The FBI has again refused to turn over documents subpoenaed by Congress regarding allegations of a bribery scheme allegedly perpetrated by then-Vice President Joe Biden, escalating a row with House Republicans over the agency’s handling of the case.
The latest refusal to comply with the subpoena came during an FBI briefing of the US House Oversight Committee on Monday. At issue is a so-called FD-1023 form, which details accusations that President Biden accepted foreign bribes in exchange for policy favors when he was vice president under President Barack Obama.
FBI officials previously missed a May 10 deadline to provide the requested materials to Congress. At the time, the agency claimed that the allegations against Biden were unverified and that the FD-1023 must be kept private to protect FBI informants. Ironically, a four-year probe by US special counsel John Durham found that the FBI improperly launched an investigation of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign based on unverified allegations funneled to the agency by rival candidate Hillary Clinton.
“This allegation happened a long time ago, and the FBI has done nothing,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Monday in a Fox News interview. “We want to know exactly what they did. We not only want the file, but we want to know what action they took.”
Comer said Republican members of the committee are so concerned about the case because the allegations “fit a pattern” of then-Vice President Biden flying to such countries as Romania, taking an unusually active role on US foreign policy decisions, then receiving wire transfers from those nations into bank accounts linked to his family.
“This is one of the most serious accusations I think has ever been leveled against any political leader in the history of our country,” Comer said. “And for the FBI to act like, ‘Well, we don’t know, we can’t talk to you about this. Just trust us. . . .’ It’s not normal for the president of the United States’ children and grandchildren, and in-laws and nieces and nephews to receive wires from foreign nationals.”
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said on Sunday that he called FBI director Christopher Wray on Friday to demand the Biden file. “I believe after this call, we will get this document,” he said.
Comer said US media outlets have begun to report on the case because the American public is following it closely, despite their efforts to ignore or downplay the allegations against Biden. “The American people do not want to see public corruption,” he said. “They expect Congress to investigate public corruption.”
The US Department of Justice formally shut down an investigation of Clinton’s family foundation in August 2021, seven months after Biden took office as president, and the FBI destroyed all of the evidence compiled during the probe, according to a New York Times article published on Monday.
May 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception | FBI, United States |
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Last week, an IRS whistleblower’s team was abruptly removed from the probe into US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, which prompted a second IRS whistleblower to come forward. However, in response, the IRS leadership resorted to intimidation against the whistleblower’s team. Has blowing a whistle become illegal in the “Land of Free”?
“The FBI and Department of Justice have been weaponized against legitimate whistleblowers and reformers and all Americans are worse off because this has nearly destroyed confidence in the integrity of the US system of governance,” Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik.
How Did the IRS Whistleblower Team Get Sacked?
In April, an IRS whistleblower raised the red flag over apparent violations during the Hunter Biden tax crimes investigation. In particular, the IRS agent alleged that federal prosecutors had engaged in “preferential treatment” of the first son and political meddling. The whistleblower, whose identity has been kept secret, was defined by his attorney, Mark Lytle, as “a career IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent” who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of Hunter Biden since early 2020.
Having examined the case, the House Ways and Means Committee “freed” the IRS agent in question and his lawyers from 6103 tax privacy obligations so that they could provide the collected sensitive information to Congress for further investigation. Generally, the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 6103 prohibits the release of tax information by an IRS employee.
However, last week the whistleblower’s attorneys informed Congress that their client and his entire team of 12 subordinates had been removed from the Hunter Biden probe – allegedly on Justice Department orders – without explanations which promoted suspicions of an act of retaliation.
Who is Second IRS Whistleblower in Hunter Biden Probe?
On May 18, a second IRS whistleblower joined the supervisory special agent, addressing the IRS leadership with the question as to why the team was expelled from the Hunter Biden probe. The second agent also complained about years of improprieties by DoJ officials supervising the investigation. The second whistleblower had worked on the Hunter case since it opened in 2018.
“For the last couple of years, my SSA [Supervisory Special Agent] and I have tried to gain the attention of senior leadership about certain issues prevalent regarding the investigation. I have asked for countless meetings with our chief and deputy chief, often to be left out on an island and not heard from,” the second whistleblower’s complaint reads.
However, IRS officials “responded with accusations of criminal conduct and warnings to other agents in an apparent attempt to intimidate into silence anyone who might raise similar concerns,” according to a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel sent by the whistleblower advocacy group Empower Oversight.
“The IRS has awesome power and substantial resources,” said Ortel. “If it is true that corrupt elements inside the IRS have been tormenting perceived political opponents and protecting political allies, then Americans of all political inclinations should rise up to insist that crooked IRS personnel be aggressively investigated and appropriately punished.”
Why Did IRS Overlook Clinton Foundation Irregularities?
He drew parallels between the IRS’ alleged “preferential” treatment of Hunter Biden, who was accused of failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars he got from foreign associates, and the agency’s handling of the Clinton Foundation audits.
According to Ortel, the Clinton Foundation, in particular, failed to file required IRS reports in 1997; failed to amend its articles of incorporation and bylaws in 2005; raised money for and engaged in activities that never were validly authorized by the IRS as being tax-exempt, to name but a few potential violations.
“When you read the IRS regulations and charity laws carefully, you discover that activities carried out by the ‘Clinton Foundation’ since incorporation on October 23, 1997 are normally punished harshly. Instead, Bill Clinton and his family have been given leave to build substantial wealth while taking credit for their supposed philanthropy,” said Ortel, referring to his private investigation into the charity.
“Working with remaining elements in the FBI that are honest, the IRS criminal division and forensic auditors would easily be able to obtain bank records of donors and of supposed contributions in detail to see what percentage of these amounts actually made it into financial statements reported by the ‘Clinton Foundation’ and what amounts may have, instead, financed political activities (illegally) or personal lifestyles (illegally),” he continued.
Who are Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers?
In August 2017, Clinton Foundation whistleblowers and forensic investigators Lawrence W. Doyle and John F. Moynihan filed whistleblower submissions with the IRS over the charity’s suspected misdeeds. However, the agency appeared unwilling to consider their claim, despite the IRS website encouraging everyone to immediately report tax scams.
In December 2017, Doyle and Moynihan testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, alleging that the Clinton Foundation owes the US government between $400 million and $2.5 billion in taxes. According to them, the charity does not operate as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, but acts as nothing short of a foreign agent. The two forensic investigators told US lawmakers that they had collected approximately 100 exhibits in excess of 6,000 pages. The two whistleblowers sought to attract Congress’ attention to the IRS surprising hesitation to investigate the Clintons’ case, given other instances when the agency was quick to crack down on potential violators.
Having received the final denial from the IRS in February 2019, the two independent expert forensic investigators filed a lawsuit with the US Tax Court. In October 2020, Judge of US Tax Court David Gustafson ruled that the IRS Whistleblower Office (WO) had “abused its discretion” in trying to dismiss “specific credible documentation” put forward by Doyle and Moynihan and drew attention to inconsistencies in the IRS’ handling of the whistleblowers’ request. The litigation is still ongoing.
Is FBI Dancing to Clinton and Biden’s Tune?
Special Counsel John Durham’s final report concerning the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation shed light on the FBI’s shutting down a whopping four probes into the Clinton Foundation as Hillary Clinton sought the presidency. Former and present Republican members of Congress have called for renewing investigations into the charity and its alleged “pay-to-play” schemes involving powerful foreign donors.
Similarly, the FBI is also known for suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story and reportedly rejecting a House panel’s request for a document that allegedly details President Joe Biden’s involvement in an illegal scheme with a foreign national.
It appears that federal agencies are acting in cahoots to shield powerful dynastic families. Meanwhile, the first IRS whistleblower in the Hunter Biden case is due to testify behind closed doors before the House Ways and Means Committee on May 26. Time will tell whether no one is really above the law in the US.
May 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception | FBI, Hillary Clinton, United States |
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American military-industrial complex firms are guilty of “price gouging,” amidst the exponentially rising demand for weapons systems to both bolster Taiwan as a counter to Beijing and support NATO’s proxy Kiev during its war with Russia, former Pentagon insiders told Newsweek.
The Ukraine policy of providing massive quantities of arms “no matter the expense,” in particular, is weakening America’s national security and combat readiness by depleting stocks which cannot be easily replenished due to the weapons firms’ skyrocketing prices, according to the former officials.
For four decades, Shay Assad worked as a contract negotiator at the Defense Department. He recently sounded off about these “astronomical price increases” and the resultant detrimental effect on the military, during a recent report on 60 Minutes, the CBS news program.
“The gouging that takes place is unconscionable,” Assad said. “There’s no doubt about it,” he continued, “You just can only buy so much, because you only have so much money. And that’s why I say, is it really any different than not giving a Marine enough bullets to put in his clip? It’s the same thing.” Assad previously worked for Raytheon as well, the arms industry giant on whose board Lloyd Austin sat before becoming the Pentagon chief.
According to Assad, the DOD overpays for “for radar and missiles … helicopters … planes … submarines… down to the nuts and bolts.” The report highlighted the fact that a shoulder-fired Stinger missile, produced by Raytheon, which cost $25,000 in 1991 is now priced at more than $400,000. Newsweek described the price rise as an “eye-watering increase,” even when taking inflation into account as well as interim technological advancements.
He went on to explain the Pentagon’s accountability system, such as it is, is completely “broken.” Assad said, “No matter who they are, no matter what company it is, they need to be held accountable. And right now that accountability system is broken in the Department of Defense.” Moreover, Assad cited two more instances of gouging on the part of arms industry behemoths Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon.
Lockheed and Boeing were found to have yielded an over 40 percent profit on sales of PAC-3 surface to air missiles to Washington and its allies. Assad explained the companies saw a windfall of hundreds of millions on the deals over seven years, and “based on what they actually made, we would’ve received an entire year’s worth of missiles for free.” Lockheed protested to 60 Minutes that the deals had been negotiated “in good faith.”
Both by overstating the cost and time needed to produce the radar equipment, Raytheon was also alleged to have taken obscene profits from the Patriot air defense system. The reporters were told by a company spokesman that Raytheon was working to “equitably resolve” the dispute. It is also noted that, in 2021, CEO Greg Hayes notified his investors that Raytheon schemed to put aside nearly $300 million for probable liability.
Assad demonstrated to the 60 Minutes host that an oil pressure switch was selling for over $10,000, when he claimed the switch should cost $328. The host asked Assad a question regarding the huge discrepancy, to which the former official responded “Gouging. What else can account for it?”
Assad went on to say that this widespread practice shows arms firms are hoodwinking and taking advantage of the American taxpayer. “We have to have a financially healthy defense industrial base. We all want that. But what we don’t want to do is get taken advantage of and hoodwinked […] We have nowhere else to go. For many of these weapons that are being sent over to Ukraine right now, there’s only one supplier. And the companies know it.”
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Gen. Chris Bogdan, who oversaw weapons purchases during his time in the military, further explained his concerns over the fact that when companies sell their weapons to the DOD, they retain the proprietary information required to fix the systems themselves, precluding the Pentagon, in some cases, from doing its own repairs.
“It’s not really a true capitalistic market because one company is telling you what’s going to happen. [It’s a] monopoly,” retired DOD auditor Mark Owen told CBS.
These reports come as tensions between Washington and Russia as well as China are growing at a rapid clip. The US is planning on fighting a hot war with China. Concurrently, the White House is committing billions of dollars in unprecedented military aid to Taipei, some of which is being drawn from the same dwindling DOD stocks used to prop up Kiev’s war against Moscow via the “Presidential Drawdown Authority.”
Since 2018, the Pentagon has been shifting its focus away from counterterrorism in the Middle East and North Africa, to focus primarily on so-called “great power competition” with China and Russia, pegged respectively as the number one and number two targets.
This has been reaffirmed in subsequent national defense strategies, as the shift in 2018 was codifying renewed Cold Wars against Russia and China launched by the US years and, in the case of Moscow, decades prior to the officially adopted national defense strategy.
It is also critical to note, that as the new Cold Wars get hotter, the nominal Pentagon budget is nearing a whopping $900 billion and will soon surpass the previously unthinkable $1 trillion mark. However, a closer look reveals the real national security state budget is already fast approaching $1.5 trillion.
This larger figure includes not only the mammoth War Department’s budget but – among a plethora of other expenses – the Department of Veterans Affairs, interest on the warfighting share of the national debt, nuclear weapons, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Congress recently simulated a Chinese attack on Taiwan and came to the conclusion that Taipei should thus be armed “to the teeth” by Washington. Center for a New American Security (CNAS), the ultra-hawkish think tank which has members and associates planted throughout the Joe Biden administration, carried out the exercise with the lawmakers on the House Select Committee on China.
CNAS is funded by Taiwan via the island’s de facto embassy in the United States, as well as the Pentagon, the State Department, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. In August 2021, investigative journalist Dan Cohen reported CNAS “has taken more money from weapons companies over the last several years than any other think tank in Washington… At least 16 CNAS alumni are now in key positions in the Biden Pentagon and State Department.”
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Boeing, CNAS, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Taiwan, United States |
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Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland, who served for the first four months of the Trump administration under Michael Flynn, says that the deep state is going to rig the 2024 US election following their success in 2020.
“We now have black-and-white evidence that the FBI interfered in the 2016 election. When they failed to elect Hillary Clinton, they set out to destroy the Trump administration,” she told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo.
“Go back to 2020. This time, the CIA got involved in the election with those 51 former intel agents who said the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. So they’ve gotten away with it for two elections. They will surely try and get away with it in 2024, right?
Because there are no consequences…
“There is now hard evidence that there was election interference by the U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice. Those individuals must be terrified that a Republican president comes in with a Republican Attorney General, investigates them, and charges them with all of the crimes they have committed over the last eight years. Take it to the bank.
They will absolutely interfere in 2024…
These people are selling us out. Not only to foreign leaders, but they are interfering in our elections.
They are tearing up the Constitution… This is just a gut punch to the American people.”
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | CIA, FBI, NSA, United States |
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A short verbal exchange recently between a TV presenter and a low-profile politician and former lawmaker from a small country on the periphery of the European Union laid bare a long-standing problem of non-transparent lobbying in the highest EU institutions in Brussels.
A TV host on a popular Croatian talk show asked a guest how she copes with the growing European inflation of 13 percent since she has savings of 700-800,000 Euros in publicly available bank accounts.
This financial data was known to him because the Croatian anti-corruption institutions require that leading Croatian politicians must make their assets publicly available online every year, in order to prevent conflict of interest.
Croatian MP Marijana Petir, the guest on the show, was visibly rattled by the unexpected question.
She was not disturbed by inflation and the loss of around one hundred thousand Euros, but by the fact that this little-known information was presented in an extremely popular show watched by over half a million people, roughly a quarter of the Croatian adult population.
So, instead of answering about inflation, she immediately changed the subject and stated that her savings are a private matter, that she earned everything fairly and that she regularly and transparently submits her financial data to the relevant institutions.
Public reactions
Her dark forebodings turned out to be correct because the information about the bank account overshadowed the rest of the interview and was a hot topic in the Croatian media and public for days.
Soon, many interesting data emerged like skeletons out of a closet.
For example, of the 151 representatives of the Croatian parliament, which includes prominent businessmen and wealthy heirs, Petir has the largest independent savings: roughly 700 thousand Euros.
Her savings are roughly twice as large as this year’s reported assets of Zoran Milanović, the incumbent Croatian president who has held coveted political positions for two decades, including the mandate of prime minister and the position of leader of the second largest party in Croatia.
Furthermore, the available property data show that Petir did not inherit anything, is not married and has no joint property, and has no loans or debts.
In other words, the entire amount is the result of her political career spanning only 17.5 years, in addition to less than two years of work in the real sector.
Calculations
Few investigative journalists have tried to reconstruct her career and the sum of all salaries, arriving at the same conclusion that her claims of “fair earnings” do not hold water.
The most fruitful period is certainly her mandate as a member of the European Parliament when she received a net salary of 4,500 Euros during the five years from 2014 to 2019.
This still constitutes approximately a third of her total savings.
Petir was also a member of the Croatian Parliament for six years, where her net salary was twice as low, giving a quarter of her savings. If we also include minor jobs in her younger days, we get an amount of barely two-thirds of her total savings.
This superficial calculation of course implies that she hasn’t spent a cent in two decades, which is simply impossible considering her well-known lavish lifestyle.
Despite the fact that these contradictions were made public, no one managed to answer the key question – where did the money really come from?
Concealments
Petir herself avoids answering the question – where do her staggering earnings come from?
“My savings come from 20 years of work in different workplaces, which were not only related to the European Parliament or the Croatian Parliament,” she was quoted as saying in the media.
“Salaries for official positions are public and available, while the amount of salaries for other positions, based on the contract, cannot be disclosed to the public,” she hastened to add.
Neither the Croatian nor the European Parliament provides an answer.
Although their rules dictate that they are required to report the amount of savings and interest group affiliations, they are apparently not required to report the full source of money and lobbying policies; for whom, and against whom.
The website of the EU Parliament only briefly reveals that she is chair of the Croatia-Israel friendship group, while the website of the Croatian Parliament lists her membership in the inter-parliamentary friendship groups with Hungary, Israel, North Macedonia, and the United States.
Finally, there is not a single Croatian or European media outlet, newspaper article, not even a blog, that writes about her true employers and lobbying activities.
Not only for Petir, but also for most of the dozens of similar cases in the EU Parliament.
Revelations
The answer to the question of how a little-known peasant politician accumulated hundreds of thousands of Euros is yet quite simple – it comes from anti-Iranian and anti-Palestinian lobbying for the Albania-based terrorist group MKO and the Israeli regime in the EU parliament.
Just two weeks after entering the EU parliament, she boasted on her private website that she is the only Croatian member of the delegation with close relations with the Israeli regime, and her Zionist rampage was evident throughout her five-year mandate, in the form of tens of examples.
In her speeches, she repeatedly promoted the lie that Palestinians use “human shields,” thus whitewashing the Israeli regime’s war crimes. She also claimed that the EU’s humanitarian aid to Palestine “finances terrorism”, equating criticism of Israeli policy viz a viz Palestine with anti-Semitism, and demanding that Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement be put on the EU terror list, etc.
She has traveled to the Israeli-occupied territories at least three times, from where she proudly opposed EU labeling of products originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Petir thus ardently defends the apartheid regime responsible for the ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinian Muslims and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Christians, but at the same time paradoxically presents herself as a great Catholic concerned about the violations of the rights of Christians in the world.
In one of her freaky rants, she named Iran, Syria and Turkey as allegedly “the most aggressive anti-Christian countries.”
MKO ties
There is also ample evidence that points to her close ties with the MKO, a notorious anti-Iranian terrorist organization based in Albania that is responsible for the killings of tens of thousands of Iranians, which Petir indirectly refers to as “Iran’s human rights organization” on her website.
She held meetings with Maryam Rajavi, promoted MKO propaganda on her Twitter page, and most importantly, used their disinformation for anti-Iranian presentations in the EU Parliament.
Among numerous anti-Iran speeches is a particularly bizarre one in which she says: “It is well known that the position of women has declined after the revolution,” and goes on to cite various fake data from MKO pamphlets, including the alleged “denial of education to girls.”
This is while, before the Islamic revolution, more than three-quarters of women were illiterate, while today literacy is almost 100 percent and the number of female university students is 50 percent higher than in Germany and some other European countries.
Astonishingly, no one among 700 EU representatives confronted Petir or her ignorance, while High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini said she was aware of the “worrying situation.”
Most of Petir’s other activities in the EU Parliament are limited to marginal agricultural and Balkans-related regional issues, so the possibility that she profited from other types of lobbying can be ruled out.
Lobbying octopus
Petir is not an isolated case. Out of a total of 11 representatives from Croatia in the EU Parliament from 2014 to 2019, three more participated in pro-MKO anti-Iranian activities: Jozo Radoš, Željana Zovko and Ruža Tomašić. Tomašić’s replacement Ladislav Ilčić has also been active since 2021.
A similar phenomenon exists in neighboring Slovenia, which also has five representatives who have actively lobbied for MKO terrorist group in recent years: Franc Bogovič, Ljudmila Novak, Patricija Šulin, Romana Tomc and Milan Zver.
Overall, there are between 40 and 50 individuals who have participated in such activities in the EU Parliament in recent years. More than half come from the Eastern EU countries, the rest mainly from the marginal parties of the Western EU.
The MKO’s purchasing a prominent MEP of a major Croatian party obviously represents an issue, not only due to the accompanying cost but also international repercussions. On the other hand, dealing with cheap marginal figures from the European periphery does not pose any problem.
The Petir case is also reminiscent of the well-documented case from Spain where the MEK financed the European campaign of the radical right-wing party Vox with several hundred thousand Euros.
Again, everything happened discreetly and legally, without an anti-corruption process or major controversies.
So, with the relatively cheap cost of a few million Euros given by their Zionist sponsors, the anti-Iranian terrorist group managed to gather the same number of representatives in the EU Parliament as Poland.
This is not an Iranian problem alone, but also a European problem.
European citizens, experts believe, should ask themselves if the highest EU institution is so vulnerable to the lobbying influence, how prone is it to ultra-rich corporations, let alone an overseas master?
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Islamophobia | European Union, Zionism |
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Less than a year after successfully winning the fight to force Pfizer to release their COVID-19 vaccine trial data that the FDA was attempting to block for 75 years, ICAN’s Lead Counsel, Aaron Siri, Esq., joins Del with a new, updated ruling, and great news about what this ruling means for Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID vaccine trial data.
Biden’s new pick for Head of the NIH, Monica Bertagnolli, received more than 290 million in grants from Pfizer. This appointment comes more than a year after former director, Francis Collins, left the beleaguered agency. With deep ties to Pfizer and the cancer industry, she joins a roster of agency heads with questionable conflicts of interest, contributing to a growing distrust of our health agencies now seemingly beyond repair.
May 20, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA, NIH, United States |
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American health agencies are in a crisis of their own making. The pandemic response has both amplified and spotlighted the classic shortcomings and limitations of agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
News this week reports Biden has chosen Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, formerly National Cancer Institute Director, to lead the NIH. Bertagnolli fills the absence left by Dr. Francis Collins.
In a post-Covid world, much of the public-facing legacy of agency directors is written by their actions during the failed pandemic response. History will show it as a doomed era where no leadership escaped without tarnished careers from their unified actions to viciously mandate Covid shots, mask kids, keep schools closed and lockdown society causing irreparable harm to the American economy – all without the science to back up their decisions.
Former NIH head Collins will be forever known as the man who shut down scientific debate at a time when open dialogue about the already known, published research could have saved lives, the economy, and the mental health of our current population. Purposely ignored warnings, which came in the form of the Great Barrington Declaration, that internal emails show Collins and Fauci colluded to publish a ‘devastating takedown’ of its premise using the full weight of their agencies and media power.
Dr. Bertagnolli’s deep funding by Pfizer, and to a lesser extent from Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen, is chronicled by The Daily Signal :
From 2015 through 2021, Bertagnolli received more than 116 grants from Pfizer, totaling $290.8 million. This amount made up 89% of all her research grants, according to Open Payments, a national transparency program under the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services that collects and publishes information about financial relationships between drug and medical device companies and certain health care providers.
Her extensive background in cancer research and ties to Pfizer and other pharma companies raises questions about the timing of her placement at the head of NIH, the largest single public funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world at more than $40 billion.
The Covid vaccine gold rush has come to an end for companies like Pfizer and Moderna. A brief look at headlines tells of the next profit push on the horizon being mRNA cancer vaccine therapies.
Meanwhile, an epidemic surge of cancers of unknown causes is also grabbing headlines.
Bertagnolli appears well-positioned to streamline an injectable pharmaceutical ‘answer’ to a growing cancer question while obscuring further investigation into its root cause(s).
Meanwhile, Walensky’s abrupt departure from a badly damaged CDC has public trust in the agency racing for the doors at breakaway speeds.
The FDA has done no better. After Trump’s director, Stehpan Hahn stepped down as the administration changed hands, Biden kept the agency without a presidential nomination for commissioner for the maximum time allowed by law – nearly one year.
In that time, the FDA pushed through emergency use authorizations for J&J’s Covid shot, expanded Pfizer’s EUA to 12-15 yr-olds and 5-11 yr-old, added EUA booster doses and mishandled massive warnings about increases in myocarditis, Guillain-Barre syndrome and thrombocytopenia after Covid shots. The agency’s authoritarian booster push also saw infighting due to a lack of data to inform the decision culminating in two of the FDA’s top, longtime vaccine regulators [Kruse & Gruber] departing in disgust.
A recent BMJ article titled The decline of science at the FDA has become unmanageable states, … the corruption of the FDA’s scientific culture remains the primary culprit driving the deterioration of safety and effectiveness standards.”
By all measures, America’s health agencies are in rapid decline as a litany of historical issues like Big Pharma’s revolving door influence, an outward mission-directed posture of mandates and censorship, a continued doubling down on bad policy, and an imbalance focusing on liability-free injectable products as the answer has left American marooned.
The path forward for American health, suffering in many categories, has challenges ahead. Yet the many failures and outright censorship of the medical and research communities during the failed pandemic response have created a new space being rapidly populated by medical professionals, experts, and citizen journalists who see the value and desperate need to investigate and report on reality, expose bad science and maximize open debate surrounding key health issues. It is the best of times and it is the worst of times.
May 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, NIH, United States |
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Corporate intrigue reached a fevered pitch on May 6, 2023, in Omaha, Nebraska, when a shareholder was arrested during the annual shareholder meeting of Berkshire Hathaway. The shareholder challenged the affiliation of Warren Buffett with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bill Gates’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted in Florida for procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute, and who reportedly committed suicide in a New York jail while facing charges for sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking.
Peter Flaherty, the chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), stood to offer proposal number eight, which called for the roles of Berkshire CEO and chair to be separated and held by two persons. Flaherty argued that the separation of roles was necessary so that Berkshire “would be less identified with Mr. Buffett’s personal political activities.” Speaking of Buffett, Flaherty stated:
He’s donated tens of billions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As Bill Gates explained when the couple was still together, “although the foundation bears our names, basically half our resources have come from Warren Buffett.”
If “woke” culture is a disease, then philanthropy is the virus.
The Gates Foundation bankrolls the teaching of Critical Race Theory around the country, including that math is inherently racist.
The Gates Foundation offers a Gender Identity Toolbox which asserts that gender is the result of “socially and culturally constructed ideas.”
This is a lie. Gender is not a cultural construct. It is a genetic and biological fact. (emphasis mine)
Flaherty was interrupted by a Berkshire representative and pleaded to the chair (Buffett) to be allowed to continue. Buffett agreed that Flaherty could continue but warned him of the three-minute time limit for shareholder proposals. Flaherty then proceeded to throw down the gauntlet, until his microphone was shut off:
We know how much Bill Gates cares about children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.
The Gates Foundation had a huge influence over the COVID response fiasco.
Bill Gates defended China’s COVID policies and still discounts the possibility that the virus originated from a lab, even though U.S. intelligence agencies disagree. The Gates Foundation may be the largest single donor to the “dark money” machine known as Arabella Associates. . . .
It funds causes like defunding the police that are making American cities unlivable.
Money goes, too, to groups conducting—
At this point, Buffett declared from the stage: “You crossed the boundary.” Two security guards grabbed Flaherty by either arm and escorted him from the room. Flaherty was arrested and charged with trespassing.
The arrest of the Berkshire shareholder, apparently for merely mentioning Jeffrey Epstein in connection with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, coincided with a series of Wall Street Journal articles exploring Epstein’s calendar and a trove of Epstein emails and other documents. The Wall Street Journal revealed numerous Epstein meetings with high-profile contacts, long after Epstein served time for soliciting a child prostitute and was registered as a sex offender. Represented in Epstein’s calendar and emails are such notables as William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2021; Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and philanthropist; Jess Staley, former Barclay’s CEO; Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn; Larry Summers, professor and former Harvard University president; Woody Allen, filmmaker; and Noam Chomsky, leftist MIT linguistics professor, among others. These and other meetings may reveal that many businesspersons and woke philanthropists were ensnared by a child sex trafficker.
The scene at the Berkshire annual meeting also followed on the heels of the lawsuit filed against JPMorgan Chase by the US Virgin Islands. Attorneys for the US Virgin Islands claim that the bank materially aided Epstein in his child sex trafficking scheme and is seeking damages for their clients. Four billionaires have been subpoenaed in the case so far, including Google cofounder Sergey Brin; Hyatt Hotels CEO Thomas Pritzker; real estate tycoon and owner of U.S. News and World Report Mortimer Zuckerman; and venture capitalist and Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz. Curiously, the US Virgin Islands has also attempted, without success, to serve a subpoena to Google’s other cofounder, Larry Page, whose whereabouts remain unknown and who obviously does not want to be found.
It should be remembered here that Google has represented the leading edge of woke capitalism, with its leftist ranking algorithms and its employment of “machine learning fairness” that corrects for so-called algorithmic unfairness by misrepresenting reality with affirmative action results. Clearly, Google’s founders did not rely on algorithms to identify and eliminate pedophiles from their list of business contacts.
While the US Virgin Islands asserts that JP Morgan Chase facilitated and possibly bankrolled Epstein’s pedophilia ring, US Republican lawmakers have claimed that the US’s largest bank has a penchant for cancelling the accounts of conservative and religious groups. The bank maintained its financial relationship with Epstein until 2013, long after he was convicted of sex crimes, yet recently cancelled the accounts of such groups as the National Committee for Religious Freedom. The bank’s touted “diversity and inclusion” policy has apparently included pedophiles but excluded avowedly Christian groups.
Much more has and could be said about why high-profile businesspersons, philanthropists, academics, and even intelligence officers had relationships with Jeffrey Epstein. For example, some have claimed that Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell were Israeli spies who ran a honey-trap operation to steer US policies in Israel’s favor and against US interests.
As the Wall Street Journal asked:
Epstein was a former schoolteacher. How did he become a billionaire? What was the source of his wealth? Was he paid for providing women or girls to his friends? Was he a blackmailer? Were women or girls an enticement to invest in his projects?
Finally, there’s the ridiculous, implausible matter of Epstein’s death in federal custody on Aug. 10, 2019, which 3½ years later remains under investigation by the Justice Department inspector general, only feeding conspiracy theories.
But the main question for our purposes is: How is that nearly all major corporate heads and influential members of society have simultaneously gone woke? Could it be that whoever controlled Jeffrey Epstein sets the agenda through the use of blackmail, directing these corporate heads and other leaders to convert to wokeness, while steering their philanthropy to designated ends, including the funding of critical race theory and the LGBTQIA+ agenda? In other words, is our capitalist class controlled by whoever oversaw Epstein’s thirty-year entrapment operation?
In addition to revealing the moral rot that has permeated the US establishment, the Epstein connections also show that those who claim the woke moral high ground, and impose woke policies on the rest of us, are perhaps the most corrupted people on the face of the earth.
Michael Rectenwald is the author of twelve books, including The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda, Thought Criminal, Beyond Woke, Google Archipelago, and Springtime for Snowflakes.
May 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption | Gates Foundation, United States |
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By Drago Bosnic | May 18, 2023
Whenever a large-scale corruption scandal hits the Kiev regime, its Western supporters are suddenly “shocked” by the level of embezzlement and outright theft of state funds in the country they’re financing with hundreds of billions of their own taxpayers’ money. Prior to the start of Russia’s special military operation (SMO), this was essentially common knowledge in the political West, with even the mainstream propaganda machine acknowledging it on a virtually daily basis. However, after the SMO started, any news coverage about this effectively became “heresy” as various state-run networks were only allowed to report on the mythical “battlefield dominance” of the Neo-Nazi junta forces and how “Ukrainians are giving everyone a lesson in freedom and democracy.”
Thus, the most corrupt country in Europe suddenly “became Switzerland”. However, as corruption scandals never stopped shaking up the Kiev regime, news about high-profile cases was simply bound to reach Western audiences, significantly complicating efforts to present the Neo-Nazi junta as the “beacon of hope for the free world.” In the latest of such controversies, the Neo-Nazi junta’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) have announced that “action has been taken” against the highest judicial authority of the Kiev regime. According to the official announcements of these “anti-corruption bodies”, posted on their official social media accounts and channels on May 16:
“NABU and SAP have exposed large-scale corruption in the Supreme Court, in particular a scheme to obtain undue advantages by the leadership and judges of the Supreme Court.”
Taking into account the fact that this is the top legal institution in the country, the scandal is yet another huge embarrassment for the Neo-Nazi junta, particularly as the head of the Supreme Court himself was arrested in connection to taking bribes to the tune of several million dollars. This means that the highest authority responsible for upholding the law is breaking it in the most blatant way imaginable. NABU and SAP officially announced they have conclusive evidence proving that the Chairman of the Supreme Court received a $2.7 million bribe. During a national press briefing, an unnamed Kiev regime “anticorruption” official revealed that Vsevolod Knyazev, the head of the Supreme Court, has been arrested for accepting bribes, with the aforementioned $2.7 million seized in Knyazev’s home.
“At this time, the [Chairman] of the Supreme Court has been detained and measures are being taken to check other individuals for their involvement in criminal activities,” the official stated during the briefing.
Vsevolod Knyazev was elected as the Chairman of the Supreme Court back in October 2021 and has officially held the position up until May 16, when he was removed during a special session by other judges, who ousted him after a “no confidence” vote. Worse yet, various reports in local media outlets indicate this is just the beginning, as several more judges are under investigation for taking bribes and are most likely scheduled to be removed from their posts and then raided and arrested in the same manner. However, while additional information is yet to be revealed, various local sources are reporting that this is certainly not the end of the scandal, as more details are being revealed by multiple media, meaning that the ongoing case may well be just the tip of the iceberg. According to the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine:
“NABU Director Semen Kryvonos revealed that his bureau has documented a series of contacts between the owner of Finances and Credit Group, Kostyantyn Zhevago, and one of the owners of an attorney group used to conceal criminal activities. These contacts involved an agreement regarding unlawful benefits in favor of high-ranking court officials for ‘rendering the necessary decision’ in favor of the entrepreneur.
Businessman Zhevago denies his involvement in the multimillion-dollar bribe, as stated in a press release issued by his spokesperson to Forbes.
‘This is the most high-profile case during the tenure of NABU and SAP and the biggest exposure of a top-ranking official in the judicial branch of power,’ said Kryvonos.
He said the suspects in the case also attempted to influence the appointment of members of the Higher Qualification Commission of Judges (VKKS), the body responsible for career-related matters within the judicial branch of power.”
This is the second high-profile corruption scandal in the country since late January, when nearly a dozen top-ranking Kiev regime officials were arrested for the embezzlement and “mismanagement” of state funds, the bulk of which were provided by the political West. At the time, a top adviser to the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky, four deputy ministers, two high-ranking Defense Ministry officials, as well as the governors of at least five oblasts (regions) were sacked. Worse yet, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov himself was accused of being directly involved in the scandal, although the key position he holds prevented his ouster and highly probable arrest. All this comes at a time when the political West is pressuring the Kiev regime to tighten control over the funds being sent to its favorite puppets.
While the political West keeps getting “shocked” by the level of corruption in Kiev, what’s truly shocking is the fact that anyone is actually surprised by this. The Neo-Nazi junta is openly promoting the sell-off (although sellout would be more appropriate) of Ukrainian land and state assets to a multitude of global corporations that would be given near absolute control over the areas they would be “investing” in.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
May 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption | Ukraine |
1 Comment
For years, the FDA allowed a drug to be injected into pregnant women that was neither safe, nor effective. Finally, it has been withdrawn.
Previously, I wrote about Makena, a synthetic hormone given to millions of pregnant woman, to prevent premature birth. It was highly controversial because there was no robust proof that it was safe or effective, despite having FDA-approval.
Last month, after many years of use, the FDA finally decided to withdraw Makena from the market.
Adam Urato, a maternal-foetal medicine specialist at MetroWest Medical Centre, Massachusetts welcomed the decision, but said it took the FDA far too long.
“I cannot believe we’ve been injecting this hormone into pregnant women for 20 years, all the leading medical organisations recommended it, the FDA approved it – and it took this long to finally acknowledge the drug did not work,” he said.
Urato opposed the use of Makena from the start. He testified before the FDA, he wrote in the media and in medical journals, and helped petition the FDA to withdraw the drug from the market.
Adam Urato, maternal-foetal medicine specialist, MetroWest Medical Centre, Massachusetts.
Preterm birth is a major issue in obstetrics. In the US, one in 10 babies are born prematurely, and accounts for most of the neonatal morbidity and mortality.
Physicians were desperate for a solution, and Makena seemed to hold promise.
It wasn’t cheap though. Makena was 5,200% more expensive than generic versions of the same medication.
Large amounts of public money in the Medicaid program and other health insurance dollars were used to pay for the weekly shots at a total cost of $30,000 per pregnancy.
How it began
The drug maker sought fast-track approval of Makena, citing a 2003 study that was so flawed, the FDA’s own statistical reviewer commented that the drug was not worth approving.
The FDA approved it anyway on the basis that the drugmaker conduct more in-depth research into the medication’s effectiveness.
Then, in 2019 a confirmatory trial found the drug did not work. And by this stage, there were documented harms including gestational diabetes, depression, blood clots and a non-statistical doubling in stillbirths.
But instead of pulling the drug off the market, the FDA allowed Makena to be licensed for another four years.
“It should’ve been pulled immediately,” said Urato. “There were substantial profits for the drug company even after a confirmatory trial found it did not work, so it’s no wonder it was dragging its feet.”
It begs the question…
How is it even possible that a drug, which was neither safe nor effective for pregnant women, was allowed to be on the market for so long?
Urato says it’s a direct symptom of the medical-industrial complex – an entanglement of big pharma, medical organisations, and regulatory agencies – that creates an underlying motive to bolster profits, over health.
“For two decades the drug brought in billions in profits, and that money was used to fund physicians, researchers, professional medical societies, and academic institutions,” said Urato.
This makes it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for patients to navigate the healthcare system and know who to trust.
“We need elected officials that are going to put the interests of patients and the public first, and not be tainted, or corrupted by industry. We need to separate our politics and our regulatory bodies from industry funding,” he added.
Lesson learned?
Urato feels vindicated for his work, but says it’s no time for a victory lap. Instead, the Makena fiasco should provide us with tangible lessons to safeguard us against such scientific transgressions in the future.
“We must ‘first do no harm’ and follow the precautionary principle,” insisted Urato.
“When you’re exposing developing babies to synthetic chemical compounds, you can’t just assume it’s safe, until harm is proven. You must assume that the chemicals are having chemical effects on the foetus, because that’s what chemicals do.”
The Diethylstilbestrol (DES) disaster should have been a reminder to all obstetricians about the harms of giving synthetic hormones to pregnant women without sufficient data. But once Makena was rolled out, Urato said, “it was like everyone forgot the past.”
“I counselled my patients on my concerns about exposing them and their babies to a synthetic hormone with unknown short and long-term effects, so I guess I could have been accused of peddling ‘misinformation’,” said Urato cognisant that he was going against medical consensus.
“But what is considered misinformation today, may be scientific fact tomorrow. I helped to prevent a generation of mums and babies in my community from being exposed to a useless drug. That’s why it’s so important that doctors have freedom of speech to express their views,” said Urato.
It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of pregnant mothers and babies were exposed to the ineffective and risky synthetic hormone over the past 2 decades.
“Time and time again, drugs and devices are pulled off the market for safety issues. If the FDA approves a drug, it does not mean that it will be proven to be safe and effective over time. The FDA has lost the public’s trust,” Urato said.
May 17, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | FDA, United States |
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In April 2020, I warned about that the false positive-prone non-quantitative RT-PCR was deadly. Now we know, again, I was (sadly) correct.
Hospital protocolists sticking to the strict hand-me-down highly profitable “COVID protocol” may have doomed a majority of admitted COVID-19 patients to death due to a perfect storm of institutional failure.
I first warned FDA in early 2020 that because the commercial kits did not use internal negative controls there would be arbitrarily high COVID-19 false positive rates due to the abuse of non-quantitative PCR. The majority of “cases”, I pointed out, would be false because the test was to be used as a screening device – and when you screen with an imperfect test when prevalence is low, you end up with more false positives than negatives in the set of positives.
Knowing that people who were symptomatic for respiratory infections would be among the most tested population and that Fauci’s medical approach to COVID-19 was to tell people to go home and get as sick as possible, it was readily clear that people would be dying due to lack of treatment for treatable conditions, like bacterial pneumonia and fungal infections in the lung.
Now a study from NIH-funded researchers in Chicago, IL has found that unresolved respiratory infections – not necessarily those involved in SARS-CoV-2 – were present in people who failed to “respond” to mechanical ventilation.
The authors wrote:
“Recent data suggest that secondary pneumonia is present in up to 40% and pneumonia or diffuse alveolar damage is present in over 90% of autopsy specimens obtained from patients with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection (18). Consistent with these observations, we and others found high rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia requiring mechanical ventilation, suggesting that bacterial superinfections such as VAP may contribute to mortality in patients with COVID-19 (7, 19–22). These findings prompt an alternative hypothesis that a relatively low mortality rate directly attributable to primary SARS-CoV-2 infection is offset by a greater risk of death attributable to unresolving VAP (23).”
They concluded:
“These data suggest mortality associated with severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia is more often associated with respiratory failure that increases the risk of unresolving VAP and is less frequently associated with multiple-organ dysfunction.”
Unsurprisingly, the study found that people with bacterial pneumonia who were on ventilators had the highest mortality. Although their analysis restricted consideration to bacterial pneumonia cases detected 48 hours after ventilation, they did not distinguish between undiagnosed cases of bacterial pneumonia upon admission and those acquired in-hospital (nosocomial infection). The rate of co-infection is not clear either, due to insufficient testing for bacterial pneumonia in patients once diagnosed with COVID-19.
The study leads to the stunning potential that perhaps 58% of “COVID” cases were respiratory issues other than COVID (43% bacterial pneumonia, 16% non-pathogen causes of respiratory failure). Treated as “COVID”, these patients were doomed to a fate of non-treatment due to mis- or under-diagnosis.
It is unclear what percentage of deaths attributed to COVID-19 could have been prevented via a standard therapy for bacterial pneumonia, but it is potentially very high. Fauci’s prescription – sending patients home to do nothing – no corticosteroids, no antibiotics just in case it was bacterial – drove the COVID-19 death rate up far higher than it had to be.
Gao et al., 2023. Machine learning links unresolving secondary pneumonia to mortality in patients with severe pneumonia, including COVID-19, Journal of Clinical Investigation (2023). DOI: 10.1172/JCI170682
https://www.jci.org/articles/view/170682/pdf
May 17, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, United States |
1 Comment
Federal prosecutors last week announced the indictment of U.S. Representative George Santos (R-N.Y.) on a host of charges, including misuse of federal campaign funds and wire fraud, almost all of them resulting from his pathological lies.
Certainly, Santos deserved the attention of prosecutors for lying on federal documents and affidavits that may have helped him win a congressional seat as well as personal lucre.
But if that’s the case, why haven’t federal prosecutors also gone after Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)? She clearly lied her way into a Harvard Law School professorship and an erstwhile presidential candidacy by claiming, in part, quite falsely she was a Native American, supposedly Harvard’s first indigenous law professor.
Her Senate colleague, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), flatly lied (he said “misspoke”) about being a Vietnam War veteran. He never confessed to “misspeaking” about his résumé until caught. Both senators, apparently like Santos, gained political traction in their various campaigns from such lies, but the two apparently never put them in writing, or at least not as blatantly as did Santos.
New Federal Standards?
Are federal and states prosecutors now setting a new moral and legal standard by criminalizing Santos’ lies? If true, congratulations—it is long overdue.
Now can we please extend the long arm of the law to reach far beyond a bit player like Santos?
Why not reboot with the really big liars? Their lies far more undermined the integrity of our key agencies and indeed our national security.
So let us start with John Brennan, the former CIA director. He lied on two separate occasions, in one case while under oath before the U.S. Senate. His untruths were not mere campaign finance fabrications. They involved falsely swearing that the CIA did not spy on the computers of Senate staffers (“Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate.”). He also lied that U.S. drone missions in prior years had not killed innocent bystanders (“There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.”).
Brennan, only when caught, admitted to both lies. But he faced zero consequences and, in fact, was soon rewarded with an on-air analyst job at MSNBC.
Then we come to James Clapper, the former director of the Office of National Intelligence. Like Santos, he lied. But unlike Santos, Clapper was under oath to Congress. And further unlike Santos, Clapper was not a small fish, but a whale in charge of coordinating the nation’s intelligence bureaus.
Clapper’s lies mattered a great deal, especially when he swore to Congress that the National Security Agency did not spy on Americans. (“No, sir. Not wittingly.”) When caught, Clapper confessed that he gave “the least untruthful answer.” (“I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying ‘no.’”). He faced zero consequences for his perjury. And like Brennan, he marketed his anti-Trump phobias into a comfortable cable news gig.
Note well that both Clapper and Brennan likely lied again when they signed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, with a wink and nod suggesting it was a hallmark example of “Russian disinformation.”
Then we come to the former interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He is also currently working as a cable news commentator. McCabe admitted to lying—according to the inspector general, “done knowingly and intentionally”—four separate times to federal investigators, three times under oath. McCabe misled the country in matters that concerned a national election, more specifically lying that he had not leaked to the media to massage media narratives about the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
Then there is James Comey, another former FBI head, who confirmed McCabe had lied. He simply claimed on 245 occasions to House investigators and members that he either had no memory or had no knowledge, when asked under oath to explain some of the wrongdoing of the FBI during his directorship. Remember, Comey and the FBI signed off on the authenticity of Steele document material to obtain a FISA warrant, when they knew it was unreliable and Steele was not credible. Comey also likely leaked to the media a confidential memo officially memorializing a private conversation with the president of the United States.
Should we include yet another former FBI director? Robert Mueller swore under oath to Congress that he knew little about Fusion GPS (“I’m not familiar with that”) and more or less had ignored the Steele dossier. (“It’s not my purview.”) Mueller’s claims cannot be true because revelations about both were the very catalysts that prompted his own special counsel appointment.
Will the Santos prosecutors go after Anthony Fauci, the recently retired head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases?
Fauci seemingly lied under oath to the Senate when he preposterously claimed the money he channeled through a third party to the Wuhan virology lab did not entail support for gain-of-function virology research. (“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”) Many virologists were aghast at Fauci’s claims, since they knew gain-of-function research conducted in China—the point being to skirt U.S. laws—was precisely what the U.S.-subsidized researchers in China were doing.
The Bidens
Prosecutors are currently looking at the various shenanigans of Hunter Biden, whose lies may even be a match for those of George Santos. Joe Biden’s son apparently lied on his firearms background check affidavit when applying for a handgun purchase—so far, with impunity.
When asked point blank on national television whether his lost laptop was his own—he had signed a receipt for it at the repair shop—Biden refused to give a yes or no answer.
Hunter Biden has apparently de facto lied for years when he purportedly did not report either his entire income or his real business expenses accurately, or that he was the father of a child he conceived with an ex-stripper in Arkansas.
If Hunter’s lies do not match the number of Santos’ prevarications, his were at least far more significant. His lie that the laptop was not his prompted current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a former top Biden 2020 campaign aide, to call up Mike Morell, former interim CIA director. Morell’s mission was to round up as many intelligence authorities as he could to lie on the eve of a presidential election that the laptop had “all the hallmarks” of “Russian disinformation.” He found 51, including himself. Apparently, some active members of the CIA pitched in as well to lend the letter additional authenticity.
Note that Morell swears Blinken called him to solicit signers of the bogus letter, while Blinken claims he did not. So either the current secretary of state or the former interim director of the CIA is lying—or they both are. Again, among the first to sign the fraudulent intelligence letter were Brennan and Clapper. They apparently had earned a reputation as team players, given that both men had been willing to lie under oath to Congress. Misleading the nation again about the laptop to aid Joe Biden’s campaign was small potatoes.
Biden, on spec, promulgated the lie when he said in his second debate with Trump, “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it, except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”
A subsequent poll suggested the Bidens’ concocted laptop lies may have influenced voters to side with Biden in the election. If true, that was a lie that should be of far more interest to current federal prosecutors than Santos’ crazy fairy tales.
The Lies of the “Big Guy”
So we come to the greatest prevaricator of all.
Joe Biden flat-out lied on numerous occasions, such as when he claimed that he never discussed the family shake-down business with Hunter Biden.
Joe Biden, in fact, turns up on the laptop as someone deeply connected to Hunter Biden’s quid pro quo companies (“10 [percent] for the Big Guy”). Tony Bobulinksi, a former business associate of Hunter’s, has sworn that Joe and his brother Jim Biden were deeply involved in their foreign leveraging efforts.
A photo shows Joe Biden with Hunter’s “business” associates. Will the current Santos prosecutors turn their attention to the Oval Office occupant’s financial records to determine whether his lavish private homes and lifestyle were viable under his reported stated income?
Biden lied to Americans dozens of times to get elected. The tragic death of his wife in a car accident was not due to the drunkenness and fault of a truck driver. That was a horrific smear designed to shift blame onto an innocent man and gain sympathy for himself.
He lied that his son, Beau, died while serving in Iraq.
Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after he was caught lying about his college records and plagiarizing a speech from a British politician.
So we know that in the past, Joe Biden’s lies have left a mark on history in a fashion that Santos’ never will.
When Biden prefaces his whoppers with “No joke!” or “This is the God’s honest truth!” and especially when he swears, “My word as a Biden!” then it is a fair bet that he is lying.
When Biden entered office, he lied about the number of Americans previously vaccinated under the Trump Administration and preposterously claimed there had been no COVID vaccine available.
He lied that his loan forgiveness amnesty passed Congress by two votes. In fact, Biden simply declared amnesty by fiat and never submitted the request to Congress at all.
He repeatedly lies that billionaires pay only three percent of their income in taxes on average. He lies about minor details, from giving his Uncle Frank a purple heart to matters of national concern, such as the price of gas when he entered office. It was most certainly not $5 a gallon!
Biden constantly lies about his résumé. He was never a long-haul truck driver. Nor was he a star athlete almost headed for the Naval Academy on a sports scholarship if only Dallas Cowboys legend Roger Staubach had not beat him out. “I was appointed to the academy in 1965 by a senator who I was running against in 1972. I didn’t come to the academy because I wanted to be a football star. And you had a guy named Staubach and Bellino here. So I went to Delaware.”
His house was never almost destroyed by a fire. He was never raised “politically” as a Puerto Rican. Biden never pinned the Silver Star on a Navy Afghanistan war hero for bringing back the body of a fellow soldier from a deep ravine. He was never arrested, either in South Africa or in Atlanta, for demonstrating on behalf of civil rights.
No foreign leader can believe Biden. He never traveled 17,000 miles with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He lied about his own Amtrak travel. He lied about his record on inflation and economic growth. He lied about upping Social Security payments. (It was a larger-than-usual automatic cost-of-living increase spurred by his inflationary policies.) He lied about the nature of the Trump tax cuts.
Biden keeps lying that the southern border is “secure” even as nearly 2 million people have crossed illegally on his watch and tens of thousands more are massed to enter the country as Title 42 restrictions are lifted.
He insists that five police officers died at the hands of protestors on January 6, 2021. In truth, the one person we know for certain who died violently that day was Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police lieutenant with a checkered record, whose identity was suppressed for months while Babbitt’s past was sullied by the press.
Biden’s defenders hint that either he is cognitively compromised and thus not responsible—as if he has told the truth the last 40 years when he was hale!—or his lies are mere “exaggerations” unlike the “lies” of Trump—as if lying about the death of one’s spouse or son or school record or resume or major legislation or his presidency is a mere “exaggeration.”
As a general rule, since 2015, if any federal bureaucrat or elected official lied in service of opposing Donald Trump, he was exempted from consequences. If not, he was properly held responsible for his lying. So the more that the fake Steele dossier, the Russian collusion hoax, and the Russian disinformation laptop lie warped the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, the more the promulgators of those falsehoods never faced any consequences for their untruths.
So, yes, let federal prosecutors go after the lying George Santos to set a precedent that the lying of government officials has consequences.
But in the great scheme of lying things, Santos is a prevaricating minnow who was snagged to great acclaim because the lying sharks swim and circle with impunity.
May 17, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | CIA, FBI, United States |
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