimed.
“More heavily Democratic counties actually had a slightly lower turnout in 2020, except for counties where vote fraud was alleged. In those counties, you had a huge increase in turnout,” Mr. Lott told The Washington Times in an interview explaining his findings.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/28/joe-biden-got-255000-excess-votes-fraud-tainted-sw/
More Scandals Envelop the Scandalous FBI
For more than two hours—shackled to a metal bar in a freezing room at the New Jersey FBI field office—Khater, who has no criminal record, was interrogated without a lawyer present. FBI Special Agent Riley Palmertree refused to tell Khater why he was under arrest until he agreed to proceed without counsel in the room, which Khater reluctantly did. Recently released video confirms Khater initially told the agents he “would feel more comfortable if I had a lawyer” answering questions on his behalf. An hour later, Khater again said he wanted his lawyer.
But Palmertree pushed back, presenting videos and photos implicating Khater in the alleged assault. Palmertree assured Khater that by admitting he sprayed Sicknick with pepper spray rather than a can of bear spray—an item Palmertree later testified was not used that day—a judge would go easy on him. Khater signed a statement confessing that he attacked officers with pepper spray.
Khater has been in jail ever since, housed in the D.C. gulag specifically used to detain January 6 protesters; his trial is scheduled for June 6.
But Khater’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, is now asking the court to toss the interrogation as evidence, arguing that the FBI used “coercion and deception” to force Khater into waiving his Miranda rights. Further, Tacopina wrote in a February 22 motion that Palmertree lied in his FBI report by claiming he advised Khater about the “nature of the interview” before asking Khater to waive his rights.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/31/more-scandals-envelop-the-scandalous-fbi/
This article is incredibly long . . . . . and pure gold with wisdom.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-jon-stewart?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1MTgzMDQyLCJwb3N0X2lkIjo1MTIwMzQwMCwiXyI6ImdSaVZ5IiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ4ODQ1NTUyLCJleHAiOjE2NDg4NDkxNTIsImlzcyI6InB1Yi02MTM3MSIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.8ld8icNEpe&s=r
"tarball" https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/joseph-vazquez/2022/04/01/truly-foolish-top-5-most-ridiculous-cases-big-tech?fbclid=IwAR1OoG8ZnRXhdDNAf1tg-nwgoYoUaW_Ws-O7drCQBdDkbSaMFypUU_qst5c
What is the difference between a meme of the Smithsonian poster vs posting the actual thing? Watching people try to do mental gymnastics over this question is funny.
I'm struggling to care, but if Rock made a joke about Smith's wife's health problems, . . . . . . them's fighting words. Also, it was an open-palm slap, and only one, at that.
Some posters on DT are wondering why Will Smith wasn’t arrested for assault. Of course we really can’t publicly write why he wasn’t arrested because that would be politically incorrect. Although this just goes to show that black on black crime is common and prevalent. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think I will start dropping the "Uncle Tom" monikers on DT since that is okay. I mean, HoGo did it and it was okay. You think Jay would be offended if I called him that?
If any of you are familiar with Charles Murray, you know that he has written controversial books on the topic of race from a scientific POV. It borders on impossible for him to speak on a college campus due to violent protests.
He has a new book out that will do nothing but add fuel to the fire. Here is a (long) review of his latest book, with an excerpt to give you an idea of what it is like. Clearly, posting the URL in other forums would be risky:
Charles Murray’s Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America challenges this prevailing dogma. Murray puts forward a simple thesis: The most consequential racial differences in our society are “in cognitive ability and crime.” These gaps cause and explain virtually all racial disparities that currently exist. It follows that discussions of “domestic policy issues involving more than one race” will virtually always prove “invalid” unless they take these facts into account.
This means that the ratio of Europeans to Africans with high I.Q. becomes ever larger as I.Q. increases. An I.Q. score of 125, achieved by about 5% of Europeans, is thought necessary for basic competence in the professions and other elite fields; 135 or above, representing less than 1% of Europeans, is typical for those functioning at the highest levels in top-tier jobs. By Murray’s estimation, among the 23 million Americans who are in their late twenties, there are currently about 228,000 with I.Q.s in excess of 135. That pool contains only about 2,800 Africans and 9,500 Latins (Murray’s term for Hispanics), compared to more than 50,000 Asians and 160,000 Europeans nationwide. Whereas Africans are about 14% of the population, they represent slightly more than 1% of that pool—or about 1 in every 100 people available for entry-level hiring in the most demanding jobs.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/inconvenient-truths/?utm_source=pocket_mylist
8 Joe Biden Scandals Inside Hunter Biden’s MacBook That Corporate Media Just Admitted Is Legit
1. Pay-to-Play in Ukraine
The most obvious scandal bared by the emails and text messages contained on Hunter’s laptop concerns the influence profiteering Joe Biden apparently participated in during his eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president, with Ukraine featuring heavily in the pay-to-play scheme.
The New York Times, in its likely “get ahead of the story,” coverage from last week, touched on the Ukrainian angle by noting Hunter’s connection to Burisma and then quoting emails recovered from the laptop indicating the younger Biden leveraged his dad’s position — then as vice president. But the Times’ surface coverage of the Burisma scandal doesn’t nearly suffice.
Surface it was: The Times made no mention of Hunter’s appointment to Burisma Holdings Board of Directors at a reported salary of $50,000 per month during his dad’s time as vice president. Hunter Biden had no experience in energy. So, a deep-dive on the entire Biden-Burisma connection is a first step.
2. China Gets in the Game
Ukraine is but a patch on the influence-peddling undertaken by Hunter on behalf of “the big guy,” as the younger Biden referred to his dad. China also played a large role in the family enterprise, as demonstrated by, again, passing coverage in November 2021. Then, the Times reported, in brief, that Hunter Biden’s joint global equity firm, the Bohai Harvest Equity Investment Fund, had helped coordinate the purchase by a Chinese mining company of the world’s largest cobalt source in the Congo.
That deal gave China control over a huge chunk of the world’s known cobalt supplies — an ingredient necessary to make electric car batteries. And the role of Hunter Biden’s company, Bohai, in the transaction again connects directly to Joe Biden, as Hunter reportedly launched that new joint enterprise with Chinese business partners less than two weeks after he traveled to China on Air Force Two with his then-vice president father.
In exploring this scandal, the press needs to push beyond the emails recovered from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, and do what Tucker Carlson did when the pay-to-play scandal first surfaced: talk to Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski. Bobulinski provides further proof that this scandal reaches the top of the Biden family.
3. Moscow, Kazakhstan, and More
While Ukraine and China likely hold the most significant revelations, once those threads are pulled, investigators should move on to Moscow, which according to a Senate report, holds another possible scandal. That report documents that Hunter also received a combined $3.5 million from the wife of the former Moscow mayor, a Kazakhstan investor, and several other individuals. After all, there is no reason to think that a person willing to let his son sell access to the vice president of the United States would close the money train to just a few countries.
4. Ukraine’s Firing of the Prosecutor Investigating Burisma
With the elite media now deigning coverage of Hunter’s laptop appropriate, the public knows the Burisma scandal was real and threatened to be spectacularly devastating to the elder Biden. That makes questions concerning then-Vice President Joe Biden’s demands that Ukraine fire the state prosecutor who was reportedly investigating Burisma ripe to revisit.
That prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was fired, according to statements Joe Biden made during a 2018 event, after Biden threatened to withhold a billion-dollar loan guarantee if the Ukrainian government refused to ax Shokin. A video of the event captured Biden recounting the event:
While the Obama administration attempted to spin Biden’s push for the firing of Shokin, by claiming the international community had demanded Ukraine terminate the state prosecutor, a State Department official contradicted that claim during congressional testimony. George Kent, who worked on issues related to Ukraine at the State Department, reportedly told lawmakers it was the Obama administration that “spearheaded the efforts to have Shokin removed from his position as the top federal prosecutor in Ukraine.”
Biden needs to answer questions anew over his threats to withhold money from Ukraine unless the country removed the state prosecutor responsible for investigating Burisma. Democrats have impeached a president for less.
5. Obama-Biden Administration Ignoring Conflicts of Interest
Biden also needs to answer questions about his decision to ignore the clear conflicts of interest involved with him negotiating with the same countries Hunter was shaking down. Of course, since “the big guy” was in on the scam, bowing out over conflicts of interest is the lesser of the evils, but it is still worth investigating to assess how Biden handled the concerns raised by the Obama administration’s State Department.
Here, the testimony of the State Department official charged with issues related to Ukraine again proves significant. Kent told lawmakers that after learning Hunter sat on the board of Burisma, he raised concerns with the vice president’s office about the relationship.
“I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of millions of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest,” Kent testified before House members in October of 2019. “The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son Beau was dying of cancer and that there was no further bandwidth to deal with family-related issues at that time … That was the end of that conversation.”
The question for now-President Biden, then, is whether anyone in his office raised concerns about the clear conflicts-of-interest with him personally, and if so, why did Biden ignore the problem?
6. The Intelligence Community’s Briefing of Biden
Another scandal reaching President Biden concerns his interactions with the intelligence community after the FBI, and presumably the CIA and other such agencies, learned in December of 2019, that Hunter Biden believed Russians had stolen Hunter’s laptop, rendering the Bidens susceptible to blackmail.
Here, it is important to understand that there are two separate Hunter Biden laptops at issue. The most-discussed laptop was actually the second laptop. That laptop was the one Hunter had abandoned at the Delaware repair shop. Then, after the repair shop owner discovered concerning material on the MacBook, the store owner handed it to the FBI in December of 2019. The owner of the repair shop, however, had first made a copy of the hard drive, which resulted in The New York Post’s coverage in October 2020.
But there was another laptop — one Hunter believed Russians had stolen from him when he was binging on drugs with prostitutes in the summer of 2018 in Las Vegas. While the public did not learn about the existence of this earlier laptop until August of 2021, the FBI knew about it as early as December 2019, when they took possession of the second laptop Hunter had left at the repair store.
Among other material contained on the second laptop was a video of Biden recounting the circumstances of his first laptop disappearing with some Russians. Significantly, on that video Hunter Biden said his first laptop contained a ton of material leaving him susceptible to blackmail, since his father was “running for president” and Hunter talked “about it all the time.”
It is inconceivable that the FBI and the intelligence communities did not brief Biden on this discovery and the risk of blackmail, given that former FBI Director James Comey briefed Trump on the fake Steele dossier. On second thought, that is the initial question reporters should ask the president: “Did the FBI brief you, Mr. President, on the fact that Hunter believed Russians had stolen a laptop containing compromising information?”
From there, an inquiring press should investigate to ensure that Joe Biden did not direct the intelligence community to bury this national security risk to protect himself or his son.
7. Possible Collusion to Interfere in the 2020 Election
An honest press should also investigate whether now-President Biden or anyone connected to his then-presidential campaign pressured reporters, media outlets, or companies such as Twitter and Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden story. And what about the “fifty former intelligence officials” who publicly declared the laptop resembled a Russian disinformation campaign—something clearly untrue? Did Biden or his campaign coordinate with those individuals, several of whom had endorsed the Democratic candidate, in the release of the letter?
Given that polls show that 17 percent of Joe Biden voters would not have voted for him in 2020, if they had known about the Biden family scandals, the collective burying of the laptop scandal represents the most significant interference in elections ever seen in our country. So, “Did Biden or his campaign have anything to do with the decision to kill the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter’s MacBook?” And “What about the ‘fifty former intelligence officials?’”
From there the follow-ups flow quickly: “Who was involved in the push to silence the story and who were the executives or ‘journalists’ who bowed to the demands?” “Who coordinated with the intelligence officials?” “Were any threats or promises made?” “What were they?” “What did Joe Biden know?” “What about other Democrats and the Democratic National Committee?”
8. Joe Biden Is a ‘Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier’
The final Joe Biden scandal the press should push President Biden to answer concerns his lies to the American public. While there are too many to count, two merit further questioning.
First, the media should demand Biden answer for lying to the country when he seethed, “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.” The evidence overwhelmingly shows that Biden not only knew of the family business deals but was part of them.
The second bold-faced fabrication from Biden came during his pre-election debate with Trump, when Trump raised “the laptop from hell.” When Trump asked Biden if he was saying the “laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax?” the then-Democratic candidate replied, “That’s exactly what [I] was told.”
Unlikely. Biden also countered with this doozy, which again raises the question of whether Biden had a role in the intelligence officials’ statement:
We can now add The New York Times to Giuliani. It remains to be seen, though, whether the Old Grey Lady and the other legacy outlets will report on the further scandals the laptop revealed—the ones that reach the president of the United States.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/22/8-joe-biden-scandals-inside-hunter-bidens-macbook-that-corporate-media-just-admitted-is-legit/
French President Emmanuel Macron gave a timeline earlier mid, last week that he expects Africa to face a “deep food crisis in 12-18 months.”
*Walter Bloomberg @DeItaone FRANCE'S MACRON: WE WILL HAVE DEEP FOOD CRISIS IN NEXT 12-18 MONTHS IN AFRICA AND MIDEAST DUE TO UKRAINE WARMarch 17th 2022 377 Retweets1,493 Likes
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I don’t know where the timeframe comes from, but the crisis may occur sooner, judging from US production and Chinese food purchases in the first half of 2022. The population of Africa continues to explode. The world is also facing a rapidly approaching fertilizer shortage because of the war in Ukraine. These knock-on effects cause a perfect storm of a rapid decline in available food and the ability to produce more food.
Battle Beagle @HarmlessYardDog Battle Beagle @HarmlessYardDog @SubZeroGold Expect food riots in poorer regions of the world in 2022.March 18th 2022 263 Retweets1,263 Likes
Looking at the chart above, substantial portions of African food imports come from Russia and Ukraine. Devastation from the war and sanctions will cause difficulty filling the gap in the second half of 2022. It’s essential to take notice of the countries at the bottom of the chart, particularly Egypt.
See graphs in these links here:
Egypt is a country whose government’s stability depends substantially on inexpensive bread. Despite promises of increasing domestic planting of wheat, increasing production substantially is difficult for Egypt.
https://muzzlevelocity.substack.com/p/coming-food-shortages?s=w
I'm gonna park some popular memes here
.@SpeakerPelosi: "When we're having this discussion, it's important to dispel some of those who say, well it's the government spending. No, it isn't. The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt. It is not inflationary."
We've discussed the myth of the "WP" gesture - the "OK" gesture that was alleged to be a "W" and a "P" for "White Power". Now that the word is out, it raised the potential that it could be adopted by racists, as was the case with the confederate flag. We WILL have to ban the gesture:
"Two cases have gotten particular attention recently: a boys' hockey game between St. Louis Park and New Prague last month, and a girls' basketball game between New Prague and Robbinsdale Cooper that same day. The racial taunting at those games drew attention because officials in both the Robbinsdale and St. Louis Park districts have served notice that their student athletes will not compete against New Prague at least for the remainder of the school year.
And Wednesday, students in the New Prague fan section at the state high school hockey tournament were caught on camera making what appeared to be "OK" hand gestures, which are sometimes associated with white supremacy groups."
https://www.startribune.com/when-racism-sullies-school-sports/600154873/
There's been some polling, asking people if they'd pay extra for gas in exchange for helping Ukraine. People say yes, they'd do that. They are lying. This is a classic example of people telling the pollster what they think they'd like to hear. "Look what a good person I am."
Rs, IMO, know this, and are going to hammer Biden on gas prices.
It's not exactly a "Wag The Dog" scenario but Biden is getting a bump in the polls during the Ukraine war.
Exclusive: Special Counsel’s Office Is Investigating The 2016 DNC Server Hack
There was previously no known connection between the special counsel and the government’s investigation into the 2016 Democratic National Committee hack.
The U.S. Department of Defense tasked the same Georgia Tech researcher embroiled in the Alfa Bank hoax with investigating the “origins” of the Democratic National Committee hacker, according to an email first obtained by The Federalist on Wednesday. That email also indicates the special counsel’s office is investigating the investigation into the DNC hack and that prosecutors harbor concerns about the DOD’s decision to involve the Georgia Tech researcher in its probe.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/10/exclusive-special-counsels-office-is-investigating-the-2016-dnc-server-hack/
This is a long post, but it only hits the highlights of this article:
Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened in the 2016 race to help Clinton and hurt Donald Trump in a sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation that's been largely ignored by the press. The improper, if not illegal, operation was run chiefly out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, where officials worked hand-in-glove with a Ukrainian-American activist and Clinton campaign operative to attack the Trump campaign. The Obama White House was also deeply involved in an effort to groom their own favored leader in Ukraine and then work with his government to dig up dirt on – and even investigate -- their political rival.
Ukrainian and Democratic operatives also huddled with American journalists to spread damaging information on Trump and his advisers – including allegations of illicit Russian-tied payments that, though later proved false, forced the resignation of his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The embassy actually weighed a plan to get Congress to investigate Manafort and Trump and stage hearings in the run-up to the election.
As it worked behind the scenes to undermine Trump, Ukraine also tried to kneecap him publicly. Ukraine's ambassador took the extraordinary step of attacking Trump in an Op-Ed article published in The Hill, an influential U.S. Capitol newspaper, while other top Ukrainian officials slammed the GOP candidate on social media.
Sources say Durham has interviewed several Ukrainians, but it’s not likely the public will find out exactly what he's learned about the extent of Ukraine’s meddling in the election until he releases his final report, which sources say could be several months away.
In the meantime, a comprehensive account of documented Ukrainian collusion – including efforts to assist the FBI in its 2016 probe of Manafort – is pieced together here for the first time. It draws from an archive of previously unreported records generated from a secret Federal Election Commission investigation of the Democratic National Committee that includes never-before-reviewed sworn affidavits, depositions, contracts, emails, text messages, legal findings and other documents from the case. RealClearInvestigations also examined diplomatic call transcripts, White House visitor logs, lobbying disclosure forms, congressional reports and closed-door congressional testimony, as well as information revealed by Ukrainian and Democratic officials in social media postings, podcasts and books.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/03/10/how_ukraine_conspired_with_dems_against_trump_to_prevent_the_kind_of_war_happening_now_under_biden_820873.html
Harris County Republicans call for firing of elections administrator
HOUSTON - In the wake of this weekend's discovery of 10,000 uncounted primary ballots, leaders of Harris County's Republican Party announced the filing of another round of litigation and called for the removal of election administrator Isabel Longoria.
"All of this is because of incompetence, inexperience, disingenuous behavior of Lina Hidalgo's handpicked election administrator. She must go!" said State Senator Paul Bettencourt.
Kim Foxx: In Jussie Smollett case, our justice system failed. Here’s how and why.
The tactics used are becoming common when cases involve progressive prosecutors. I worry it will serve as a deterrent to the next generation of prosecutors eager to fight for critical reforms.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/3/10/22971657/jussie-smollett-case-our-justice-system-failed-states-attorney-kim-foxx-op-ed
I thought it was Trump's fault?
"President Joe Biden raised eyebrows after blaming soaring US inflation on Vladimir Putin, after the consumer price index hit another 40-year high of 7.9 percent in February.
Although the inflation data released on Thursday does not capture the full impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which occurred just days before the end of February, Biden in a statement chose to blame 'Putin's price hike.'
'A large contributor to inflation this month was an increase in gas and energy prices as markets reacted to Putin's aggressive actions,' said Biden.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10598083/Americans-face-HIGHER-prices-consumer-inflation-increasing-7-9-percent-February.html
I'm so old i can remember...Biden: "It Is Simply Not True That My Administration Or Policies Are Holding Back Domestic Energy Production"
Ballot Bombshells: 20 episodes exposing fraud, illegalities and irregularities in 2020 election
Illegal rule changes, ballot harvesting, Iranian voter hack are among the many now-confirmed serious irregularities, putting the lie to the "perfect election" narrative.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/ballot-bombshells-20-episodes-exposing-fraud-illegalities-and
Biden suspends oil leases in Alaska’s Arctic refuge
By MATTHEW DALYJune 1, 2021 GMT
"But the POTUS has no control over the price of oil."
Putin is obviously a great and powerful man. He made the COVID go away in 2 weeks.
Asked “ If you were in the same position as Ukrainians are now, do you think that you would stay and fight or leave the country? ” 68% of Republicans said stay and fight, as did 57% of independents. Only 40% of Democrats said they would take up arms to defend the country from an invading force. This isn’t explained by race. Fully 61% of Hispanics said they would stay and fight, the highest of any racial group. Among black respondents, 38% said stay and fight, which is statistically the same as the average Democrat (40%). Some of the difference is by sex. Men are far more likely to stay and fight than are women. Still, that’s not nearly enough to explain the partisan gap, given that the average woman was just as likely (40%) as the average Democrat to stay and fight. So there really is something in being a Democrat, whether white or black, man or woman, that makes you significantly less likely to say you’ll defend your country than your non-Democratic peers. When I see these sad numbers, I think of some other recent data: A clear majority, 55%, of young Democrats believe the U.S. is not in the top tier of good countries in the world. If that finding is true, it would help explain why Democrats are much less likely to be willing to defend America. I believe it goes deeper. Democrats have seen a disproportionate drop in their desire to have children. It’s a broad malaise. I think Democratic millennials and Zoomers don’t think Americans are good. They don’t think humans are good, for that matter. They especially don’t think the wealthiest 20% of the planet is good. Is it any wonder? If your leading lights tell you the U.S. is inherently a white supremacist nation, if you think humans are melting the planet, if you believe that 46% of the electorate supports all of former President Donald Trump's worst traits and the even worse traits that you imagine in him, then of course you wouldn't spill any blood for America. Of course you wouldn't want to have children and make more of us.
In the 10 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, relations between the first nation to reach space and the Western world have been stripped to the bone.
To wit: Europe's space agency has canceled several launches on Russian rockets, a contract between privately held OneWeb and Roscosmos for six Soyuz launches has been nullified, Europe suspended work on its ExoMars exploration mission that was set to use a Russian rocket and lander, and Russia has vowed to stop selling rocket engines to US launch companies.
Virtually every diplomatic and economic tie between Russia's space industry and Europe and the United States has been severed but one—the International Space Station.
In addition to these actions, Russia's chief spaceflight official, Dmitry Rogozin, has been bombastic since the war's outbreak, vacillating between jingoistic and nationalistic statements on Twitter and threats about how the ISS partnership could end. Moreover, the Kremlin-aligned publication RIA Novosti even created a creepy video showing Russians leaving their American colleagues behind in space.
Regardless of the rhetoric, neither the United States nor Russia wants to lose the International Space Station. Its first component, the Russian-built Zarya module, launched on a Proton rocket in 1998. Now the size of a US football field, the station has a habitable volume equivalent to a six-bedroom house. Its assembly has required more than 40 spaceflight missions, mostly flown by NASA's space shuttle. After two decades, the station remains the bedrock of both the US and Russian human spaceflight programs.
For NASA and the United States, losing the space station would mean the forfeiture of more than $100 billion invested in developing the facility and billions more in provisioning and inhabiting the station. NASA has used the space station for myriad purposes, from a platform to conduct more than 2,500 science experiments to testing human health during extended human spaceflight. The station has also served as an incubator for commercial space. The United States has by far the largest and most robust commercial space industry in the world, led by SpaceX, and most of this activity would not exist today without the station.
How to save the International Space Station and prevent the dreaded “gap” | Ars Technica
“No climate crisis” is, of course, not the spin the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is putting on its new 3,676-page report released last month. “The choices we make in the next decade will determine our future,” the IPCC says. “Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”
It could hardly be plainer. The report is political advocacy barely masquerading as science.
The IPCC Working Group II report is not meant to be about policy; that’s the job of Working Group III, which has yet to produce its contribution to the sixth assessment report. “The focus of our new report is on solutions,” the IPCC says of the Working Group II report. “It highlights the importance of fundamental changes in society.” The solution to climate change, the IPCC claims, is renewable energy, circular economies, healthy diets, universal health coverage and social protection. The only surprise is that the IPCC didn’t include abolishing the Second Amendment in its climate catechism.
“Scientific evidence shows that addressing the risks and impacts of climate change successfully involves a more a diverse set of actors than previously thought” and involves partnerships with “traditionally marginalized groups, including women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local communities and ethnic minorities (high confidence).” How on earth did the IPCC exclude the LBGTQ+ community? “Different interests, values and worldviews can be reconciled if everyone works together,” the IPCC says. This isn’t science. It’s climate kumbaya.
There is no climate crisis - The Spectator World
I am more intrigued by Facebook's (?) comment - "Missing context". Yes, the facts in this joke are correct, but without the correct spin of D-sympathetic censors, people might get the wrong idea that the facts are true. . . . . . . which they are.
The reaction of the censors is as entertaining as the meme, itself. It's as if we are trolling the censors, getting a rise out of them just for the entertainment.
Is it me or are the same people who are praising Armed Ukrainians fighting for freedom the same ones who hate the second amendment and lose their minds when you don’t wear a mask?
Question: If stopping the Nordstream 2 Pipeline is a punishment for Russia because it would cause economic damage, what is stopping the Keystone Pipeline?
Media Continue Rewriting History on Trayvon Martin Anniversary
By John R. Lott Jr. March 02, 2022
On the 10th anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death, the media is still rewriting history. He is being depicted as an innocent young victim minding his own business who wasn’t a threat to anyone in Sanford, Florida, when George Zimmerman shot him.
“The killing of this baby-faced, hoodie-wearing, unarmed youth at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later,” writes the Associated Press.
It’s almost as if there wasn’t a trial, and that the evidence wasn’t clear and overwhelming.
The anniversary is opening old racial wounds. AP is merely picking up where the media left off a decade ago. In 2012, NBC News deceptively edited a 911 call by Zimmerman to make it appear that he had volunteered Martin’s race. It turned out that Zimmerman only revealed Martin’s race when asked about it by the police operator.
“When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids,” President Barack Obama famously said at the time. “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” The media invariably described the case as a white man killing a black youth, but they ignored the fact that Zimmerman was Hispanic and his great-grandfather was black.
Race always played a central role in the judicial handling of the case and its news coverage. If Zimmerman and Martin had both been white, or if Zimmerman had been black, it seems unlikely this case would ever have gotten to court. The local district attorney declined to prosecute, and the chief of police lost his job because he refused to charge Zimmerman with a crime. The county medical examiner’s investigation confirmed Zimmerman’s story, and was removed from the case for his troubles. Even the case’s lead detective told the jury that he believed Zimmerman’s version of events.
Politicians brought in an outside prosecutor to handle the prosecution. Likewise, an outside medical examiner had to be located to act as an expert for the prosecution.
The witnesses who saw the struggle between Zimmerman and Martin confirmed Zimmerman’s account.
The witness with the clearest view, Jonathan Good, was only 15 to 20 feet away when Zimmerman fired the shot. His testimony on the color of the men’s clothes and skin confirmed that Martin was on top of Zimmerman, straddling and pummeling him.
Pete Buttigieg accepted $250,000 and gifts from mayoral campaign donors who were later awarded $33million in city contracts, raising concerns of 'pay to play' as Transportation Secretary doles out $210billion in infrastructure plan
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10521059/Pete-Buttigieg-took-250k-donors-awarded-33M-city-contracts-mayor.html
What we really need is for an overthrow of Putin. It occurs to me that we have an elite special operations unit here that is uniquely qualified at insurgencies:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/war-propaganda-about-ukraine-becoming?utm_source=url
Stuart, Mark asked me to post this article on here for you to read.
Who thought they would last this long? Maybe having a well-armed populace is better at fighting an army than Ram said.
It's great that the Ukrainians are fighting the Russians, but Russia is going through Ukraine like a hot knife through butter. Too many Ukrainians aren't all that motivated to fight. Too many Russians have infiltrated throughout the country. If you are thinking about fighting, your biggest threat might be the Ukrainian behind you rather than the Russian in front of you.
Rest easy, America:
"Adam Johnson, the Florida man who posed for a picture while carrying the lectern of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the Senate Rotunda of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and led a pro-Trump mob that tried to break into the House chamber that day, was sentenced to 75 days in jail Friday and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine."
WTH?:
There’s Giant Loophole In Biden’s Sanctions Against Russia
To keep oil and food prices from skyrocketing, the U.S. was forced to drastically weaken its response against Putin.
"While it is an impressive effort overall, the sanctions also have a glaring weakness: They largely spare Russia’s all-important energy sector, the backbone of its entire economy, and its agricultural center (the country is a major wheat exporter).
https://slate.com/business/2022/02/biden-left-a-giant-loophole-in-his-sanctions-against-russias.html
2014 OBAMA/BIDEN: Russia invades Ukraine
2017: Trump
2018: Trump
2019: Trump
2020: Trump
2022 BIDEN: Russia invades Ukraine Clearly, this is all Trump’s fault.
If you are Europe & dependent on Russia for 40% of your energy (It is 50% for Germany) what would you do to punish bad acts by Russia? Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to shut down all those Nuclear plants? Perhaps "green energy" isn't very good for your security?
The 2A isn't so hunters can shoot deer.
Huh:
NEW YORK -- The two prosecutors in charge of the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into former President Donald Trump have suddenly resigned.
As CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Wednesday, it's a stunning development in what is arguably the highest-profile case in the DA's office.
The abrupt resignations by Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz called into question the future of the probe, which has been going on for years.
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/top-prosecutors-handling-manhattan-district-attorneys-probe-of-former-president-trump-resign/
"If I were Putin, what would I do?"
Invasion and conquest, although do-able, would come at a high price - too high, IMO. However, in the recent past - when Obama was president - there was a Russian-friendly gov't in Ukraine. That might be kind - it was a puppet gov't. Why not shoot for this?
If Russia can exert influence here, surely it is that much easier in neighboring Ukraine. We know that Ukraine has a lot of ethnic Russians who like Putin. He would just need a little shove to have a pro-Putin gov't win election.
I have no doubt that Putin's current actions are harming the Ukrainian economy. Who wants to invest in Ukraine when it could be wiped out tomorrow? We know Russia is hacking into all of their computer systems, disrupting businesses, utilities, and gov't services. Shortages and inflation are bad since so much of Ukraine's economy depends on trade with Russia. A bad economy makes people dislike the current gov't and vote for change.
The ongoing fighting in the Russian areas of Ukraine are also a drain on the Ukrainian gov't. The fighting is on Ukrainian soil, which means that area contributes little or nothing to the economy. Plus, there is the expense of supplying troops (and they are not working at jobs). It costs Russia little to fund insurgents (and maybe throw in a few troops of their own). Russia can keep this going almost indefinitely. It is much cheaper than invasion.
So, my tactic is persistence. Outright invasion unifies Ukrainian patriotism, even in the face of a miserable economy. Eventually, a pro-Russian gov't would win an election. At that point, you just cement your win so you can't lose another election.
The summary of this article is that Texas Ds are avoiding Biden like the plague. They not only face tough general elections against Rs, but have progressive primary challenges from the Left. Progressives are seeking out endorsements from AOC, Bernie, and Elizabeth Warren, showing that it is selectively Biden who they are avoiding.
Biden-Shy Dems Read Texas Tea Leaves
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/02/22/biden-shy_dems_read_texas_tea_leaves_147227.html
“If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges,” Ottawa police tweeted Sunday. A day earlier, interim Police Chief Steve Bell was asked whether police would continue to go after those protesters who had remained in Ottawa, even if they chose to go home at some point.
“The simple answer is yes,” he said, adding the investigation would go on for “months to come.”
“You have my commitment that that investigation will continue and we will hold people accountable for taking our streets over,” Bell said.
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/we-will-actively-look-to-identify-you-ottawa-police-chief-warns-departed-protesters