Tag Archives: FTX

Dec 16 2023

Lara Logan Interviews Representative Clay Higgins About J6 Targeting and Government Weaponization


Posted originally on the CTH on December 15, 2023 | Sundance 

A very strong and deliberate interview of Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA) by Lara Logan.  Rep Higgins has been very critical of DHS, DOJ and FBI conduct in the January 6th insurrection narrative. {Direct Rumble Link}

In this interview, Representative Higgins gets very deliberate and stern about “uncharted waters, as it relates to the weaponization of government.”  The tone of Higgins is in direct proportion to his anger at those within federal law enforcement who have usurped the constitution.  As a result, Higgins himself has become the target by those in the administrative state who participate in the weaponization. WATCH:

Lara Logan’s Rest of the Story: Clay Higgins

(MSM) – Republican Congressman Clay Higgins issued a warning to FBI officials investigating the Capitol Riots, saying that they are “going down.”

Higgins, a Louisiana Republican, has been a vocal proponent of the theory that federal agencies planted people at the scene and provoked the riot as an excuse to arrest conservatives.

Speaking to Lara Logan, a former CBS News correspondent turned right-wing commentator, Higgins, a former law enforcement officer himself, advanced his theories, claiming the FBI is tracking Trump supporters who were in Washington over the days leading up to the Capitol Riots and treated as suspected terrorists. He said those on a supposed list are still tracked by air marshals to this day despite not being convicted of crimes.

“We are in uncharted waters as it relates to the weaponization of our government against American people,” he said, adding: “I am not frightened of these people.
“They are not going to take us without a fight. I am going to fight legally and peacefully and within the parameters of the U.S. Constitution.

“But they’re going down. These men in their high perch and their position of power and authority that are walking upon our entire history, our deepest core principles. They’re not going to get away with it.” (read more)

Dec 16 2023

Too Funny – CNN Begins Apoplexy Narrative Around “Missing” 10 Inch Declassified Dossier That Details Trump-Russia Conspiracy


Posted originally on the CTH on December 15, 2023 | Sundance 

Big picture #1 – The FBI/DOJ is now seriously worried that President Trump will win the 2024 election.

Big picture #2 – CNN (Natasha Bertrand, Evan Perez and Zachary Cohen) mouthpieces for the FBI Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy fraud, now begin positioning defenses against Trump’s evidence of the fabrication.  They want to proactively stop the dossier they know consists of the evidence.

FACT: The authors know all the details about the 10-inch-thick dossier that was given by Trump to the DOJ for declassification 1/20/21, but shout that it is now missing.

FACT: The raid on Mar-a-Lago came after President Trump filed a 108-page civil lawsuit [SEE HERE] in March 2022 against the coconspirators.  Including: Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.

The DOJ was given one copy of the 10″ binder to release publicly.  Now ask yourself, what documentary evidence was used to write the lawsuit?  lolol, duh!

The motive for the DOJ/FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago is found in the search for the binder of evidence.  The national archives classified documents angle was the justification – the cover story.  The raid on Mar-a-Lago was the recovery effort.  Who authorized the Mar-a-Lago search warrant? The same judge from the civil action.

I have previously written about the binder {Go Deep} and all of the issues around it. The CNN article is filled with multiple tell-tale indicators of why it is written.  The emphasis is mine.

(Via CNN) – A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

As if “Russian election interference” is a real thing.  No, the information relates to the fraud of the “Russian election interference” story.

Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, the sources said.

Notice the stakeholder, the SSCI.  The same SSCI that was at the legislative epicenter of the fraud.

In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not appear to have been found.

The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN.

The intelligence was so sensitive that lawmakers and congressional aides with top secret security clearances were able to review the material only at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where their work scrutinizing it was itself kept in a locked safe.

The binder was last seen at the White House during Trump’s final days in office. The former president had ordered it brought there so he could declassify a host of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. Under the care of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the binder was scoured by Republican aides working to redact the most sensitive information so it could be declassified and released publicly.

The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. But the raw intelligence on Russia was among its most sensitive classified materials, and top Trump administration officials repeatedly tried to block the former president from releasing the documents.

The day before leaving office, Trump issued an order declassifying most of the binder’s contents, setting off a flurry of activity in the final 48 hours of his presidency. Multiple copies of the redacted binder were created inside the White House, with plans to distribute them across Washington to Republicans in Congress and right-wing journalists.

Instead, copies initially sent out were frantically retrieved at the direction of White House lawyers demanding additional redactions.

[…] an unredacted version of the binder containing the classified raw intelligence went missing amid the chaotic final hours of the Trump White House. The circumstances surrounding its disappearance remain shrouded in mystery.

US officials repeatedly declined to discuss any government efforts to locate the binder or confirm that any intelligence was missing.

The binder was not among the classified items found in last year’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a US official familiar with the matter, who said the FBI was not looking specifically for intelligence related to Russia when it obtained a search warrant for the former president’s residence last year. (read the entire article)

Because the FBI and “US officials” always tell the media what they are NOT looking for in a raid. [/sarc] Guilty conscience much?  Too funny.

Look, the binder itself is mostly information that has already been made public; the FBI issue is the “unredacted” aspect.   Which is exactly what we discussed here two years ago.  Here’s the refresher.

Last year, CTH outlined a four-part series of articles going deep into the background of the DOJ-FBI raid of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, along with the outline into why it was important to them.  It doesn’t matter how many different legal angles and Deep State justifications the DOJ attempts to deploy in order to divert away from what took place; the background of who, what, when and why they raided Mar-a-Lago will not change.

In Part One, we outlined the background of the modern Deep State {Go Deep}. In Part Two, we outlined the specifics of how President Trump was targeted by political operatives using tools created by the DC system {Go Deep}.  In Part Three, we outlined how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing documents {Go Deep}.  And then finally, as below in Part 4, we assembled the specifics of what documents likely existed in Mar-a-Lago.

It is important to remember, the Presidential Records Act –the presented pretext for the document conflict– is not a criminal statute.  An FBI raid cannot be predicated on a document conflict between the National Archives and a former president.

The DOJ-NSD warrant, and the subsequent raid on Mar-a-Lago, can only be related to records the U.S. government deems “classified” and material vital to national security interests.  Hence, DOJ National Security Division involvement.

In prior outlines, we have exhaustively covered the details of President Trump’s desire to publicly release information about DOJ and FBI conduct in their targeting of him during the fabricated Trump-Russia claims.  However, to understand the nature of the documents he may hold, we first review the declassification memo provided by President Trump to the DOJ upon his departure from office.

In broad terms, there are two sets of documents that intermingle and are directly related. First, documents that highlight the activity of Hillary Clinton’s team in creating the false Trump-Russia conspiracy theory (2015/2016).  Second, documents that highlight the activity of government officials targeting Donald Trump within the same time frame (Crossfire Hurricane), that continued into 2017, 2018 and 2019 (Robert Mueller).

Think of the two sets of documents as evidence against two teams working in synergy.  Team one (Clinton) was outside government. Team two (DOJ/FBI) was inside government.  The documents pertain to both groups but are also divided.  That helps to explain the wording of the memo above.

The documentary evidence against the outside group (Clinton et al) would also involve government documented evidence as the DOJ/FBI inside group interacted with them.  Notes from interviews, materials provided, FBI 302 summaries of interviews, etc.

We can extract a lot of information on the first sets of evidence from the lawsuit filed by President Trump in March of 2022 – mostly against the outside actors. [LINK HERE]

The lawsuit was filed against specific persons, and most of those persons were interviewed by the FBI as part of the originating investigation.  Within the subjects of the lawsuit, we find names and groups including:

Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.

In addition to being named in the lawsuit, many of those names were interviewed by the FBI as part of the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation, and/or part of the ongoing investigation of the Trump-Russia fabrication. Each of those interviews would carry an FD-302 report summarizing the content of the interview, the questions and answers given.

The totality of those 302 documents is a lot of evidence likely consisting of hundreds of pages.

For the government officials on the inside, in addition to 302s (ex Bruce Ohr), there would be documents of communication between them.

Think about the full unredacted text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok as an example.  The DOJ publicly released over 600 pages of those text messages, and that wasn’t all of them.  The text messages were also redacted under claims of privacy and national security.  We can assume any version of these text messages declassified by President Trump would not be redacted.  Hence, you go back to the January 20th memo and see the notes about “privacy.”

We also know there are many pages of communication between DOJ lawyer Lisa Page and her boss in the FBI, Andrew McCabe.  Almost none of them were ever made public, but they exist.  This internal communication is likely the type of material contained in both the “binder,” left for the DOJ to release, and the boxes at Mar-a-Lago to be used as evidence against the named defendants in the Clinton lawsuit.

Bruce Ohr has 302s and emails relating to his involvement as a conduit between Fusion GPS and the FBI.  Some of those were released in redacted form, and some of them were never released.  Additionally, Nellie Ohr, Bruce’s wife, who worked at Fusion GPS invoked spousal privilege when called to testify before the House committee investigating the issues.  However, it is almost certain the FBI interviewed her, so there are likely 302s on Nellie Ohr.

Chris Steele, Igor Danchenko and Rodney Joffe were also interviewed by the FBI.  Those 302s were never released.  Presumably John Durham held stakeholder equity in that part of the Trump-Russia hoax, but the documentary evidence prior to January 20, 2021, that exists outside the special counsel, could also be in records at Mar-a-Lago.

Then we get to the big stuff…. The records and evidence, in unredacted and declassified state, that would drive the DOJ-NSD to claim vital national security interests.

The NSA compliance officer notified NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers of unauthorized use of the NSA database by FBI contractors searching U.S. citizens during the 2015/2016 presidential primary.  That 2016 notification is a classified record.

The response from Mike Rogers, and the subsequent documentary evidence of what names were being searched, is again a classified record.  The audit logs showing who was doing the searches (which contractors, which agencies and from what offices), as noted by Director Rogers, were preserved.  That is another big-time classified record.

In addition, we would have Admiral Rogers writing a mandatory oversight notification to the FISA court detailing what happened.  That’s a big and comprehensive classified record, likely contained in the documents in Mar-a-Lago… and then the goldmine, the fully unredacted 99-page FISA court opinion detailing the substance of the NSA compromise by FBI officials and contractors, including the names, frequency and dates of the illegal surveillance.  That is a major classified document the Deepest Deep State would want to keep hidden.

These are the types of documents within what former ODNI John Ratcliffe called, “thousands of pages that were declassified by President Trump,” and given to both John Durham and Main Justice with an expectation of public release when the Durham special counsel probe concluded.  That is why the DOJ has to make their moves now.  The Durham probe has concluded.

In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him.  However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.

These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveal the background of how the DC surveillance state exists.  THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit.

The risk to the fabric of the U.S. government is why we see lawyers and pundits so confused as they try to figure out the disproportionate response from the DOJ and FBI, toward “simple records” held by President Trump in Mar-a-Lago.  Very few people can comprehend what has been done since January 2009, and the current state of corruption, as it now exists, amid all of the agencies and institutions of government.

Barack Obama spent 8 years building out and refining the political surveillance state.  The operators of the institutions have spent the last six years hiding the construct.

President Donald Trump declassified the material then likely took the evidence to Mar-a-Lago, leaving the DOJ to make it public.  The people currently in charge of managing the corrupt system, like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray and the Senate allies, are going bananas.  From their DC perspective, Donald Trump is an existential threat.

Given the nature of their opposition, and the underlying motives for their conduct, there is almost nothing they will not do to protect themselves.  However, if you peel away all the layers of lies, manipulations and corruption, what you find at the heart of their conduct is fear.  The need for control is a reaction to fear.

What do they fear most?…

…..THIS!

People forget, and that’s ok, but prior to the 2015 MAGA movement driven by President Donald J. Trump, political rallies filled with tens-of-thousands of people were extremely rare – almost nonexistent.  However, in the era of Donald J. Trump, the scale of the people paying attention has grown exponentially.  Every speech, every event, every rally is now filled with thousands and thousands of people.

The frequency of it has made us numb to realizing just how extraordinary this is.  But the people in Washington DC are well aware, and that makes President Trump even more dangerous.  Combine that level of support with what they attempted in order to destroy him, and, well, now you start to put context on their effort.

The existence of Trump is a threat, but the existence of a Trump that could expose their corruption…. well, that makes him a level of threat that leads to a raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago.

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Dec 15 2023

Lara Logan’s Rest of the Story: Clay Higgins


Posted originally on Rumble By Steve Bannon on:Dec 14, 8:00 pm EST

Dec 15 2023

They Know Something, And They’re Not Telling Us. (Ep. 2150) – 12/14/2023


Posted originally on Rumble By Dan Bongino on:Dec 14, 11:00 am EST

Dec 15 2023

Big Picture Debrief – We Are in an Abusive Relationship, Accepting Isolation


Posted originally on the CTH on December 14, 2023 | Sundance 

I initially considered a password protect post for this, but the issue is important enough that messaging a larger audience carries a greater value.

Someone noted yesterday that after my research trip my tone changed. Perhaps becoming a little more deliberate, perhaps becoming a little more stern. It is an accurate sense, and there is a very good reason for this. I will explain.

I have noted several times in the past few years that the nature of our relationship with government seems to have shifted. Specifically, We The People now appear to be in an abusive relationship with government. In all abusive relationships there is a common set of behaviors; the DC control system is following a familiar pattern. My recent research trips helped me to understand exactly how severe and deep this shift has become.

Certain abusers distort reality in the mind of their victims through gaslighting. Essentially manipulative and strategic lying, to make the abused think something, perhaps even their reality, is completely different. Our government institutions and those who control the information flow into media have been doing exactly that. The examples are numerous, but the deliberateness began to take a severe tone with the COVID-19 fiats.

In my opinion, it was our willingness to buy into the false frameworks surrounding the COVID-19 hysteria, that really opened the eyes of possibility in the mind of powerful people within our government. We accepted too much; we allowed too much; we willingly accepted an almost totalitarian state in response.

The rules themselves were ridiculous.

The mask nonsense, the social distancing, business closures, lockdowns, “essential vs nonessential jobs”, roped off products in certain areas of stores as if the virus couldn’t travel or the types of purchases determined risk; people were arrested on paddleboards in the ocean by themselves, closed parks outside and the police watching; standing in a restaurant was dangerous, but sitting at a table was not; etc. etc.

All of it was madness, yet we complied.

It was almost like a test, to see how much the control of information could influence behavior – and bad actors within our government were paying attention to how easy it was to manipulate action, diminish liberty and control the behavior of free people.

Granted, in other countries it was worse; yet still, in the USA where our DNA is forged in the fire of being suspicious of government, three-quarters of the population took an untested experimental, gene modifying “vaccine.” In hindsight, it is stunning to consider.

Fast forward to my recent research trip(s).  What I discovered outside the USA, is that we are being lied to.

The Russian sanctions are not sanctioning Russia or impeding their economic growth – not even close. Instead, the sanctions have built walls around the USA financial system, not to keep Russians out – but to keep Americans locked in. I have given details about this previously, and I will not repeat here.

Then, if you take the expanding surveillance state and the expansion of DHS authority under the guise of “national security,” adding in the extreme control system now in place through the public-private partnership with social media, you really begin to see the architecture of a massive information control system. Making the reality all the bleaker, no voice in Washington DC is genuinely pushing back and publicly calling out the surveillance state.

Our elected representatives are not representing our interests; instead, they are codependent enablers, willfully blind to the overall system of expanded government control. The abuser is stronger, the victim is weaker (less free), and every element is now in place to block the victim, us, from realizing the scale of their abuse.

Making the issue more alarming, is the seemingly unstoppable censorship and control enterprise that is blocking people from networking, communicating and sharing their current status. This was the primary reason I began the protected “Slowly at First” (SAF) discussion threads. So people could just talk about the reality in their region, and we could all compare notes.

Something very dark is assembling deep inside our nation, and yet we are seemingly distracted from noticing it. The reality of motive behind the U.S. sanctions against Russia, as identified by my fact-finding mission that was not easy to accomplish, really made me reconsider the nature of the control around us.

What I realize now, is that agencies within our federal government are building a matrix of walls to lock us into a severely controlled system.  We are being isolated and we do not see it.

We can debate (and I have) while hiding behind the benefits of “tactical civics” all day long. But what we are really debating and accepting is the size of our cell or cell block.  Yes, locally you can and should fight for liberty – locally.  However, do not blind yourself to the reality of the outcome; in essence, we are creating 15-minute cities.  Is that really freedom?

Within the federal system under construct, information is being controlled. The online systems of sharing contrary information are being changed, modified and ultimately blocked. Our expenditures and costs of living are being used as weapons for control via monetary policy. Our systems of independent ownership and self-determination are being dismantled. Our ability to engage in commerce is being increasingly subject to approvals.  Some of those approvals are self-generated. Our finance system is being changed to a more controlling central bank, and perhaps a digital currency.

We The People are being isolated, just like a victim of toxic abuse would be isolated. There are walls and barriers being built all around us, even around our nation, and if the government were to take full control over digital communication and internet services (the path we are on), it’s unlikely we would even know the scale of our captivity.

So yeah, my tone is changing.

After my visit to Eastern Europe and the currently forbidden region, both of them, I now see the limits on freedom that exist here at home. Each of the datapoints, each of the stories, articles, research reviews and detailed documented instances of bad behavior from our federal government now takes on a different context.

As I detailed every moment and filled our research library with citation after citation over the past dozen years, I knew the trajectory was bad. I knew it was really bad – really bad. Yet, I had no idea how severe and bad the abuse had become until I stood in the forbidden world and realized everything I was told about it, was a lie.

Remember, I wasn’t there at the invitation of anyone. I wasn’t there with a handler, minder or escort. No one from the forbidden world even knew I was there. I was there as a free and independent person, a sovereign citizen who hacked his way through the jungle with a rusty machete to get there.

When I left the forbidden world, came back through eastern Europe through Istanbul and ultimately back into the west, I spent hours in careful contemplation trying to reconcile the motive for the false information and yet simultaneously put a mental scale together to evaluate the scope of the U.S. propaganda effort.

The only thing that makes any of it make sense, is to accept the datapoints that clearly show the walls being built around us – to isolate us.

I never really understood how people could accept the formation of communism around them.

Now I do.

I see it happening, and that is making me very angry.

I have also spent hours on my knees, deliberately asking our loving God – the one source of purest truth – to guide and help me.

I am shouting now.  We must stop being codependent enablers to our own isolation.

Dec 15 2023

The Truth About the S&L Crisis


Posted originally on Dec 14, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

Keating Charles SL
Keating Five SL 1991

Some have asked if there wasn’t also a lot of fraud behind the collapse of S&Ls. Many allegations were that they squandered money buying expensive art, etc. They did not tell the public that the art more than doubled in value. Take the prosecution of the poster boy Charles Keating (1923– 2014). A Federal judge overturned the California state court conviction of Keating, ruling that jury instructions by the judge in the state court, Lance A. Ito, had been flawed.

The prosecution of Keating centered on the outrageous claim that he issued bonds, knowing that he would ultimately fail. NEVER in my decades of dealing with people and institutions have I ever encountered someone with legitimate company-issued bonds, knowing that would be an S&L crisis years later. Keating’s prosecution was simply legal persecution so that the government could blame the private sector, not Congress, which changed all regulations.

There was the Keating Five, who were US Senators accused of corruption in 1989 for intervening in Keating’s case. This was spun into a major political scandal involving Senator Alan Cranston (Democrat of California), Senator Dennis DeConcini (Democrat of Arizona), Senator John Glenn (Democrat of Ohio), Senator John McCain (Republican of Arizona), and Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (Democrat of Michigan). This was an investigation of Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB), which then backed off taking action against Lincoln.

Eventually, the fraud that Keating was charged with in his Lincoln Savings and Loan collapse of 1989 cost the government $3.4 billion. The bondholders amounted to 23,000, and the government claimed they were defrauded because Keating knew he would eventually fail. The substantial political contributions Keating had made to each of the senators, totaling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention at the time.

Finally, after a very lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had all improperly interfered with the FHLBB’s investigation of Lincoln Savings. Cranston received a formal reprimand. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly. Nonetheless, they were criticized for having exercised “poor judgment,” whereas anyone else would have been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.

All five senators eventually completed their terms of office. Both John Glenn and John McCain ran for re-election and won. McCain later even ran for President, but thank God he lost.

Anyone who looks closely at the conviction of Keating is confronted with the plain fact that this was a political prosecution to provide the cover for Congress in this attempt to shift all the blame to the private sector portraying the owners of these S&Ls as greedy rich people seeking to make money.

Dec 15 2023

FBI Investigator of Trump-Russia Collusion Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison for Colluding with Russia


Posted originally on the CTH on December 14, 2023 | Sundance

The irony and hypocrisy is thick.  Charles McGonigal was an FBI counterintelligence official in charge of the FBI New York field office. McGonigal was tasked with investigating Russian collusion and Russian sanction violations.

McGonigal was sentenced to four-years in federal prison today for colluding with a Russian (Oleg Deripaska) to avoid sanctions.

As noted by Politico, “McGonigal, who lives in New York, was separately charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., with concealing at least $225,000 in cash he allegedly received from a former Albanian intelligence official while working for the FBI. He faces sentencing in that case on Feb. 16.”

NEW YORK — A former top FBI counterintelligence official was ordered Thursday to spend over four years in prison for violating sanctions on Russia by going to work for a Russian oligarch seeking dirt on a wealthy rival after he finished his government career.

Charles McGonigal was sentenced to four years and two months in prison in Manhattan federal court by Judge Jennifer H. Rearden, who said McGonigal harmed national security by repeatedly flouting sanctions meant to put economic pressure on Russia to get results without military force. He was also fined $40,000. (read more)

Dec 14 2023

The Senate Passes 2024 NDAA Bill 87-13 Which Includes Four Month FISA Extension and $300 Million for Ukraine


Posted originally on the CTH on December 13, 2023 | Sundance

As expected, the Senate dropped all the woke restrictions from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and added $300 million for Ukraine along with a four-month extension of the FISA 702 authority until April 19, 2024.

The vote roll for this bill is here.  With the final vote at 87-13.

[SOURCE]

Only six republicans voted against the $886 billion dollar bill.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate backed a defense policy bill authorizing a record $886 billion in annual military spending with strong support from both Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday, sidestepping partisan divides over social issues that had threatened what is seen as a must-pass bill.

Separate from the appropriations bills that set government spending levels, the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes everything from pay raises for the troops – this year’s will be 5.2% – to purchases of ships, ammunition and aircraft as well as policies such as measures to help Ukraine and pushback against China in the Indo-Pacific.

This year’s bill is nearly 3,100 pages long, authorizing a record $886 billion, up 3% from last year.

The NDAA “will ensure America can hold the line against Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party, and ensures that America’s military remains state-of-the-art at all times all around the world,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before the vote.

But the final version of the NDAA left out provisions addressing divisive social issues, such as access to abortion and treatment of transgender service members, that had been included in the version passed by the House over the objections of Democrats, threatening to derail the legislation.

The 100-member Senate backed the NDAA by 87 to 13. The House is expected to pass it as soon as later this week, sending it to the White House where President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law.

The fiscal 2024 NDAA also includes a four-month extension of a disputed domestic surveillance authority, giving lawmakers more time to either reform or keep the program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The Senate defeated an attempt to remove the FISA extension from the NDAA on Wednesday before voting to pass the bill. (read more)

Meanwhile over in the House of Representatives, Speaker Mike Johnson entertained prior House Speaker Paul Ryan for lunch. (link)

Pos

Dec 13 2023

Useless Bureaucracy Example – Golden Gate Bridge Nets


Posted originally on Dec 13, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

California Golden Gate

Government mismanagement comes at a high cost. We saw Argentina’s new president slash half of the useless federal administrations this week on his first day in office.  Governments are incompetent to run even a gumball machine. These agencies come into the fold, create useless regulations, dish out contracts to their connections, and nothing gets done. The current construction on the Golden Gate Bridge is a great example of government incompetence.

A suicide safety net stretching the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge is nearing completion. The stainless steel mesh net spans across both sides of the 1.6 mile-long bridge. Nearly 2,000 people have taken their lives by jumping from the bridge since it was first constructed in 1937, and officials approved the construction of safety nets in 2014 and allocated a budget of $76 million. Due to the bureaucratic red tape, construction on the project did not begin until 2018 and they are still working on fixing the bridge five years later.

Spokespeople for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, announced in March that only 5% of the mesh had been installed. Officials suddenly changed the budget from $76 million to $206.7 million. Contractors and bridge officials are now in a heated legal battle as the new price tag is expected to cost over $400 million. Contactors insist the local government hid the deteriorating condition of the bridge which led to work delays.

The Golden Gate Bridge in its entirety cost $35 million to build in 1937, which would be well over $700 million in 2023. So now the netting for the bridge is nearly as expensive as the bridge itself. The trouble here is that the original budget was less than a quarter of what they will end up spending. This happens with EVERY project the government sets out to complete. Budgets are merely a suggestion to governments because they know they need not adhere to them or pass audits.

Categories:GOV’T INCOMPETENC

Dec 12 2023

DOJ Protecting President Biden – Equal Protection of the Law?


Posted originally on Dec 11, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

Biden son Hunter 1

COMMENT: Marty: You are very good at law. It looks to me that the DOJ is protecting Biden. When you look at the nine-count tax fraud indictment against Hunter, there is no mention of unpaid taxes from his million-dollar salary at Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. Even the whistleblower emails suggested that Hunter got that deal with no experience because of a helping hand from then-Vice President Biden in what is influence peddling. While Hunter faces up to 17 years in prison for evading $1.4 million in taxes because of all the counts, we all know that will never happen. Biden or any Democrat in that office would pardon Hunter in a split-second.

The Indictment boldly states: “Between 2016 and October 15, 2020, the Defendant​ spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and​ rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a​ personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.” However, omitting anything about Burisma and Ukraine altogether is a cover-up.

REPLY: I am VERY familiar with Ukraine from the inside out. It is the MOST corrupt country on the planet. Biden has supported their war since it was American that began the civil war in 2014, sending countless amounts of money over there, which is unaccountable. In part, it is a payoff. Here you had Biden telling Ukraine not to ask for any more money because it might make Trump suspicious, and he might then investigate.

Biden has been lying about the Ukraine connection from the outset. Here we are sending billions to Ukraine, and the DOJ refuses to investigate that perhaps this has been bribing Ukraine not to spill the beans.

Not only has Biden been sending billions to support the civil war, but he is paying the salaries and the pensions of the government workers of Ukraine. WHY? Then instruct Zelensky there can be no peace agreement with Russia and keep throwing Ukrainians onto the frontlines to be killed.

This was the smoking gun. Biden demanded the firing of the prosecutor investigating the very company Burisma that hired his son with no experience. For the DOJ to omit all transactions with Ukraine tells us that they are protecting Biden at all costs while desperately trying to charge Trump for anything they can find.

Rule of Law Crushed

The Rule of Law no longer means anything. They prosecute what they want, claiming discretion, and they claim complete discretion. What Lord Coke feared is now overwhelmingly the standard exercise of law in this country – legal persecution. Hunter’s indictment is just a dog & pony show omitting Ukraine because it would open a whole new can or worms and justify impeaching Biden.

Coke discretion