Posts on Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, Alameda CEO, pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy.
According to US Attorney Damian Williams, Caroline Ellison is cooperating with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.
The SDNY also charged FTX co-founder Gary Wang with fraud.
In a separate complaint, the SEC charged Ellison and Wang with securities fraud.
With a winter storm bearing down on the Midwest, Triple A has some advice for motorists, including drivers of electric vehicles.
(snip) keep an emergency kit in your car. It should include items like your cell phone, jumper cables, food, water, blankets, hats and kitty litter or sand in case you get stuck in snow (snip). for owners of electric vehicles, says Molly Hart, spokesperson for AAA, (snip) cold weather decreases your driving range almost by half.
“When it dips to 20 degrees and the HVAC system is being used to heat the inside of the vehicle, the average driving range is decreased by 41 percent,”
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Arrives at White House to Coordinate Next
Round of Payments replies
Arrives at White House to Coordinate Next
Round of Payments replies
There is nothing about the U.S. relationship with Ukraine, coordinated by the U.S. State Dept and Intelligence Community, that is anything other than pure propaganda being foisted on the American public. Everything about this is theatrical, staged, presented and produced to script a narrative.
President Zelenskyy showing up in khaki pants looking like a UPS driver; not only disrespectful, but also part of the ‘schtick’ and uniform within the World War Reddit production. Zelenskyy is in the U.S. to bang his tin cup for another $45 billion in support from U.S. taxpayers, and he’s almost guaranteed to get it. WATCH:
Addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress in his first overseas trip since Russia invaded his country more than 300 days ago, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky took aim at the burgeoning isolationist tendency in American politics, urging lawmakers to ramp up support for his embattled homeland out of self-interest rather than any charitable impulse.
Clad in his trademark dark green sweatshirt and cargo pants, Zelensky urged Congress to continue to provide the overwhelming military and financial aid that began to flow when Russia invaded and has continued unabated since, arguing that Russian aggression would further destabilize the U.S.-led international order if left unchecked.
Former President Donald Trump is, from the sounds of it, frustrated by the inclusion of the Electoral Count Act in the $1.7 trillion omnibus that’s currently being discussed.
As previously reported, the Electoral Count Act would make it significantly harder for both Congress and the vice president to reject the results of an election.
On Tuesday the former president posted a stream of thoughts — all of them mostly negative — to Truth Social about the bill.
He started by complaining about how the bill would set in stone that the vice president may not unilaterally choose to certify or not certify the results of an election.
Congress is trying to cram through a mammoth $1.7 trillion government funding bill ahead of a nor'easter that could otherwise leave lawmakers snowed-in in Washington, D.C. over Christmas.
The 4,500 page bill is full of classic priorities: $858 billion for defense, $45 billion for Ukraine, $38 billion for emergency disasters and billions more for other social programs - but also includes some odd riders.
It's loaded with thousands of earmarks - funding for the pet projects of individual lawmakers sometimes in exchange for their vote. Earmarks were banned until Democrats brought them back last year. Republicans followed suit in their own conference.
A Good Morning America producer, who was previously most known for her affair with To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, used her title to gain access to politicians who were opposed to the interests of a major political consulting firm she was also employed by.
A bombshell report from NPR and Floodlight says that Kristen Hentschel, who formerly went by the name Kristyn Caddell, had on least three occasions attempted to 'trip up Florida politicians whose stances on environmental regulations cut against the interests' of clients of Matrix LLC.
More recently, Matrix has been accused of running surveillance operations against journalists and environmental activists.
House Republicans issued a scathing report Wednesday exposing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s key role in the catastrophic security and intelligence failures that left the US Capitol vulnerable to a violent attack on January 6, 2021.
Days after Pelosi’s Jan. 6 select committee recommended insurrection charges against former president Donald Trump over the Capitol riot, Republicans have hit back with a counter-investigation apportioning blame for the internal security breakdown on Jan. 6 to Pelosi and a dysfunctional Capitol Police intelligence division.
“Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable
The House Select Committee on January 6 is ending. It’ll be gone by the next Congress—and good riddance. The committee was probably slated to be the Democrats’ 2022 attack vehicle funded by the taxpayer to paint Trump and the Republican Party as too extreme for America. It failed because a) no one cared anymore about that little riot, b) Americans knew hyperbole when they saw it, and c) the economy was collapsing. Most Americans don’t care or have the time to worry about the trivial matters that consume rich white liberals with dread. With the economy in recession, the Left tried everything to put this committee’s work front and center,
Biden 'annoyed' by complaints from Harris's
husband over tough vice presidential assignments replies
husband over tough vice presidential assignments replies
President Joe Biden grew “annoyed” upon discovering that Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband had complained about her policy assignments, fueling questions inside the White House about the vice president’s inner circle.
Learning that second gentleman Doug Emhoff had griped about Harris’s portfolio, “Biden was annoyed,” a forthcoming book by Chris Whipple obtained by West Wing Playbook reported. “He hadn’t asked Harris to do anything he hadn’t done as vice president.”
Biden described Harris as “a work in progress,” a friend of the president told Whipple.
Female staff, including teachers, are now prohibited from working in schools, authorities said, taking away one of the few professions women were able to have in Afghanistan.. Taliban on Wednesday banned girls of all ages from attending school in one of the largest blows to women's rights since taking over Afghanistan last year with the U.S. withdrawal.
Gov. DeSantis takes aim at Florida teachers'
unions with proposal to end automatic
dues withdrawal replies
unions with proposal to end automatic
dues withdrawal replies
Gov. DeSantis is taking a carrot and stick approach to Florida teachers. On the one hand he is offering them a big raise. On the other hand he is promoting a “paycheck protection” plan which takes aim at teachers unions in the state. Under the new plan, union dues wouldn’t be automatically deducted from paychecks. Instead, teachers would have to send unions a check every month.
DeSantis is framing his plan on union dues as “paycheck protection” for teachers and said it would “be a more accurate reflection of who wants to be a part of this or not.” In his remarks, he coupled the union changes with
We often despair that neither party represents the interests of fiscal discipline these days, or even competent and accountable governance. It’s clearly too much to ask that we get to a balanced budget, since we haven’t even seen one attempted in nearly 30 years — and even that used budgetary gimmicks.
Without a constitutional amendment, Congress will never budget properly within the limits of national revenue, and without an Article V convention, we won’t get an amendment that requires it.
As for competent and accountable governance, that will likely require an Article V convention as well.
A Smith & Wesson revolver that once belonged to former President Theordore Roosevelt sold for $910,625 at the Rock Island Auction Company's December Premier Auction.
Then-Col. Roosevelt received the weapon on May 12, 1898, a day that coincides with his departure for San Antonio to train with the Rough Riders for eventual combat against Spanish forces in Cuba.
"Firearms with presidential ties are highly sought after and extremely difficult to find," Kevin Hogan, Rock Island Auction Company president, said at the time of the sale.
"Being tied to such an important office frequently places these arms at historic moments in American history. We've had the responsibility of offering three presidential arms in 2022,
The US military may get woker.
A new report has advised the US Marine Corps to no longer use “gendered terms” such as “Yes Sir or Yes Ma’am”.
The new academic report stemmed from research conducted by the University of Pittsburgh that was directly commissioned by the Marine Corps.
The report claims the Marine Corps is behind other branches of the military when it comes to using gender identifiers.
The report also states the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard have, for the most part, gotten rid of gender identifiers such as “Sir” and “Ma’am” but instead address drill instructors by their rank and last name.
New York — Sam Bankman-Fried will be extradited to the United States Wednesday night, Bahamas Attorney General Sen. Ryan Pinder confirmed.
Bankman-Fried will be extradited after the Foreign Minister of the Bahamas signed a warrant of surrender allowing his extradition to the United States, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Bahamas confirmed in a statement.
Earlier, lawyers for Bankman-Fried were negotiating with federal prosecutors in New York on a bail arrangement that would enable him to avoid detention, people familiar with the matter told CNN.
FTX crypto exchange founder Bankman-Fried, who oversaw his now-bankrupt empire from a luxury compound in the Bahamas,
The Times, largely seen as the paper of record within the United Kingdom, has run a cartoon on the topic of wanting to put former President Donald Trump in jail.
Drawn up by award-winning cartoonist Peter Brookes — famous for his many contributions to The Times — the published image depicts the former President in orange overalls within a prison cell imitating the design of the American flag.
The cartoon is captioned with the line “All We Want for Christmas…”, with the newspaper advertising at the end of the online page where the cartoon is published that readers can “[b]uy prints or signed copies of Times cartoons” from the paper’s Print Gallery.
In advance of the life-threatening freeze expected through the Christmas weekend, El Paso officials are preparing to shelter up to 10,000 migrants being released by federal officials. Officials also expressed concern that a sudden end to Title 42 could cause an increase in demand for shelter space.
A polar vortex bearing down on the border region could prove deadly for migrants crossing the Rio Grande in large groups. Temperatures in the border region are expected to remain below freezing beginning Thursday when overnight lows will reach 19 degrees Fahrenheit with expected wind chill temperatures in the single digits in several border cities.
The graphic I would like to display on this post is too graphic and bordering on child porn as it depicts a child fellating an older boy. Twitter displayed it here. It is two pages in the book Gender Queer.
Biden's pushing to force the Granbury, Texas, school district to make the book available at its library to children. This is part of the recruiting effort -- grooming -- by the LGBT wing of the Democrat Party.
The campaign began with the American Library Association selecting this obscure comic book (snip)as the library association's book of the year in 2020.
This allows liberals to parade the book around as if it were
The five Republicans initially set to serve on the January 6 select committee released a report Wednesday of findings from their investigation into the U.S. Capitol’s security preparedness ahead of the 2021 riot.
The Republicans’ 141-page report explores at length the security measures taken leading up to the events of January 6, 2021, an issue they say the January 6 committee has “thus far ignored.”
The report serves as a counter document to the select committee’s anticipated behemoth conclusive report, which is expected to come this week after the committee held a final public meeting Monday summarizing its investigation and announcing criminal and ethics referrals.
President Joe Biden welcomed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House Wednesday afternoon, marking the wartime leader’s first trip beyond Ukraine’s borders since Russia invaded 300 days ago.
“Mr. President, welcome back,” Biden told Zelensky, who was clad in his trademark olive-green military sweater and khakis.
Zelensky’s official Instagram account confirmed the president’s visit and outlined his objectives.
“I am in Washington today to thank the American people, the President and the Congress for their much-needed support. And also to continue cooperation to bring our victory closer.
Islamabad, Pakistan – Taliban security forces fanned out to some universities and informal learning centers in Kabul on Wednesday, teachers said, enforcing an edict issued the night before that appears to have banned most females from any education beyond the sixth grade.
In one instance, a teacher reported security forces barging into his class, shouting at girls to go home. "Some of students started verbal arguments with them, but they didn't listen. My students left their classes, crying," said Waheed Hamidi, an English-language teacher at a tuition center in Kabul.
The move was expected – and dreaded – by observers as the Taliban's supreme leader
There has perhaps never been a dumber national obsession than the one that has existed over Donald Trump’s tax returns. Despite the IRS having had all of them over the decades, the press and its Democrat allies have long convinced themselves that Trump was illegally colluding with foreign nations and cheating on his taxes. They continued to hold that belief despite multiple audits of the former president over the years. Apparently, we were all supposed to believe that the IRS (the same IRS that targeted conservatives under Barack Obama) was actually a right-wing front group
One can get an idea of just how weak the summary report released by the January 6 Committee is when even Bloomberg and Axios are throwing shade on the "star witness" of the hearings, Cassidy Hutchinson. Here is Bloomberg's very downbeat view on Tuesday on the credibility of Hutchinson as sadly written by Billy House in "Mystery of Trump’s Alleged Outburst on Jan. 6 Unsolved in Report."
A report by the House Jan. 6 committee failed to resolve conflicting testimony about former President Donald Trump’s actions inside a presidential SUV on the day of the US Capitol assault.
In one of the most compelling moments
Woke Nike Was a Playground for Drunken
Sexual Predators, According to Just-Released Documents replies
Sexual Predators, According to Just-Released Documents replies
Nike’s Oregon headquarters was — is? — an unsupervised playground for male executives who would get “sloppy drunk” and sexually harass female employees, according to four-year-old complaints just now unsealed as part of a lawsuit against the company.
The Beaverton, Oregon-based sports apparel company’s then-CEO, Mark Parker, apparently ignored his female employees’ complaints. Parker resigned as CEO in 2020 but still serves as Nike’s executive chairman.
The allegations include the company acting as a “boys club” where women are told to “dress sexier” and “show some skin.”
Congress is expected to pass a bill aimed at making major changes to retirement accounts, including imposing automatic enrollments at up to 10 percent of pay.
The Retirement Security and Savings Act, which had its final draft published on Tuesday, will see the government give some workers with low to moderate income $1,000 annually to their retirement accounts starting in 2027.
It also aims to raise the age for required withdrawals from 72 to 75, and allow employees to save up to $2,500 in a rainy-day accounts, while doing away with many penalties for early withdrawals due to emergencies.
Mike Lindell Doesn't 'Believe' Ron DeSantis'
Landslide Victory, Says He's Going After
Dade County replies
Landslide Victory, Says He's Going After
Dade County replies
Sometimes I look out upon the political hellscape that has been created, wishing that the insanity would just stop. But it’s not stopping anytime soon, especially not with people like Mike Lindell around. The guy who once proclaimed that Trump would be installed as president eight months after Joe Biden’s inauguration has a new plan to push for election security: He’s going to go after Miami-Dade County in Florida. In the clip, Lindell says that he’s “going after Dade County in the 2022 election.” He then asks himself in the third-person, “why would you go after Dade County?”
LINDELL: Do you know why Brandon?
HOST: Well, no, that’s Florida,,
Franco Harris, the Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers running back who was known for making a miraculous grab in the AFC Divisional Playoffs against the Oakland Raiders in 1972, has died. He was 72. Harris’ death came days before the Steelers were set to retire his No. 32 jersey and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the "Immaculate Reception" at Acrisure Stadium. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin talked about Harris’ catch on Tuesday when he addressed reporters. "I was in Section 135 that day. I was eight months old. I think it's funny. Surprisingly, I’ve probably met 75,000 people that were there that day," Tomlin said.
Senate Democrats are not calling on the Department of Justice to bring charges against former President Trump for his actions in the lead-up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, despite a recommendation from the House panel investigating the unprecedented event.
While members of the House Jan. 6 select committee are ramping up pressure on federal prosecutors to indict Trump, Senate Democrats are taking a more cautious approach, with some arguing there’s a “high bar” for prosecuting a former president.
“I think you should be careful about prosecuting former presidents. I think it’s OK to have a high bar
Republican voters are desperately concerned about the country and are looking for bold and persuasive leadership instead of comfort with a few small, intermittent successes... Comments Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made on Tuesday show why he has become the single biggest obstacle to GOP success.
The Kentucky Republican claimed giving more money to Ukraine is “the No. 1 priority for the United States right now...
The comment about Republican priorities is so false as to be completely delusional.
As we previously reported, there have been scattered stories throughout Joe Biden’s presidency about alleged tensions between the Biden and Harris camps, with Biden’s people reportedly frustrated at the veep’s inability to appropriately handle the tasks given to her by Biden, and the Harris camp’s belief being that Biden’s staff relishes pinning his multitude of failures on her.Those tensions appeared to manifest themselves in a very public way back in November 2021 when the two along with their respective spouses visited a D.C. soup kitchen around Thanksgiving to prepare plates for those in need. Videos and photos from the event showed Biden appearing to snub Harris at various points,
Of the several unwelcome revelations in the past six years, the most politically significant is that liberalism as a political philosophy is dead. Oh, there may still be some individuals who identify with it, but for the most part they are old, retired, or cowed into silence by the howling mobs of progressives, the “woke,” and the identitarian left. And how do we know this? We know it by the collapse of colleges and universities as places of open debate and inquiry. And we know it by the abandonment of any kind of honest and principled journalism by the vast majority of the legacy and social media. CORRECTION*
The US Senate on Tuesday evening voted 70-25 to advance the $1.7 trillion Omnibus spending bill and open debate.
This is just the first procedural vote.
But from that vote, we can tell that 21 RINOs are ready to betray America yet again.
The Republican senators who betrayed their own party and their country include:
Blunt,
Boozman,
Capito,
Collins,
Cornyn,
Cotton,
Graham,
Grassley,
Hyde-Smith,
McConnell,
Moran,
Murkowski,
Portman,
Romney,
Rounds,
Rubio,
Shelby,
Thune,
Tuberville,
Wicker and
Young.
Omnibus Bill: Taxpayers to Erect Monument
to Journalists in D.C., Give over $1B
Subsidy to Media replies
to Journalists in D.C., Give over $1B
Subsidy to Media replies
Taxpayers will fund the erection of press statues in Washington, D.C., along with handing out media subsidies worth over $1 billion, if the Omnibus bill is passed into law in the coming days.
According to section 708 of the bill, the establishment media will be given a “commemorative” location in Washington, D.C., to honor “journalists”: The location of a commemorative work to commemorate the commitment of the United States to a free press by honoring journalists who sacrificed their lives in service to that cause within Area I, as depicted on the map entitled ‘‘Commemorative Areas Washington, DC and Environs’’, numbered 869/86501 B,
We reported earlier on the monstrosity of the $1.7 trillion Omnibus Bill that the Democrats are trying to shove through Congress. It’s giving Joe Biden and the Democrats everything they want without holding them to anything, including things like securing the border. This spending, coming at a time when we’re already dealing with crushing inflation because of overspending, is madness. The bill just dropped and is more than 4000 pages long. [snip] claiming that money for Ukraine is part of the number one priority for the United States just infuriated people,
"They are probing & pushing everywhere." That line sums up an increasingly alarming element in the seventh installment of the so-called "Twitter files." "They" were the agents of Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they were pushing for the censorship of citizens in an array of stories. Writer Michael Shellenberger added critical details on how the FBI was directly engaged in censorship at the company. However, this batch of documents contains a particularly menacing element to the FBI-Twitter censorship alliance. The documents show what writer Shellenberger described as a concentrated effort "to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published."
Billionaire Elon Musk shared his thoughts Tuesday night on the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill presented by Congress.
The Twitter chief put up a poll up on the social media site asking people if the bill should be approved and offered his own thoughts on it.
The poll asked: "Should Congress approve the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill?" As of early Wednesday morning, more than 1.6 million Twitter users voted and 75.4% said "no," while 24.6% said "yes."
Musk shared his own opinion on the matter writing, "I’m in favor of a small spending bill to keep things running, but common sense suggests that it be the least amount required through the holidays."
Despite surpassing her 2018 fundraising record, Stacey Abrams’s 2020 Georgia gubernatorial campaign fell into deep debt due to reckless expenditures, according to staffers and operatives who worked on the failed campaign.
The campaign still owes more than $1 million to vendors, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo confirmed to Axios.
Some of the campaign’s lavish expenditures included the rental of a home near Piedmont Park in Atlanta, which Abrams envisioned as a “hype house” for TikTok videos but which was ultimately underutilized
POLL: Most Americans Support Criminal
Prosecution For Twitter Censors Who Colluded
With Feds replies
Prosecution For Twitter Censors Who Colluded
With Feds replies
The vast majority of Americans support criminal prosecution for Twitter employees who worked with the U.S. government to suppress tweets in a possible violation of the First Amendment, a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found. (snip) Among respondents, 74% believed the Twitter employees who worked with the FBI to censor users should be criminally prosecuted, and only 26% thought they shouldn’t, according to the poll.
The Jan. 6 Committee has voted to refer former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. This referral violates both the letter and spirit of the Constitution for at least two reasons. First, Article 1 of the Constitution grants Congress "all legislative powers" and only "legislative powers." Under our system of separation of powers, the power to prosecute lies exclusively with the executive branch through the justice department. Congress has no authority to refer specific individuals for prosecution. It is beyond the scope of its constitutional authority.
Second, Congress is specifically denied the power to pass any "bill of attainder."
Much of the American Church has fallen to apostasy and anti-Christian wokeness, in a reckless abandon that forsakes the core tenets of our faith.
Some churches have even welcomed hypersexualized drag performances into their places of worship, while others have placed racial makeup ahead of pure and genuine faith. When it comes to other “woke” causes, many (of) our leaders have bent the knee to corporatism and other “promised” worldly possessions, which are in direct violation of the Scriptures. This apostasy has been incredibly difficult for me to witness
Is America Falling Like Rome?
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When news of the Battle of Saratoga reached Britain, a young Scottish barrister told economist Adam Smith: “If we go on at this rate, the nation must be ruined.” Adam Smith responded, “Be assured young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” By that, he meant that nations can absorb a lot more blows than the pessimists tend to think. A few days ago, American Greatness had a very concerned article by Victor Davis Hanson on the future of America. After quoting Adam Smith’s answer at the beginning of the article, and after reviewing the ills that beset America, Hanson concluded his
The full records of the closed-door testimonies and other information gathered by the January 6 Committee could remain hidden for decades, thanks to the its secretive nature and to laws protecting committee records.
The committee, which was entirely one-sided against former President Donald Trump after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) took the unprecedented step of blocking minority party nominees, followed the equally problematic practice of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in conducting his impeachment investigation into Trump in a restricted room of the House Intelligence Committee, thereby controlling the flow of information.
Sorry About Those Jobs
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Joe Biden’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over a million jobs were created in the second quarter, a heartening statistic that no doubt helped the Democrats in November. But now, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve says that those million jobs were almost entirely fictitious:
The Biden administration vastly overstated its estimate that employers created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter of this year, claiming historic job growth when in fact hiring had stalled, according to a new estimate.
Job growth was “essentially flat” in the second quarter with only 10,500 jobs added, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.
Just in the nick of time, Chief Justice John Roberts has placed a hold on a lower court decision to end the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42 power at the U.S. border. That staves off an expected massive wave of illegal immigrants from crossing into the U.S., at least for now. But, while Roberts’ move is welcome, this doesn’t end the border crisis.
Under the Title 42’s authority, the U.S. can expel illegals to prevent spread of COVID, which many health officials believe is set to spike again as winter arrives this week. Title 42 has been
Police arrested five suspects Wednesday following a robbery at the Ulta Beauty store in Texarkana, Texas.
Officers located a white Chevrolet Malibu in the 1700 block of East 47th Street in Texarkana, Arkansas, and it was from that area the suspects fled, leading officers on a high-speed chase, THV 11 reported Friday.
In a social media post, the Texarkana Arkansas Police Department said the vehicle pursuit reached up to 133 miles per hour.
The unlawfully constituted and conducted January 6 Committee referred Donald Trump for a criminal indictment to keep him from running again in 2024. The problem for the Democrats, unfamiliar as they are with the Constitution and with American history, is that there is no reason for Trump not to run and win, even if he’s deep in the bowels of Leavenworth or some other federal penitentiary.
The United States Constitution is succinct when it comes to the requirements for president. Article II, Section 1 provides:
First-world counties have governments that work. Perhaps imperfectly, and perhaps not in the most economically efficient way, but they successfully fulfill their responsibilities. But what happens when government not only fails to perform as expected, but its execution is inept to the point of being an embarrassment? To invoke an old image, the trains not only fail to run on time, but few move at all and when they do operate, they are accident prone and chronically late while often arriving at the wrong stations.
Add yet another government overreach to the “Things You Didn’t Think Could Happen in America” file: Democrats on the lame-duck House and Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to release six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns. Why? Because they um, uh—because they want to?
But wait, you say to yourself, that’s not possible; your tax returns are private by federal law, and therefore protected from release.
The Dems of course found a sleazy way around that. The tax code allows the committee to look at people’s tax returns to provide “oversight” of the Internal Revenue Service, and by writing an official report on their findings,
Liberal Writer Shreds the January 6 Criminal
Referral Facade With a One Tweet Matt
Vespa Mat replies
Referral Facade With a One Tweet Matt
Vespa Mat replies
Only liberals cared about this week, so it didn’t get much traction—but the House Select Committee on January 6 voted on some criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump for his supposed role in the Capitol riots. This clown car of a congressional body is going bye-bye in the next Congress as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will not permit its continued existence. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) wanted to use this select committee as part of her move to take over the Republican Party—but she got primary challenged and lost in August. Yet, when you read the reports on the referrals,
The Democrat-controlled House Ways and Means Committee voted on Tuesday evening to release Donald Trump's tax returns.
It ends a nearly four year long fight between liberal lawmakers and the former president, who fought tooth-and-nail to shield his financial statements from public view.
Debate lasted for more than three hours behind closed doors before a final vote of 24 to 16. All Democrats voted in favor of the action while all Republicans on the panel voted against.
It's not immediately clear when the documents will be released.
Senate Republicans are gearing up to punch their voters in the mouth again, this time by passing a massive omnibus bill that gives the farm away to Democrats for essentially nothing in return.
The reasoning behind the push is a bit of a mystery. Are we really to believe that these Republicans fear a short government shutdown so much that they are willing to concede the power of the purse their party fought so hard to win in November’s election?
Color me skeptical on that front. On the contrary, as a nice change of pace, I think this move isn’t about cowardice but is about business as usual.
Stanford University has published an index of 'harmful language' that it wants to eliminate because the terms are 'ableist, ageist or racist' — including the word American — as it calls for US citizen to be used instead.
The University revealed the plan in May, and wants to remove the words from its IT systems and websites, with grandfather, brave and master are also on the list.
The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative will also aim to educate people about the impact that 'racist, violent and biased' words have.
It has listed 10 sections where 'harmful' language can occur under the headings:
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill touted a $1.7 trillion funding package on Tuesday — with both Democrats and Republicans claiming victories — which is designed to avert a government shutdown when the current funding expires at midnight on Friday.
The text of the legislation is some 4,000 pages long, leaving very little hope for lawmakers — even with the help of aides — to get through the text prior to voting on the massive package. (Tweet) And according to The Heritage Foundation, the omnibus bill they may not have time to read is packed with woke pet projects. Among them are
Predictably, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s politically motivated House Select Committee wrapped up its one-sided investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol with criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump.
While it may be a stretch to say the criminal referrals were the panel’s objective all along, it was certainly predictable that the nine Trump-hating members would eventually vote to refer Trump to the Department of Justice for prosecution, which is precisely what they did this week on four trumped-up charges: inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress, and conspiracy to make a false statement.
We can thank Watergate and the fall of Richard Nixon for numerous words and quotes that continue to shape public understanding of political scandals. There’s “hush money” and “Deep Throat,” a “modified limited hangout” and “follow the money.”
But half-a-century later, two other Watergate phrases are key to comprehending the FBI’s sordid role in suppressing The Post’s initial coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The first is, “What did the president know and when did he know it?”
In a 1973 Watergate hearing, the question about the president’s knowledge was asked by Sen. Howard Baker to White House counsel John Dean.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Tuesday joined 13 Republicans who vowed to tank any priorities of GOP senators who vote for the 4,155 page omnibus bill that was negotiated with Democrats before a new Republican majority could take control of the House.
Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Scott Perry (R-PA), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ), along with nine other conservatives House members, signed a letter Tuesday promising to block any priorities of the Republican senators who rushed to support the omnibus deal with Democrats just days before Congress leaves town for Christmas.
Several GOP lawmakers blasted the monstrous $1.7 trillion spending bill released Tuesday morning out of the gate, with complaints that they were only given days to read the 4,155-page deal reached by some Senate Republicans and congressional Democrats in an effort to avert a government shutdown.
Now, details are trickling out about what is actually contained in the last-minute omnibus, and North Carolina GOP Rep. Dan Bishop took to Twitter to flag what he called "some of the most egregious provisions in the bill." Bishop revealed in a tweet thread that the package "expressly prohibits [Customs and Border Protection] funding from being used to improve border security,"
Wanna bet?
I’m so old that I remember when media outlets would have considered “extreme” any allegations that governments would abuse pandemic-tracking tools. And yet, here we have the Associated Press reporting its scoop today that reveals precisely that outcome. After first insisting that individual privacy had to be set aside in an emergency, the AP seems shocked, shocked to find that governments like being able to track and snoop on its subjects — er, citizens:
In the pandemic’s bewildering early days, millions worldwide believed government officials who said they needed confidential data for new tech tools that could help stop coronavirus’ spread. In return