Tag Archives: Politico

Finding The Truth

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We have all heard varying reports on how much oil is actually getting through the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump cites one number and the mainstream media cites a much lower number. So what is going on?

On Tuesday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article that explains the discrepancy.

The article quotes Politico:

Energy Secretary Chris Wright says about 9 million barrels of oil are moving through the Strait of Hormuz every day.

But nonpartisan oil tanker trackers say it’s likely 7 million barrels at best, or more likely, closer to 5 million.

So where is the problem? Did someone flunk third-grade math? Actually, the answer is much simpler.

The article reports:

Only–oops–it turns out that President Trump and Secretary Wright, one of his cabinet’s most impressive members, were right all along, as Kpler (a commodities firm) now confirms:

An average of 8.6 million barrels of oil a day have been flowing through the Strait of Hormuz — more than previously reported, maritime analyst firm Kpler confirmed in a new update that matches estimates from the Trump administration.
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Kpler and other trackers had initially put the number closer to 5 million, but new data includes “dark transits,” where ships turn off their transponders and secret ship-to-ship transfers, which the group wasn’t previously tracking.

The nature of the transits left Kpler and other analysts to report only a handful of crossings every day, figures that were picked up by media outlets and used to point out the discrepancy between what was being reported and what the Trump administration was claiming.

ExecutiveBranch

The White House has long-maintained that the data firms were missing a chunk of the exports due to the dark transits, with Kpler now confirming the fact as the dark ships start reappearing and painting a clearer picture of the oil flow.

The article concludes:

I haven’t bothered to go back to the dozens of media outlets that called Trump officials liars, based on Kpler’s incorrect count, to see whether they have corrected their stories. But you can probably guess what proportion have made the correction.

And the mainstream media wonders why we don’t trust them!

It’s Only A Problem When They Do It!

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California has what is called a ‘jungle primary,’ which means there are not separate party primaries–everyone is in one primary, and the top two candidates go on the ballot. Because California is about as blue a blue state as possible, generally that puts two Democrats on the ballot for governor. No problem. However, this year there is a problem. There is a possibility (remote, but there) that two Republicans will be on the ballot and the Democrats will be shut out. If there is a Democrat and a Republican on the ballot, the Democrat wins (even if it takes thousands of mail-in ballots that show up after the election to ensure that victory). But if the Democrats are shut out of the election, California could have a Republican governor (horrors!). So what can be done?

On Friday, Legal Insurrection posted an article quoting Politico:

Gavin Newsom said he’s confident at least one Democrat will advance from California’s June gubernatorial primary, hinting at a “break-the-glass” contingency plan as he declined — yet again — to endorse in the race.

The California governor, speaking at his budget presentation on Thursday, said that rather than pick a candidate, he has focused on ensuring that Democrats are not locked out of the primary, in which the top-two vote getters regardless of party go on to the general election.

“I do not see that scenario taking place,” he said.

Newsom said there was a “break-the-glass” contingency plan to prevent that from happening, and alluded to behind-the-scenes efforts to rally people. He did not specify his activities, but the Democratic Governors Association recently began sending mail highlighting Republican Steve Hilton as a fierce conservative. The ostensible opposition campaign could drive GOP voters to Hilton, ensuring he consolidates the party’s voters and saps the support of the other Republican candidate, Chad Bianco, enough to keep him from finishing in the top two.

The article at Legal Insurrection concludes:

It may be worth taking a closer look at what precisely Democratic operatives are doing behind the scenes to shape — and potentially influence — the trajectory of this race. With so much at stake, you can bet Democrats will pull out all the stops to prevent a Republican from capturing the governorship.

That reality raises broader questions about coordination, spending, ballot harvesting operations, and other political tactics that could affect the outcome of the contest long before votes are cast. Just as the Republican National Committee deployed teams of attorneys ahead of the 2024 presidential election to monitor election procedures and respond quickly to potential irregularities, Republicans may want to consider a similarly proactive legal and organizational strategy in California’s gubernatorial race.

Similar to what pundits say about any potential deal with Iran, when dealing with Democrats, the guiding principle should be: “Don’t trust and verify, verify, verify.”

Green Acres, Here We Come!

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You might have to be over a certain age to understand that headline.

On Friday, Hot Air posted an article detailing some changes that are coming to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A common-sense decision has been made that will be both good and bad news for the people who work in the agency.

The article reports:

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced this morning that she is reducing the Washington D.C. area workforce by more than half, and hopefully not through a reduction in force. Sec Rollins hopes to relocate as many current employees who are willing to do so to five different hubs across the country. They’ll be landing in states and cities where agriculture happens. That puts the USDA where the farmers are and saves the government a ton of money in expenses for employee overhead at the same time.

Theoretically, this will allow those in the Department to be able to hear the concerns of farmers–not bureaucrats and lobbyists.

The article notes:

…But several USDA staffers told POLITICO that the move will further hurt morale.

“This administration [isn’t] interested in supporting staff or even really in the jobs we do,” said one employee granted anonymity in order to speak publicly without fear of repercussions. “If they cared about either of those things, if they cared about serving farmers and ranchers, they wouldn’t have taken away all the staff, tools, and resources we use to serve them.”

A second employee, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, warned that relocating staff out of the Washington area would make oversight more difficult.

“[This] is just going to create an inner circle of powerful employees with access to people in high places and send everyone else out to ‘hubs,’” they said. “They are concentrating power and want fewer witnesses to what they are doing.”

The second employee suggested that moving would be costly for employees and for USDA, and it could force some workers to make the difficult choice to quit.

Swamp creatures enjoy the swamp. What they don’t seem to understand is that their cost of living is about to drop like a rock, their commute is going to be much easier, and their surroundings much more enjoyable. There is also the fact that the employees who own a house in the Washington suburbs (if they are able to sell that house) will be able to afford a mansion in middle America.

Moving Toward The Country Our Founding Fathers Envisioned

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Under our Constitution, there are three branches of government–Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Each branch has specific duties. The legislative branch is supposed to make the laws. The legislative branch is held accountable for the laws they make by the election process–the House of Representatives every two years, the Senate every six years. The Founding Fathers did not want an elected Senate–they wanted Senators appointed by the states to make sure the Senators represented their home states. The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, began the direct election of Senators. Currently, most of our laws are not laws–they are regulations created by unelected bureaucrats. That was never the intention of the Founding Fathers. It seems as though Congress may be getting ready to reclaim its responsibility.

On May 12, The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) reported the following:

While President Donald Trump has made reining in the unelected federal bureaucracy a top priority of his second term, the Republican Congress has thus far largely failed to get in on the action. But that could be set to change with a new bill that strikes at the heart of the Deep State and runaway executive power.

The Regulations From the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act , which Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced in the Senate earlier this year (Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) also introduced a companion version in the House)(H.R.3058) requires that all federal regulations with an economic impact greater than $100 million be passed through Congress. As Politico put it, the REINS Act “would turn Congress into a gatekeeper for certain major rules and allow lawmakers to roll back countless regulations for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.” The outlet further described the legislation as a “rule-busting bill” and “rule-shredding proposal.”

While Democrats like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois have criticized the bill as a “war on regulations” (a criticism that will no doubt read as high praise to conservatives), Republicans argue the REINS Act is a long-overdue check on the power of the unelected bureaucracy to impose regulations that have an enormous impact on the economy. “For those who say it would make a radical change, a radical departure from the status quo of rulemaking, I’d say, ‘Thank heaven above for that,’” Lee said.

The article concludes:

The urgency of addressing regulatory burdens is further highlighted in a 2024 report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The conservative think tank found that regulations under the Biden-Harris administration imposed $15,000 in annual costs on the average American household. That’s a serious number, particularly when the median household income is only $80,000 per year.

Congress has an opportunity to lower costs for American consumers and fuel an economic boom by passing the REINS Act – it should seize the chance now.

It would be really great if Congress would pass this bill.

American Voters Are Smarter Than Some People Think They Are

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Politico just lost a lost of money it was getting from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Is it possible that now their reporting will be more balanced? The article below might be an indication of that!

On Tuesday, Politico posted an article about the gap between the numbers the government was posting about the economy and the public’s perception of the economy during the run-up to the 2024 election.

The article reports:

Before the presidential election, many Democrats were puzzled by the seeming disconnect between “economic reality” as reflected in various government statistics and the public’s perceptions of the economy on the ground. Many in Washington bristled at the public’s failure to register how strong the economy really was. They charged that right-wing echo chambers were conning voters into believing entirely preposterous narratives about America’s decline.

What they rarely considered was whether something else might be responsible for the disconnect — whether, for instance, government statistics were fundamentally flawed. What if the numbers supporting the case for broad-based prosperity were themselves misrepresentations? What if, in fact, darker assessments of the economy were more authentically tethered to reality?

The discrepancy between what Americans were dealing with economically and what the government was telling them may not have been intentional, but it was hidden in the way the government statistics were calculated.

The article explains:

I don’t believe those who went into this past election taking pride in the unemployment numbers understood that the near-record low unemployment figures — the figure was a mere 4.2 percent in November — counted homeless people doing occasional work as “employed.” But the implications are powerful. If you filter the statistic to include as unemployed people who can’t find anything but part-time work or who make a poverty wage (roughly $25,000), the percentage is actually 23.7 percent. In other words, nearly one of every four workers is functionally unemployed in America today — hardly something to celebrate.

The article also notes the problem with the way the inflation numbers were calculated:

But the CPI also perceives reality through a very rosy looking glass. Those with modest incomes purchase only a fraction of the 80,000 goods the CPI tracks, spending a much greater share of their earnings on basics like groceries, health care and rent. And that, of course, affects the overall figure: If prices for eggs, insurance premiums and studio apartment leases rise at a faster clip than those of luxury goods and second homes, the CPI underestimates the impact of inflation on the bulk of Americans. That, of course, is exactly what has happened.

My colleagues and I have modeled an alternative indicator, one that excludes many of the items that only the well-off tend to purchase — and tend to have more stable prices over time — and focuses on the measurements of prices charged for basic necessities, the goods and services that lower- and middle-income families typically can’t avoid. Here again, the results reveal how the challenges facing those with more modest incomes are obscured by the numbers. Our alternative indicator reveals that, since 2001, the cost of living for Americans with modest incomes has risen 35 percent faster than the CPI. Put another way: The resources required simply to maintain the same working-class lifestyle over the last two decades have risen much more dramatically than we’ve been led to believe.

A good statistician can get statistics to say anything he wants them to say, but Americans are smart enough to look at how far their paychecks are going rather than believing all of the statistics.

I Hate To Discriminate On The Basis Of Age, But…

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On Sunday, Politico reported that New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell Jr.is back in the hospital after returning home briefly after a three-week stay in the hospital. Representative Pascrell is 87 years old. Why is he still in Congress?

Statista has a graph on its website showing the mean age of Congress. Here is the chart:

Mean age of Members of Congress in the United States from 2009 to 2023

According to usafacts.org , only 17.3 percent of America’s population is age 65 or older and 18.9 percent is ages 50 to 64. To be fully representative, the age of Congress needs to move down to somewhere between 50 and 60 to be truly representative.

Representative Pascrell will probably get re-elected and may be in attendance for at least some of the House of Representatives activities, but wouldn’t it be wise for the voters of New Jersey to find someone a bit younger?

 

About That Guilty Verdict

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The verdict in the trial of Hunter Biden is not what it appears to be. Yes, he was found guilty, but since the laptop was introduced as valid evidence, what about the other crimes indicated on the laptop–drug possession, drug use, prostitution, and other crimes alleged such as child porn? The guilty verdict was not equal justice under the law–it was charging Hunter with one of the few crimes he committed that did not involve the rest of the Biden family.

On June 11th, The Conservative Treehouse reported:

We all knew this was going to happen, almost this exact way.

December, 2022 – ” Monaco (Lisa Monaco, second in charge at the Department of Justice) will coordinate the timing of the arrest and indictment of Hunter Biden to coincide with the arrest and indictment of President Trump. This will provide the narrative of blind justice the DOJ will attempt to leverage to stop national reaction.” (LINK)

And, that’s exactly what Lisa Monaco and Main Justice did.  Hunter Biden was found guilty of three felony gun charges, and will likely receive a very limited sentence (probation or similar) with no jail/prison time.

The major crimes of bribery, money laundering, public corruption, Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) violations, are all being ignored.   The Biden crime syndicate is being protected.

On June 12th, Don Surber quoted Politico in his article about the verdict:

Politico said:

Trump’s team made no mention of either Hunter Biden or the former president’s own legal troubles in its response to the Delaware jury’s decision.

“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a prepared statement. “Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit.”

The statement appears to be a modified version of one initially provided to CNN, which included well wishes for Hunter Biden “in his recovery and legal affairs.”

Trump and his allies have long accused the president of profiting off his son’s business dealings, even as they have struggled to substantiate the charges.

The only reason Trump and his allies have struggled to substantiate the charges is that the Biden Department of Justice has attempted to block them at every turn.

 

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Even If We Lose, We Are Going To Control Things

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The realists in the Democrat party realize that President Biden is a weak candidate. It will take a massive amount of cheating to push him over the finish line. There have rumors of a candidate switch at the convention, but as of now those are simply rumors. So how can the Democrat party continue to control the government if they lose the presidency? They already have a plan.

On April 5th, Legal Insurrection posted an article explaining how the Biden administration plans to limit the power of President Trump if he takes office. I am not sure this is legal, but they are going to try it.

The article reports:

One of the things that frustrated me about Trump’s (first?) term was his seeming complete indifference to #TheResistance that manifested before he even took office. Unelected bureaucrats working in the ridiculously invasive executive branch’s many agencies, publicly declared war on him, and he . . . well, he did nothing.

Until the final year of his presidency when he seemed to finally take aim at the problem in his own branch of government–we can call it the deep state, the resistance, the entrenched bureaucrats who oversee far too much policy in America and who are, apparently, answerable to no one. Not the voter, not the president.

So then-president Trump launched Schedule F in late October 2020, a new rule that would allow the sitting and duly-elected president to have a say in who ran and worked in his own (overly large, sprawling, and ridiculously intrusive) branch of the federal government.

…And now we have Biden (or whomever is animating him) issue new rules to ensure that Democrats remain in their deep state positions, no matter who is actually elected by the people to run the executive branch as he sees fit.

…President Joe Biden’s administration announced its plan on Thursday to protect bureaucrats from being fired by a potential second Trump administration.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) finalized a rule that protects employees in the civil service by preventing the removal of their status and protections involuntarily, according to a press release. Under the new rule, an administration wishing to shift federal employees to a new category making them easier to fire would have to go through an elongated process, a move meant to be more time-consuming for a future president, Politico reported.

Hopefully this rule can be overturned either by a functioning Congress or an Executive Order. The Federal Government needs to shrink, regardless of who is in charge!

Where Is Congress? Where Are The Courts? Who Is Representing The Citizens?

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I remember a time in America when if you committed a crime you went to jail. And everyone who committed that same crime went to jail. And if you committed a serious crime like murder, you were kept in jail without bail. Well, those days are gone. Murderers are let out without bail, and January 6th prisoners have been in jail for more than three years with no bail and no trials. Some of the January 6th defendants are guilty of simply walking through the Capitol after the Capitol Police opened the doors for them. Meanwhile, people guilty of serious crimes are walking free.

On Saturday, Red State posted an article about former Trump aide Peter Navarro. Peter Navarro is serving jail time because he ignored a congressional subpoena.

Meanwhile, the article at Red State reports:

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes laid into Department of Justice lawyers Friday for telling DOJ Tax Division attorneys to ignore congressional subpoenas even as prosecutors sent former Trump aide Peter Navarro to prison for doing just that.

Does the law apply to everyone or are only Trump supporters subject to the law?

The article notes a Politico report:

Politico reports that she was appalled by the blatant hypocrisy:

“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,” Reyes said, referring to the recent imprisonment of Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. “And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. … And you don’t have to show up?”

“I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up,” but then direct current executive branch employees to take the same approach, the judge added. “You all are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant.”

The article concludes:

The DOJ’s position on this matter once again shows their blatant two-tiered view of justice—Peter Navarro sits in a Miami prison cell for defying a subpoena, but Hunter Biden is walking around a free man and enjoying the White House Easter Egg roll despite blowing off his own order to appear. Meanwhile, the Department is counseling its own lawyers to defy the House. 

Politico called the judge’s takedown of the DOJ a “remarkable, frenetic thrashing,” and I for one hope they get plenty more of that as more and more people wake up to how profoundly they’ve politicized and weaponized the department.

Does anyone in Congress or in Washington have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the rule of law that all of us are supposed to be living under?

 

 

I Hope This Becomes A Trend

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On Wednesday, Politico posted an article about two ballot measures that were approved by voters in San Francisco.

The article reports:

Mayor London Breed has convinced voters to approve a pair of ballot measures that will move the city strikingly rightward by requiring drug screening for welfare recipients and easing restrictions on police officers.

Breed, who faces a tough reelection fight this November, banked her political future on a hard pivot toward more conservative policies aimed at appealing to residents’ frustrations about the city’s fentanyl addiction crisis and concerns about crime. Her bet appears to have yielded results — voters were on track Tuesday to approve at least two of the three measures she sponsored.

“Enough is enough. We need change,” Breed told supporters at a jam-packed bar in the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

The success of the mayor’s proposals is notable given San Francisco has long been considered the most progressive major city in America. Breed’s shift comes as she faces devastatingly low approval ratings and two moderate challengers in her reelection fight, former interim Mayor Mark Farrell and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie.

Perhaps the most controversial Breed-backed proposal approved by voters was Proposition F, which requires recipients of locally funded welfare to undergo drug screenings. Those who have addiction disorders will have to accept treatment in order to receive cash assistance, which Breed argued would make subsidies contingent on personal responsibility. She said the city cannot continue business as usual when more than 800 people died of drug overdoses last year.

…Voters also appeared to approve an additional Breed-sponsored proposal, Proposition E, which eases restrictions on the police department, including allowing officers to engage in more vehicle chases and use public surveillance cameras and drones to combat crime.

In February 2022, The California Globe posted the headline, “Mass Retail Chain Store Closures Continue in San Francisco.” Part of that may be due to the economy, but a large part of the closings are due to the rising crime rate. Hopefully the two ballot measures the voters passed will begin to change things. It would be nice to see other Democrat-controlled cities follow suit. If you have to pass a drug test to work in many companies, you should have to pass one to collect money from the people who work.

When You Have A Skunk In Your House, You Need To Remove The Skunk As Well As The Smell

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Iran declared war on America in 1979. We weren’t paying attention then, and we are not paying attention now. How many rockets or drones were fired at our troops in the Middle East before the recent death of three soldiers? Notice that there is a significant delay in America’s response. On February 2nd, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article that provides some insight into how the Biden administration is framing our response.

The article reports:

Obama and Biden like Iran.  Obama and Biden are facilitating a pro-Iran policy.  Obama and Biden don’t want to do anything against the interests of their pro-Iran position.  That’s the simple baseline.

Our intel agencies are essentially falling on the sword of ‘some people did something, but we can’t be sure.’ See how this works?

Politico posted an article on Thursday setting the stage to justify a feeble response.

Politico reports:

Intelligence officials have calculated that Tehran does not have full control over its proxy groups in the Middle East, including those responsible for attacking and killing U.S. troops in recent weeks, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The Quds Force — an elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — is responsible for sending weapons and military advisers as well as intelligence to support militias in Iraq and Syria as well as the Houthis in Yemen. The groups have varying ambitions and agendas, which sometimes overlap, but Tehran does not appear to have complete authority over their operational decision-making, the officials said.

While the disclosure means it may be particularly hard to predict what actions these groups will take, it also could lower the chance of the U.S. getting pulled into a direct confrontation with Iran. Any indication that Tehran was directly involved in ordering or overseeing the attacks would make U.S. retaliation against Iran more likely.

Even if Iran did not order or oversee the attacks, who do you think supplied the money and weapons? Does anyone actually believe that Iran is not at the bottom of this attack?

Inquiring Minds Want To Know

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On Friday, Rumble posted an article that included a tweet by Roger Stone that asked a very interesting question.

Here is the tweet:

The article notes:

Have you heard the latest? The Biden Boys are set to fiercely fight their congressional subpoenas. Remember what happened to the Trump officials who took a similar stand during the January 6th sideshow?

Who can forget when Peter Navarro refused to testify before the circus known as the January 6th Committee? That poor guy was convicted of contempt of Congress so quickly, it made his head spin.

On October 6, 2014, Politico reported:

A federal judge has declined a House committee’s bid to have Attorney General Eric Holder held in contempt of court — and perhaps even jailed — for failing to turn over documents related to the Justice Department’ s response to Operation Fast and Furious.

However, in a ruling Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson also denied Holder’s request for an indefinite stay of her prior order that the attorney general must turn over any “non-privileged” documents the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed as part of an investigation into the botched gunrunning investigation. The judge previously ruled that Holder must give the panel any documents that are not both predecisional and deliberative in nature.

On November 17th, CNN reported:

The White House says the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden lacks constitutional legitimacy and is calling on GOP-led congressional committees to rescind their subpoenas and interview requests, according to a new letter obtained by CNN.

The move sets up a showdown with House Republicans as the White House criticizes what it describes as “Congressional harassment of the President,” calling on the committees to withdraw subpoenas and a series of requests for interviews aimed at White House officials and Biden family members and associates.

Earlier this week, House Oversight Chairman James Comer said he sent a subpoena to former White House counsel Dana Remus to discuss Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. The Kentucky Republican had previously requested that Remus to appear for a voluntary interview, but the White House did not comply. And last week, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas to the president’s son Hunter and brother James as well as a Biden business associate.

Ignoring subpoenas only matters when you are a Republican.

 

Why Not Just Report What Actually Happened?

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Don Surber writes a blog at substack that deals with current issues. He is a former newsman and provides a lot of information and insight. His latest article talks about some of the reporting about President Trump.

The article begins with a screenshot of a recent Politico headline:

That headline sounds as if President Trump invaded a town with military troops, which is not true.

Don Surber notes:

Natalie Allison won enough awards working for Gannett at the Tennessean in Nashville to merit a callup to DC and Politico. Fresh blood, however, brought no fresh ideas or approaches to covering national politics. She offers the same old throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-him coverage of President Trump.

Over the weekend, she went over-the-top. As Muslims took over the streets of Paris with the intent of burning it down, Allison was reporting that Donald Trump had taken over Pickens, S.C.

She wrote, “PICKENS, S.C. — Donald Trump built his 2016 campaign on the ability to pack supporters into arenas and fields. In his first early-state rally of 2024, he commandeered a small city.

“Taking over the movie-set-like Main Street of a town of 3,300 in the hills of South Carolina on Saturday, Trump put on a show of force not only in his stronghold of rural America, but in an early primary state where he remains dominant.”

Her implication was the past and future president led a military seizure and occupation of a helpless Southern town. It’s a Putsch!

Hers was not the worst story of the weekend. The Medical Press reported, “New study: Much of what we’re told about gym exercises and resistance training is from studies of males, by men.”

Much of what we know about electricity is from studies by men. Much of what we know about locomotives, automobiles and rocketry is from studies by men. Much of what we know about telegraphs, telephones and computers is from studies by men.

The ladies in the womyn’s studies brigade need to stop counting how many studies are by men, get off their fat, credentialed asses, and invent something useful. Women hold most of the college degrees now but have attained only 19% of the patents. It is time for women to pull their own weight.

The article concludes:

Journalism is not that hard. Just watch what is going on and tell readers what you saw. When you treat a political rally as if it were a military occupation, you lose credibility with readers above the age of 10.

And when you barely mention that a senior senator was booed relentlessly in his home county by his own party, you look like the fool you are.

But then again, her mission was to make a well-attended rally seem like an insurrection with Trump taking over a town as a show of force.

For Politico and Miss Allison, it was a show of farce.

It’s time for Americans to stop watching the mainstream media and do their own research.

Telling It Like It Is

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I enjoy watching Tucker Carlson. He is generally very direct and very informative. Thursday night was no exception.

The Daily Caller posted part of Tucker Carlson’s Thursday monologue:

“That sound that you’re hearing is the goalpost moving,” Carlson said as he recapped efforts by reporters, media outlets and Biden administration officials to redefine recession. Back-to-back quarters of negative GDP growth is one rule of thumb used to determine if a recession is taking place, according to Investopedia.

“This is from Politico,” Carlson said, “‘The White House is pretty obviously right that even two quarters of shrinking GDP would not show the economy is currently in a recession.’ That’s the word from Ben White, who is the chief economics reporter at Politico. He is backed up by The Associated Press, which is totally real. Just today the AP reported that ‘the U.S. economy shrank for a second straight quarter, raising fears the nation may be approaching a recession.’ We’re getting close now!”

“In other words, two declining quarters of growth is not a recession, just like the White House said,” Carlson continued. “That sounds definitive. It’s always been that way. As long as you don’t have a memory that extends past, say, last week, because just a few weeks ago, before the White House declared otherwise, everyone was saying differently, including Ben White and the AP.”

GDP shrank by 0.9% in the second quarter, according to data released Thursday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, after the economy contracted by 1.4% in the first quarter. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the data a “transition” in a clip played by Carlson.

“This is the transition to green energy and renewables,” Carlson said. “Joe Biden announced it today. It’s a transition to handing China our energy grid. Oh, that’s a ‘transition.’ Some might call it the collapse of empire and a subsequent disaster where we are ruled by people who hate us. No, it’s a transition in which China gets to make and control the wind turbines, the lithium, the solar panels.”

And that, folks, is where we are.

Using Spin Instead Of Solving The Problem

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On Wednesday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article detailing how the Biden administration plans to address the problem of rising inflation as they approach what could be a disastrous mid-term election. Mid-term elections tend to lose seats for whatever party holds the White House. If this year’s mid-term is an honest election, the prospects for the Democrat party are looking bleak.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party finally have a plan to get inflation under control and address the economic anxiety felt by millions of Americans. It’s not a plan in the conventional sense, but rather a public relations campaign to convince the American people that “despite their current misgivings, the economy is actually doing quite well.”

Inflation is soaring and gas prices are through the roof, but Americans are wrong to be concerned about the direction of the country, the president and his allies will argue this month. Politico reports that Biden has assembled a team of experts and professional communicators to make the case that, actually, the economy is good. The White House effort to “communicate on our accomplishments” kicked off on Monday with a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which Biden touted his stewardship of “the most robust recovery in modern history” and cited a bunch of macroeconomic statistics to make his case.

No one who routinely makes trips to the gas station or the grocery store is going to believe that the economy is doing well.

The article concludes:

The dubious public relations campaign is in keeping with the Democratic Party’s longstanding belief that all of their electoral problems could be solved by simply explaining to skeptical voters that they have no good reason to be skeptical. It is also indicative of a White House in disarray. Biden is reportedly furious at his subordinates for failing to come up with a winning message ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, and White House chief of staff Ron Klain is rumored to be on the chopping block. Anita Dunn, a longtime Biden aide who once provided “damage control advice” to disgraced Hollywood rapist Harvey Weinstein, could take his place after the midterms.

Considering all of the information bubbling beneath the surface about Hunter Biden’s laptop and what is on it, Anita Dunn might be a really good choice for chief of staff.

 

Have The People In Congress Read The Constitution?

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On Thursday, Politico posted Huddle, which the site describes as “A play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news.” Included in Huddle, about half-way down is the following:

FIRST IN HUDDLE: BOOKER INTRODUCES GUN LEGISLATION— Democrats have not leaned into gun control measures in the wake of the racist shooter’s deadly attack in Buffalo over the weekend, but Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is taking on the issue despite long legislative odds. Booker, along with Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), is introducing legislation today that would require people trying to get a firearm to get a license from the Department of Justice before they can buy or receive a gun. The DOJ license would require both a written firearm safety test and hands-on training, a criminal background check and submission of fingerprints and proof of identity. The license would only be available to people over 21 years of age, essentially raising the age of gun ownership to 21. “This is the moment to enact ambitious legislation – as a nation, we must rise to it, or we are fated to witness the deadly scenes of this past weekend and years past over again,” Booker said in a statement. Read the bill text.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a leading advocate for gun safety legislation shares Booker’s sense of urgency and told The New York Times’ Annie Karni that even if legislation cannot clear Congress, Democrats need to talk more about guns, especially with voters. Congress Is Paralyzed on Guns. Here’s Why Chris Murphy Is Still Hopeful.

Below is an excerpt from the bill:

 

The license is good for five years.

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This proposed law violates both of these amendments. Has Cory Booker read the U.S. Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold?

An Interesting (And Necessary Lawsuit)

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On Tuesday, The New York Post reported that John Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware computer repairman who lost his business after turning Hunter Biden’s laptop over to authorities, has sued Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, CNN, The Daily Beast and Politico, saying they falsely accused him of peddling Russian disinformation.

The article reports:

Mac Isaac came to legally own the laptop after Biden’s son Hunter dropped it off at his store for repairs in April 2019 and never came back. The material on the laptop has raised serious questions about what Biden knew of his son’s overseas business deals, during which he and the president’s brother Jim Biden often invoked his powerful name.

Mac Isaac handed over a copy of the laptop’s hard drive to the FBI in December 2019, and eight months later, alerted then-President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who provided a copy of the hard drive to The Post.

When The Post’s first story broke in October 2020 — just three weeks before the presidential election — Twitter and Facebook moved to censor it. Then Schiff (D-Calif.) and 51 former intelligence officials labeled the laptop Russian disinformation. 

In the aftermath, Mac Isaac says, his business and reputation were ruined.

“Twitter initially labeled my action hacking, so for the first day after my information was leaked, I was bombarded with hate mail and death threats revolving around the idea that I was a hacker, a thief and a criminal,” Mac Isaac said.

When The New York Post posted information about the laptop on Twitter, they were banned from Twitter (the ban was lifted on October 16, 2020).

The article concludes:

Mac Isaac has penned a book about his ordeal — “American Injustice: My Battle to Expose the Truth” — which will be released in November.

The Post exclusively revealed the existence of Hunter Biden’s emails in a series of reports in October 2020 based on the contents of a damaged MacBook Pro laptop that was abandoned at Mac Isaac’s shop in the Biden family’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

After downplaying the emails as unverified, both the New York Times and the Washington Post authenticated many of them — including some apparently being used in a federal probe of suspected tax fraud, money laundering and foreign lobbying violations by Hunter Biden.

Calls to Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast and Politico were not immediately returned.

As long as the Democrats control the Justice Department, no one in the Biden family will never be held accountable for the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The Leak

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On Monday, Politico reported that they have obtained an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that strikes down Roe v. Wade. This is an unprecedented leak.

Here is what we actually know:

1. The draft is from February–it is a draft–not a final decision. Votes could change.

2. Whoever leaked this will be disbarred. If it is a Republican, the person will have a lifelong problem finding a job in the legal profession. If it is a Democrat, the person will be promised a lucrative career somewhere in Democrat politics.

3. This is a first. Up until now, everyone who worked in the Supreme Court bureaucracy respected the institution enough not to leak.

Here is my speculation:

1. This was leaked to energize the Democrat base for the mid-term elections–it is a desperate move.

2. Within days, Congress will move to pack the Court in an effort to intimidate the Justices and change the decision indicated in the draft.

Yesterday, Breitbart reported the following:

Turley (Jonathan Turley, criminal defense attorney and Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University) noted that if Politico indeed obtained a true copy of the drafted opinion, “it is hard not to view this as a malicious act.”

“What is the motivation of releasing such a decision? The only intent of such a leak is to trigger a response from outside of the Court,” he continued. “…This draft is from February and the majority can shift on such opinions. However, the act of leaking such a draft opinion ranks as an original sin for judicial ethics.”

He surmised the leak could be an effort to “pressure the Court and push the legislation in Congress on a federal abortion law before the midterm elections. It will also likely renew the call for court packing.”

This will get heated, but the lives of Americas future generations are on the line.

That’s Not His Job

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On Tuesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent claim made by a former CIA officer.

The article reports:

One of the former CIA officers who signed a letter claiming stories about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were disinformation says he helped swing the 2020 election away from former President Donald Trump.

“I take special pride in personally swinging the election away from Trump,” John Sipher, who served for decades as a senior operations officer at the CIA, wrote in a recent post on Twitter. “I lost the election for Trump? Well then I [feel] pretty good about my influence.”

Sipher and 50 other former U.S. intelligence officials signed the letter on Oct. 19, 2020, alleging that the effort to distribute its contents “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” despite not knowing whether the laptop was legitimate.

The letter was at the core of a story from Politico that claimed the New York Post story about the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

The Post was the first to report about emails on the laptop, which was dropped off at a computer repair store and never picked up by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, according to the store’s owner.

It has since been proven that the laptop was real and the letter was in fact Democrat disinformation. Meanwhile, John Sipher is bragging about influencing an election by lying about something he really did not know. What kind of people are running (or have been running) our government?

The article concludes:

Sipher got into arguments with former acting DNI Richard Grenell and others on Twitter, where he later said his claims of helping Trump lose were sarcasm.

He also wrote that “the letter didn’t say the laptop was disinformation,” but, in May 2021, posted a link to the Politico story that did say that.

Nick Shapiro, once a top aide to former CIA Director John Brennan—both Shapiro and Brennan signed the missive—and who provided it to Politico, hasn’t responded to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

Most of the other signers didn’t respond to requests for comment or declined the requests, the Post reported.

Former DNI James Clapper told the paper that he stands by the statement “made AT THE TIME.”

“I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate,” Clapper said.

“The letter explicitly stated that we didn’t know if the emails were genuine, but that we were concerned about Russian disinformation efforts,” said Russ Travers, former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “I spent 25 years as a Soviet/Russian analyst. Given the context of what the Russians were doing at the time (and continue to do—Ukraine being just the latest example), I considered the cautionary warning to be prudent.”

What garbage.

Good News For America–Bad News For Russia

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On March 10th, Newsmax reported that the Iran nuclear talks have stalled. The sticking point is that Russia is demanding protection from sanctions in response to its invasion of Iran.

The article reports:

Just days after reports a deal was close, diplomats are now signaling talks for a rewritten Iran nuclear deal have stalled due to Russia’s demand for sanctions protections amid the world response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Politico reported Thursday night.

“The talks seem to have stalled, primarily because of Russian demands,” International Crisis Group analyst Ali Vaez told Politico.

The article also notes:

Russia is leading talks with Iran, along with diplomats from China, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., but those other parties are balking at the demand for sanctions relief, according to Politico.

An official from the West parties told Politico the accommodation cannot be made in talks that were designed to pull the U.S. and Iran back into the deal — not to give Russia more trade leverage.

“We’ve made it very clear,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Thursday, “that the new Russia-related sanctions are wholly unrelated to the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action].” 

“We also have no intention of offering Russia anything new or specific as it relates to the sanctions.”

The old Iran nuclear deal was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action under former President Barack Obama’s administration when current President Joe Biden was vice president. Many of the Obama administration officials are now working in the Biden administration.

Just for the record, it is not a good idea to make a deal with the world’s largest source of terrorist funding. We have seen that Iran did not follow previous agreements, and there are no indications that Iran would follow any new agreement no matter how generous it is. Short of sanctions on Iran (which the Biden administration would never do), at this point there is probably no way to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. If you understand the apocalyptic beliefs regarding the return of the Mahdi, that is a problem. There is a belief among some Muslims that if they create chaos, the Mahdi (their messiah) will return more quickly. Unfortunately, our State Department is obviously ignoring much of the history and beliefs of the militant Islamists who are currently ruling Iran.

Unfortunately, This Is Not Surprising

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On Monday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article that might explain the fact that Democrats recently blocked a GOP-led effort to impose sanctions on a Russian natural-gas pipeline amid deteriorating talks with Moscow over its military buildup along Ukraine’s eastern border (article in Politico January 13th).

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Affiliates of two European companies that fund Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline contributed to the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who Republicans say has blocked sanctions on the Kremlin-backed project.

ENGIE North America and BASF Corporation each gave $2,500 to Schumer in September through their corporate political action committees, according to newly disclosed Federal Election Commission records. ENGIE North America’s parent company and a BASF subsidiary are part of a consortium of five companies that finance Nord Stream 2, which will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. While President Joe Biden has called the pipeline a geopolitical threat to Europe that helps Russian president Vladimir Putin, last year he waived sanctions on the project.

…The contributions to Schumer came amid an aggressive lobbying effort in Washington over sanctions on the 764-mile pipeline. The five European companies that back Nord Stream 2—Wintershall, ENGIE, Uniper, Shell, and OMV—have paid millions of dollars to lobbying firms to block sanctions.

Nord Stream 2 AG, the Swiss company that is building the pipeline, lobbies Congress through Democratic donor Vincent Roberti. Roberti gave maximum donations of $5,800 to Schumer and other Senate Democrats last year, Axios reported. Thomas McLarty, the founder of McLarty Inbound, a firm that lobbies for the five European companies, in April gave $2,500 to Schumer.

ENGIE North America, a subsidiary of the French firm ENGIE, contributed to Schumer’s campaign on Sept. 9. BASF, the parent company of Wintershall, donated to Schumer on Sept. 22. ENGIE also contributed to Schumer’s campaign in 2020, while BASF gave to the Senate leader in 2016, according to FEC records. Each member of the European consortium loaned 1 billion euros to Nord Stream 2 AG in 2017. Nord Stream 2 AG is controlled by Russian state oil company Gazprom. Nord Stream 2 AG’s chief executive officer, Matthias Warnig, is a Putin ally and former officer of the East German secret police.

The article concludes:

Schumer’s office did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Free Beacon. ENGIE North America did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for BASF said that its American subsidiary does not lobby Congress on Nord Stream 2 and that Wintershall has no presence in the United States.

“Any implied connection between our Employee PAC contributions and Nord Stream 2 is incorrect,” the spokesman said.

And I have some waterfront property I would like to sell you in Arizona.

Is Showing Up A Requirement For This Job?

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I realize that in the age of the Internet, many people are fortunate (or unfortunate depending upon your point of view) to be able to work from home. However, a lot of the people who work from home are required to show up at an office periodically just to show that they are still alive and breathing. I guess that rule does not apply to some federal employees or department heads.

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article with the following headline, “Why is Pete Buttigieg still the Secretary of Transportation?” I think that is a very good question.

The article reports:

Pete Buttigieg has been away from his desk at the Department of Transportation for two months and no one noticed until this week. He’s been home on paternity leave since the birth of his twins. Normally, we might just shrug our shoulders and say who cares? These are not normal times, though, and there is a transportation crisis going on that has to be handled. The supply chain is facing severe disruption and cargo ships are backed up trying to get their goods unloaded in American ports, especially in California. Where’s Pete?

Politico had a piece about Pete going missing, having only now realized it, too, apparently. The liberal site dragged conservatives for noticing Pete’s absence and questioning where the Secretary of Transportation is these days. The chaos in the supply chain and the difficulties facing shipping companies and trucking companies all fall under his department’s supervision. Perhaps conservative outlets and social media were asking questions on Pete’s whereabouts because, though he recently began turning up in liberal outlets for interviews, he was absent from conservative networks. In his political career pre-birth of the twins, Mayor Pete was a frequent guest on both liberal networks and on Fox News. He is or was a go-to person to speak for the Biden administration. Just as the pain from the supply chain disruptions was being noticed and felt by most Americans, suddenly Pete went missing.

The Politico piece went on to explain family leave policy in government jobs and compared Pete’s leave to others like a U.S. senator and the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Ok, but that’s an apples and oranges comparison. A cabinet secretary is in a different position. The country can function smoothly during the absence of a senator during maternity leave, the same with an acting OMB director. However, cabinet secretaries have certain responsibilities unique to being a member of a presidential cabinet. If he planned to go on a two-month paternity leave, why didn’t he make that announcement public and formally declare his deputy secretary of transportation in charge? He has one. Her name is Polly Trottenberg and she was sworn in back in April. She’s actually an experienced public servant in transportation who, at least on paper, looks like she could do the job.

The article concludes:

Here’s the thing – Pete Buttigieg is a member of the president’s cabinet. He is not an ordinary elected official and his presence on the job is required, especially during a national crisis. He’s inept but he has people around him, we hope, that know what to do to ease the situation. I don’t begrudge him the opportunity to spend some time with newborn babies. His lengthy paternity leave right now, and as the shipping crisis grew along with supply chain problems, shows a true lack of judgment. The economy is at risk while he stays home. He has to handle both roles as other parents do. A week home with the babies when he first got them? Ok. Put the deputy secretary in charge and go home for a week. Then come back and get back to work. That’s how this works. Pete is showing his inability to perform his role in the president’s cabinet and he needs to be held accountable, new parent or not. Fire him.

I would like to add one bit of information about the problems with the supply chain backup in California. Someone who knows more than I do mentioned that owner-operator truckers are not allowed to take cargo from the ports in California. One whole sector of the trucking industry is banned from helping ease the crisis. It was noted that the reason for this is that unionized truckers can be easily controlled through their unions. Non-union truckers cannot be controlled as a group–only individually. There are a number of layers to the supply chain problem, and it would be nice if someone supposedly in charge was addressing those problems.

When The Political Left Can’t Win At The Ballot Box, They Go To The Courts

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Yesterday Politico posted an article about the recall of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The article reports:

A complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California argues that the state’s recall provision violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution by allowing sitting governors to be replaced by candidates who have received fewer votes. The plaintiffs, Rex Julian Beaber and A.W. Clark, want a court order either prohibiting the recall election or adding Newsom’s name to the replacement candidate list. Elections officials have already sent millions of ballots ahead of a state deadline today.

…Constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, raised that precise scenario in a New York Times op-ed last week arguing California’s recall process is unconstitutional. Chemerinsky and law and economics professor Aaron Edlin argued for altering the rules to allow governors stand as candidates on the second question and advocated for a legal challenge compelling the courts to intervene.

“The court could declare the recall election procedure unconstitutional and leave it to California to devise a constitutional alternative,” Chemerinsky wrote. “Or it could simply add Mr. Newsom’s name on the ballot to the list of those running to replace him. That simple change would treat his supporters equally to others and ensure that if he gets more votes than any other candidate, he will stay in office.”

Beaber, a Los Angeles attorney and clinical psychologist, would not say in an interview if he’s a Democrat.

“I would prefer not to say, simply because I think it’s irrelevant,” he said Monday. “To me it would be unfortunate if party politics was the driving force behind the consideration of this lawsuit. This lawsuit seeks on its face to declare a current California remedy as unconstitutional and it would apply regardless of whether it was a Democrat or a Republican already in office.”

I wonder if there would be all of this constitutional concern if a Democrat were leading in the election to replace Governor Newsom.

The article concludes:

Elected Democrats have not publicly embraced Chemerinsky’s reasoning or backed such a legal challenge. But Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday that he was monitoring both the lawsuit and the underlying legal debate.

“We’re aware of that argument and some of the other concerns and we’ll be making sure we stay abreast of this issue and monitoring it,” Bonta said, adding of the lawsuit, “We’ll be coordinating with the secretary of state’s office to determine next steps.

The recall process has been used in California on elected officials since 1913. According to the California Secretary of State website, there were four attempts to recall Governor Newsom in 2020. Only one qualified to move forward. In 1968 and 1972, there were attempts to recall Governor Ronald Reagan. Those attempts did not qualify to move forward. It’s interesting that this time the process is being challenged in court.

Something To Watch Very Closely

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Politico posted an article today about the election reform bill now making its way through the Senate.

The article reports:

Senate Republicans are set to block Democrats’ sweeping elections and ethics reform bill on Tuesday. Just hours before the vote, Sen. Joe Manchin, the last Democratic holdout, announced he would approve advancing the legislation.

The Senate will vote Tuesday afternoon on whether to consider the legislation, a top priority for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With the bill guaranteed to fail, the path forward is murky at best on an issue that Democrats say they need to resolve before the 2022 midterms. While Manchin’s vote won’t save the bill, the unified Democratic vote will both help the party’s political messaging that the GOP is stonewalling them and likely intensify progressives’ push to end the filibuster.

As I have said before, Joe Manchin only votes against the Democrat agenda when his vote doesn’t count (article here). It is a mistake to rely on him to protect the filibuster or to protect states’ rights in the voting process.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today stating:

Progressive leftists will want Chuck Schumer to get rid of the filibuster and use a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass the “Take Away The Right to Vote” legislation.  However, if the Democrats fail in cheating on a massive scale in 2022, they could lose the Senate and House, and SB1 could be reversed and leave Biden to stand alone vetoing the bill to undo the election takeover.

It’s a calculating game of political scheme and fraud, where the DC elites (both parties) are trying to determine their odds of pulling off the plan while simultaneously keeping the American electorate from seeing what they are doing.   Pelosi has the military defenses around the Capitol prepared to keep back any revolting peasants; but that security only works if the politicians don’t leave DC.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously sequestered the Senate in December of 2009 to block any senator from returning to his/her state where they would face the fury of their electorate and likely recant support for Obamacare.  Unfortunately, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer doesn’t have the benefit of the calendar to jail the senators from leaving DC, and simultaneously tensions at home in every state are unseasonably hot.

There will be a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the Senate this week. If the Democrats get what they want, the voters lose. I wouldn’t count on Joe Manchin to save the country,

 

Bad News For Everyone

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The Conservative Treehouse is reporting today that President Joe Biden is freezing formerly approved military assistance for Ukraine.

The article reports:

Fast forward a little more than a year, Joe Biden meets with Putin, gets eviscerated and embarrassed by the diplomatic smack-down from the Russian President, and suddenly Joe Biden is freezing formerly approved military assistance for Ukraine.

Politico is reporting today:

The Biden White House has temporarily halted a military aid package to Ukraine that would include lethal weapons, a plan originally made in response to aggressive Russian troop movements along Ukraine’s border this spring.

The aid package would be worth up to $100 million, according to four people familiar with internal deliberations.

The National Security Council directed officials to put the package together, as Washington grew increasingly concerned over a massive Russian military buildup near the border with Ukraine and in the Crimean Peninsula, according to three of the people, who like the others asked not to be named in order to speak candidly about internal discussions. Officials at the State Department and Pentagon worked to assemble the proposal.

But officials on the National Security Council ended up putting the proposal on hold after Russia announced it would draw down troops stationed near Ukraine and in the lead-up to President Joe Biden’s high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Trump was impeached because he was falsely accused of withholding military assistance from Ukraine because of a ‘special’ relationship with President Putin. It seems to me that it is time to take a closer look at some of the Biden family’s relationship with President Putin.